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The Sayings Gospel Q and the Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Response to John S. Kloppenborg1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Ron Cameron
Ron Cameron
Affiliation:
Wesleyan University
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Extract

John Kloppenborg's article is a superb example of why studies of the gospel tradition, including the Sayings Gospel Q, should be important to students of religion as well as of early Christianity. Beginning with the work of Hermann Samuel Reimarus, whose last anonymous and posthumously published essay on “The Intention of Jesus and His Disciples” inaugurated both the modern quest of the historical Jesus and the origins of the synoptic problem, Kloppenborg traces in an exemplary way the twists and turns of a restless biblical scholarship that continues to struggle with the interpretative challenge laid down by Reimarus. From the pioneering studies of David Friedrich Strauss, Ferdinand Christian Baur, and the Tubingen school, through the detailed analyses of Heinrich Julius Holtzmann, Bernhard and Johannes Weiss, and Adolf von Harnack, to the modern research initiated by Heinz Eduard Tödt, James M. Robinson, Helmut Koester, and Dieter Lührmann, Kloppenborg presents an archaeology of the discipline. His mastery of both primary texts and secondary scholarship demonstrates what is required of anyone who wishes to earn the right to have an opinion.

Type
Research Articles
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 89 , Issue 4 , October 1996 , pp. 351 - 354
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1996

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References

2 For example, I Enoch 91-104.

3 See Kloppenborg, John S., “The Formation of Q Revisited: A Response to Richard Horsley,” in Lull, David J., ed., Society of Biblical Literature 1989 Seminar Papers (SBLASP 28; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989) 204–15Google Scholar ; Cameron, Ron, “The Gospel of Thomas and Christian Origins,” in Pearson, Birger A., ed., The Future of Early Christianity: Essays in Honor of Helmut Koester (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991) 389 n. 54Google Scholar.

4 Kloppenborg, John S., “The Sayings Gospel Q and the Quest of the Historical Jesus,” HTR 89 (1996) 334.Google Scholar

5 Mack, Burton L., “All the Extra Jesuses: Christian Origins in the Light of the Extra-Canonical Gospels,” Semeia 49 (1990) 173.Google Scholar

6 Kloppenborg, John S., “‘Easter Faith’ and the Sayings Gospel Q,” Semeia 49 (1990) 92.Google Scholar

7 See Cameron, Ron, “Alternate Beginnings–Different Ends: Eusebius, Thomas, and the Construction of Christian Origins,” in Bormann, Lukas, Tredici, Kelly Del, and Standhartinger, Angela, eds.. Religious Propaganda and Missionary Competition in the New Testament World: Essays Honoring Dieter Georgi (NovTSup 74; Leiden: Brill, 1994) 501–25.Google Scholar

8 Mack, Burton L., “On Redescribing Christian Origins,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 8 (1996) 248CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; he adds: “A redescription of Christian origins [will] ultimately have t o account for the emergence of the gospels themselves, turning them into interesting products of early Christian thinking instead of letting them determine the parameters within which all of our data must find a place to rest” (ibid.).

9 , Kloppenborg, “The Sayings Gospel Q,” 322.Google Scholar

10 Ibid., 337.

11 See Cameron, Ron, “‘What Have You Come Out To See?’ Characterizations of John and Jesus in the Gospels,” Semeia 49 (1990) 35–69Google Scholar ; idem, “Mythmaking and Intertextuality in Early Christianity,” in Elizabeth A. Castelli and Hal Taussig, eds., Reimagining Christian Origins: A Colloquium Honoring Burton L. Mack (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity, 1996) 37-50.

12 See Cameron, Ron, “The Anatomy of a Discourse: On ‘Eschatology’ as a Category for Explaining Christian Origins,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 8 (1996) 231–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 See Cameron, Ron, “Matthew's Parable of the Two Sons,” Foundations and Facets Forum 8 (1992) 191–209.Google Scholar

14 Mack, Burton L., A Myth of Innocence: Mark and Christian Origins (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988) 8Google Scholar ; compare xii.