The Sayings Gospel Q in Greek and English with Parallels from the Gospels of Mark and Thomas is the outcome of a generation's work by the International Q Project, in reconstructing the collection of sayings ascribed to Jesus (and some to John) that lies behind the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. It thus makes available in a convenient form the most important source for reconstructing the message of Jesus' original Galilean followers, as they proclaimed anew after his death his message of God's reign. Q is, as a result, the most important single source for the study of the historical Jesus. It should be in the hands of every student of theology and of every layperson seriously interested in knowing more about Jesus. This small volume presents, on facing pages, the Greek and English reconstruction of the text of Q. It is in a simplified and more readable format than its original massive publication of 1990, The Critical Edition of Q: Synopsis including the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Mark and Thomas with English, German and French Translations of Q and Thomas, edited by James M. Robinson, Paul Hoffmann, and John S. Kloppenborg, Managing Editor Milton C. Moreland, at Peeters and Fortress Press.

Estimated to date back to the very early Jesus movement, the lost Gospel known as Q offers a distinct and remarkable picture of Jesus and his significance--and one that differs markedly from that offered by its contemporary, the apostle Paul. Q presents Jesus as a prophetic critic of unbelief and a sage with the wisdom that can transform. In Q, the true meaning of the "kingdom of God" is the fulfillment of a just society through the transformation of the human relationships within it. Though this document has never been found, John Kloppenborg offers a succinct account of why scholars maintain it existed in the first place and demonstrates how they have been able to reconstruct its contents and wording from the two later Gospels that used it as a source: Matthew and Luke. Presented here in its entirety, as developed by the International Q Project, this Gospel reveals a very different portrait of Jesus than in much of the later canonical writings, challenging the way we think of Christian origins and the very nature and mission of Jesus Christ.

In this study, Llewellyn Howes analyses the formative stratum of the Sayings Gospel Q, arguing for the inclusion of traditionally excluded texts. Novel interpretations of certain Q texts enable the author to reconsider the overarching message of Q's earliest redactional layer. This results in interesting and important consequences for our understanding of Jesus as a historical figure.

Extensive scholarship has been devoted to Jesus' depiction in the Gospels, and how such depiction is influenced by the Old Testament. Gregory R. Lanier presents a newcase for the importance of conceptual metaphor, arguing that the Gospel of Luke employs certain metaphors reflected in Israel's traditions-such as “horn of salvation,” “dawn from on high,” “mother bird gathering Jerusalem's children,” and “crushing stone”-in order to portray the identity of Jesus as both an agent of salvation and, more provocatively, the one God of Israel. Setting his argument at the intersection of three sub-fields of New Testament scholarship-early Christology, the use of Israel's Scriptures in the New Testament, and contemporary metaphor theory-Lanier suggests ways to overcome the “low”-“high ”binary and perceive the Gospel's Christology as multi-faceted. Applying metaphor theory to the influence of the Old Testament metaphors on Luke's Christology, Lanier adds methodological rigor to the tracing of such influences in cases where standard criteria for quotations and allusions/echoes are stretched thin.

The literary relationships among the Synoptic Gospels have long attracted scholarly attention which has now generally coalesced into the predominant Two- (or Four-) Source Hypothesis and leading alternatives, the Griesbach (or Two-Gospel) Hypothesis (Mark used Matthew and Luke) and the Farrer Hypothesis (Luke used Mark and Matthew). Thomas J. Mosbo here argues that no theory of Synoptic relations is adequate unless it can satisfactorily explain the extensive middle third of Luke’s Gospel, the so-called Travel Narrative (9:51–19:27), where Luke departs from the order shown in either Matthew or Mark and assembles stories and sayings that develop themes concerning discipleship that are important to Luke. Mosbo examines this narrative as a composed narrative, not merely an assembly of “materials,” and finds that Luke has reordered materials taken from Matthew and from Mark in a very particular manner. He then examines Luke’s purposes in the Gospel as a whole, then addresses objections raised by Q advocates to the hypothesis that Luke knew Matthew. At length Mosbo offers his own hypothesis of Synoptic relationships, including the relationship between Matthew and Mark.

This volume brings the revised version of the full collection of 38 essays covering James Robinson's studies on Q, from his 1964 break-through article on the genre of Q to the corpus of hotly debated contributions on Q 12,27 which he published between 1998 and 2002 and his detailed presentation of the 'Critical Edition of Q' (2002). Edited by C. Heil and J. Verheyden.

JESUS IN Q is about the Sabbath and the theology of Jesus. There are several books about the Sabbath with regard to the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but nothing regarding Q. This book is designed to address the relation to the Sabbath in Q which makes it remarkable amongst other Sabbath related books with reference to the Synoptic Gospels. Considering the rabbinic writers and the early fathers, who have used, generally in a free way, the sayings of Jesus drawn from the Gospels and/or oral tradition, this book examines the apologists and the extracanonical writers, whose writings constitute a well-defined literary genre and witness a progressively more bookish use of the sayings of Jesus. This book understands the extracanonical documents in early Judaism as a prerequisite for understanding the appearances of Jesus.

V. 1. How to study the historical Jesus -- v. 2. The study of Jesus -- v. 3. The historical Jesus -- v. 4. Individual studies.

New Testament scholarship lacks an overall interpretive framework in which to understand Judean identity. This lack of interpretive framework is quite acute in scholarship on the historical Jesus, where the issue of Judeanness ('Jewishness') is moststrongly debated. A socio-cultural model of Judean ethnicity is developed, being a synthesis of (1) Sanders' notion of covenantal nomism, (2) Berger and Luckmann's theories on the sociology of knowledge, (3) Dunn's 'four pillars of Second Temple Judaism' and his 'new perspective' on Paul, (4) cultural or social anthropology in the form of modern ethnicity theory, and lastly, (5) Duling's Socio-Cultural Model of Ethnicity. The proposed model is termed Covenantal Nomism. It is a pictorial representation of the Judean 'symbolic universe', which as an ethnic identity, is proposed to be essentially primordialist. The model is given appropriate content by investigating what would have been typical of first-century Judean ethnic identity. It is also argued that there existed a fundamental continuity between Judea and Galilee, as Galileans were ethnic Judeans themselves and they lived on the ancestral land of Israel. Attention is lastly focused on the matter of ethnic identity in Q. The Q people were given an eschatological Judean identity based on their commitment to Jesus and the requirements of the kingdom of God.

The Radical Jesus offers a companion to the author's previous article collection Jesus and the Peasants. Even more than in Jesus and the Peasants, these eleven chapters sharpen the focus on the political-economic meaning of Jesus then and the deeper values embodied in him that perhaps are still pertinent for now. Part One considers his activities and aims within the political economy of first-century Galilee. Part Two offers perspectives on the critical hermeneutical task of linking the values of Jesus and the Bible to a world that has undergone what Karl Polanyi called the Great Transformation. Polanyi argued suasively in his 1944 book that economy in the pre-industrial age was embedded in social relations and served necessary social purposes, while society after the Great Transformation became embedded within market capitalist economy to the detriment of social relations. This book finds in sustained critical dialog with the Radical Jesus another transforming force and a guiding light toward a more humane economy and society that will serve human need rather than selfish greed.