Here's another clip from John Dickson's Australian documentary, The Christ Files. It features Christopher Tuckett talking about Q:
It's not often that Q makes it to the TV documentaries. The only other example I can think of is the PBS From Jesus to Christ.
It's fairly interesting that the interview makes a big deal about speculating how many lost Christian documents there were. If one thinks, as apparently Tuckett does, that there were quite a few lost first-century Christian gospels, then positing one with the parameters of Q seems prima facie reasonable.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, Stephen. If I recall correctly, in Tuckett's "Q and the History of Early Christianity", he makes a deal out of lost documents which we supposedly know of, such as the Previous and Painful Letters of Paul (1 Cor 9.5 and 2 Cor 7.8, respectively). Now I know your thoughts on these two "lost documents", and I am trying to figure out what my conclusions are on them as well. But pointing to these as a proof for why we should entertain the existence of a lost "gospel" seems rather weak. Should we conclude that these lost letters of Paul were indeed separate documents, we know of them only through Paul's references to them - the same cannot be said for Q.
ReplyDeleteThat's how the early dating of Thomas helps Q. If Thomas is early, then we have a first-century saying gospel floating around and there could be others. After, Hebrews isn't likely to be the only written homily of the first century, etc.
ReplyDeleteIt gets fun when Q is then used to justify an early date for Thomas....