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When we look at the gospels of Matthew and Luke the parallels are abundantly clear. That is due to the fact that Matthew and Luke drew upon Mark for most of their gospels. Matthew's gospel contains 90% of Mark's work. Luke's gospel contains 50% of Mark's work. This would likely mean that Mark was the commonality of this work.

But how about the other 10% of Matthew's gospel and the other fifty percent of Luke's gospel that is completely unique from Mark? Scholars have considered that there is a second source that Matthew and Luke used to get the material to write their gospels. The source is a hypothetical document called "Q." "Q" is the shortened form of the German word "Quelle" which means "source."

There are only two narratives in Q: (1) Jesus' fight with the devil (Luke 4.2-13; Matthew 4.1-11); and (2) the healing of the centurion's slave (Luke 7.2-3, 6-10; Matthew 8.5-13). But even both of these accounts focus more on what Jesus said, than on the events concerned. 

The apocalyptic nature of Q hints that it was created in the first or second generations after Jesus died. As we know from Paul's later writings, by roughly the year 65, Christians had begun to wonder if Jesus would return as many had predicted. This makes a date for Q of more than sixty-five years less likely. Some think that the story of the struggle with Satan in Q is talking about a situation in 39 when there was a mass demonstration against the putting up of a statue of the Emperor Caligula in Jerusalem [1]. If so, the Q material probably came into being after that date.

The high percentage of verbal similarities between Luke and Matthew, and some particular word formations, make many people think that Q was a written source now long-lost, rather than stories verbally passed. They believe it not likely that two oral traditions, one utilized by Matthew and one used by Luke, could have maintained such near perfect verbal similarity.

One example is:

Mark 4.25 is used in Matthew 13.12 and Luke 8.18. A similar version from Q also occurs in Matthew 25.29 and Luke 19.26.

This is another firm confirmation that Q was just one source and that it was utilized by both Matthew and Luke independently of Mark. Some reasons why the discovery of Q is so important should be summarized in the conservative light of those who question the accuracy of the info that has been uncovered about Jesus, and the fundamentalists who believe each written word as ‘gospel' so to speak. 

If one accepts that Q is a now-lost written record of "what Jesus really said", then 'Q' can be regarded as a long-missing record of the words that Jesus really said.

·Many have discounted thelikelihood that we can know what Jesus really said. The gap between his life and the first of the gospels (probably Mark) is, they say, too long for oral stories to still be right. The distortions through time and distance of what Jesus really said would be considerable - perhaps fatally so if we're searching for a Jesus of history. The origins of Q are, in contrast, almost definitely quite early. There would have been a time during which what Jesus really said would have been remembered and passed on by word of mouth. But written material was put together much earlier than the skeptics suppose.

Several other assumptions can be reasonably drawn from the evidence [4]:

·Not only was Q originally a written source, but it was written in Greek. Attempts to find Aramaic in the text have failed.

·Q was not written as a single piece. Instead, it was several separate documents which was added to from time to time. Some alterations may have been made by later, non-Galilean sources - though the evidence for this is fairly weak.

·Because Q is a collection, any signs found from it about the conditions and concerns of the community which gave birth to it are likely to closely reflect what was happening socially within the Q community. 

Our knowledge today about Jesus is therefore subject to all the strengths and limitations of normal human processes by which information is shared from person to person.

This is information from the Online ULC Seminary.

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[1] The Historical Jesus,  G Theissen & A Merz, SCM Press, 1998

[2] Midrash and Lection in Matthew, SPCK, 1974.

[3] The New Testament, N Perrin & D C Duling, Harcourt, 1974

[4] After Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus, J L Reed, Trinity Press, 2002

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