Motif

The ending of Q mirrors its beginning. It opened with John the Baptist warning of destruction (Matt 3:7-12//Luke 3:7-9,16-17). It closes with images of destruction and judgment. The last large cluster of Q sayings is an apocalypse focused on revealing "the son of Man" (see cameo essay).

Form

Apocalypses are public disclosures of information, usually about outcomes or last things. Early Christians often placed such teaching --- called "eschatology" --- at the end of a work. The compilers of the New Testament put the Apocalypse of John ("Revelation" for short) last. Earlier, Paul tended to put revelations about things to come near the end of his letters (e.g., 1 Thess 5 and 1 Cor 15). And in Mark, Jesus' last public speech focuses on events culminating in the appearance of the son of Man (Mark 13:26).

Composition

Q's final cluster contained sayings similar to those in Mark's "little apocalypse." In Matt 24 the two clusters are combined. Luke, however, kept them separate: the Q sayings in Luke 17 and Mark's in Luke 21. Yet, Matthew has no parallel for some sayings in Luke 17:22-37. So the question is: did Luke add these sayings to Q or did Matthew drop them?

Similar questions are raised by the differences in wording. Matthew's mentions the παρουσία ("coming" or "appearance") of the son of Man. Luke instead refers to his "day" or "days." Is the idea the same or different? Which version reproduces Q?

Scholars' answers to these questions differ, so the shape of the Q apocalypse is not certain. But there is wide agreement that both Matthew and Luke revised the Q cluster to fit different contexts. The signs of editing include word links to sayings that probably were not in Q. Since these relate to the issue of the origin of the Q sayings, sayings not from Q are included here for comparison.

Luke 17:20-24	Matt 24:23-28	Mark 13:21-23	Thom 113
20 When asked			1 His disciples said
by the Pharisees			to him,
when			"When will
the empire of God			the <Father's> empire *
would come,			come?"
he answered them,			2 " It won't
"You won't be able			come
to observe			by watching for it.
the coming
of the empire of God. *
21 People won't be able	23 "Then if someone	21 "Then if someone	3 It won't be
to say,	says to you	says to you	said,
'Look,	'Look,	'Look,	'Look,
here it is!'	here's the Messiah!'	here's the Messiah!'	here!'
or	or	or 'Look,	or
'Over there!'	'Over here!'	there he is!'	'Look, there!'
On the contrary,	don't count on it.	don't count on it.	4 Rather,
the empire of God *			the Father's empire *
is among you."			is spread out
			on the earth
			and people don't see it."
	24 After all,	22 After all,
	phony messiahs	phony messiahs
	and phony prophets	and phony prophets
	will show up,	will show up,
	and they'll provide	and they'll provide
	spectacular signs	signs
	and omens	and omens
	in an attempt	in an attempt
	to deceive,	to deceive,
	if possible,	if possible,
	the chosen people.	the chosen people.
	25 Look,	23 But you
		be on your guard.
	I have warned you	I have warned you
		about everything
	in advance.	in advance."	Thom 3:1-3
22 And he said			1 Jesus said:
to his disciples,
"There'll come a time
when you will yearn
to see one of the days
of the son of Man, *
and you won't see it.
23 And	26 In fact,		"If
they'll be telling	if they should say		your leaders say
you,	to you,		to you,
'Look,	'Look,		'Look,
there it is!'	he's in the desert!'		the <Father's> empire
			is in the sky', then
	don't go out there;		the birds of the sky
			will precede you.
			2 If they say to you
or 'Look,	or 'Look, he's in one
here it is!'	of the inner rooms'		'Its in the sea',
Don't rush off;			then the fish
don't pursue it.	don't count on it.		will precede you.
			3 Rather,
			the <Father's> empire
			is inside you
			and outside you."
24 For	27 For
just as lightning	just as lightning
flashes	comes
and lights up the sky	out of the east
	and is visible
from one end	all the way to the
to the other,	to the west,
that's what	that's what
	the coming of
the son of Man **	the son of Man **
will be like	will be like."
in his day."
Luke 17:37
37 Then they asked him,
"Taken where, Master?"
And he said to them,
"Vultures collect
wherever	28 For wherever
there's a carcass."	there's a corpse,
	that's where
	vultures gather."

* See cameo essay on the empire of God
** Greek: ὁ ὕιος τοῦ ἀνθρώπου (lit: "the son of the human")

Sources

There are three groups of sayings about timing and location in this cluster. Though they are rhetorically similar, the subject and the advice varies with the source.

The first group focuses on the location of God's empire. Luke 17:20-21 and Thomas' parallels advise against seeking elsewhere what is already here.

The second group concerns the appearance of the Messiah. Mark 13:21-23//Matt 24:23-25 caution people not to believe reports that he is either here or there. This implies that he is absent. Mark is the source of this version.

The third group contains Q sayings that oppose a quest for "the son of Man" by comparing him to lightning. Luke 17:22-24 is linked to the advice about the location of God's empire in group 1. Matt 24:26-27, on the other hand, is appended to Mark's warnings about reports of the appearance of the Messiah in group 2. Both links are understandable, since Christians tend to identify the subject of each quest as Jesus.

Yet the differences between these three groupings make it hard to trace these sayings to a single source. Indeed, each probably originated separately. Only the third can be credited to Q.

Attribution

God's empire: when & where?	%	Red	Pink	Grey	Black	WA	Print
Luke 17:20-21 Thom 3:1-3 Thom 113:2-4		16 14 14	56 27 50	12 32 36	16 27 0	57 42 59	pink grey pink
Messiah: when & where?
Mark 13:21 Mark 13:22 Mark 13:23 Matt 24:23 Matt 24:24 Matt 24:25		14 7 0 14 4 0	18 4 11 18 4 11	7 7 4 7 7 4	61 81 86 61 85 85	29 12 08 29 09 09	grey black black grey black black
Son of man: when & where?
Luke 17:22 Luke 17:23 Luke 17:24 Matt 24:26 Matt 24:27 Matt 24:28 Luke 17:37b		25 10 6 14 0 3 3	4 13 34 11 34 16 16	25 21 11 11 14 40 40	46 55 49 64 51 41 41	36 26 32 25 28 27 27	grey grey grey black grey grey grey

In the judgment of most Fellows, the original question behind these sayings concerned the location or appearance of God's empire. Jesus spoke of God's reign as present and accessible (Luke 6:20//Thom 54//Matt 5:3 and Luke 11:20//Matt 12:28, for example). Thom 113:2-4 was judged to be closer to the original form of this saying because it portrays God's empire as spread out on the earth, there for all to see. This was not how gnostic Christians generally viewed the realm of God. Luke 17:20-21 was a close second, however.  Thom 3:1-3 is a parody of those who take references to the empire of "Heaven" as indicating that it is elsewhere and inaccessible. While the majority of the Seminar thought that this notion was in line with Jesus' thinking and worthy of his wit, they doubted that he was personally responsible for formulating this saying. Hence, the grey weighting.

The sayings in the second group are even less likely to have come directly from Jesus. Like the rest of Mark 13 they address situations that happened only after his death. There is a striking correlation between the reference to imposters in Mark 13:22 and reports by the Jewish historian Josephus about false prophets appearing in the Judean wilderness just before the Jewish-Roman war of 66-70 CE (see Antiquities 20.160-172). Mark's concern about such a situation is reflected in the fact that his "little apocalypse" opens with a similar warning to Jesus' disciples (Mark 13:5-6). The Seminar's votes on such passages were overwhelmingly black. However, the similarity between Mark 13:21//Matt 24:23 and the pink sayings in group 1 lifted this verse into the grey range.

The votes on sayings in the the Q cluster (group 3 above) are more complex because of signs of editing. Matt 24:26 has been adapted to the concern about imposters in the previous verses which Matthew took from Mark. So Matthew's version of all these Q sayings was rated less reliable than Luke's.

Luke 17:22 and 24 were weighted grey primarily because of their ambiguity. What they say about the son of Man could apply to either a present or a future figure. Like Matthew, most Fellows interpret the comparison of the son of Man to a bolt of lightning as referring to a cosmic event. Others read it as a graphic description of the brief brilliance of a human life. Different explanations of the fact that Luke 17:22 has no parallel in Matthew are also possible. Some Fellows believe that Matthew dropped it because it predicts the disappearance of the son of Man rather than his reappearance. This is not what Christians generally expected. More, however, saw it as Luke's own warning against expecting the son of Man to appear soon.

Luke 17:37b//Matt 24:28 is puzzling. In form it is a proverb about an observable fact: corpses attract scavengers. But why and where it was put in this cluster of Q sayings is not certain, since Matthew and Luke append it to different Q sayings. Some Fellows regard it as another example of Jesus' dramatic use of common phenomena. But what he was referring to is unclear. So, the majority saw it as a piece of common wisdom that got picked up in the collection of this cluster.

Luke 17:26-30	Matt 24:37-39
	37 "The son of Man's coming
26 "And just as it was	will be just like
in the days of Noah	the days of Noah.
that's how it will be	38 That's how people behaved then
in the days of the son of Man.
	before the flood came:
27 They ate, drank, got married	They ate and drank, married
and were given in marriage,	and were given in marriage
until the day Noah boarded the ark.	until the day Noah boarded the ark.
	39 And they were oblivious
Then the flood came	until the flood came
and destroyed them all.	and swept them all away.
28 That's also the way it was
in the days of Lot.
Everyone ate, drank, bought, sold,
planted and built.
29 But on the day that Lot left Sodom
fire and sulfur rained down from the sky
and destroyed them all.
30 It'll be like that	That's how it will be
on the day the son of Man is revealed."	when the son of Man comes."

Source

These sayings compare the times of the son of Man to biblical stories of great destruction. Matthew mentions only Noah and the flood (Gen 7), but Luke also refers to the destruction of Sodom after Lot left (Gen 19). In fact, he stresses the second incident more by warning people not to turn back as Lot's wife did (Luke17:32). Luke 17:31 is based on Mark 13:21 and probably was not in Q. So the preceding verses about Lot (Luke 17:28-30) may also be a passage that Luke inserted into this Q cluster. On the other hand, Q contained other pairs of matched sayings warning of disaster (e.g., Luke 10:13-15//Matt 11:20-24 and Luke 11:31-32//Matt 12:41-42). So it is possible that Matthew simply dropped the reference to Lot when he wove this Q cluster into Mark's "little apocalypse."

Attribution

As in the days	%	Red	Pink	Grey	Black	WA	Print
Luke 17:26-27 Luke 17:28-30 Matt 24:37-39		0 0 0	24 3 15	9 15 15	68 82 70	19 17 15	black black black

There is not much in this passage that can confidently be traced to Jesus. Q is the only source of the first comparison and the second may have been composed even later. Anyone familiar with Genesis could have created this pair of warnings. In fact, the emphasis on destruction is more typical of the focus of the compiler of Q than of the sayings of Jesus that are clearly genuine. The view that the first part of the Noah comparison (Luke 17:26) was originally an independent saying about salvation rather than destruction did not commend itself to many. So most of the Fellows voted black.

Matt 24:40-41	Luke 17:34-35	Thom 61:1
		1 Jesus said:
	34 "I'm telling you,
40 "Then	On that night
two men will be	there will be two	"Two will recline
	on one couch;	on a couch;
in the field;
one will be taken:	one will be taken:	one will die,
and will be left.	and the other left.	one will live."
41 Two women will be	34 There will be two women
grinding at the mill;	grinding together;
one will be taken:	one will be taken:
and one left."	and the other left."

Pattern

There are two sources for this saying, but three versions. Q has a pair of cases contrasting the fate of companions, Thomas only one. Luke's first case is like Thom 61:1, but Matthew's differs. Lining up the key terms in these passages makes the parallels clearer:

Thomas	Luke	Matthew
2 on couch: die / live	2 on couch: taken / left	2 in field:    taken / left
	2 grinding:  taken / left	2 grinding: taken / left

Images

Luke's version is probably from Q. For just before this Luke refers to people in a field:

"On that day, if any are on the roof and their things are in the house,
they had better not gone down and fetch them.
The same goes for those in the field:
they had better not turn back for anything left behind.
Remember Lot's wife."
     --- Luke 17:31-32

If Q had "field" here, as in Matthew's parallel, the word-link would have been too good for Luke to change.  Matthew, also, has a tighter parallel between the strophes of this saying by depicting common men and women at work.

Thom 61:1 and Luke 17:34 probably refer to a dinner party. In the ancient Mediterranean world people shared couches for such occasions. Q's saying, like the previous ones about Noah and Lot, is about people being separated during routine activity, including eating and drinking. Thomas' version makes that separation even more permanent.

Attribution

Taken or left	%	Red	Pink	Grey	Black	WA	Print
Luke 17:34 Luke 17:35 Matt 24:40-41 Thom 61:1		0 0 0 11	26 18 9 32	56 30 35 39	19 52 57 18	36 22 17 45	grey black black grey

In reconsidering this saying, many Fellows were persuaded that Thom 61:1 presents the earliest form. It's contrasts are the most startling. Scholars generally consider most predictions of death that gospel writers ascribe to Jesus to be the product of hindsight. But this saying vividly portrays the fate of any human as unpredictable. Other Fellows, however, argued this ironic prediction of human mortality was just common wisdom, and too somber a reflection for someone like Jesus, who had the reputation of eating and drinking (see Luke 7:34//Matt 11:19).