Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.09.1998, Blaðsíða 179

Death, Jesus, Derrida
passion story onto the earliest stratum of Q with a new interpretation? Just
how Seeley goes from the crucifixion to the earliest stratum of Q as an
attestation of a “noble death,” further informative, in his opinion, about the
historical Jesus or how his followers (or in this case, the Q people) imagined
Jesus and his death (as that of a philosopher), is ambiguous at best. To which
strata of the Synoptic Sayings Source does the passion narrative or motifs
from it coincide? If the saying originally was not understood to apply to the
death of Jesus, is Seeley referring to the earliest stratum of Q as a written
document or to an oral tradition preceding this earliest stratum of Q? If the
earliest stratum of Q never existed without the interpretative framework of
the crucifixion as an impulse for re-enacting a “noble death,” it would seem
that all early Christian writings made the motif of death (the death of Jesus)
their focus of understanding the person of Jesus, albeit, from a different
perspective or interpretative presuppositions. If, on the other hand, the “cross”
metaphor originally did not refer to the death of Jesus, as Seeley implies could
have been the case, how does the ethos of a “noble death” characterize the
persuasion of the people behind this early stratum of the Q document or its
preceding oral tradition? It is, indeed, a projection from the point of view of
the crucifixion and the interpretation becomes a contradiction if the people
who related to this saying under discussion did not understand it to refer to
the death of Jesus before his death or to what extent and for how long would
such an ethos have lasted? When does the Q movement emerge: before or after
the alleged death of Jesus; before or with the earliest stratum of Q? Had the
“noble death” been the moulding current of the early Q movement it would
seem logical that the movement would either have survived in some fashion
for its persistence or, more likely, been eliminated all together in violent
execution. Could it be that the Q movement had already come into existence
before the death of Jesus because of an interest in his teaching rather than as
a consequence from his death? In that case, in the case of the absence of the
idea of “noble death” from Q 14:27 at the beginning of the movement, the
reference to the cross must be taken in its simple meaning as implying the
cost of discipleship, certainly not exclusive of death, albeit, not necessarily
a violent one. Thus, also, the otherwise apparent disinterest in the death of
Jesus would remain intact within this stratum of the Q document.
Despite the fact that Seeley is able to adduce reminiscences of a similar
ethos in the motif of persecution in Q 6:22-23 (considered typical of a Cynic
and Stoic experience) and of the same earliest stratum,55 the Q document is
55 Ibid., 134-138. Verses 22c and 23c are usually taken to be later redaction as does Seeley,
loc. cit. Of particular interest to Seeley is verse 23c in which he claims the motif of
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