"Your Father Knows that You Need All of This" Divine Fatherhood as Socio Ethical Impetus in Q's Formative Stratum
Abstract: The observation that the Q people understood themselves as a new symbolic family, with God as Father, is certainly not new in Q studies. Likewise, it is not uncommon for an interpreter to mention during her analysis of an individual Q text that the instruction in question is motivated by imitatio Dei rhetoric. However, the pervasiveness of this link between Q's theology of divine fatherhood and its socio ethical programme has not received enough attention in Q scholarship. In an attempt to address this deficiency, the current article argues that the idea of divine fatherhood is the primary paradigm that informs, determines and motivates the alternative socio ethical programme of Q's formative stratum. More than being just an interesting observation in relation to some Q texts, divine fatherhood and imitatio Dei rhetoric are central to the radical socio ethical programme of Q's formative stratum. After an overview of Q's self perception as God's symbolic family, the article turns to the analysis of specific texts in Q's formative stratum, first considering the theme of divine fatherhood, and then considering its socio ethical relevance. These discussions are finally related to the notion of "mutual mothering," with some implications for our understanding of women in the Q movement.