Q source

This article is about the hypothetical source text used in the Christian Gospels. For the Hebrew Bible text denoted by the abbreviation Q, see Codex Marchalianus. For the far-right conspiracy theory, see QAnon.

The "Two-source Hypothesis" proposes that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were written independently, each using Mark and a second hypothetical document called "Q" as a source. Q was conceived as the most likely explanation behind the common material (mostly sayings) found in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke but not in the Gospel of Mark. Material from two other sources—the M source and the L source—are represented in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke here by green and teal respectively.

The Q source (also called the Sayings Gospel, Q Gospel, Q document(s), or Q; from German: Quelle, meaning "source") is a hypothesized written collection of primarily Jesus' sayings (λόγια, logia). Q is part of the common material found in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke but not in the Gospel of Mark. According to this hypothesis, this material was drawn from the early Church's oral gospel traditions.

Q had been hypothesized by 1900 alongside Marcan priority. Some scholars have postulated that Q is actually a plurality of sources, some written and some oral. Others have attempted to determine the stages in which Q was composed. Despite the two-source hypothesis enjoying wide support, Q's existence has been increasingly questioned by alternative theories such as the Farrer and Matthean Posteriority hypotheses.