Description: Here is a challenge to New Testament scholars to engage in a fresh analysis of Q. The authors argue that recent American study of Q has been dominated by those trained in form-criticism and oriented to Hellenistic rather than Judean culture, resulting in the extreme atomization of the Q sayings and reconstructions of Jesus and his first followers as Cynics, and in the de-politicization and de-judaization of the Q materials and Jesus.
Brief description: Richard A. Horlsey is Professor of Classics and Religion at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He is author of Galilee: History, Politics, People; Archaeology, History, and Society in Galilee: The Social Context of Jesus and the Rabbis; and editor of Paul and Empire: Religion and Power in Roman Imperial Society, all published by Trinity Press.
Review Quotes: "A tour de force that recasts the basic terms dominating the current discourse on Q. Methodologically, Horsley and Draper do not focus on isolated sayings but on a sequence of discourses that are help together by a common rationale. Hermeneutically, they describe Q as an oral-derived text that functioned in repeated recitation. Historically, the authors show how Q was embedded not in itinerant radicalism, but in the Mosaic covenantal tradition that aimed at renewing the social order. The Jesus of Q if hereby restored to his rightful place in Jewish culture. A vitally important book, one that should reshape our thinking and perception of Q." Werner H. Kelber, Rice University--Sanford Lakoff