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 redress 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 selfperception
as God’s symbolic family, the article will turn 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.