Dr Sara Parks introduces the text that lies behind the gospels of Matthew and Luke – to which we give the name ‘Q’. This notion of Q was put forward to explain a literary problem: how to explain the fact that there is so much overlap of material between the gospels of Matthew and Luke. But Q has another, probably more important, use: it allows us to see the way the teachings of Jesus were heard and transmitted in the period of, at least forty years, between the time of Jesus and the gospels as we have them. Q is the earliest accessible tradition of Jesus’ teaching.