Earl Doherty has become something of a phenomenon. His Wikipedia entry is longer than that of Burton Mack, that of Marcus Borg, that of Dale Allison, and those of almost all New Testament scholars with graduate degrees, serving as a testimony to his internet-based popularity.^[2] One can hardly discuss Christian origins in non-specialized sectors online without his name and thesis popping up, perhaps most frequently on the Internet Infidels Discussion Board. It is clear that his use and discussion of the lost synoptic source Q is particularly weak, and that his thesis requires either a reformation or a considerable amount of revision, as even the positive review by Richard Carrier noted that this section is the most likely to contain errors.^[3] As such, the purpose of the paper is not to prove the existence of a historical Jesus behind Q, but to subject Doherty's work to scrutiny in order to determine the validity of his approaches to and conclusions from the synoptic sayings source.

Kloppenborg's Stratification of Q

John Kloppenborg's hypothesis of Q's compositional history (henceforth "KH") has been the subject of even more polemical attacks than has Doherty's work. The reasons for these responses are quite different, as Kloppenborg's controversy probably comes from his interaction with mainstream scholarship, whereas Doherty's is the opposite. Having concluded that Q was composed in at least three distinct phases, Kloppenborg's work has become a fairly standard reference point among critical New Testament scholars. Thus, it should come as little surprise that Doherty, in essence, affirms it, albeit with moderate revisions. A response to Doherty's work on this topic is rather difficult because, unlike Crossan and Mack, he does not offer his own reconstruction of Q (or at least its extent) and stratification. It is clear, though, that Doherty does not understand what exactly he is committing to when he says he affirms KH.

On page 177 Doherty informs us that "the essence of Q₁ represents a foreign source, whether oral or written, one which first flourished in a non-Jewish milieu." While the rest of this statement is sufficiently dubious and will be addressed later, what is of interest here is his problematic suggestion that Q₁ might have been "oral." I want to make it clear that this part of the sentence is not at all related to anything that he is arguing and that he is not committing to this statement, but that it serves to illustrate some of his misunderstandings. First, the idea that Q was written is a necessary premise of Kloppenborg's hypothesis, as his argument is based on the identification of literary strata beneath the final edition of Q. If Q or any edition of it was oral, there is no way we can distinguish between its layers.^[4] Secondly, the idea of an "oral Q₁" is incoherent and self-refuting. If Q₁ were oral, then one would be saying that materials assigned to Q₁ were not written down until the Q₂ redaction. If this were the case there would be no reason to identify Q₁ as anything separate from Q₂, since they were written down at the same time, nor would there be any possible way to do so by Kloppenborg's method of literary criticism. In short, there is no possible way that KH can stand if any of his three editions of Q were oral. The fact that Doherty suggests that this is possible is a clear sign that something is wrong with his understanding of KH.

This confusion might be easily dismissed as something Doherty missed while in the editing stage were it not for more significant problems at other points in his book indicating a similar lack of understanding. In particular, his discussion of the chreiai in Q 9:57-62//Thomas 86 (pp. 162-163) is somewhat discomfiting to one familiar with KH, not for his conclusions, but for his methods. Here, he is assuming a literary relationship between an early edition of Q and an early edition of Thomas, though he does not make clear the specifics. By comparing a passage in both of these gospels, Doherty infers that the non-chreiic form of the saying in Thomas is the more primitive of the two. What is odd is his conclusion from this: "Thus it is possible to maintain that in all likelihood, the name 'Jesus' was entirely absent from the original Q₁ layer." This is striking because KH is explicitly not based on any tradition-historical methods, but rather based on literary-critical ones.^[5] Indeed, Kloppenborg has done his best to distance his hypothesis from tradition-historical approaches, hence his hesitation to write much about the historical Jesus. To introduce tradition-historical methods into the discussion of KH would open floodgates and undermine an essential premise of the hypothesis. His conclusion that Q 9:57, 9:59, and 9:61 were later additions to Q would be reasonable if argued within the context of KH, which would allow him to argue for an alternative history of these sayings. If, for example, he found that they interrupt the argumentative logic of 9:58, 9:60, and 9:62 (which they do not), or that they exhibit literary features typical of Q₂ such as polemic against "this generation" (which they do not), or that there was a projected audience of unrepentant outsiders (which there is not) then he would have a good basis for this. At best, he can cite the chreiic form as something typical of Q₂,^[6] but this alone is not enough to require reassessment of the stratification of these verses, not to mention that he does not bother to point this out. The fact that Doherty believes that by simply taking note of a more primitive form of a Q saying he can command stratigraphical consequences evidences that he does not understand the fundamentals of KH.

Beyond the fact that Doherty believes that the compositional-history is based on tradition-history, he also seems to be under the impression that they are the essentially the same thing. The difference between these mistakes, though minute, is important: the latter claims that tradition history can be discerned on the basis of stratigraphical location, whereas the former is the belief that KH is argued on a tradition-historical basis. Doherty's misunderstanding comes out most clearly in his discussion of its use by scholars:

[The Q₁ wisdom sayings] were assigned to the earliest stage of the Q document and judged to be essentially the product of the "genuine" historical Jesus... The sayings in Q₂ were seen as unrelated to any sentiment expressed by the earlier, genuine Jesus and judged not to be his product.^[7]

A consideration of the accuracy of this assessment of scholarship can be found in the appendix, as this is not the point here. This report speaks loudly and decisively; for scholars, Kloppenborg's formative stratum is apparently the only open window to the otherwise shrouded historical Jesus behind Q. The disparity between Doherty's analysis and Kloppenborg's statement of the limits of his own stratification is remarkable (1987:244, emphasis original):

To say that the wisdom components were formative for Q and that the prophetic judgment oracles and apothegms describing Jesus' conflict with "this generation" are secondary is not to imply anything about the ultimate tradition-historical provenance of any of the sayings. It is indeed possible, indeed probable, that some of the materials from the secondary compositional phase are dominical or at least very old, and that some of the formative elements are, from the standpoint of authenticity or tradition-history, relatively young. Tradition-history is not convertible with literary history, and it is the latter which we are treating here.

Kloppenborg is clear in that tradition-history is not at all related to his discussion compositional history, which is essentially the opposite of what Doherty claims. A point of contrast to Doherty with which he is familiar would be Dominic Crossan, who states the following about the implications of stratigraphical location:

[Some] of the materials that an author used as the first layer of a composition could be created at that very moment, and some of the ones inserted as a second layer could have been there from long before. The stratification of a writing's composition is not the same as the stratification of a tradition's history.^[8]

Crossan's evaluation agrees, in no uncertain terms, with that of Kloppenborg: these two issues have no inherent relationship. In light of this, it would be worth Doherty's time to reread Crossan's discussion of this very same topic in The Birth of Christianity with his reservation about such drastic consequences in mind, as it is quite clear that Doherty has confused the two. While a few major scholars succumbed to similar misunderstandings of KH regarding tradition-history, the fact that they have generally erred on the side of caution is far easier to forgive than Doherty's clear intention to overthrow mainstream scholarship despite not having a full grasp on the concepts.

Similarly flawed uses of KH are also found in his suggestion that the dialogue between John and Jesus in Q 7:18-35 was added only at the final redaction of Q.^[9] He makes similar claims about "pre-existing units" based on parallels in Thomas, being pieced together by the Q₃ redactor. Importantly, he does not explain why the main redactor of Q could not have been the one who brought these units together. He offers no reason for believing specifically that the Q₃ editor was the one who formed this dialogue unit. The scripture cited in these verses is not from the Septuagint, which one would expect if this were the case. The exegesis of Isaiah here is not typical of what is found in Q₃; here scripture functions predictively, as opposed to the "anxiety regarding the enduring validity of the Law" found in Q₃.^[10] Similarly, the understanding of Jesus' miracles differs from that of Q₃ where they function christologically, a contrast from the "event of the kingdom" understanding found elsewhere in the synoptic sayings source.^[11] One does not need to argue against the probability that parts of Q 7:18-35 existed before their addition to Q, as this is irrelevant to stratigraphical location. Such pre-existence is to be expected, and cannot be used for the late dating of a part of Q on the basis of KH.

One last example can be found in passing remarks suggesting that Q₁ was "reorganized" by the redactor (pp. 147, 153), again undermining an indispensable premise of KH. It is essential that the original order of Q₁ was preserved in the final edition of Q, even if it was interrupted by Q₂ and Q₃ redactors. Again, this is because it is based on a literary-critical reading of Q, where specific redactive units interrupt pre-existing ones. If these had been modified in any way, there would be no way to identify such redaction, and Q₁ material which was moved would appear to be Q₂ material or one would be unable to determine strata if this were done to even a moderate degree.

From these four examples one might come to the unfortunate conclusion that Doherty may have needed to read more secondary sources before publishing this section of the book. The consistent treatment of KH as a tradition-historical endeavor indicates that he misunderstands the goal of the hypothesis.^[12] A probable reason for Doherty's interest in KH is probably in the fact that it supports at least some of his claims, such as the biographical genre being relegated to the final stratum. However, wherever Kloppenborg's hypothesis does not go, Doherty feels he is justified in pushing it that far, so long as it conforms to his findings. In doing this, he has set aside Kloppenborg's use of literary-critical method almost completely, to the point where it is not clear he is aware that he is exchanging one for the other. This casts considerable doubt on the claims he makes in which he appeals to his own authority, some of which are discussed below. Additionally, because he is heavily dependent on this misunderstanding of KH to show that belief in a historical Jesus was secondary to Q, his hypothesis is in need of major reworking on this basis alone.

The Cynic Hypothesis

The cynic hypothesis is doubtless the most controversial tangent to KH, and has found a few vocal advocates including Leif Vaage, Burton Mack, and to some extent J. Dominic Crossan and Ron Cameron. The arguments by the aforementioned scholars have perhaps been the subject of more straw men than of any other minority hypothesis in biblical studies.^[13] That is not to say opposing scholars have not offered substantive arguments, but since a historiography of the cynic hypothesis is not my concern here, I will set the matter aside. Doherty has made major changes to the cynic hypothesis as advocated by Mack and Vaage, despite seeing it as a logical extension of their work. He goes so far in his changes that it undermines many essential parts of the cynic hypothesis and cannot stand as he has revised it.

More or less like those named above, Doherty finds the extent of cynic-like features of Q to be limited to the formative stratum of the document. However, Doherty has a significantly different understanding of who the Q₁ people were and of their worldview. Most notably, he believes that the Q₁ was "strikingly non-Jewish" in character, going as far as to say that the first stratum of Q was produced by Gentiles (p. 163, emphasis original). Arguments against this claim are often launched ostensibly against other advocates of the cynic hypothesis, and are straw men in those cases. The aforementioned advocates of the cynic hypothesis do not posit dependence on these Hellenistic philosophers for their thinking, mode of dress, etc. The reason is that the cynic hypothesis which they advocate is one based upon a careful method of assessment, comparison, and re-assessment, not upon reducing the relationship to genetic dependence. However, the over-eager opponents of the cynic hypothesis have inadvertently addressed Doherty's reading of the first stratum of Q. Christopher Tuckett, for example, argues against the presence of Cynics in Galilee, the lack of a definite concept of Cynics in that time period, the genre of Q₁ being like the "lives" of Cynics, and suggests that the mode of dress in Q is anti-Cynic.^[14] He additionally notes that there is a distinct lack of cynic writings in the centuries preceding the turn of the era in which Jesus is said to have lived (or Q₁ was formed, for Doherty). All of these, Kloppenborg notes, are irrelevant to the claims of those mentioned above because "[the] Cynic hypothesis does not require that Cynics be attested in large numbers in the early first century CE…. It only requires one of two assumptions: either that there were still some…persons who would be identified as cynic-like on the basis of their dress, behavior, or teaching, or that the literary figure of the Cynic and the basic profile of Cynic behavior and teaching were sufficiently well-known to be recognized when they were encountered in a literary presentation of Jesus…."^[15] This cannot be said of Doherty's modifications, though. Because he believes that the Q₁ people were Cynics, he must explain away these difficulties in addition to others noted below. However, Doherty seems to be completely unaware of this problem, which probably stems from a lack of familiarity with secondary sources, as these concerns have been voiced many times.

Doherty's claim that the Q₁ people were non-Jewish and exhibited no Jewish characteristics is likewise problematic in multiple ways. He cites N. T. Wright's description of Judaism in the 1^st Century CE (pp. 158-159),^[16] and quickly decides that Q₁ exhibits none of these qualities.^[17] Even if we are to grant that Wright is correct in his assessment of Judaism during the time of Jesus (and work by E. P. Sanders and others suggests he is not),^[18] Doherty's claims defy the evidence. Doherty dismisses the reference to Solomon in Q 12:27, presumably interpreting it as an anomalous feature. He is incorrect, though, in taking this to be the extent of Jewish features in Q₁. Kloppenborg points out the use of Gentiles as negative examples in Q₁ in Q 6:33-34 and 12:30.^[19] The rhetoric of these verses only makes sense if one presumes a Jewish community. Additionally, there are numerous allusions to the Hebrew Bible in Q₁, the best known of which might be Q 6:20-23 from Isaiah 61:1-2, and Q 9:61-62 from 1 Kings 19:19-21.^[20] These and other verses refer to Israel 's history in precisely the way that Doherty claims Q₁ does not. Furthermore, Q₁ mentions to the Torah and John the Baptist explicitly in 16:16, which Doherty places in Q₂ in a passing reference (p. 166). Kloppenborg at one time similarly placed this verse in Q₂, but this was when he was taking the Matthean context as original to Q. Upon determining that the Lukan placement is the more original, he determined that 16:17 was a part of Q₃ and subsequently that 16:16 was in Q₁.^[21] Doherty is more than welcome to disagree with Kloppenborg on the placement of a verse. However, a suggestion that would undermine an important part of Doherty's hypothesis should be accompanied by strong arguments in favor of its re-placement. Lastly, it is odd that Doherty would overlook the use of obviously Aramaic words and phrases, such as mammon (Q 16:13), gehenna (12:5), and "the son of man" (6:22, 9:58), all of which Kloppenborg places in Q₁. Thus, of Wright's list of concerns, Torah, race, economy, and justice> are clearly attested in Q₁ material (since the last two appear so frequently in Q₁ specific instances do not need to be cited), leaving only Temple and Land to remain unattested in explicit terms.

Secondly, even if there were no "distinctively Jewish" features of Q₁, this would not mean that it was actually non-Jewish. At best, this would support a null hypothesis, not any counter-hypothesis. From there he would have to determine the most likely area for this document's origin. Here too, he fails. Even though he finds many counterparts to this school of Hellenistic teaching, there are at least as many of this same type in Jewish teaching that Doherty has not attempted to collect. Most problematic is the fact that he does not explain why the Jewish parallels Carrier pointed out (2002) are irrelevant and that only the Cynic ones are indicative of dependence. He is undeniably offering preference to Cynic parallels over Jewish ones. Ultimately, by declaring Q₁ Cynic, he also falls into the simplistic idea of "dependence" of Q₁ on Cynic thought that Jonathan Z. Smith addresses and rejects.^[22] By reducing parallels to biology, he has taken a major step backwards in academic uses of comparative literature in the study of religion.

Doherty also sees a major discontinuity between the Q₁ and Q₂ people, to the point where he claims that these strata were produced by communities of wildly different theologies, ethnicities, and backgrounds (pp. 164, 177). At this point he finds little support among other scholars, who consistently emphasize the continuity between the two main strata of KH.^[23] Many of these points are obvious: future judgment based on present forensic actions (6:37-38/12:8-9), importance of trusting Jesus' word (6:47-49/7:1-10), benevolence of the holy Spirit (12:11-12/3:16-17), willingness to sever familial ties (14:26/12:53), necessity of allegiance to Jesus (6:22/11:23), predictive interpretation of Isaiah 61 (6:20-23b/7:22), criticism of riches (6:20/7:25), immanence of God's reign in the community's miracles (10:9/11:20), etc. Why does Doherty reject this near-consensus? The only reasons he gives are those that Kloppenborg used to form the hypothesis and other well-known aspects of each stratum: projected audience, genre, eschatology, and sense of mission. These, of course, are not new observations, but he nonetheless believes that "the natural conclusion" is that two different groups formed them, without offering reasons for this wildly different interpretation of the data. As suggested above, he has exaggerated the differences between these layers to the point where it defies the data. He has not given any reasons to believe that the conclusions of others were inadequate, but instead only appealed to his own authority and "common sense." However, his authority is lacking in the area of KH, and that he "believes so" is not sufficient for us to accept such a drastic revision.

Lastly, I want to suggest that Doherty take another route with his approach to the Q community's history. The scribal hypothesis has gained much popularity lately, being very persuasively argued by William Arnal and John Kloppenborg.^[24] The Cynic hypothesis will probably have few advocates after Dr. Vaage retires within the next decade or two, despite the contributions which that sector of academia has made to study of Q and other Christian origins generally. The advances made in the scribal hypothesis are quickly accumulating, and is looking to wield considerable influence among the next generation of critical scholars. Based on Arnal's open skepticism regarding the reliability of even the earliest editions of Q, it is hard to imagine that this would be inherently opposed to Doherty's thesis.^[25] It would probably be a valuable investment of his time to look into the merits of this model.

The Son of Man Question

The son of man problem in Q is one worthy of lengthy discussion, though Doherty's look at this complicated issue seems to be guilty of some of the same problems discussed above.^[26] He starts by suggesting that there are only two kinds of son of man sayings: those that are built off of Daniel 7, which exhibit the motifs of the son of man's "clouds, glory, kingship, [and his] coming," and those which are not, consisting largely of the "generic" or "indefinite" uses of the term. The apocalyptic son of man, he contends, was created by the Q₂ people on the sole basis of an exegesis of Daniel 7 with no intention of it being attached to any historical person.  While there are a sufficient number of other problems with this simplistic technique, his approach to this distinction defies the actual contents and scholarly conclusions about Q, not least of which is the general opinion of Q specialists that Daniel 7 is nowhere presupposed in Q's portrayal of this figure.^[27]  Only one of the more clearly future-oriented son of man sayings in Q (i.e. 11:30, 12:8-9, 12:40, 17:24-30) declares that the son of man is "coming" (12:40). The other three links to Daniel 7 in the son of man sayings are wholly absent from the Q presentation of the son of man. Indeed, the Q son of man is never said to come on the clouds, despite Doherty's claim to the contrary.^[28]  A single motif in a single saying is not an adequate demonstration of Q₂'s dependence on Daniel 7 for its use of the son of man.  It might be noted that in Q, John's "mightier one" similarly exhibits only one of these four qualities. It is clear that Doherty's conclusions do not derive from a careful reading of the text, but that his conclusions inform his hermeneutic.

This attempted harmonization is once again found in Doherty's parenthetical note that the son of man will come to judge in Q, something that is simply untrue.^[29] Nowhere in Q is it said or implied that the son of man or Jesus will judge anyone. In 12:8-9, the son of man acts as an eschatological witness, but this is the closest one comes to finding such a motif. If his reading comes from equating the son of man with John's ὁ ἐρχόμενος (who is also not said to judge), he needs to justify this and not just assume it; if not, he is just as guilty of reading into the text as he accuses others of being. There are, it might be added, good reasons for doubting this interpretation, as this conflation and exposition of this composite figure defies the narrative of Q. Doherty interprets John's preaching about the "greater one" as indicating that there was no historical Jesus behind the original Q preaching, basing this on the belief that this figure does not sound like a historical person. Again, this is unsurprising in light of Q's narrative, as the opening event in Q is the preaching of John; Jesus does not even appear until 6:20 in Q₂.  After this, Jesus and John do not express knowledge of each other until the dialogue in 7:18, which makes John's prediction of the greater one somewhat ironic, as Jesus' character seems to defy a literal interpretation of this prophecy. This irony is acknowledged and confirmed in John's query whether or not Jesus is to be identified with this coming one (Q 7:19); it is clear that Jesus was not what he expected. Thusly, the expectation for John's prediction to conform exactly to the Q people's understanding of Jesus disregards a literary reading of Q, in addition to the problematic equation of the greater one and the son of man.

Doherty's argument against the possibility that early Jesus-people misunderstood the historical Jesus' generic/indefinite use of the son of man is a straw man.^[30]   His whole argument seems to be strangely argued against those who affirm the narrative reliability of the gospels yet believe the early church to have greatly misunderstood his message and misrepresented it.  It is not at all necessary that Jesus' immediate followers misunderstood it as a reference to himself during his ministry, only that sometime between his first use of the phrase and the composition of Q₁ (6:22) it was re-interpreted as self-referential.  A generic usage of the son of man, it might be added, would inherently lend itself to this interpretation.^[31]  Even if Jesus' immediate followers heard this misusage of the phrase and knew it to be the case, there is necessarily no counter-example available to correct the other Jesus-people as the historical Jesus himself is in the generic category of "a person's child."

A Founder for Q

The culmination of all of this, as one might suspect, is Doherty's finale about how there is no evidence for a founding figure behind Q. This part contains some of the more effective arguments Doherty makes, though it seems that the evidence nonetheless points in the opposite direction. His case is primarily based on some observations about the oddities of Wisdom and the meta-history within Q, two issues which are closely related. These are the only bits of "positive evidence" used by Doherty to argue that Q did not have founder.

Meta-history in Q is closely linked to its use of Deuteronomistic theology, looking back upon Israel 's history and disappointedly shaking its head. This, of course, involves a high degree of self-conscious identification within the community, and polemicizing against those who rejected them and their mission. Doherty finds it odd that none of the Deuteronomistic passages make mention of Jesus alongside the prophets of long ago, since he believes a reverent community would honor its founder at least as much as those before him (p. 167). He takes this lack of references to be a sign that a historical Jesus was not originally behind the Q teachings. This is truly a non-problem, and results from an odd reading of Q's conception of history. In Q, the prophets function as a community symbol, as does Jesus, also having been rejected by those whom they were trying to get to repent. It is clear that these two function differently in Q, and one can explain the disparity Doherty finds between the Q sayings attributed to Jesus and their perception of history, rendering moot his conjecture about "Jesus" being a late addition. The prophets (and to a great extent John, too) are representative of the historical situation of the Q₂ people: predecessors who have died or left, and are now remembered fondly as the fallen but valiant advocates of a noble cause. This conception of past members finds confirmation in Q 6:23c, 10:24, 11:47, 11:49-50, and 13:34, wherein the prophets clearly include and represent the fallen.

Jesus, though, seems to serve as a symbol of the current Q₂ community, preaching repentance, being rejected by Galilean cities, and remembering the ones having come before him. Confirmation of this is found in the fact that Jesus speaks the aforementioned verses, but especially in Q 7:24f, where Jesus is the one speaking explicitly and his remembrance of John's function as a fallen prophet is praised in a romanticized way (especially verses 27-28). For this reason, it is not particularly surprising that Q does not include Jesus among the fallen prophets, as they have conceived of Jesus' place in history as something still in progress; Jesus is preaching, not about himself, but about those before him. One might further ponder what, exactly, Doherty expects from the Q community. "And Jesus looked at them and said, 'Yea, this faithless generation has killed the prophets and me, and will continue to do so.'" would be a possible, albeit silly option. A harmonization of Deuteronomistic theology with self-references would come off far more awkwardly than the passion predictions in the surviving gospels; thus, his expectations from Q are unreasonable. One might object that the fact that Jesus is lamenting the current woes of the Q₂ people indicates that he was understood as an atemporal, and thus otherworldly, figure. This, though, would fail to consider the perception of history as cyclical behind this mode of thinking, resulting in the ever-pertinence of these sayings.

The figure of Wisdom serves yet another function in Q, despite Doherty's enthusiastic desire to equate the functions of these three types of figures (pp. 149, 167). Doherty's thoughts on Wisdom and Q are interesting, though some of them he has refuted himself. In particular, Doherty holds that at some later point, the attribution of the sayings was changed from Wisdom to Jesus. However, he writes a telling paragraph on page 173 about Q 7:31-35, wherein the relationship between John and the prophets, Jesus, and Wisdom is explained. Doherty acknowledges that Q presumes that Jesus was a historical figure just as it does of John the Baptist. Oddly, Doherty uses the presence of Wisdom here to determine that Jesus was a later overlay to Q, though his reasons are not clearly stated. It is nearly irrefutable that, on the basis of this verse, the Q community at some point conceived of Jesus as a human founder.

What then, is the function of Wisdom within the paradigm of Q₂'s self-concept? There are only two secure references to personified Wisdom in Q: Q 7:35 and 11:49.^[32] The first of these, as Doherty admits, clearly presumes a historical Jesus (p. 173), despite his pure conjecture that it may have referred to the Q community originally. This reading offers an odd contrast between an individual and a collective, and it is unclear what Doherty expects Q to have originally said, since there is no clear self-designation for the Q₂ people. The other, though, is the primary basis for Doherty's conclusion that Q sayings were originally credited to Wisdom and not a historical figure named Jesus. The odd fact that this saying is attributed to Wisdom has gained a moderate amount of attention in the scholarly community. There are a number of more probable options that Doherty does not consider: that this saying was a gloss later added to the document, that Wisdom represents the meta-historical perspective of the community looking back even upon Jesus (which finds support in 7:35), or that the historical Jesus actually spoke about personified Wisdom. But the idea that Jesus was conceived of as Wisdom personified or that Jesus was later equated with Wisdom contradicts what one finds in 7:35, wherein he is unequivocally subordinate to this supernatural figure.^[33] Because he finds 7:35 to be a part of Q₃ (though this is addressed above), one might think that this does not pose a significant problem. Rather, the opposite holds true: at the Q₃ stage the redactor first identifies Jesus as both subordinate to and equal with Wisdom, two contradictory trajectories to simultaneously follow. Furthermore, the reading that Doherty advocates seems to be little more than an ad hoc assertion, attempting to relegate something that would go against his findings to the final stratum of Q, since there is no apparent incompatibility or difference between the concepts of Wisdom offered in these two verses. In both, Jesus is speaking of Wisdom in the third person, referring to the historical situation of the Q community. All Doherty is doing is selecting the saying more congenial to his hypothesis and making much of it and dismissing the other because of its total incompatibility. This is neither convincing, nor is it very objective scholarship. Additionally, since his premise for this argument is inadequately argued, he has an additional obstacle he must overcome. It might also be added that the 7:31-35 unit is entirely at home in the projected audience and polemical phrasing typical of Q₂, too.

Doherty also overlooks another major problem for this idea in relation to KH, that is, the primary stratum as "instructional" in genre.^[34] In the words of Kloppenborg, "[virtually] all instructions are ascribed to named sages, usually of some reputation…."^[35] He continues, "[the] attribution to a named and renowned sage is a dominant feature [of Ancient Near Eastern instructions]. It is hardly ornamental. It points to the requirement for external authorization." Even when Wisdom is present, there is nonetheless an orator who acts as the "mouthpiece" of this divine figure, as in Q. Thus, beyond the fact that Doherty's idea that "Jesus said" is a late addition to Q is little more than conjecture, it also flies in the face of the identification of Q₁ as instruction. Though it is possible for a group to create a sage-founder (cf. p. 180), Doherty does not suggest that there was any mention of a human founder, however fictional, in Q₁. So while the non-existence of a historical Jesus is not completely precluded in respect to this particular argument, the point is that Doherty's approach does not cohere with scholarly findings concerning the genre of Q.

Moreover, the well-known defense of Jesus' ethos in Q₂ is probably best understood as presuming that the Q₂ community accepted a historical Jesus. Even though Jesus clearly stands as a community symbol, the Q₂ community seems to have conceived of him as a historical figure as well. The Beelzebub accusation (Q 11:14-20) puts in Jesus' mouth a defense of his practice of exorcism, and an explanation for its lack of permanence a few verses later (11:24-26). Additionally, even if community members performed the miracles in Q₂ as Doherty suggests (p 170f), it is apparent that the miracles were understood as preaching the importance of faith in Jesus' word (esp. Q 7:7-9). Whomever this deed was attributed to, in some way, was revered as having authoritative teachings, and the performance of miracles was understood as secondary to that. Doherty has provided no reason to think that they were not originally attributed to Jesus in Q, despite the possibility of their performance by a member of the Q community. If this polemic defends only the character of the community and no memory of a historical Jesus, Doherty needs to explain why, as he would have it, they chose Wisdom as a symbol for their more embarrassing features. Instead, claiming authority and continuity with a historical founder makes sense as it is less obviously blasphemous than projecting their failings onto a beneficent, mythical, and divine figure.

Lastly, his suggestion about why the Q₃ redactor would have chosen to use "Ἰησοῦς" to replace Wisdom is particularly unconvincing.^[36] He rightly points out that in Q there is essentially no soteriological role played by Jesus, which in itself indicates that there is a considerable shortcoming in this proposal. Another large problem with the suggestion that Ἰησοῦς was chosen because it was a transliteration of the Semitic word for "savior" is that there is no evidence for this sort of transliteration-being-used-with-original-language-meaning being applied to names. One example with close proximity is the Q₂ redactor's use of σατανᾶς in Q 11:18, clearly indicating that the Hebrew original was now understood as a proper noun, not as "the accuser" which is found in the temptation narrative (Q₃) or the Hebrew Bible. The burden of proof is upon him to demonstrate that theological significance of a name is carried over between languages in the ancient near East, one that he has yet to meet. Even if this were the case, one can cite nearly any Hebrew name as having some significance which can be interpreted theologically, so his case for the use of "Jesus" is exceptionally unimpressive, especially given the above-stated lack of soteriology in Q. Furthermore, it is unclear why the Q redactor would have changed the name of their founder for no apparent reason, and the question of how the Q₃ editor would have gotten away with such a significant change is also unanswered. Again, this seems to be little other than an ad hoc assertion, briefly mentioning, then dismissing topics that do not cohere well with his thesis, and having no apparent interest in tracing the literary and theological history of Q.

Speculation and Academic Integrity

The weakest part of Doherty's discussion of Q is his anticipation of counterarguments (pp. 181-182, 184-187). That he attempts to do so is commendable, as this is one great deficiency found throughout writings in biblical scholarship. Doherty is probably aware of this, as this section lacks the confidence he has elsewhere, coming off as a bit more hectic and featuring many arguments by unanswered questions, and admitting much of it is speculation. Because of this, one has a hard time believing that Doherty holds strong convictions for some of the suggestions he makes. For this reason, I will not address all of them, but just offer a few examples to make apparent the lack of committed thought that went into them. One of these is his proposal for the use of the name "Jesus" in Q: contact with Pauline congregations. This is based on his extremely late dating of Q₃ (70-90 CE, only providing a single reason)^[37] and possible missionary contact. Of course, there is not great evidence to suggest that the Q community, at any level, was familiar with Pauline theology or any other Jesus people, and the idea that the Q community would use this name without reason is a clear example of begging the question.

Another instance can be found in his discussion of the relationship between Q and Mark, where he suggests that the latter may have had oral dependence on the former. While this is entirely possible, the case he presents has numerous holes in need of considerable patching. This, it should be noted, is very important to his hypothesis, as multiple attestations create obvious problems.^[38] He notes that there is a similar expectation for the son of man in Q and Mark, but he does not inform his readers that there are no apocalyptic son of man sayings in both. Because of the general lack of Q's redactional features in Mark (e.g., individual son of man sayings, polemic against "this generation"), this claim is hard to accept on the basis of such arguments. He also points out several close parallels between the two (Beelzebub controversy, John the Baptist, etc.), but he should be aware that correlation does not imply causation. He does not attempt to explain why the dominant explanations for this overlap, authenticity or primitivity of a tradition, are inadequate.

Doherty has openly lamented the lack of scholars who engage with his work, and it is clear that his lack of academic publications is not especially conducive to this. His ideal audience, inferring from the blurbs on the back cover of his book, appears to be those who lack the meta-cognition to assess the claims and arguments he makes within the book. If he instead submitted works to scholarly journals, it would both improve the quality of his work by undergoing close examination, and result in more attention for his hypothesis. Thus, if Doherty believes he has anything to add to the field of New Testament studies, this approach would be emphatically preferable. However, because he has not subjected his work to critical scrutiny, he bases large amounts of his work on avoidable mistakes that would be caught under nearly any peer-review system. By repeating the same significant blunders, it is difficult to take seriously the whole of his hypothesis, as The Jesus Puzzle quickly appears to be a tangled web of mistaken interpretations. His proposal for a complex set of individual arguments with little scholarly support used in an attempt to override the paradigm offered by Kloppenborg, which explains rather easily and simply the diversity in the Q tradition, clearly represents an agenda-based interpretation of the data in the same vein as the "apologists" he is trying to subvert. This results in his false impression that Q studies can be shaped to his whims, and that hypotheses can be heavily modified without having done the proper research. The selective approach he has to facts is reminiscent of the concept of "truthiness," wherein he feels he is able to subordinate facts to what he feels is the greater truth behind Kloppenborg's hypothesis, or Q in general. From the title of his book alone it is clear he has committed conclusively to one single possibility for the beginning of Christianity, and that all evidence must support this far-reaching thesis. For Doherty, Q is an obstacle to overcome, something to be explained away, and thus his work on it does not come from a genuine desire to answer the complex questions of Christian origins. Instead, Q plays but a small part in his gonzo scholarship, a sensationalistic mixture of fact and fiction having been combined to form something that can only be called "irresponsible."

Appendix: Other Shortcomings

•     Doherty is very unclear about his opinion on the relationship between Q and Thomas. He suggests that Thomas used Q₁, vice versa, that they have a common written source, and that they share a common oral source, many on the same page (p. 163). The last of these would certainly be the least controversial, as there are notable problems with the other three. In particular, the parallels between Thomas and Q do not subside after Q₁ (for some examples, see below). Additionally, the proposal that Thomas was dependent on the synoptic tradition at a late stratum in its compositional history is gaining support,^[39] and goes far to undermine the use of Thomas/Q parallels in determining tradition-histories.

•     "Those [sayings in Thomas] judged 'authentic' by the Jesus Seminar are from the stratum similar to Q₁" (p. 152). This statement is very ambiguous, and needs to be explained. If he means that the fellows of the Jesus Seminar found no Q₂ sayings with parallels in Thomas to be authentic, he is wrong. Contrast the Jesus Seminar's actual findings, which state the following Q₂ sayings to have authentic parallels in Thomas: Thomas 64//Q 14:16, Thomas 33:2-3//Q 11:33, Thomas 35:1-2//Q 11:21-22, Thomas 10//Q 12:49.^[40] If he means that the extent of "authentic" material in Q₁ is limited to cynic-like sayings, I have yet to see a member of the Seminar interpret their results that way, even if many of their opponents have (though most would say incorrectly). If he means that all Thomas sayings with Q₁ parallels were deemed authentic, he is again incorrect: Thomas 86:1-2//Q 15:4-6, Thomas 4:2, 3//Q 13:30, Thomas 55:1-2, 101//Q 14:26, Thomas 2:2-4//Luke 11:9-10, limiting the parallels to those sayings deemed authentic in Q₁. If he is merely making reference to the genre, and has William Arnal's study in mind, then this would be appropriate, though there is little reason to believe this is the case.^[41]

•     "Critical scholars," presumably meaning the Jesus Seminar and its fellows, have apparently found only Q₁ sayings to be authentic (p. 147, cf. 149, 152). However, two "acts" attributed to Jesus they thought were most likely to be authentic were from Q₂! Q 11:15-17, the Beelzebub controversy, and Q 3:1-20, a voice in the wilderness, respectively.^[42] The act they rated the third highest, the baptism of Jesus, which if in Q (and this is unlikely, though Doherty provisionally accepts it, p. 187), is probably in the redactional stratum. Additionally, for the sayings of Jesus, Q 14:16-23 (only Luke), Q 11:19-20 (only Luke), Q 11:33 (Matthew and Luke), Q 11:43 (Matthew and Luke), Q 11:21-22 (Matthew and Luke), Q 11:17-18 (only Luke), Q 12:58-59 (Matthew and Luke), Q 7:24-25 (Matthew and Luke), and Q 11:24-26 (only Luke) were all deemed Q₂ by Kloppenborg and given pink designations by the fellows of the Jesus Seminar (see note 40). Admittedly, no Q₂ sayings were voted "red" by the Seminar, but to say that these sayings were found to be "unrelated to the genuine Jesus" is completely untrue. If Doherty is only referring generally to individual fellows of the Seminar, he is again wrong. Crossan finds a great number of Q₂ sayings to be authentic, and even the hyper-skeptical Burton Mack believes that there is some degree of an authentic memory behind Q 7:31-35.^[43] This proves especially problematic when he assumes that everyone will simply accept that sayings like Q 16:16 should refer to Jesus because they were automatically community creations. Rather, if they were spoken by Jesus, there would be no issue at all, not that they are particularly problematic even it was a community creation.

•     Doherty's suggestion that Matthew and Luke were the ones who added the name "Jesus" to Q material (p. 181) is begging the question. The proposal that Luke and Matthew would have independently used a document with an anonymous founder and presumed that the teachings within were the product of the same individual is in need of evidence; this is a problem created by Doherty's hypothesis but not addressed by it, and is not an issue in more realistic reconstructions. Indeed, the evidence strongly points otherwise, given the correlation between Matthew and Luke in their use of long introductions for the sayings of Q (e.g., 6:20, 7:1, 10:2a, 11:16). He also offers various other possibilities, that it was Markan influence (p. 181), that it was the Markan community (p. 182), and that it was the Q₃ redactor (p. 170). He might want to stick with one of these, as it can be rather confusing with the numerous and non-committal suggestions he makes, which would probably be worse for those unfamiliar with New Testament scholarship. Additionally, it is unclear to whom the pronouns would be referring in 6:20, if not Jesus. The use of masculine personal pronouns by both Matthew and Luke speaks strongly against the possibility of the sermon being attributed to Wisdom.

•     His discussion of strata in Thomas is also in need of some work (pp. 161f), though this extends somewhat outside the parameters of this paper. The relationship between Q and Thomas he proposes is assumed and not argued. He cites no instances of the alleged verbal agreement between Thomas and Q that indicate interdependence. He is following Helmut Koester on this, whose work has been chided for assuming a very specific relationship between these two works and determining strata on this assumption.^[44] Doherty here has no reservations about quoting Crossan as supporting this conclusion, even though he clearly rejects this on very same page: "neither of those gospels [that is, Q and Thomas] is derived from the other." Something that could very easily undermine his thesis (most obviously in the problem of multiple attestations) needs to be given much better argumentation, or he should explain how this affects the results if he is incorrect. One can also find weakness in his simplistic approach to Thomas' compositional history (p. 152), where he divides the document up on theological grounds, a method that is here un-nuanced, notoriously subjective, and not particularly convincing.

•     Doherty's logical leaps are frequently a major weakness in his credibility. In particular, his discussion of Thomas 86/Q 9:57f goes as follows: 1) it is "reasonable" the form in Thomas is earlier than the one in Q; 2) therefore, the root document did not contain the chreiic form of the saying; 3) therefore, it is "possible" that Jesus was not mentioned in Q₁; 4) therefore, "there is no sign" of a Jesus figure at all in Q₁ (p. 163). The rather quick development from "reasonable" to assured via "possible" over the course of three brief paragraphs is striking, especially given the problematic grounds for the original argument.

•     Doherty offers two contradictory interpretations of the relationship of Q₁ to other Ancient Near Eastern wisdom writings, though both are in part correct. He describes its contents as both "closely resembling" and "radically different" from other documents in this genre (pp. 146, 156). While those who have read about this topic may understand what he is saying, it probably comes off strangely to those who have not.

•     One possible explanation for many of the problems with Doherty's use of KH is his heavy dependence on Burton Mack's The Lost Gospel. Mack has at points deviated quite far from the method of Kloppenborg, to the point where he destabilizes important components of the original hypothesis. Many of these Doherty seems to accept rather uncritically, which may explain why he doesn't take Q 12:5, 16:13, or 16:16 into consideration when discussing Q₁. Because Doherty uses some of these changes to cover up parts of Q that contradict his claims, further justification is needed. Additionally, Doherty's use of thematic and tradition-historical methods to modify KH (particularly Q₃) may derive from his reading of Mack's work, an aspect that has been heavily criticized. This is most obvious in Doherty's proposal that all "biographical" elements of Q should be relegated to the final stratum being based on a thematic method, not on literary-criticism or generic associations (p. 170f).

•     Last, but certainly not least, Doherty's suggestion that the Q₂ community was merely imitating Judaism (pp. 159, 164) needs to be defended or dropped. It adds nothing at all to his work, is ill-defined, seems to defy the evidence, and is vaguely offensive, though far less so than his treatment of the Q₁ community.^[45]