Q and the Synoptics

In 2008, author John Kloppenborg released the full text of a “reconstruction” of the so-called “earliest gospel” by a group calling themselves the International Q Project. The book was entitled Q, the Earliest Gospel: An Introduction to the Original Stories and Sayings of Jesus. According to Kloppenborg’s promotional material, the so-called new gospel “reveals a very different portrait of Jesus than in much of the later canonical writings, challenging the way we think of Christian origins and the very nature and mission of Jesus Christ”.

Naturally, it had to be “different”. Nobody was going to be interested in a book affirming the existing gospel accounts in every respect.