For centuries most Protestant churches, true to the Reformers' understanding of man and the Law, have preached the Christian message by presenting first the Law, so that the hearer would come to recognize his or her sinfulness, and then the Gospel, that the hearer might be brought to hope, and eventually to faith, in Jesus Christ. As the New Testament begins with the stern exhortations of John the Baptist, so, it has been argued, the Christian proclamation should always and everywhere commence with God's command. But now, in seminaries and churches, some have seized upon new expositions of the Law and used them to oppose this preaching scheme as unworkable, since not all will have any sins against the Law to recognize; and even as wrong, on the grounds that this approach inevitably lapses into trying to make people ‘feel guilty’. The result is that many of the new generation of ministers are learning to preach only consolation, or, at most, the judgment upon certain social orders pronounced by popularized liberation theology. It is with this homilectical situation in mind that I offer the following remarks on Paul's understanding of man's relationship to the Law, and through the Law to sin.

In dem Aussendungsbericht, mit dem Matthäus seine Evangelienschrift abschließt (28. 16–20), erhalten die elf Jünger den Befehl, alle Völker zu Jüngern zu machen, indem sie sie taufen und indem sie sie lehren. Damit hat die Notwendigkeit der Taufe eine hervorragende Stellung erhalten. Der Taufbefehl wird von dem Auferstanderien erteilt, nachdem er alle Macht im Himmel und auf Erden erhalten hat, und er ist, zusammen mit der An-kündigung, daß er bei ihnen sein wird alle Tage, das letzte Wort, das er seinen Jüngern gesagt hat. Der Umstand, daß Matthäus als einziger Jesus die Taufe befehlen läßt, ist ein wichtiger Hinweis darauf, daß die Taufe in der Kirche als bedeutsam angesehen wird, zu der der betreffende Evangelist gehörte und für deren theologische Haltung er als Exponent steht.

In this article I hope to show that a careful reading of Daniel 7, 12 and of aspects of the midrashic traditions associated with that text can throw new light on the Synoptic and Johannine passion-resurrection predictions. It suggests that an early interpretation of elements of these sayings can be recovered, an interpretation based on an implicit identification of one like a son of man with those whom the author of Daniel considers the members of the true Israel, in their suffering and in their triumph.

The antithesis between right and left is a commonplace idea of our modern world. It is hardly surprising that something so basic to human description and behaviour should have figured extensively in the ancient Near East and the Classical world as well. But, while there are advantages in an idea which crosses geographical and temporal frontiers so readily, there are disadvantages too, if it is necessary to reach any precision in meaning. So when we read in Didache 12. 1 of ‘right and left understanding’, the expression may not seem to require a second thought, or a commentator's attention. And yet, unless there is some clue in the context, any further deliberations merely serve to increase the puzzlement about what is meant.

Years of research on the sources of the gospels of Matthew and Luke led long since to three conclusions which many of us still find valid, first, that both these authors used our gospel of Mark; second, that they both used another source, commonly called Q; third, that each also used a source unknown to the other, and these two sources have been named M and L respectively. But about the nature of Q, M and L there are plenty of unanswered questions - such as, were they single sources or does each name cover several sources which we cannot easily disentangle from one another? Were they written or oral? How accurately do Matthew and Luke, who abbreviate Mark, quote their other sources? The language of Q was Aramaic; was the same true of other sources?

This study became necessary in the course of my work on Codex Bezae. I wished to ascertain the degree of consistency with which the version used one Latin word to translate one Greek one, in order to find differences between the Mss, to assess their usefulness in supporting Greek readings, and to place the relation between the two columns of Codex Bezae in a new light. The advantages in choosing οὖν were, first its frequency, second its insignificance, with the implication that a reviser would pay little or no attention to it. The disadvantage is that it is not used uniformly, being shunned by Mark but embraced by John.