Kloppenborg, Formation of Q (1987)

Kloppenborg, John S., The Formation of Q: Trajectories in Ancient Wisdom Collections (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987) 377pp.

Stratification of Q

Basically, Kloppenborg's argument for the stratification of Q is quite simple: (a) identify one layer, (b) identify another layer, and (c) show that the second layer is prior to the first.

The first layer he identifies is a deuteronomistic/judgmental layer. He presents five blocks in Q and shows their similarity in

• projected audience [impenitent Israel = "this generation"],
• forms [chriae, miracle stories functioning as chriae], and
• motifs [judgment, parousia].

He concludes that they "suggest that they all derive from the same redactional stratum." (p.170)

The second layer is sapiential. Here, all the blocks in it are similar in the following respects:

• implied audience (to members of the community, and this is very important occasionally to "this generation"),
• characteristic forms (basic variety of wisdom forms [rhetorical questions, beatitudes, proverbs, etc.] and prophetic woes [which are the same exceptions of part (1)],
• characteristic motifs (poverty, discipleship, non-violence -- and judgment in the very same exceptional passages), and
• structure (with a programmatic pronouncement).

(pp.238-242) The exceptional passages seem interpolated according to his redactional analysis.

Having found two separate layers, he then proceeds to consider whether they were composed at the same time:

"It remains to discuss the relationship of this stratum to that in which the motif judgment dominates. If it were the case that these two sets of materials existed in Q as discrete and separate blocks, it would be virtually impossible to establish the relative priority of either from a literary point of view. . . . But such is not the case." (p.243)

Those exceptional passages embedded in the second layer have the same redactorial interest of the first layer, so it reasonable to conclude that it was from the same hand. Since the interpolations are clearly secondary, so is the first layer. Thus, Q was composed in layers: Q1 a sapiential layer, then Q2 a judgmental layer. (There's also apparently a third layer which includes the Temptation.)

Questions to consider

1. Did Kloppenborg really establish separate layers? It would be quite improper to separate layers merely based upon themes, but he uses a mix of criteria: implied audience, form, and motif. So, in other words, are his criteria for stratification truly independent (and thus convergent) or merely the same variable (theme) being confounded?
2. Do the exceptional passages in the second layer really belong in the same blocks as the sapiential material? Kloppenborg explicitly assumed that Q's order followed Luke's order, yet most of these passages have been detached by Matthew from their Lukan (hence Q's) context and put somewhere else. This means that if Q's order is not preserved in Luke, then these interpolations into the sapiential layer do not exist.
3. Is it really the case that none of Q1's redactions can be found in Q2? Another explicit assumption of the part of Kloppenborg is that the extent of Q is confined to what is found in Q. This assumption is necessary because Kloppenborg's analysis relies on the fact that Q1's redactions don't appear in Q2's blocks. However, Q is a lost document and so it is possible that there may have been addition Q2 material, not preserved by Matthew or Luke, which exhibit Q1's redactions, falsifying Kloppenborg's thesis.
4. Assuming that Q2 material is found in Q1 but not vice versa, could this be due to a non-source critical (e.g. form critical) consideration that it is more difficult to add wisdom material to a judgment section than vice versa?