What an announcement, that they discovered a Hebrew manuscript of Q! So wrote someone on a website from New Zealand (liturgy.co.nz) earlier today, but not everyone took note that it was published on April 1, 2016!
In fact, the photo of the papyrus is nothing new; it’s the Nash Papyrus, which was discovered over a century ago (click HERE). And the authors left plenty of other clues in the stor, for example, that two of the scholars involved were Justin I. Dea and Ida Claire.
I love a good gag, but the problem is that this is already circulating in Spanish and will have ramifications: it will be used as “evidence” by certain false Messianic rabbis, who teach that the NT was originally written in Hebrew and use that notion to justify their rewriting of the Bible. They remove the deity of Christ, the person of the Spirit, salvation by faith, freedom from the Law, etc, because supposedly they were not in “the original Hebrew.”
For that reason I wrote, asking the site to explain that it was a hoax. (It’s 2023, they did not take it down or explain it)
Whether Q existed it or, no, they haven’t discovered it yet, and according to the best available date, it would be written in Greek, not Aramaic or Hebrew.
Jokes are fun, until someone gets hurt!
April Fools! No, they have not discovered the Gospel of “Q”! by Gary S. Shogren, Ph.D., Professor of New Testament, Seminario ESEPA, San José, Costa Rica
Open Our Eyes, Lord! 