Does “Q” Have Any Representative Potential?

Rollens, Sarah E.

doi:10.1163/157006811x549715

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…The gospels are mythic, and while this does not mean we cannot make socio‐historical claims on the basis of mythic texts, we need to be cautious about the claims we make. We should not, for example, assume that the myths present in our texts preserve a mirror image of the group that produced them (see Rollens for a concise exposition of the dangers of mirror readings of ancient Jesus myths). And while there is certainly a relationship between mythmaking and social formation, this relationship is not one‐to‐one.…”

Section: After a Myth Of Innocencementioning

confidence: 99%

Mythmaking and Social Formation in the Study of Early Christianity

Brown

2016

Religion Compass

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Burton Mack has made a number of important contributions to the study of early Christianity. One of, if not the most significant of these contributions is his use of the analytical categories of mythmaking and social formation in his construction of a social theory of religion. The analysis of mythmaking and social formation in early Christianity brings a critical historical and sociological focus to the study of Christian origins by focusing on the literary aspects of ancient texts, and the social aspects of ancient people and groups, and the dialectical relationship between the two categories. This article reviews the uses and criticisms of the categories of mythmaking and social formation in the study of early Christianity: beginning with Mack's work on a social theory of religion and his seminal study of the Gospel of Mark (A Myth of Innocence), and moving on to studies that have both taken up and critiqued Mack's use of the terms.

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Section: After a Myth Of Innocencementioning

confidence: 99%

Mythmaking and Social Formation in the Study of Early Christianity

Brown

2016

Religion Compass

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“…Criticizing "the majority of Q scholars" who "appear to regard Q as a window into the community that produced it or used it," Sarah Rollens suggests that Q studies have been detrimentally affected by problematic modern "assumptions" about religion. 88 Rollens finds (Geertzian) assumptions about religion as a "symbolic" system implicated in the idea that communities follow "a distinct set of beliefs and practices." 89 As a result, Q is interpreted as part of "a larger symbolic and ideological system that reflects the religious and cultural lives of the Q people," 90 an approach that presumes that "religious beliefs" in Q are similar to "religious beliefs" in a modern context.…”

Section:  Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…88 Rollens finds (Geertzian) assumptions about religion as a "symbolic" system implicated in the idea that communities follow "a distinct set of beliefs and practices." 89 As a result, Q is interpreted as part of "a larger symbolic and ideological system that reflects the religious and cultural lives of the Q people," 90 an approach that presumes that "religious beliefs" in Q are similar to "religious beliefs" in a modern context. 91 For Rollens, it is Q itself-as an ancient discourse-that would more profitably be "the object of study."…”

Section:  Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Quest for the “Community” of Q: Mapping Q Within the Social, Scribal, and Textual Landscape(s) of Second Temple Judaism

Joseph

2018

H. Theolo. Review

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Was there a “Q community”? There are many who think that any quest for a “Q community” is a fool's errand. In this paper, I revisit this vexing question by focusing on several distinctive textual coordinates with which we can map Q's author within the social, textual, and theological landscape(s) of Second Temple Judaism. Since the author of Q was capable of crafting innovative scriptural allusions and adapting inherited Jesus traditions, I suggest that Q is not an isolated “Galilean” phenomenon but a textual production that combines Galilean Jesus traditions in conversation with contemporary Jewish apocalyptic traditions and can be located alongside the wider “Essenic” networks that pre-dated and co-existed with the Palestinian Jewish Jesus movement.

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Communities That Write: Christ-Groups, Associations, and Gospel Communities

Last¹

2012

New Testam. Stud.

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Critics who posit the ‘gospels for all Christians’ theory contend that gospels reflect neither the history nor the concerns of the communities within which they were produced. Despite advocacy for the theory from an increasing number of scholars, others continue to reconstruct diverse gospel communities. There is some common ground between the two sides of the debate: the majority of scholars from both perspectives agree that gospels were composed within communal settings. If we take this agreement as our starting point and investigate communal writing practices in antiquity, we might productively forge an agreeable method for determining the scope of intended gospel audiences. This study analyzes the collective process of writing in ancient associations, now regarded as analogous in many ways to early Christ-groups. In doing so, a framework is provided for understanding how and to whom gospels produced in Christ-groups might have been composed. The study finds the ‘all Christians’ theory inconsistent with communal practices of writing.

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Does “Q” Have Any Representative Potential?

Cited by 4 publications

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Mythmaking and Social Formation in the Study of Early Christianity

Mythmaking and Social Formation in the Study of Early Christianity

The Quest for the “Community” of Q: Mapping Q Within the Social, Scribal, and Textual Landscape(s) of Second Temple Judaism

Communities That Write: Christ-Groups, Associations, and Gospel Communities

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