650 - The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins

The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins
By Burton L. Mack
San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 1993. 275 pp. $22.00.

According to the most widely held theory of the composition of the Gospels, Matthew and Luke had at their disposal not only Mark's Gospel but another written source: Q, the "lost gospel." Although the idea of Q has been around for a long time, most scholars have not taken the "discovery" of this Gospel very seriously. The dominant

651 - The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins

picture of Christian origins has been constructed without reference to Q. However, in recent years, traditional scholarly indifference to Q has been transformed into intense interest. Burton Mack has now written a book for a popular audience that both summarizes the achievements of Q scholars thus far and adds Mack's own comprehensive theory of the composition and meaning of Q and the nature of the community that produced it.

Mack's book argues that the Q community was located in Galilee. There a group of countercultural individuals who found inspiration in the aphorisms and maxims of Jesus began to form some rather unconventional support groups. Mack suggests that these first followers of Jesus were much like the itinerant Greek philosophers called Cynics. They practiced voluntary poverty, left their families behind, begged for their daily bread, and challenged the social and moral wisdom of the time. This group did not think of Jesus as a prophet or as the messiah, and the death of Jesus held no special significance for them. For this early group, Jesus was simply a wise, antiestablishment teacher. The book of Q as it existed at this point contained only the wise sayings of Jesus. There was no birth story, no miracles, no special group of disciples, no controversies with Pharisees, and no passion.

As one would expect, Q contains a great deal of the wisdom and sage advice of Jesus. However, it also contains some passages that pronounce judgment on an unrepenting world. This suggests to Mack that there was a second stage in the development of the community after the carefree and loose-knit early years. Mack argues that this Jesus movement began to experience rejection and ridicule, as well as stress from the dissolution of family ties and other forms of association. These negative experiences caused some people to abandon the movement, and the remaining members began to feel bitterness and resentment toward the disloyal members and the hostile, unbelieving community at large. They took solace by comparing themselves to the rejected prophets of Israel and began to imagine that God was preparing a judgment for their enemies.

As this myth evolved in the second stage of Q's development, the Q community began to see the true significance of their place in history, and, as a consequence, they elevated their claims for Jesus significantly. The needs of the community eventually produced a complex picture of Jesus in which he was now not only sage and social critic but also prophet of doom, possessor of universal knowledge, and apocalyptic judge. The process of "mythologizing" Jesus had begun. After a third and final stage in which the people of Q started to come to terms with their adversaries, the Q community disappeared into oblivion. They left no trace except for their sacred text, which itself was

652 - The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins

the earliest layer of Q accurately depicts the initial stages of belief about Jesus, then the claims about Jesus found in the later stages of Q and in the narrative Gospels clearly represent subsequent exaggeration and embellishment. The narrative Gospels are referred to as "fictional" accounts in which the authors' imaginations assist in the ongoing process of "mythologizing" a wise teacher named Jesus into the Christ.

Although Mack presents the most comprehensive and detailed picture yet of the development of 0, it must be recognized that the reliability of his final conclusions about Christian origins depends upon the correctness of his solutions to a whole chain of disputed questions. Some aspects of Mack's theory that will undoubtedly be challenged by scholars include: (1) the validity of the two-source theory itself, (2) the location of the Q community in Galilee, (3) the assumption that there must indeed have been a vibrant "community" behind this document, (4) the notion that the Q community unfolded in several definite stages, (5) the order of these stages, and (6) his understanding of the "mythological" development of the canonical Gospels. Further study of both Q and the narrative Gospels is necessary before scholars will revise their view of Christian origins as radically as Mack suggests.

Highly controversial books with provocative theses appear rather regularly. Seldom do they actually contain good scholarship. Mack's work is a notable exception. This book should find a wide audience, although it will certainly find many critics as well. One can only hope that, along with any justified criticism, Mack will be commended for both his outstanding scholarship and his courage in publishing this daring work.

David T. Landry

University of St. Thomas
St. Paul, MN