Matthew\u2019s special material<\/a>. The posts highlight important aspects of the question.<\/p>\nIt is relatively simple to come up with a solution to the Synoptic problem \u2013 but not at all simple to come up with a simple solution which does justice to all the evidence.<\/p>\n
I think that most scholars who\u2019ve worked on the subject will acknowledge that there is no precise fit of the evidence to one theory that definitively excludes the others. There is no way to definitively prove that Luke could not simply have disliked the characteristics of the Matthean material he did not include, while liking the \u201cQ\u201d material he found in Matthew. And there is no way to definitively prove that Luke could not have read Matthew\u2019s infancy story and chosen to rewrite it. In all such instances, our judgments about what is most plausible is quite subjective. And no modern scholar\u2019s subjective impression, based on what we would or would not do, can be assumed to match the mind of a first-century author. Ancient authors did all sorts of things that puzzle us \u2013 either deliberately or accidentally or both.<\/p>\n
And so there is good reason why we do not have an overwhelming Q consensus, but a \u201cQ continuum.\u201d And it makes for a vibrant field with lots of potential for ongoing research.<\/p>\n
But I do worry that there are some outside of the field of Synoptic Gospel studies who may be inclined to jump on a particular bandwagon, not because of a decisive case that has been offered for that viewpoint, but because they think it is the clear and definitive solution, only because of a lack of familiarity with just how complex and ambiguous the evidence really is.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2014\/02\/Q-inspired-Matthew-and-Luke.png\")
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\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I couldn\u2019t resist (with inspiration from a Facebook comment by Carl Beck Sachs) using this Star Trek phrase in reference to the range of views that scholars hold on the hypothetical document Q, proposed to explain the overlaps between Matthew and Luke on material that is not in Mark. (See the bottom of the post […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":21733,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,33,34,90],"tags":[4110,9806,11819,12189],"class_list":["post-21725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gospel-of-luke","category-gospel-of-mark","category-gospel-of-matthew","category-star-trek-science-fiction","tag-gospels","tag-q","tag-star-trek","tag-synoptic-problem"],"yoast_head":"\n
The Q Continuum<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I couldn't resist (with inspiration from a Facebook comment by Carl Beck Sachs) using this Star Trek phrase in reference to the range of views that\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/02\/the-q-continuum.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Q Continuum\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I couldn't resist (with inspiration from a Facebook comment by Carl Beck Sachs) using this Star Trek phrase in reference to the range of views that\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/02\/the-q-continuum.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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