THE QUELLE

"Quelle is German for 'source,' as in the original source of Christian scripture. It's hypothetical, postulated two hundred years ago. Until the Nag Hamadi discovery in 1945, only a few scholars believed that Quelle documents existed, much less survived." - Monsignor Brahaney, p.24-25

Early in the nineteenth century, a string of German theologians noted many factual differences when comparing the Christian gospels to one another. At the same time they marked many similarities between the gospels of Matthew and Luke, much of which seemed to come from the older gospel of Mark. They concluded that other congruent portions of Matthew and Luke came from a second, unknown set of early Christian documents. Thus, the "two-source" hypothesis was born. Those Germans called the second source "Das Quelle," labeled over the years as Quelle, Q, Q Manuscript, Q Document, Q Gospel, Sayings Gospel, and Synoptic Sayings Source. First scribed in Greek and perhaps Aramaic, it represents the earliest and therefore least altered record of Jesus' stories and sayings, only some of which made it into the New Testament. Bishop Papias of Hieropolis is thought to have collected large elements of the Quelle in an anthology he called The Logia.

He Can See Heaven is a fast yarn about a young woman's treacherous search for The Logia and thus for the Quelle, a raucous ride through Europe, North Africa, and New York City. Along the way we learn of her hidden quest, the one for a way to heaven.

Did you know about the Quelle? . . . Is it theory or stubborn fact?