When Krister Stendahl's article “Biblical Theology” appeared in the Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible in 1962, it caused no little consternation in some circles. He insisted that the primary intellectual task of the biblical scholar was to make a clear distinction between what the text meant in its original setting and what it means. That ran directly counter to the practical aims of the dominant interpretive schools of the day, which wanted, as Karl Barth had once said, to dissolve “the differences between then and now.” Today the distinction for which Stendahl argued so lucidly is taken for granted in most biblical scholarship, and the question is whether there can be any significant connection between “then” and “now.” New Testament studies threatens to divide into two contrary ways of reading texts. One is a rigorously historical quest, in which all the early Christian documents alike, canonical and extracanonical, are treated as sources for reconstructing the diverse and curious varieties of the early Christian movement. The other way of reading cares not at all where the texts came from or what they originally meant; by purely literary analysis it wishes to help text and reader to confront one another continually anew.

Vernon K. Robbins' Jesus the Teacher: A Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation of Mark points to the master-disciple relationship as the critical structure in that Gospel. He sees three phases: the initial one, involving summons and response; the intermediate phase, encompassing teaching and learning; and the final phase, one of farewell and death. Robbins' stimulating account at the first two points compares Mark's portrait of the relationship with, among others, the relationship between master and disciple related in stories in the writings of the ancient rabbis of the Talmud and related literature. When he reaches the final phase, however, Robbins does not undertake such a comparison. It seems to me a suggestive exercise. So, in honor of the great master honored in this volume, I shall begin to fill the gap in Robbins' fine account.

In his undergraduate classes in New Testament Introduction, Krister Stendahl used to cite 1 Cor 15:8 as a classic example of a text with an exegetical crux that is signalled through diverse translations in the modern versions. The crucial word is ἔκτρωμα, literally “abortion,” “miscarriage,” “embryo,” or “stillborn child.” Cataloging the witnesses to the Resurrection, Paul states that the risen Christ appeared to him last, as to “an (or the) ektrðma.” But in what sense does the apostle apply the metaphor to himself?

Krister Stendahl represents, to my mind, the very best of Scandinavian-style “realistic interpretation” of the Bible, resolutely faithful in his exegesis to the historical situation of the text and its author but then marvelously insightful in eliciting from the text a fresh and sometimes surprising address to contemporary issues in church and society. As is well known, it is precisely Stendahl's interest in relations between Jews and Christians (Jewish and Gentile) that has made so much of his New Testament work so stimulating and innovative. As it happens, though, his research has tended to concentrate geographically on that large sweep of territory “from Jerusalem and as far round as Illyricum.” What I want to do in this article in his honor is to explore an area relatively untouched by my teacher—Alexandria—in an effort to see if anything can be said of Jewish-Christian relations there in the first century. In doing this I must perforce extend our investigation mainly to noncanonical sources. Even so the task is formidable, for the first-century Alexandrian church is, as Stendahl says, something “about which we know nothing.” What follows is, therefore, largely a matter of inference, at least insofar as it bears upon first-century Christianity in Alexandria. Insofar as it bears upon first-century Judaism, that giant among Jewish exegetes and philosophers, Philo Judaeus, will play a substantial role.

It is curious that, despite Paul's representation of baptism as a burial (Rom 6:3–4; cf. Col 2:12), his understanding of baptism has not been considered in terms of funerary rites. Rather, the symbolic and initiatory character of baptismal burial, together with its close association with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, has for about a century produced debate over alleged relationships between Pauline baptism and the initiatory rites of Hellenistic mystery cults. This essay, in honor of Krister Stendahl, is intended to demonstrate that, whatever the associations with mystery cults may be, Paul's understanding of the process of dying in which all believers participate from the moment of their baptismal burial is fundamentally informed by funerary practices and ideas. My thesis is that Pauline baptism is most comprehensively explained in terms of the widely attested, cross-cultural phenomenon of secondary or double burial. I will sketch first some of the distinctive features of Paul's views on the death of believers, then lay out some of the results of research on secondary burial, and then conclude with a few comments on Paul's perspective on the believer's experience.

In Luke 24:47 we are told that Jesus explained to the Emmaus disciples “Moses and all the prophets” and “interpreted in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” This statement reflects Luke's intense interest, both in his Gospel and in Acts, in the relationship between the ancient scriptures and the events of the life of Jesus and the activity of the apostles. In this paper I shall discuss briefly the variety of ways in which Luke quotes, paraphrases, and alludes to the scriptures.

The dean of contemporary Jewish historians, S. W. Baron, has shown that many modern conceptions of Jewish experience in medieval Christian Europe suffer from a fundamental distortion. Writing history was not a natural vocation for medieval Jews; most Jewish historiography was inspired by calamities that generated the impulse to record and, if possible, to explain. Therefore, most medieval Jewish chronicles are little more than accounts of the massacres and attacks suffered by various communities at different times. The tendency to assume that these historiographical sources present a full picture of reality resulted in what Baron called the “lachrymose conception of Jewish history,” viewing medieval Jewish experience as essentially a succession of tragedies in a vale of tears.

Some years ago in an examination of the text noted above, I hypothesized that it could well be a response to some Christian theological position being set forth and argued against Judaism in Galilee in the fourth and fifth centuries. My choice of doctrine was that of the atonement: Christ's atoning death for the sins of humankind. The chapter, to be dealt with below in detail, is in its entirety an argument for the atoning efficacy of the death of righteous persons, that is, a doctrine of vicarious atonement. The material included centered upon the lesson read in the synagogue on the Day of Atonement, the sixteenth chapter of Leviticus. This details the ritual procedures that were to take place once a year on the tenth day of the seventh month in the cult center, in order to expiate for the ritual uncleannness and acts of rebellion, that is, “all the sins of the people.” It concludes with the words: “This shall become a rule binding on you for all times, to make for the Israelites once a year the expiation required by all their sins.”

While the topic of this paper is familiar, I believe that one source of information has been generally neglected: the arguments that Paul does not use. Since Bishop Stendahl has done so much to illuminate Paul's words, it seems appropriate to dedicate to him this brief sketch of things to be learned from Paul's silence.

The document which is presented here is extant in MS no. 31 of the Library of the Mechitarist Fathers in Vienna. It was described by J. Dashian in his magistral catalogue of that collection. The MS is without colophons and so the names of the scribe, as well as the place in which it was copied, remain unknown. Dashian dated it on palaeographic grounds to the 17th-18th centuries. Although the primary document transmitted is a collection of fables, there are many diverse documents interspersed among them. One is the present work, of which Dashian notes no other copy.

Paul of Tarsus, first-century Diaspora-Jew-become-Christian, became, through Augustine and Luther, the canonical theologian for Protestant Christianity. Consequently, his theology has been of overwhelming interest, whether in research, teaching, or preaching. This dominating concern with his theology, however, has diverted interest from other significant deposits Paul left us in his letters. F. W. Beare, in a study on “St. Paul as Spiritual Director,” has shown that this itinerant preacher of primitive Christianity has left us a record of his pastoral concerns that can still serve as a useful model for the modern pastor. A growing number of scholarly articles on Paul and women shows that while Paul sometimes simply reflects a male-dominated social reality, he occasionally envisions freedom and equality for women. Disappointment in other aspects of Paul's social perspective is largely overcome when that perspective is sought within his teaching on the church which, in his apocalyptic orientation, would be the continuing social reality.

“Lord, at this time are you restoring the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6)

The disciples' leading question in Acts 1:6 sets the context for Luke's narration of the last words which the risen Jesus speaks on earth. The Lord's oracular answer clearly divides in two parts. Acts 1:7 conveys a sharp caution to those who would speculate about God's timetable: “It is not yours to know the periods or occasions which the Father has established in his own authority.” Yet Jesus' final words respond positively to the question of restoration by revealing the deployment of theocratic dominion, even indicating the geographic staging of Acts: “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the end of the earth” (1:8).

Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho has been considered one of the basic documents for an understanding of the theological contacts and discussions between Christians and Jews in the second century. Several scholars have studied the Dialogue in an attempt to ascertain the main ideas, the fundamental questions, and the principal attitudes involved in such contacts. The inquiry, however, does not appear to have reached definitive conclusions. There has been a diversity of opinion due mainly to the complexity of the problems, to the ambiguity of the pertinent data, and to the theological presuppositions of the researchers. Specific questions like “How well did Justin know and represent his contemporary Judaism?” seem to be more and more, but not completely, settled. Others, however, such as the degree of friendliness or hostility between Jews and Christians displayed in the Dialogue, remain in a condition of fluidity.

For most Christians Jerusalem is a heavenly city of solace and peace, a safe haven after the trials of life in this world. “Jerusalem whose towers touch the skies, I yearn to come to you. Your shining streets have drawn my longing eyes, my life long journey through …” It is a symbol of the soul's yearning to find rest in God. “Jerusalem my happy home, when shall I come to thee, when shall my sorrows have an end, thy joys when shall I see?” Yet Jerusalem is also an actual city set on a hill on the edge of a desert, a city where Christians live and have lived for centuries but whose population today is largely Muslim and Jewish. At one time, in the years prior to the Muslim invasion of Palestine in the seventh century, it was the chief city in a land ruled by Christians. More than five hundred churches and monasteries marked the landscape and thousands of monks inhabited the caves of the Judaean desert. Jerusalem's eloquent bishops and learned priests wielded power in the great capital of the Byzantine world, Constantinople on the Bosporus.

New Testament scholars, as well as preachers, are in frequent danger of perpetuating negative stereotypes about the Jews. The reason for this state of affairs is that the polemical anti-Jewish remarks in the NT are often simply repeated or paraphrased in the interpreter's context without attention to the difference in meaning these remarks have when read in their original social and historical contexts. Krister Stendahl has done much to sensitize Christians to this danger in his writing, public speaking, and teaching. This concern about relations between Jews and Christians today is a major reason for doing a historical analysis of the passages in the book of Revelation in which Jews are vilified (2:9 and 3:9).