Heracleon's commentary on the Fourth Gospel has always intrigued Patristic scholars concerned with the history of exegesis.1 Rarely has it evoked equal interest among textual critics concerned with the history of the NT text. In part this is due to the unfortunate bifurcation of the disciplines, a breach that has begun to mend only in recent years.2 Perhaps in greater part it is due to the nature of the materials. Heracleon's work is preserved almost exclusively in the citations of Origen, who wrote his own exposition, in some measure, as a rebuttal. Origen never completed his commentary on John; of the thirty-two volumes that he did produce, we have just nine. In these we find scattered quotations drawn from the work of his predecessor, cited primarily in order to be refuted. In all, there are not quite fifty such quotations, ranging from two or three lines of Greek text in the standard edition up to several dozen.3

In The Oral and Written Gospel, Werner Kelber argues that the first written gospel was an attempt to supersede oral tradition by the creation of a literary ‘counterform’. It aimed to discredit ‘oral authorities’ (identified as the disciples and family of Jesus and Christian prophets). Similarly, the paucity of sayings in Mark indicates a suspicion of the sayings genre, which is taken to be the oral genre par excellence. The sayings represent the living voice of the living Lord. The substitution of a written gospel would silence that voice as an ongoing phenomenon by relegating it to the dead past. The passion narrative is essentially the creation of Mark, and with its emphasis on the death and post-resurrectional silence of Jesus, creates a new Christology in opposition to the ‘oral Christology’ of the sayings, which never refer to the death of Jesus. The net effect of the written gospel was to inaugurate a theology (or ‘hermeneutic’) of death and absence in contradiction to the principle of presence that informed the oral tradition.

An interesting literary feature within many of the narratives of the Gospels and Acts relates to the way in which certain names – ‘Simon’, ‘Jesus of Nazareth’, ‘son of Jonah’ and ‘son of John’ – are used distinctively in conversation or direct speech. These names differ in nature and narrative function, but as a group they share two characteristics. First, in the majority of cases where they appear nothing in the narrative context demands the choice of the particular name in question, nor is it easy to attribute a theological motive for its presence. Secondly, while these names sound natural on the lips of the characters in the narratives, they are seldom employed when the narrator speaks with his own voice, and seem not to have been in common use among those a step or two removed from the time or place portrayed in the narrative. Their use, then, appears to reflect a concern to portray details realistically. This article seeks to examine this feature more closely, and then to consider how an observable attention to realistic detail might contribute to our understanding of the origin of the material in which it occurs.

Substantial reasons for rethinking the function of Rom 1.18–32 have emerged in recent studies. The traditional interpretation which continues to be widely accepted asserts that 1.18–32 is one piece of a larger section, 1.18–3.20, which, as a whole, establishes the sinfulness of all humankind. Having shown that to be the case with both Gentiles and Jews, Paul then turns in 3.21 to set forth the solution to that problem. One consequence of this interpretation has been the tendency to isolate 1.18–32 from what follows. The claim of Otto Michel that Rom 1.18–32 is ‘ein Beispiel der Missions-predigt des Pls’ not only illustrates this tendency but is of special interest for the thesis of this presentation.

Proposals urging that 1 Corinthians is a composite of two or more letters have not won wide support. Those who reject such proposals argue that the letter's abrupt shifts in subject matter can be readily accounted for by deeming them Paul's seriatim response to a diverse range of issues and problems made known to him through a combination of oral reports (1.11; 5.1; 11.18; 15.12) and a letter from the Corinthians (7.1). While 2 Corinthians is widely regarded as a composite of several letters, 1 Corinthians by contrast is not.

The genre of 1 Cor 13 remains a problem, despite nearly universal agreement on the structure of the chapter. Eleven different genres have been proposed.Yet, as D. A. Carson has noted, only two of those options, hymn and paraenesis, have attracted much scholarly backing.

1.1 Seit der Arbeit von Karl Weidinger ist die – im Anschluß an Martin Dibelius ausgearbeitete – These akzeptiert, daß es im Neuen Testament ‘Haustafeln’ gibt. Die seitherige Forschung hat sich zwar nicht zufrieden gegeben mit der von Weidinger vertre-tenen These hinsichtlich der Frage, wo diese Haustafeln ihren religionsgeschichtlichen bzw. traditionsgeschichtlichen Hinter-grund haben. Dennoch wurde überwiegend seine Ableitung von der durch das hellenistische Judentum vermittelten stoischen Pflichtenlehre als plausibel angenommen, wenn auch z.T. nur mangels besserer Alternative. Weniger Resonanz fanden Ver-suche, die Haustafeln ganz vom atl-jüdischen Hintergrund her zu verstehen (Lohmeyer) oder in ihnen genuin christliche Schöpfun-gen zu sehen (Rengstorf, Schroeder). Eine deutliche Modifikation der These Weidingers stellte die Arbeit von Crouch dar, der stärker die jüdisch-hellenistische Ausprägung betonte sowie in der ältesten christlichen Haustafel (Kol) eine speziell anti-enthusiastische Aus-richtung sah.