Q? Like in the 007 movies?

The gospel according to Q? Growing up, I only heard of the "standard" four gospels: Mathew, Mark, Luke and John. Then when I entered my Junior year of high school (Archbishop Murphy High School), my theology class was on church history. This is where the other books besides the bible; such as" The Catholic Catechism, Other Gospels that are not in the cannon (like the Gospel according to Thomas), and the Dead Sea Scrolls, all of which have deep roots in the history of being Roman Catholic. However my teacher during my church history class, Mr. Clapp, never even talked about anything about Q (See Aside One).

Luckily I do have some background on how the cannon for the Bible was formed because of my When the Dead Sea scrolls were found in 1945, it completely reinvented the Catholic faith as we know it. From my reading of Kloppenborg's work, Q is this source that Matthew and Luke was inspired from. Q stands for the German word "Quelle" which stands for source (15). What I find mind blowing is that Q's document does not exist. With most of the scared documents being physical scrolls (See Aside Two). Although it is beyond the scope of the book: Q could have influenced other Gospels.

What I find mind blowing is that Q's document does not exist. With most of the scared documents being physical scrolls (See Aside Two). As Kloppenborg states, Mark is the earliest gospel. Awesome. Yet, Mark did not write his Gospel. In fact it took a couple hundred years after the death of Jesus for it to be "complete." Even if Q is somewhere in the desert of Egypt, the chances of being it a condition for it to be read easily is zero. Therefore it is just going to scraps upon scraps of parchment.

Kloppenborg presents a multitude of different theories in his book. I have read the first chapter twice for it to sink in and so it can make sense to me. However, all the hypotheses that he presents have a compelling argument behind it. Since this only the first time ever sinking my teeth in Q, I am really not sure what to make of all the data and reasoning that Kloppenborg presents in his book. The two theories that he presents are: "The other synoptic source, Q" and "The two document theory." I do plan to reread this Chapter over the weekend. Hopefully more of this chapter has sunk into my brain and will actually be able to figure out what Q really is.

Alas, a theory driven idea is not new to me. I am a engineering major with a heavy math background. This is just Kloppenborg's proof of his thesis. So maybe I should not try to understand it in the first chapter, but wait until the end of the class.

-Andrew "Giles" Leonard (See Aside Three)

Aside One: Mr. John Clapp is the most beloved teacher at Archbishop Murphy (Murphy). Every Junior in the last ten years at Murphy will have on their schedule "History of the Roman Catholic Church. Teacher: John Clapp. Room: 306." I have many stories and antidotes about him and with him. Luckily, you do not have to get a Murphy education to hear some of the stuff he talks about in his class. Check out this website and search for "Clapp": http://tr.im/ynlS

Aside Two: Granted most of these documents are just scraps and fragments of parchment. However, Roman Catholics believe that the sacred texts are inspired by the Holy Spirit. This does not mean that the Holy Spirit wrote any of the documents or guided the scribe's pen in any way. It just means that Humans wrote it. Q for all intended of purposes could be the Holy Spirit. Yet Kloppenborg explains that Q is physical document. My opinion: I really do not know. However, My first expression is that Q is both based in the oral and written tradition of the Holy works.

Aside Three: I could explain why I go by Giles here (See Aside Four), however over Lent 2009 a very good friend of mine and I did a blog reading the entire Catechism. Although my friend did a super majority of the blog posts. I do plan to do a daily blog of it Lent 2010. Check it out here: http://40daysofcatechesis.blogspot.com/

Aside Four: In a nutshell: Giles is my confirmation name. When I started community college I started to go by it, since I love the name.