The choice of the topic for this lecture* has been influenced by the publication, in the course of last year, of some significant new monographs on questions related to John 21. In several quarters of Johannine studies, we can observe a reconsideration of Chapter 21 in its relation to the Gospel, with renewed interest in the problem of the Beloved Disciple. There is alsoa revival of the source-critical approach, with new reconstructions of the traditional miracle story behind the verses 1–14. And, of course, there is continuing debate on Joh's use of the Synoptics, from which, to say the least, John 21 is not wholly absent. I begin my presentation with the first part of the Chapter, verses 1–14, and the hypothesis of a ‘pre-Johannine’ source.

Aufgabe der Textkritik ist es nach herkömmlicher Definition, den Urtextzu finden und ihn nachprϋfbar zu begrϋnden. Auch wer vielleicht beim ersten Teil dieses Satzes meint, diese Aufgabe sei doch im wesentlichen schongetan (die weitgehende übereinstimmung der Editionen des Neuen Testaments der letzten 100 und mehr Jahre könnte ihn darin bestärken), bzw. sie sei bis auf exegetisch unerhebliche Stellen getan, wird beim zweiten Teil des Satzes zugeben mϋssen, daß sie noch nicht oder noch nicht ausreichend getan ist.

The most recent addition to the library of books on John the Baptist is that of Josef Ernst, Johannes der Taufer, Interpretation-Geschichte-Wirkungsgeschichte. Like many of its predecessors, it is wide-ranging in scope, extensive in documentation, thorough in analysis, and clear inits conclusions. But also like them it has its blind spots. There are questions thatarenot asked, and answers that are given too glibly. In both cases we are deprived of valuable information.

This paper seeks to shed some light on 1 Thess 5.14–15, Paul's command to the Thessalonians to ‘admonish the disorderly, comfort the faint-hearted, help the weak, be patient with all’, and not to retaliate. In an earlier study, I focused primarily on Paul's role in nurturing the Thessalonian church. Here, I wish to develop what I discussed only very briefly in that study about the Thessalonians' own care for each other.

The problem which I offer for your discussion may be raised in the following terms: if one assumes that the Golden Rule constitutes the basic moral rule about which the wisest may agree, what happens to this rule when it is put within a religious perspective, more precisely, within the perspective delineated by the symbolic network characteristic of the Jewish-Christian scriptures?

Compte non tenu de la tradition attestéee en Q (Lc 13. 35 par.) sur la ‘maison’ abandonnéee,1 des propos relatifs à la mine du Temple sont attribuées à Jéesus en divers lieux: au début du discours apocalyptique de la triple tradition (Me 13.1–2 par.); lors de la comparution de Jéesus devant le Sanhedrin (Me 14. 58 par.); pendant la scèene de la déerision des passants (Me 15. 29 par.); dans le réecit johannique de la ‘purification’ du Temple (Jn 2.19), enfin lors du proces d'Etienne (Ac 6.14).2

Im Jahre 1969 stieß ich bei der systematischen Lektüre jüdischer Zeitschriften des 19. und beginnenden 20. Jahrhunderts an zwei Stellen auf Fragmente eines hebräischen Textes weisheitlichen Charakters aus der Kairoer Geniza. Es handelte sich um Fragmente, die Harkavy in der REJ 1903 (und in demselben Jahre in Ha-Mizrach in Krakau) und die Schechter in der JQR 1904 abgedruckt hatten, nur einen Text davon mit Übersetzung. Der Text wird von den hs. Fragmenten in babylonischer Punktation geboten. Ich fand heraus, daß Lazare Belleli das längere Fragment in einer eigenen Publikation bereits als ‘Un nouvel Apocryphe’ in Jahre 1904 besprochen hatte und ein Entstehungsdatum zwischen 70 und 135 nach Chr. annahm. Danach aber hat niemals wieder jemand sich zu dieser Schrift geäußert, und sie ist in Vergessenheit geraten. - Ich habe dann 20 Jahre lang über diese Schrift recherchiert, Experten befragt und alle nur möglichen Analogien gesammelt, um eine Datierung des interessanten Inhalts möglich zu machen.

In my book Authority in Paul and Peter: The Identification of a Pastoral Stratum in the Pauline Corpus and 1 Peter, I claim to have established not certainty, but a balance of probability, that an extensive layer of Pastoral-type redaction overlies this literature. I did so on the basis of an accumulation of converging lines of evidence which came to light in applying different kinds of criteria to relevant passages. Something I did not do, which I propose now to consider and illustrate, is how to weigh degrees of probability that particular passages are later addition or interpolations, whether they can be connected with the Pastoral Epistles or not.

In this article I shall argue for two points: first, that Col 1. 15–20 exhibits, without the deletion of any of its parts, a clear structure which can, in some meaningful senses, be called ‘poetic’; second, that the passage, read as a poem in the way I shall suggest, exhibits a characteristically Pauline form of what we may call Christological monotheism. This will point on to some further suggestions regarding the place of the passage within Colossians as a whole.

There is a well known textual problem in 1 Thess 2. 7. The problem occurs in the second clause of the verse and concerns whether the text should read ν⋯πιοι (infants) or ἤπιοι (gentle). My aim in this short note is to argue that there are neither sufficient text-critical reasons, nor sufficient contextual reasons for preferring ἤπιοι to ν⋯πιοι. This argument swims against the tide of contemporary scholarly opinion. Almost all of the major commentators on this text read ἤπιοι, gentle. Further, all the standard English translations read ‘gentle’.

The statement of the Jewish authorities to Pontius Pilate in John 18. 31b, ‘It is not lawful for us to kill anyone’, is commonly regarded as a key to the historical reconstruction of the trial and execution of Jesus. If it means — as it is usually understood to mean — that Roman law did not permit the Jewish Sanhedrin to carry out the death penalty in capital cases, then it explains what is otherwise unexplained in the synoptic Gospels: i.e. why, if Jesus was convicted by the Sanhedrin, was he delivered to the Romans for another trial, and for death by crucifixion? Why was he not simply stoned to death at the command of the Sanhedrin, as the Jewish law required (cf. Lev 24. 16)? The narrator's parenthetical comment in John 18. 32 seems to bear out this interpretation: the fact that the Jews were not allowed by the Roman government to execute Jesus meant that he would die by being ‘lifted up’ on a cross - a distinctively Roman method of execution (cf. John 3. 14; 12. 32–33).