John Kloppenborg studies the origins of Christianity,early Christian documents and the history of Second Temple Judaism. He has researched and written most substantially about the Q document,also known as the Sayings Gospel Q. This hypothetical document would be one of the oldest circulating sources of the sayings of Jesus. It is hypothesized as prior to,and known to the authors of the Gospel of Matthew,the Gospel of Luke,and is similar in some ways to the (non-synoptic) Gospel of Thomas. He has also worked extensively on the Synoptic problem and co-edited a major collection in 2011 on the centenary of the publication of William Sanday's Oxford Studies in the Synoptic Problem (1911).
Kloppenborg has also done original research and written on the social world of the early Jesus movement in Jewish Palestine,cultic associations and occupational guilds in the eastern Roman Empire and the social significance of the parables of Jesus. Other areas of interest have been the letters of the New Testament,especially the Letter of James,and the culture of the Graeco-Roman world as relates to such matters as:religion,spirituality,cultic associations,ethnic sub-groups and their ancient organization,professional societies and the general conditions of the societies in the Near East during the time of Second Temple Judaism,the time of Jesus and the formation of the Bible as we know it.
Tenants in the Vineyard
Published in 2006,Kloppenborg's book,The Tenants in the Vineyard:Ideology,Economics,and Agrarian Conflict in Jewish Palestine,[4] on the "tenants in the vineyard" parable attributed to Jesus by the New Testament,provides an analysis for the critical reader of the Bible of this very difficult parable. A version of the parable in Mark 12:1-12 and it is also recorded in the Gospel of Thomas (65). In his book,Kloppenborg models a new approach to the parables of Jesus. He discusses the ideological interests engaged by the parable in modern times and over the history of the Christian Church. Next,he explains the conditions of the society in which the parable was first laid out,especially in regards to ancient viticulture. In his conclusions,Kloppenborg notes that the parable has ironically been interpreted from the viewpoint of those in power in politics and society rather than as a literary parable or as an "anti-power" parable,as it may have read in the original texts. He shows that the editing in Mark's version of the story takes it beyond the useful idiom common to Jesus' other parables. Kloppenborg also includes a lengthy appendix of papyri that deal with ancient viticulture and agrarian conflict.
The Critical Edition of Q
Published in 2000,by James M. Robinson,Paul Hoffmann,and John S. Kloppenborg,The Critical Edition of Q:Synopsis including the Gospels of Matthew and Luke,Mark and Thomas with English,German,and French Translations of Q and Thomas[5] is a groundbreaking,though still controversial,work of scholarship.
Containing a lengthy introduction by bible scholar James M. Robinson and a foreword by the three editor scholars:Robinson,John S. Kloppenborg and Paul Hoffmann,this hefty volume provides a redacted version of what the original Q document might have looked like whether it was written in Greek or Aramaic. The Critical Edition of Q is the product of the International Q Project (IQP),a program inaugurated at the Society of Biblical Literature in 1985 that has sought to establish an accessible critical edition of the source shared by Matthew and Luke.
Their work also seeks to "document the major turning points in the history of Q research,with particular attention to the problem of establishing a critical text of Q" (xix). Putting aside "a purely hypothetical Aramaic source" of Matthew and Luke,which would mean that "Q would never be more than a hypothesis," Robinson claims,in the introduction,that such approaches have been "completely replaced by objective criteria,based on empirical observation of Matthean and Lukan redactional traits" (xix). The bulk of the text is the critical text of Q (1-561),which concludes with a concordance of Q (Greek words [563-81]). The volume also contains a discussion of divergences from the Lukan sequence (lxxxix),text-critical notes (xc-cvi),and end-pages (cvii). The critical text itself is formatted with eight columns on facing pages presenting by column:1) any Markan parallel to Matthew,2) any doublets found in Matthew,3) the text in Matthew that is deemed to be derived from Q,4) the critical text of Q,5) the text in Luke that is deemed to be derived from Q,6) Luke's doublets,7) any Markan parallel to Luke,and 8) any parallel from the Gospel of Thomas,the Coptic of which is provided but also retroverted into Greek. As footnotes,the Thomas and Q texts are translated into English,French and German.
The editors intend this volume to be functional as a standard research tool for the study of Q despite the continuing controversy over the validity of the text actually existing;this is the most comprehensive effort to provide such a tool nonetheless.
Publications
The Sayings Gospel Q in Greek and English with Parallels from the Gospels of Mark and Thomas,Contributions to Biblical Exegesis &Theology vol. 30 with James M. Robinson and Paul Hoffmann.[6]
Ptolemaic and Early Roman Egypt. Vol. III of Greco-Roman Associations:Texts,Translations,and Commentary. BZNW,vol. 246. Berlin and New York:Walter de Gruyter,2020. doi:10.1515/9783110710397.
Christ’s Associations:Connecting and Belonging in the Ancient City (New Haven:Yale University Press,2019)
Luke on Jesus,Paul,and Earliest Christianity:What Did He Really Know? with Joseph Verheyden (Leuven:Peeters,2017)[8]
The Jesus tradition in the Catholic Epistles with Alicia Batten (London:Bloomsbury Academic,2014)
Attica,Central Greece Macedonia,Thrace. Vol. 1 of Greco-Roman Associations:Texts,Translations,and Commentary (with Richard S. Ascough) (Berlin:Walter de Gruyter,2011)
The Tenants in the Vineyard:Ideology,Economics,and Agrarian Conflict in Jewish Palestine (Tübingen:Mohr Siebeck,2006)
Apocalypticism,Antisemitism and the Historical Jesus:Subtexts in Criticism Journal for the Study of the New Testament,Supplement Series,vol. 275 with John W. Marshall (Sheffield:Sheffield Academic,2005)
Excavating Q:The History and Setting of the Sayings Gospel (Minneapolis:Fortress Press,2000)
↑Kloppenborg, John S. The Tenants in the Vineyard: Ideology, Economics, and Agrarian Conflict in Jewish Palestine. WUNT, vol. 195. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006.
↑Robinson, James M., Paul Hoffmann, and John S. Kloppenborg, eds. The Critical Edition of Q: A Synopsis, Including the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Mark and Thomas, with English, German and French Translations of Q and Thomas. Hermeneia Supplements. Leuven; Minneapolis: Peeters; Fortress Press, 2000.
↑Robinson, James M., Paul Hoffmann, and John S. Kloppenborg, eds. The Sayings Gospel Q in Greek and English with Parallels from the Gospels of Mark and Thomas. Edited by Milton Moreland. Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology, vol. 30. Leuven; Minneapolis: Peeters; Fortress Press, 2002.
↑Robinson, James M., Paul Hoffmann, John S. Kloppenborg, Joseph Verheyden, and Christoph Heil, gen. eds. Documenta Q: Reconstructions of Q through two Centuries of Gospel Research. Edited by Stanley D. Anderson, Sterling G. Bjorndahl, Shawn Carruth, and Christoph Heil. Leuven: Peeters, 1996.
↑Verheyden, Joseph, and John S. Kloppenborg, eds. Luke on Jesus, Paul, and Christianity: What Did He Really Know? Biblical Tools and Studies, vol. 29. Leuven: Peeters, 2017.
↑Revised edition: Ascough, Richard S., Philip A. Harland, and John S. Kloppenborg. Associations in the Greco-Roman World: A Sourcebook. Rev. ed. Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2024.
↑Q Thomas Reader, John S. Kloppenborg, Marvin W. Meyer, Stephen Patterson, and Michael G. Steinhauser, Sonoma, Calif.: Polebridge Press, 1990.
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