1 - Introduction

Summary

When we inquire into how the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke came to be written, traditions recorded by the Fathers of the church guide us more surely than do current scholarly reconstructions. My thesis unites several propositions, each supported by scholars of weight: that the sayings-source (“Q”) was no document but masses of oral testimonies about Jesus and of written fragments; that the narrative source was not Mark, but a Semitic Ur-gospel that existed before all three gospels; and that our canonical evangelists made independent use of these sources without consulting one another’s work.