Reconstructing Mark Thought Experiments

Well, it seems to be the weekend for activity on Q on the biblioblogs. On Singing in the Reign, Evans on "Retrieving" Q, Michael Barber points to an article by Craig Evans, "Authenticating the Words of Jesus," in B. Chilton and C. A. Evans, eds., Authenticating the Words of Jesus (Boston: Brill, 2002): 3-14, specifically the section dealing with the difficulty of reconstructing Q when one imagines a scenario according to which one tried to reconstruct Mark from Matthew and Luke. Michael and others may not be familiar with a subsequent article that takes Evans's project further, Eric Eve, "Reconstructing Mark: A Thought Experiment" in Mark Goodacre and Nicholas Perrin (eds.), Questioning Q (London: SPCK and Downers Grove, Ill: IVP, 2004): 89-114. Eric also provides bibliography there of others, like Cyril Rodd, who have engaged in the same thought experiment with respect to Mark. The value of Eve's piece is that it is able to conduct the experiment from the perspective of someone who is sceptical of the existence of Q, thus avoiding some of the tension inevitable in those who accept the existence of Q but resist attempts to reconstruct it.