03_Biblica_Foster_Layout 1 08/07/13 12:56 Pagina 379 379 IS Q A “JEWISH CHRISTIAN” DOCUMENT? 1. Is there sufficient evidence available for such a reconstruction? 2. If so, what is the nature of the evidence? 3. What level of confidence can be attributed to proposals concerning the social profile? In relation to the first question the limitations of the evidence should be acknowledged. It may be possible to make some general- ized comment about social location, since few texts are totally free of clues about their intended readership. Perhaps the most extreme ex- ample might be a fragmentary text, of unknown provenance, that sur- vives in translation rather than in its original language. In this hypothetical case there may be evidence that the language of the text is a translation (such as the presence of Semitisms), but probably be- yond that little can be established. Fortunately most examples are less extreme. In the case of Q, at a minimum one could state that the doc- ument was composed during the first century, that its original lan- guage was Greek and so its likely place of composition was the Eastern Mediterranean, and that it circulated widely enough to be ap- propriated by two later authors. Beyond such generalized observations, the task of refining the description of a social profile must draw upon further internal and external evidence. Factors such as the following may assist the task of determining the social background for a given text. 1. Some documents name addressees or author, give details of place or date of composition, and present explicitly the reasons for writ- ing. Such evidence is of the highest significance in reconstructing the social profile of a document. 2. Forms of expression and types of language can offer further clues, but the tendency of later scribes to modernize archaic forms needs to be recognized as a counter force. 3. Reference to external events may provide evidence of time of com- position as well as geographical origin, especially if the event was localized. 4. Stated or implied values, belief systems, or religious allegiances may supply evidence of the social values that are shared or debated by author and audience 43. J.H. Elliott provides a list of nine questions that can be used to interrogate 43 a text in relation to its social locations. See J.H. ELLIOTT, What is Social Sci- entific Criticism? (Guides to Biblical Scholarship; Minneapolis, MN 1993). © Gregorian Biblical Press 2013 - Tutti i diritti riservati