Nach der traditionellen Chronologie hat Paulus bis zum sog. Apostelkonzil in Syrien und Cilicien gewirkt, seine großen Missions-reisen also erst mindestens ‘vierzehn Jahre’ nach der Bekehrung angetreten.

The ending of 1 Peter includes greetings from a person or group designated by an adjective, συνεκλεκτός (co-elect, 5.13), found no where else in the New Testament. The adjective as it stands in 1 Peter is preceded by a singular feminine article and has a singular feminine ending. It functions as a substantive and has a modifying prepositional phrase, ν Bαβυλνι (in Babylon), sandwiched between the article and the adjective. The complete phrase reads: ν Bαβυλνι συνεκλεκτή literally, ‘the (feminine) in Babylon co-elect (feminine)’.

In Gal 3.11–12 und Röm 10.5–10 stellt der Apostel Paulus Lev 18.5 in Beziehung zu jeweils einer anderen Schriftstelle, in Gal 3 zu Hab 2.4 und in Röm 10 zu Dtn 30.12–14. In der Exegese wird die Beziehung oft als eine hermeneutische Antinomie dargestellt. So schreibt Ph. Vielhauer1 zu Röm 10.5–8: ‘Hier stellt Paulus zwei Schriftworte einander entgegen … und spielt das zweite gegen das erste aus …’ Nach Vielhauer kann Paulus das tun, weil er die Erkenntnis der iustificatio impii als einen Kanon im Kanon gebraucht. Nach E. Käsemann2 übt Paulus an einer Stelle wie dieser die Unterscheidung der Geister der Schrift gegenüber und verwendet dabei die Rechtfertigungsbotschaft als Kriterium. Zu Gal 3.11–12 schreibt J. Chr. Beker:3 ‘In a daring move, Paul opposes Scripture to Scripture … and thus splits Scripture apart, because Lev 18.5 is antithetical to God's will in Christ.’4

The story of the raising of Lazarus (John 11.1–44) is one of the most dramatic and impressive of the compositions in the Fourth Gospel. For this very reason it raises a host of problems for the biblical critic. There can be no dispute that it has a theological purpose which dominates the whole narrative. This is clearly set out in the first words attributed to Jesus: ‘This illness is not unto death; it is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by means of it’ (v. 4). The same point is referred to again just before the climax of the narrative in v. 40. But the more prominent the theological aim, the more difficult it becomes to view the narrative simply in terms of history. It must surely be the case that John has based his composition on a source, which was probably much simpler and briefer than the splendid story which it has become in his hands. But the source must be reconstructed before we can begin to think of it in historical terms. The modern tendency is to give up such attempts as hopeless, and to concentrate on the meaning of the text as it stands. But even that presents pitfalls to the critic. All seems well until we come to v. 33: ‘Jesus…was deeply moved in spirit (ένεβριμήσατο τῷ πνεύματι) and troubled.’ Unfortunately the Greek words do not mean ‘deeply moved in spirit’ (RSV). In his recent commentary on John in the Word Biblical Commentary, G. R. Beasley-Murray marshalls a great array of evidence to show that the meaning must be ‘became angry in spirit’. But why should Jesus be represented by John as angry? The effort to answer this question affects the interpretation of the whole story.

In 1 Joh 2.18–19; 4.1–6 hören wir von einem christologischen Schisma in der ‘johanneischen’ Gemeinde. Die Schismatiker werden ‘Antichristen’ und ‘Pseudopropheten’ genannt. Ihre Zahl ist groß. Sie sind aber ‘Christusgläubige’ (2.19), die wohl für sich selbst in Anspruch nahmen, die ‘richtige’ Christologie zu vertreten. Für diese warben sie unter den Gemeindemitliedern, was der Autor des 1 Joh ‘Verführung’ nennt (2.26; vgl. 4.5–6).

In recent years a number of scholars have focused on the phenomenon of Gentiles who, in varying degrees, adopted the lifestyle of the Jews. For John Gager they are important evidence for his generally persuasive argument that in the Graeco-Roman world Judaism, far from being universally mistrusted and vilified, was in both its beliefs and its practices often attractive to non-Jews. Gager, like L. Gaston and others before him, brought this observation to bear on the more specific issue of Jewish-Christian relations in the early centuries. For, so they have argued, Christian Gentiles were among those attracted to Judaism and the reaction of ecclesiastical leaders to this situation was a major cause of anti-Jewish sentiment in the early Church. Thus judaizing was not, as had often been assumed, restricted to the first generation of Christians (approx. pre-70 CE), but remained an urgent and troublesome issue.

In the third chapter of 2 Thess, the author of this letter addresses himself to the problem that some members of the church behave ἀτάκτως, ‘in a disorderly way’, and not according to the tradition (3.6). As it seems, this behaviour amounts to a refusal to work for a living. The brothers in question take advantage of others (cf. 3.8), and busy themselves with useless things, causing unrest (3.11–12).

For much of this century the notion of a Menschensohn, or Son of Man figure, loomed large in scholarly reconstructions of Jewish eschatological expectations in the time of Jesus. The primary Jewish attestation of this figure was found, of course, in Dan 7.13, with complementary appearances in the Similitudes of Enoch and 4 Ezra 13. There was considerable diversity of opinion about the origin and precise nature of this figure. More imaginative scholars, like Sigmund Mowinckel, held that ‘Conceptions of a more or less divine Primordial Man were widespread in the ancient east. Apparently there is a historical connexion between the varying figures of this type, which seem to be derived, directly or indirectly, from Iranian or Indo-Iranian myths.’1 The Jewish conception of ‘the Son of Man’ was ‘a Jewish variant of this oriental, cosmological, eschatological myth of Anthropos’,2 influenced by a syncretistic fusion of Iranian and Mesopotamian concepts. At the least, the phrase ‘Son of Man’ was thought to be a well-known, readily recognizable title for a messiah of a heavenly type, in contrast to the national, earthly, Davidic messiah. As recently as 1974 Norman Perrin could claim that all the recent studies of the ‘Son of Man Problem’ he had reviewed agreed on one point: ‘there existed in ancient Judaism a defined concept of the apocalyptic Son of Man, the concept of a heavenly redeemer figure whose coming to earth as judge would be a feature of the drama of the End time.’

The description of Wisdom in Sirach has exercised a profound influence on the interpretation of Matt 11.28–30. Many scholars, impressed with the evident parallels between Sir 51.23–7; 6.23–31 and the Matthean logion,1 have regarded the latter as dependent on the former.2 Others, taking a further step, have felt justified in interpreting the logion with reference to a wisdom christology. According to this view, Jesus, represented as Wisdom incarnate,3 offers rest to those burdened by the legal interpretations of the Pharisees4 through his yoke, which stands for his teaching, or, more precisely, for his interpretation of the law.5 This approach to the logion has had its detractors,6 and some scholars have questioned the suitability of positing any connection between Sirach and the logion.7 It is not the purpose of the present discussion to enter into this debate, but rather to draw attention to what might be termed a neglected feature in the discussion of Matt 11.28–30, namely the relation of the logion to certain OT prophetic themes.8

In a recent edition of New Testament Studies D. B. Wallace has argued for a procedural change in New Testament textual criticism, namely that textual critics consider using the recently published The Greek New Testament according to the Majority Text as a baseline for collation studies. The following study demonstrates the sound value of such a move for intra-Byzantine studies. It further shows that while the Majority Text is a valuable asset for the study of texttypes, the theory which motivated its editors does not stand up to the rigour of this ‘preliminary’ collation study.

Prüfe man die Wunderberichte der Evangelien literar- und sprachkritisch, so lasse sich, meinte J. Jeremias, in mehreren Fällen ‘zeigen oder wenigstens vermuten, daβ eine Wundergeschichte aus einem sprachlichen Miβ-verständnis erwuchs’.

Recent commentators on the works of Luke, the Gospel and Acts, make remarkably similar statements regarding the transliteration of the Latin title Augustus into Greek. All agree that Luke used Αύγοΰστο, in the Gospel as a personal name and all agree that in Acts 25.21, 25, he used the Greek form of the Latin title, Σεβαστός. Only one of these commentators, however, goes beyond this simple observation to deal with the questions that must arise from such selective use by Luke of Αὐγο⋯στος and Σεβαστ⋯ς. Colin Hemer attempts to go slightly beyond this to explain Luke's use of Σεβατός in Acts as the formal rendering of the imperial title. It is not clear what Hemer means by his use of the words ‘rendered formally’ because Σεβαστός is no more formal than Αὐγο⋯στος. The point is simply that the former is the correct form of the imperial title in Greek and the latter is the correct form in Latin. Unless Luke had an ulterior motive these words should not have been used in any other sense. Moreover, if one detects some new or special use of Αὐγο⋯στος by Luke, one certainly should ask what this means? Such a question is especially pertinent when one notes that, according to Blass and Debrunner, Luke was ‘inclined to remove Latinisms’.