1.1 Die Situation. Das Primatwort Mt 16.17–19 ist heute kein exegetisches Sturmzentrum mehr. Die Exegese wird durch einen ‘kritischen Konsens’ dominiert, der nicht nur fast die ganze evangelische, sondern auch den grösseren Teil der römisch-katholischen Exegese umfasst. Er wird in den USA repräsentiert durch das ökumenische Petrusbuch von Brown, Donfried und Reumann, in Deutschland durch das noch etwas kritischere, von den ökumenischen Universitätsinstituten herausgegebene Buch ‘Papsttum als ökumenische Frage’. Zu den Grundelementen des Konsenses gehört erstens, dass Petrus nicht ‘direkt und unmittelbar’ von Jesus einen Primat empfangen habe, sondern dass das Felsenwort nachösterlich ist. Das zweite Grundelement ist, dass es in unserem Wort nicht um einen ‘eigentlichen Jurisdiktionsprimat’ des ‘sichtbaren Hauptes der ganzen kämpfenden Kirche’ geht, sondern um einen nicht juristischen Vorrang des Petrus. Er wird heute am ehesten darin geshen, dass Petrus in exemplarischer Weise ‘vornehmlicher Träger der Jesusüberlieferung’ ist. Drittens ist vor allem durch Cullmanns Petrusbuch klar geworden, dass der Gedanke der apostolischen Sukzession nicht mit

Der Streit zwischen Paulus und Petrus in Antiochien war ein Ereignis, dessen Bedeutung für die Geschichte des christlichen Glaubens nicht überschätzt werden kann. Hier haben sich nicht persönliche Spannungen entladen, sondern es sind Weichen für das Verhältnis der jungen heidenchristlichen Gemeinde zu Judentum und Judenchristentum gestellt worden, die für die Geschichte der christlichen Kirche entscheidend waren.

Colossians 2.15 is a notoriously difficult verse both to translate and to interpret. While textual problems are minimal, lexical, syntactical, and historical problems abound. The interpretation of almost every word or phrase has been disputed. Punctuation too is open to more than one possibility. F. Prat writes:

Ob der schriftgelehrte Nachfolgekandidat in Mt 8. 19–20 von Jesus angenommen oder abgewiesen wird, ist eine umstrittene Frage. Neulich hat J. D. Kingsbury für die letztere Alternative entschieden Stellung genommen.

One of the most troubling statements of the New Testament is to be found at Matt 27. 24–25, part of the special Matthean material of the Passion Narrative in the First Gospel:

It has been now nearly a quarter century since W. C. van Unnik labelled the two-volume work to which we refer in abbreviated form as Luke–Acts as ‘a storm center in contemporary scholarship’. He referred in particular to the issues of redaction criticism, of the purpose of Acts, of the theological approach in Luke–Acts to the problem of the delay of the parousia, of the author's treatment of Paul, of the character and function of the speeches in Acts, and of whether it was proper to refer to the theological position of Luke–Acts as ‘early Catholic’ and therefore, in the minds of the German Lutheran theologians who were raising that question, as degraded, fallen from the early purity of Paul's Christianity, and unworthy of theological consideration today.

J. Neusner and E. P. Sanders have directed scholarly attention to Mark 11. 15–19 and its parallels. Sanders used this pericope to demonstrate his belief that this was the most trustworthy report of any of Jesus' teachings and actions, and Neusner presumed its historical validity while conjecturing that on this occasion Jesus repudiated Jewish temple sacrifice and intended to substitute for the tables in the temple the Eucharist table as a means of obtaining atonement. These are bold claims and prompt a further analysis of the relevant passage:

The grammatical peculiarities in the Greek of the book of Revelation have long been noted. In his recent SNTS monograph Steven Thompson re-examines ‘the peculiar language associated with the verb and with clauses in the Apc which have for centuries been a source of perplexity and misunderstanding’. The major portion of this work, based on his dissertation under Matthew Black, looks at the ‘un-Greek use of the verb’ and attributes it to ‘the influence of Semitic syntax, primarily biblical Hebrew’. Reviewers have observed that Thompson uses evidence mostly from the LXX, without directly considering the influence of the LXX itself. Barnabas Lindars evaluates the evidence as suggesting ‘familiarity with the biblical Hebrew and its representation in LXX’. Max Wilcox notes Thompson's dependence on the LXX as a major weakness in the argument: ‘it is also necessary to show why those constructions may not owe their presence in Revelation to some form of influence of the LXX or perhaps even to a deliberate modelling of the language and style of the book on that of Old Testament Hebrew or Aramaic in translation’.

The importance of the style of authors in solving textual problems in the Greek New Testament is without dispute in New Testament textual criticism today. It is an acknowledged part of every version of the eclectic method currently in use, although it does not always carry the same weight in the different versions of this method. However, when one turns to the practice of textual criticism, it becomes apparent that this aspect of text-critical methodology is not without its problems. Not only has it been shown by critics of UBS/NA26 that an author's style is often overlooked by the editors of these texts,3 but when one pages through the Textual Commentary the problems of putting this criterion into practice become clear, since it is sometimes acknowledged that other evidence forced the editors to print a reading which does not display the general style of an author.

The figure ‘like a son of man’ in John's initial vision on Patmos, after identifying himself as ‘the first and the last and the living one’ who ‘died and behold I am alive for ever and ever’, (Rev 1.17– 18), directs the prophet in v. 19 to ‘Write therefore the things you have seen [ἃ εδες] and the things that are [ἃ εἰσίν] and the things that are going to happen afterward [ἃ μέλλει γενέσθαι μετà τατα].’ This pronouncement is commonly regarded as a clue of some kind to the structure or message of the Book of Revelation, yet it is seldom discussed in detail by the commentators.

The translation of Heb 3.14 has been a matter of dispute. The problem lies in the ambiguity of the Greek μἐτοχοι τον χριστον. Some, like Spicq, render the clause ‘we are partners with Christ’ in the sense of companionship. The meaning would be like that of τοὺς μἐόχους σου (‘your companions’) in 1.9. Others, such as Westcott, prefer ‘partakers of Christ’ in the sense of ‘having part in him’ as in the ἔπepsilon;ις μἐρôς μἐ’ ὲμον of John 13.8. Finally others, such as O. Michel, see in it an inclusive sense encompassing both companionship with and participation in Christ.

The message and world of the epistle of Jude are strangely unfamiliar to the modern reader. Even among students of the NT this unfamiliarity is conspicuous. One is hard-pressed to find a single monograph which deals with exegetical or theological problems raised by the letter. The general neglect of the book is doubtless due, at least in part, to a lack of understanding regarding the epistle's historical setting.

The Epistle, or perhaps preferably The Homily to the Hebrews, has always been one of the more intriguing and neglected documents in the NT canon. The history of the difficulties this document had getting into the canon do not need to be rehearsed here. It appears in the end Hebrews made it into the canon because it was deemed a Pauline letter, or at least a document that came from the larger Pauline circle.