From an analysis of the Jewish writings at Qumran, Tabor has shown that the Jewish sect of that community taught of "The Righteous Teacher", a messianic leader from around the second century BCE. It seems that this teacher had promised that two Messiahs would arrive to lead Israel to salvation within a forty year forty year period which expired long before the first century CE [tm]. Since other fragments found at Qumran contain similar verses to those found in the New Testament [sm], it seems possible that Q may have in fact been based on the sayings of this "Righteous Teacher", rather than a first century "Jesus Christ".
As reconstructed, the Gospel of Q appears to has a rather striking - and familiar - ending (as stated by Luke 22:28-30):
"You are those who have continued with me in my trials; as my Father appointed a kingdom for me, so do I appoint for you that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." [tl]
Tabor notes that the fragment 4Q521 recently published from the Qumran scrolls shows that the Qumran community had expected a saviour (and attendant resurrection of the dead) not found in the earlier Hebrew traditions found in the Torah [t4].
The traditional view is that two further sources were added to Q before it came to be incorporated into Matthew and Luke, around thirty years after the supposed death of Jesus. The first, c. 60-70 CE, introduces John the Baptist (who Josephus said died in 68 CE) and attributed the Q sayings and further teachings to Jesus. The second c. mid-70s CE, attributed further sayings to Jesus, and for the first time introduced the idea of him as "the Son of God". These teachings also appear in the Gospel according to Mark, which also seems to date from around this time [rq].
On the basis that the Q Gospel may have originally related to much earlier traditions, rather than to the "Jesus" of the first century CE, Tabor has compiled a list of "original sayings" of Jesus not found in Q. These are limited to proclamations of the imminent coming of the "Kingdom of God"; the casting out of demons by the power of God; the days of John the Baptist, various parables and a version of the Lord's prayer [ta].
One proposal is that the story of "Jesus Christ" was based on a real "Rabbi Yeshua", but enhanced with legendary and mythological accounts around the time that the Gospels were written towards the end of the first century CE.
A more radical suggestion, based on the apparent silence of many early Church fathers on the person of Christ, is that Christianity did not begin teaching that Jesus was a historical figure until the mid-second century CE [fc].
