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).