At our Minister’s Bible Study class a few weeks ago, we were studying the book of Matthew and he casually mentioned that Matthew didn’t write the book of Matthew. After I questioned him on why he felt that way, he indicated there was strong evidence that someone named “Q” wrote several of the gospels. I had never heard about this before nor had any other students in this Bible Study class. Can you tell me more about this “Q” Gospel and what are your thoughts on it?
The so-called Q or source gospel hypothesis is based on the unproven claim that Matthew, Mark, and Luke are not original, but are all derived from an earlier document that has never been found. (The letter Q stands for the German word “quelle” which means source.)
However, the originality of all 4 Gospels is accepted by every major scholar who believes the Bible to be the inspired Word of God.