Q-Conference 2017

The FWF-funded project “God’s Love and Judgment in the Sayings Gospel Q – Reconstruction and Interpretation” (Graz 2014–2017) invites you to a conference on prayer in Q.

The conference will begin on Thursday, 23 March 2017 at 9:30 am and will end on Saturday, 25 March 2017 at 1:30 pm. It will take place at the Catholic Theological Department of the Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz.

The special importance of prayer in Q will be studied in detail at the conference in Graz.

The most important Christian prayer, the Lord's Prayer, has been handed down in the Sayings Gospel Q (Q 11:2b-4). The subsequent commentary in Q emphasizes the certainty that the fatherly God will answer petitions made to him (Q 11:9-13). In Q 4:8 Jesus rebuffs the devil with a quotation from Deuteronomy: "Bow down (proskynéō) to the Lord your God." In the context of the commandment to love one's enemies, in Q 6:28 Jesus commands his hearers to pray for their persecutors. At the beginning of the missionary discourse, the addressees are called to ask the "Lord of the harvest" to dispatch "workers" into his harvest (Q 10:2). In Q 10:21, Jesus prays to the "Father, Lord of heaven and earth".

The central question of the conference is whether the profile which prayer receives in Q is distinctive in comparison with its early Jewish contexts. In close connection to this issue the historical, social and rhetorical meaning of the prayer texts in Q will be studied as well as their early reception.

The printed program can be downloaded here.