Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.09.1998, Side 177

Death, Jesus, Derrida
stood by members of the “Q group” as a reference to the death of Jesus in
the context of the idea of a “noble death” of a philosopher—an idea based on
“martyrological” concepts of death. Seeley argues that behind the earliest
Christian literary traditions (the earliest stratum of the Synoptic Sayings
Source) is found the motif of the “noble death” pure and simple. The main
redactional stratum of the same source applies, in his opinion, “wisdom
motifs” to “interpret the deaths of the Q prophets.” A further development of
this is what Seeley describes as a combination of these two motifs in the pre-
Pauline traditions and Mark in their attempt to make sense of the saving
purpose of the death and resurrection of Jesus—which in Paul is elaborated
with “apocalyptic” motifs.45 As for Q 14:27, the saying consists, according
to Seeley, on the “earliest interpretation of Jesus’ death in Q.”46 Assuming a
stratigraphy of the source in which the main redaction is identified with motifs
of the so-called Deuteronomistic view of history,47 Seeley starts with the only
passage possibly referring to the death of Jesus rooted in the earlier stratum
of Q and observes its characteristics against the remaining references deriving
from the main redactional stratum but the verse reads as follows:
He who does not take his [[ ]] cross and follow me cannot be my disciple (Q
14:27).48
This early reference to what Seeley considers to be to the death of Jesus
differs from the prophetic references in that it does not imply the typical
“boundary” concern of the redactional stratum—in which the Q people
apparently understand themselves in conflict with other communities that
differ with them ideologically and practically in one fashion or the other.49
45 “Was Jesus like a Philosopher?,” 540, 546.
46 Ibid., 540.
47 Cf. Arland D. Jacobson, The First Gospel: An Introduction to Q, Foundations and Facets,
A. Y. Collins et al. eds. (Sonoma, CA: Polebridge Press, 1992). Says Jacobson, “one of
the most remarkable features of Q is an ideological explanation of a different sort, deriving
from the deuteronomistic tradition. ... According to this tradition, Israel’s impenitence is
evidence of her stubborn refusal to hear the prophets who were sent to her, and especially
of her violent treatment of these prophets, ibid., 30.
48 Reconstructed text by the International Q Project of the Institute for Antiquity and
Christianity and of the Society of Biblical Literature, in Jon Ma. Asgeirsson and James
M. Robinson, “The International Q Project: Work Sessions 12-14 July, 22 November
1991," JBL 111/3 (Fall 1992) 507.
49 Vide his, “Blessings and Boundaries: Interpretations of Jesus’ Death in Q,” in John S.
Kloppenborg and Leif E. Vaage eds., Early Christianity, Q andJesus, Semeia 55 (Atlanta,
GA: Scholars Press, 1991) 131-146. Seeley lists Q 6:22-23; 7:31-35; 11:47-51; and 13:34-
35 as such prophetic passages in Q, ibid., 131.
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