Biblical Ruminations

Several posts ago I blogged about my frustration with those scholars who forget that Q is a hypothetical document, and how this thinking leads them to extrapolate various theories about a particular Q theology, different redactional layers of Q, a Q community, and so forth. These scholars would do well to take to heart the wise words of the great Catholic scholar, John P. Meier:

"I cannot help thinking that biblical scholarship would be greatly advanced if every morning all exegetes would repeat as a mantra: 'Q is a hypothetical document whose exact extension, wording, originating community, strata, and stages of redaction cannot be known.' This daily devotion might save us flights of fancy that are destined, in my view, to end in skepticism." A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol 2, p. 178.