The Critical Edition of Q

A major new resource on the text and traditions of the Sayings Gospel.The existence of Q (simply defined as the non-Markan material common to Matthew and Luke) as a document in the earliest churches was first hypothesized by C. H. Weisse in 1838. The existence, character, and significance of Q as a document from primitive Christianity has further been developed since then by numerous scholars, including the two groundbreaking Fortress Press books by John S. Kloppenborg: The Formation of Q (1987) and Excavating Q (2000).Q remains a subject of heated debate. The Q material consists mainly of sayings of Jesus, but begins with some sayings of John the Baptist. For the most part narratives are missing; most conspicuously of all is the Passion Narrative.

The critical text edition will include an introduction; the running text of Q; new translations of Q in English, German, and French; the fully formatted Greek text of Q with parallels in Matthew, Luke, Mark, Gospel of Thomas, and other gospels wherever relevant; a concordance; and a bibliography.

This book is a cooperative venture between Fortress Press and Peeters Publishers (Leuven, Belgium). This also is the first volume of Hermeneia Supplements.

John S. Kloppenborg Verbin is Professor of Religion at the University of Toronto. His other works include Excavating Q: The History and Setting of the Sayings Gospel (Fortress Press, 2000).

James M. Robinsonwas Emeritus Professor of New Testament at Claremont Graduate University and the Director of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity. He was the editor of the Nag Hammadi Library and the author of numerous books.

He first became known for his New Quest of the Historical Jesus and (with John Cobb) the trilogy on New Frontiers in Theology: The Later Heidegger and Theology, The New Hermeneutic, and Theology as History. He edited for UNESCO The Facsimile Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices, in eleven volumes accompanied by a one-volume English translation, The Nag Hammadi Library in English, and a critical edition, The Coptic Gnostic Library (in seventeen volumes).

As co-chair of an International Q Project co-sponsored by the Society of Biblical Literature and the Claremont Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, he edited (with John Kloppenborg and Paul Hoffmann) The Critical Edition of Q, a Hermeneia Supplement. He was also the editor of the Facets volume The Sayings of Jesus: The Sayings Gospel Q in English. Robinson was a past president of the Society of Biblical Literature.