You should really familiarize yourself with the Farrer-Till hypothesis first, as well as Michael Goulder’s “Is Q a Juggarnaut?” Kloppenborg and someone else (whose name escapes me) presented a response to Goulder in JBL a couple years ago, so it should be available in the online JBL archives–I’m almost certain it’s recent enough to be, at any rate.
How Matthew and Luke came to be has become kind of outdated in debates over Q–it can be accounted for just fine without Q. Some questions are raised by a “Mark without Q” hypothesis, but really no more so than the Two Source Hypothesis.
More troubling to the Farrer, Till and Goulder crowd is the redactional tendencies of Q, which do not conform to either Matthew or Luke, which is the strength of the Kloppenborg article in the JBL. I haven’t yet worked out a rebuttal to that, nor am I familiar with anyone else’s–perhaps I’ll be unable to–which is why Q remains my working hypothesis.
The three examples Kloppenborg provides are 1) The use of Sophia, 2) The use of the Lot-cycle and 3) Q sympathizes with the Deuteronist.
It’s puzzling that Q would have those features, because Matthew and Luke either didn’t understand them, or didn’t employ them, presuming Q’s existence. It would be quite coincidental for Luke to have just happened to use the sections of Matthew that create a redactional style unique from either Matthew or Luke.
Just some food for thought while you peruse the Farrer-Till hypothesis.
Mark Goodacre is among the moderators of the Synoptic-L academic E-list, incidentally, and as such his arguments frequently come under attack from some of the best minds in the field. I’d suggest he’d be rather amused by the suggestion that theological bias has anything to do with it, and it’s rather puzzling that his peers don’t seem to see what you do.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/synoptic-l
It has nothing to do with being worried. Simply suggesting different reading material for different abilities. Which you choose to investigate is entirely up to you.
Regards.