I think I should begin with an apology for my temerity in accepting your invitation to discuss the Dead Sea material as a whole. Such a discussion is certainly premature while the greater part of the material is still unpublished, and while certain basic studies of the documents have yet to be made, or, at least, made public. The question of the palaeographic dating of the manuscripts, for instance, which could have great consequences for the reconstruction of the history of the sect, must remain sub judice until we have the material fully before us.

Discussions of this chapter tend to show the need for background knowledge. Much as commentators disagree as to the meaning of the parable of the Steward,1 all are agreed as to the embarrassment it has caused.2 Attempts to connect the parable with earlier and subsequent matter have been few, and scarcely convincing. Because the parable has not been understood, keys to the connexion between the verses which complete the chapter, and indeed between the parable, them, and the first two verses of the next chapter, have been overlooked.

ʿι πτπχοī τῷ πνΕύματι has been given a number of interpretations due to the number of different meanings that have been attached to the two terms in the phrase. No attempt is made here to give an exhaustive discussion of earlier work, but rather a new interpretation is tentatively suggested.

However interesting ‘The Gospel According to Thomas’1 may be to students of the primitive Church, it seems at first sight highly improbable that this strange farrago of sayings will make any contribution to our knowledge of Jesus' teaching. And yet to the New Testament scholar the Gospel according to Thomas is perhaps the most interesting of all the manuscripts found near Nag Hammadi in 1945, inasmuch as some of its contents have affinities with the sayings and parables of Jesus which are found in the canonical gospels. A comparison of the parables and similitudes found in Thomas with parallel material in the synoptic gospels2 raises fascinating and fundamental problems of higher criticism.

Cette note ne prétend pas offrix une étude exhaustive du chiasme dans le quatriè, e évangile; elle veut, à l'aide de trois exemples, attirer l'attention des critiques sur cette figure de style. Elle s'en tient volontairement au texte actuel, refusant provisoirement d'examiner les sources utilisées et de développer les considerations exégétiques et théologiques qui découlent des constations littéraires.

The question of the High Priest: ‘Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?’, and the answer of Jesus, mark the culmination of the trial of Jesus. At least this is how it has generally come to be regarded among Christians. This conception, however, is supported by the accounts of Mark and Matthew only. In John we have neither question nor answer. In Luke we have the question, but it is not asked by the High Priest himself; but by the chief priests and scribes (xxii. 6). Furthermore, in Luke the single question in Mark and Matthew: ‘Art thou the Christ, the Son of God?’ is divided into two questions: first, ‘Art thou the Christ?’, and then, ‘Art thou then the Son of God?’ Moreover, the crime of Jesus in Luke is not described as ‘blasphemy’.

Oscar Cullmanns Petrusbuch — es ist jüngst neu erschienen1 — verdient die Anerkennung, die es gefunden hat. Es liest sich glänzend. Der Aufbau ist durchsichtig, die Beweisführung eindrucksvoll, die Polemik vornehm. Aber auch in seiner vervollkommneten Gestalt läßt das Werk noch Raum für Fragen, die freilich zum Teil über seinen Bereich hinausragen. Wir beschränken uns hier auf den Abschnitt, welcher die überschrift trägt: ‘Petrus der Apostel’, und greifen Probleme heraus, die das Verhältnis zwischen Petrus und Paulus betreffen.

According to the general consensus of expert opinion the Gospel of Mark was composed sometime between the years A.D. 65–75. But most authorities find that they cannot leave this decade as just a convenient round figure; for it contains the cimacteric year 70, when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman armies. Accordingly, they endeavour to define the date of the Gospel's composition more precisely in relation to this event. Those who elect for a pre-70 date usually give as their reason for so doing that fact, as they see it, that the Gospel contains no explicit reference to this signal event. Such a conclusion is rarely felt to need a detailed justification, it being apparently assumed that mention of the fact is reason enough; it has possibly been thought also that no vital issue turns upon establishing precisely a pre-70 date.