The Formation of Q

In this groundbreaking study, Kloppenborg uses genre criticism and redaction criticism to examine the composition and development of the sayings source Q. He argues that Q is composed of three compositional layers, or strata, each of which reflects certain stages of development in the Q community. The first and formative layer reflects the influence of collections of ancient sapiential sayings and contains six wisdom speeches. The second layer reflects the influence of the prophetic literature of judgment and contains prophetic oracles and many Son-of-Man sayings. A third layer adds a temptation story, which moves the document from a curiae collection in the direction of a biography.