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The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins

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The great structure of Christianity rests on four books. Four men, living at different times and in different places, each implying they were present during Jesus' travels and travails, penned their accounts of his life. From these narratives, dogmas were set and an orthodoxy established that has lasted for two millennia. When closely examined, these stories proved to have been written long after Jesus had died. What happened in the ensuing years?

According to Mack, after Jesus died [or disappeared], followers of this teacher formed "study groups" centred in Galilee and southern Syria. They devised sayings attributed to the teacher, exchanged texts, debated meanings, and discussed what they felt significant about his pronouncements. Analysis of the four books revealed some of these writings buried within the larger story. Excavated from the Gospels, these "Q" writings have marginalised the "historical" role of the four books. There must have been many versions of "Q" composed by the members of what Mack calls the "Jesus groups". Whether they were ever collated into a single document will likely never be known, but it's clear the "gospel" writers were aware of them and utilised them.

Resting much of his presentation on the work of John Kloppenborg, Mack shows the likely development of the Q writings in a solid historical setting. With Hellenistic scholars setting the norms for education and intellectual discourse, it's easy to see how the "Q" sayings were formulated. A glance at the social upheavals of the period reveals the environment that caused them to be written. Mack weaves these threads together effectively to produce a vivid picture of the times and the course the writings followed as events unfolded. It's arguable that the existence of Jesus was of less importance than the destruction of the temple. Yet, both events would lead to revised views of the world. The later Q documents lay the foundations for an apocalyptic view enlarged by the quartette that followed.

Mack is an effective and concerned writer. He's disdainful of fallacies, particularly transparent ones. The "Gospels", he shows, are largely fabrications. If there was a virgin birth, why did that notion not appear until nearly a century had passed? Why are there differing accounts of those pivotal events, the crucifixion and "resurrection"? According to Mack, these are the building blocks of Christian mythology. He insists this myth be examined on the same basis as any other myth. He contends if Christians wish to know their founder, a study of the "Q" writings is the starting point. The role played by the gospels as history must be abandoned and a more realistic approach taken. Perhaps, he stresses, returning to these "beginnings" might help alleviate the dogmas and intolerances the long, sordid history of Christianity has exhibited. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Written in the early 1990s, Burton Mack's The Lost Gospel the Book of Q is one of the first popular discussions of the hypothetical Q document. For those unfamiliar with the author, Mack is a well-known liberal New Testament scholar and writer.

Mack's main thesis is that the existence of a Q document supports the view that the early followers of Jesus were not Christians. These early followers (or the Q community), he argues, saw Jesus, as an itinerant cynic-like sage rather than a religious figure. Consequently Mack proposes that the faith tradition we now know as Christianity was a later mythical development. I offer the following comments for potential readers.

 Mack's writing is clear, concise and entertaining (he tells a good story). Within contemporary New Testament scholarsip he is as readable as anyone.

 The existence of a Q source used by Matthew and Luke has some support amongst scholars. Beyond this minimal existential point, however, there is much disagreement. The author's musings with respect to the existence of a Q community and various identifiable layers of Q development are highly speculative.

 To make his thesis somewhat plausible Mack needs time and space - it is unlikely that a clearly false Christian myth could have developed in close proximity to the historic Jesus (i.e. his followers, and others who knew him, would likely have challenged this development). To accomplish this, Mack assumes a late dating for the canonical gospels and an early composition of other sources such as the Gospel of Thomas. Many of his assumptions are not supported by research nor widely accepted. For example, he suggests that Luke-Acts was composed in the early second century (120 C.E.) as opposed to a more traditional dating of approx 70-75 C.E. Although a late dating would help Mack's thesis he does not offer any sound support for this assumption. Indeed, if one were to reassess the dating of Luke-Acts an earlier date (60s) would seem to be better warranted than Mack's proposed latter date, Paul's death (earlier 60s) and the Temple destruction (70) are curiously absent in a second century construct.

 A Hellenized Galilean backdrop would also be advantageous to Mack's thesis. His arguments in this regard and his interpretation of Q to establish a setting conducive to a cynic Jesus appear somewhat contrived and circular. There is little historic evidence that Galilee, and particularly the countryside and small villages that Jesus frequented, was heavily influenced by Greek culture. For a contrasting view to Mack's, readers can see Boyd's Cynic Sage or Son of God.

 Mack appears to be a sincere individual with laudable goals - the plurality of the modern world needs a more flexible and inclusive myth. For someone with his naturalistic worldview it seems evident that Christianity is a mythical formulation. Others who do not share this perspective, however, his arguments may be unconvincing. To make a poor analogy, if you use a net with big holes you are not likely going to catch to many small fish. If you look for the Christ of faith with rigid naturalistic assumptions you probably won't find him.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. I think it would make a worthwhile read for any student of the historic Jesus. It is not, however, a good starting point to enter this area of research - Mack's thesis though interesting is highly speculative and on the fringe of New Testament scholarship. There are, however, many good starting points -Witherington's The Jesus Quest comes to mind. It provides a wide survey of contemporary Jesus research including Mack's.

I notice other reviews on this site that are critical of Burton L. Mack for daring to think outside the box, but such criticism won't make the argument go away. Admittedly, the existence of the Q gospel can neither be proved nor disproved, but Mack didn't dream up the Q gospel by himself. Nineteenth-century scholars had considered the concept of a so-called "sayings" gospel that was used as a source for the synoptic gospels. Mack expanded on prior research and did a more conclusive job of culling the Q material from the New Testament. Like a lawyer trying a case solely on circumstantial evidence, he does a good job presenting his argument and supporting it with logical assumptions about the historical Jesus and the people of the early Jesus movement. (Readers interested in the early Jesus movement should also read "Who Wrote the New Testament" by the same author.)

The chapter on Galilean history before the Roman-Jewish War is important to recalibrate modern thinking about the homeland of Jesus and his followers. The images we have today are mostly drawn from cinema and well-told Bible stories where Jesus wanders around a Jewish province controlled by Rome. Galilee was more cosmopolitan than Judea, which means that Jesus' teachings and sayings were not necessarily tied only to Jewish law but could have been heavily influenced by Greek philosophy as well. It is quite probable that the early followers never thought of their leader as "the Messiah." Mack develops three stages of Q, and you can see how the Jesus legend changed from a wisdom teacher to the Christ.

Mack's cumbersome writing style can be a struggle in the early chapters where he writes with the tortured prose of a college professor. The last four chapters, however, comprise a very provocative and well-written essay on the challenge that Q poses to Christianity, a religion that is facing enormous competition from secular and cynical forces that are doing a much better job of influencing the culture. People today, even Christians, tend to believe what is probably true and disbelieve what is probably not true. The Christian denominations have to answer that challenge, and continual recycling of the same old dogma and mythology from nineteen hundred years ago isn't good enough anymore. Too many people aren't buying it and they're not all heretics and devil worshippers just because they want to separate fact from fiction.

This is finally a discussion of the Q document that actually reprints the entirety of the document.

Author Burton Mack argues for layers of redaction of the text, so he has a problem in how to present it: shall he try to reconstruct as best he can the document Matthew and Luke would have had in front of them? or shall he show the layers, so that readers can see how concise the original, uninterpolated Q is?

He does both. He presents the text, restored as well as can be, with the layers in different typefaces, and gives the reader the whole of Q in its original.

His reconstructing is done by following the orders that quotations from the text appear in Matthew and Luke.

Once he has thoroughly familiarized the reader with Q, and with contemporaneous documents (the Dead Sea Scrolls, et al.), he discusses Q in a literary context: why it is what it is, a collection of sayings, and not the sort of historical biography we in the 21st century would like to have.

He also discusses society at the time, to put Jesus of Nazareth into a context as well, to explain why people who may not have considered him messiah might still have collected his sayings. The community of Q was probably Jewish, as nothing in Q contradicts any Jewish practice, and were probably not Christians as we understand this idea today.

If you have never read any literature about Christianity outside the Bible, this book will shake loose all your assumptions. But if you have read other books on very early Christianity, or the gospels as literature, or studied redaction in the gospels, and know of the Q document in theory, and the priority of Mark, there is nothing here that will alarm you.

However, there is much here to fascinate, to enjoy, to enthrall. Mack's picture of ancient Judah is skillfully drawn. The new information here (and there is lots) is firmly argued, and just makes sense. Many of your long held questions will be answered.

His writing is accessible; this book is written for readers, not for journal peer reviewers. Anyone with even a passing interest in the subject should be delighted with it.

I bought this book thinking I would get an introduction to the theory of Q. This is not that. Mr. Mack writes a wonderful book, but I found many of his ideas shocking - ie, no crucifixtion, no resurrection, Jesus the Cynic sage (Greek tradition). When I realized that the Jesus Seminar folks found him extreme, I thought it would be due to the lack of resurrection/crucifix. issue, but that isn't what they found shocking. They objected to the Cynic label. This book will lay out Q for you, but I think a better intro would be found in the Q Thomas Reader.
A post-script: Q theory is the idea that the sometimes identical language of the synoptic gospels can be explained by a now missing early manuscript which scholars have been trying to piece together with NT scraps.

Mack's version of Galilee in the time of Jesus depicts it as a very turbulent and ethnically-mixed place, where traditional authority structures of all kinds had broken down or were being questioned. Out of this situation arose the idealistic, hippie-like Jesus People who would create the hypothetical texts identified as the `Gospel of Q'. These Q People were not Christians, at least to start with, but they helped to lay the mythological foundations of what would become Christianity.

Mack goes to great pains to argue that the cultural context of Galilee was only very minimally Jewish, and that the early followers of Jesus were an ethnically very mixed bunch; those are puzzling and tendentious claims, to say the least. In the Epilogue, however, we discover that Mack has a deep ideological commitment to the dream of a peaceful and cooperative multicultural world, and he sees Christianity as it eventually developed as a contributor to zealous nationalism, colonialism, and other disastrous policies and behaviors. The Q People, as Mack conceives of them, represent the multicultural possibility that might have been but which, alas, was not to be. He thinks that the more we know about Q, the more that orthodox Christianity will be debunked and liberalized; the challenge to Christians offered by his version of Q "is therefore an invitation to join the human race."

The Jesus movement responsible for the Q writings was a local Galilean version of Greek Cyncism, aimed at creating a simple, natural, experimental, and unconventional mode of living, one focused on individual freedom. These folks were not out to change society, reform Judaism, or fight the Roman occupation; they were merely attempting to live a radically new kind of liberated life-style, one not circumscribed by religious or ethnic distinctions but open to all. Jesus was recognized as the founder and wisdom sage of the community, its guru.

But this counter-cultural program soon ran into conflict with unenlightened society, perhaps especially with local Pharisees. In self-defense, movement adherents entered upon an intensive program of myth-making, aimed at creating a self-justifying scriptural rationale for their own legitimacy. In something like an ironic practical joke, the sacred scriptures of their conventionally-minded critics were cunningly used to re-imagine and recast Jesus from wisdom sage into apocalyptic prophet, messiah, and eventually, divine Son of God. It was this conspiracy of deliberate fabrication (the writers are described as "probably smiling all the while") that ended up getting completely out of hand and creating Christianity. Bummer. Mack believes that the whole story can be seen in Q, if you know how to recognize, read, and interpret its various layers.

This is a book best read as an elaborate and detailed polemic, the extended explication of an interesting hypothesis, and the assiduous marshalling of supporting evidence. There are no footnotes to sources, and there is virtually no recognition or discussion of competing hypotheses, contrary evidence, or alternative interpretations of the evidence selected for presentation. As a result, Mack's argument can be understood from his book, but it cannot be evaluated without recourse to other sources, lots of them. There are many recent and superb books about the early development of Christianity and Christian texts, written from various scholarly perspectives, and which carefully and fairly survey the full range of existing evidence and argument. This is not such a book, but it is an entertaining read.

Brilliant! This is a work that brings to light the puzzling and frustrating discrepencies in the stories of the 4 major gospels of the Bible. Prof. Mack ties the work of John Kloppenborg with his own in a very understandable format concerning the "Q" document. This is a work for only the serious student of biblical history. The themes and evidence in the book make logical sense if a person has an above average background in liturature and perhaps a more than average open mind. Prepare to be blown away. I highly recommend another book "The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception" which provides archeological evidence for the theory of several pre modern groups following the teachings of the Jesus figure, directly tying in to this books theory. Again I reiterate...if you are willing to think, this is a book for you. However if you are not prepared for a faith rocking experiance leave it alone.

Mack takes a very unique and provocative stance on his view of Q and new testament. He sees Jesus as a Cynic sage who traveled around with a sincere desire to teach a community of people who were no longer content in the tradition they lived in. Mack's historical and geographical analysis is very convincing, and the parallel between Q1 and Cynic Philosophy makes one wonder why they are so similar. The book reveals the important step that people are taking concerning religion. We are becoming to notice that being a Christian does not depend on believing in historical event, nor belief in supernatural and cosmic, but in understanding the teaching of Jesus. Mack's portray Jesus as an innovative teacher who urged his follower to govern themselves with individual integrity. I would have liked to Mack to specify what he did to Matthew and Luke to compose his own Q, the work. However, the book is generally well-written, and it is a great sourcebook for new testament studies.

Brilliant! This is a work that brings to light the puzzling and frustrating discrepencies in the stories of the 4 major gospels of the Bible. Prof. Mack ties the work of John Kloppenborg with his own in a very understandable format concerning the "Q" document. This is a work for only the serious student of biblical history. The themes and evidence in the book make logical sense if a person has an above average background in liturature and perhaps a more than average open mind. Prepare to be blown away. I highly recommend another book "The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception" which provides archeological evidence for the theory of several pre modern groups following the teachings of the Jesus figure, directly tying in to this books theory. Again I reiterate...if you are willing to think, this is a book for you. However if you are not prepared for a faith rocking experiance leave it alone.

This is a touchy subject - very touchy. I mean, Christians are still around, and they can get edgy about books like this. But in my opinion, Mack goes to the other extreme. He is known for his slightly radical attitude to Christianity. And this shows through in this book.

"The Lost Gospel" is a good read. It is a fine attempt to bring scholarly work on Q to a wider audience. But sadly, as others have said on this site, he is too conclusive in his attitude. Most of the things he says here are exceedingly controversial. Now I am not a Christian; but I can imagine Christians being a little annoyed by this. For a fuller view of the nature of the controversey...I am afraid the average reader needs to read further. If only the situation was really as simply as Mack claims! Then our job would be easier.

But please, don't simply reject books like this out of religious faith. Not an anti-christian conspiracy; just historians doin' their thing with a very, very touchy topic!!! ;)