Jesus, Q, and the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Judaic Approach to Q

Description

In his work, Simon J. Joseph proposes a new working model for understanding the Jewish ethnicity, community, provenance, and compositional traits in Q ― the earliest and most reliable source for the Palestinian Jewish Jesus movement. He critically compares the major literary features of Q 3-7, a section which introduces John the Baptist and includes the Beatitudes and Jesus' reply to John in light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Essenes, and first-century Jewish wisdom traditions and messianism. By conducting a critical comparative analysis of Q 6:20-23, Q 7:22, 4Q525, and 4Q521, this approach effectively challenges the prevailing assumption that Q is a Galilean text representing a non-messianic and non-apocalyptic Galilean branch of the early Jesus movement that was dissociated from the early Jerusalem community and provides a new way of understanding the intimate relationship between Early Judaism and Christianity. Cover Preface Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction and Methodology 1.1 Introduction 1.2 On the Comparative Method 1.3 Q, the Essenes, and the Dead Sea Scrolls 1.4 Conclusion Chapter 2: Reconstructing Q 2.1 Introduction 2.2 The Existence of Q 2.3 A History of Research on Q 2.4 The Ethnicity of Q 2.5 The Aramaic Substratum of Q 2.6 The Composition of Q 2.7 The Community of Q 2.8 The Provenance of Q 2.9 The Social Structure(s) of Q 2.10 Conclusion Chapter 3: Qumran, the Essenes, and the Dead Sea Scrolls 3.1 Introduction 3.2 The Identity of the Qumran Community 3.3 The Qumran Essene Hypothesis 3.4 Qumran, the Essenes, and the Enoch Tradition 3.5 Qumran Messianism 3.6 Conclusion Chapter 4: Q, John the Baptist, and Jesus 4.1 Introduction 4.2 The Role of John the Baptist in Q 4.3 John and the Essenes 4.4 “More Than A Prophet?” 4.5 Conclusion Chapter 5: The Eschatological Wisdom of the Beatitudes 5.1 Introduction 5.2 The Eschatological Wisdom of 4QInstruction 5.3 The Beatitudes (Q 6:20–23) 5.4 The Wisdom of 4QBeatitudes 5.5 Conclusion Chapter 6: “The One Who Is To Come” 6.1 Introduction 6.2 The Reconstruction of Q 7:22 6.3 4Q521: Date, Genre, and Provenance 6.4 The Messiah of 4Q521 6.5 Q 7:22 and 4Q521: The Case for Literary Dependence 6.6 Conclusion Chapter 7: Conclusion Bibliography Index of Ancient Sources Hebrew Bible New Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha Philo Josephus Dead Sea Scrolls Greek and Latin Literary Sources Early Christian Literature Rabbinic Literature Index of Authors Index of Subjects