The nearly three decades since the publication of E. P. Sanders's work on Paul and Judaism have witnessed a spate of new proposals for reading Gal 3.10, one of the most difficult and contested passages in Paul's letters. For some, the ‘traditional’ interpretation is still preferred, though the ‘exile/restoration’ reading has gained some momentum recently. The following article will critique both of these readings, proposing a new interpretation of this passage, one that regards Paul as citing Deut 27.26 in continuity with its meaning in its narrative setting and that finds an interpretive grid in the logic he unfolds in Gal 2.15–21.

For whom and for what, to what audience and to what purpose, were the four Gospels written? This is one of the most elementary questions of New Testament study, and one might think that by now the answers could be given with some degree of certainty and consent. And of the first three Gospels I think this is broadly true. Naturally there will always be room for fresh lines of development and approach, but they are unlikely to modify very radically the conclusions which can be found set out in any text-book. If one had to reduce these conclusions to their barest summary, one could say, without immediate fear of contradiction, that St Matthew's Gospel was evidently written for a Jewish-Christian community, and that its overall purpose was broadly speaking catechetical; that St Mark's Gospel was composed for a predominantly Gentile community and that its primary purpose was kerygmatic, setting out, for the use of the Church, a summary of its proclamation; and that St Luke's Gospel, as he himself indicates, was again addressed, though more generally, to the Graeco-Roman world, and that its purpose was instructional, with the defence and confirmation of the Gospel as a dominant motif.

The choice of the topic for this lecture* has been influenced by the publication, in the course of last year, of some significant new monographs on questions related to John 21. In several quarters of Johannine studies, we can observe a reconsideration of Chapter 21 in its relation to the Gospel, with renewed interest in the problem of the Beloved Disciple. There is alsoa revival of the source-critical approach, with new reconstructions of the traditional miracle story behind the verses 1–14. And, of course, there is continuing debate on Joh's use of the Synoptics, from which, to say the least, John 21 is not wholly absent. I begin my presentation with the first part of the Chapter, verses 1–14, and the hypothesis of a ‘pre-Johannine’ source.

This paper will deal with a number of passages in the Fourth Gospel in which Jews express Jewish beliefs concerning the Messiah. Three of these are found in the debates among various groups in Jerusalem which are recorded in chapter vii; they all deal with the coming of the Messiah.

It has long been almost taken for granted that Luke-Acts is a historical work. Recently, however, C. H. Talbert has argued that Luke-Acts is biography rather than history, thereby re-opening the question of the genre of Luke-Acts. In what follows I will discuss one feature of Luke-Acts which does not support the contention that it is biography. I will argue that the preface of Luke-Acts resembles the prefaces of histories more than those of biographies or any other ancient prose writings. And I will further attempt to specify what historical prefaces it most resembles, and thus what sort of historian, on the evidence of the preface, the author of Luke-Acts was Comparison of prefaces cannot by itself settle the question of the genre of Luke-Acts, but it may make an important contribution. It is often true (and certainly true in the case of Luke-Acts) that the author speaks most directly in his preface. Because of this the preface may provide the best indication of the writer's own understanding of what he is doing, which is an important consideration in addressing the question of genre.

‘For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.’ This hard saying has been attributed by the consensus of commentators in this century to rabbinical teaching. Obedience or disobedience to certain laws, such as that about fringes and phylacteries, had the status in late Judaism of observing or transgressing the entire code. The rule of the epistle, then, merely repeats current midrash. In an earlier century, however, the association of this verse was Hellenistic rather than Judaic. Corresponding with Jerome concerning his perplexity about its meaning, Augustine indicates the affinity of James 2. 10 with the Stoic paradox that all virtues and vices are equal, and its corollary that he who has one virtue has all while he who lacks one has none. A Stoic source for this verse was still evident more than a millennium later to the editor of the first Greek New Testament to be published (1516), Erasmus of Rotterdam. In the same era another distinguished exegete, Martin Luther, likely considered James 2. 10 a Stoic paradox. At the turn of this century Joseph B. Mayor reported Augustine's attribution neutrally and catalogued numerous resemblances between the theories and maxims of Stoicism and this epistle. Martin Dibelius deliberated to indecision about its source, conceding that while the Stoic paradox and the rabbinical praxis were in origin distinct, by the time of Philo at least they had become indistinguishable teaching.

Do we find the principle of ‘loving one's enemies’ or precursors thereof in pre-Christian antiquity? In the Greco-Roman tradition we find as a common maxim ‘helping friends and harming enemies’ combined with the talio and the Golden Rule. Only Socrates and some Roman stoics recommend never to take revenge. In the OT Lev 19.18 may possibly be interpreted as a commandment of loving one's enemies. The first to have understood Lev 19.18 in this sense seems to be Jesus. Christians have too rarely lived up to his commandment.

This paper seeks first to refute the recent thesis of J. R. Edwards that the Gospel of the Ebionites may be identified as a source of Luke. It then discusses the importance of the Gospel of the Ebionites as a potential witness to two variant readings in the synoptic tradition, and argues that its evidence deserves a place in the apparatus to Luke 3.22 in hand editions of the Greek NT.

In a recent article, Goodrich has revived the thesis of Theissen, that Erastos, the οἰκονόμος τῆς πόλεως (Rom 16.23), held the office of quaestor when Paul met him in Corinth. This article, however, argues that the municipal office of quaestor did not exist in Corinth.

Galatians 3. 28 illustrates the fact that all too often meaning is in the eye of the beholder and that without proper care and attention to the context, text becomes pretext. We are told by some commentators that Gal. 3. 28 is the ‘Magna Carta of Humanity’, and especially the ‘Emancipation Proclamation for Women’. Others insist just as strongly that this text is dealing with one's position Coram Deo and has no implications for social relations within the Body of Christ. One scholar has even suggested that Paul's male–female terminology and his mentioning of baptism means that Paul is arguing for infant, as well as adult, baptism. In light of the present confusion concerning this text, it will perhaps be best to attempt to set this verse in its historical and literary context before proceeding to examine the exegetical intricacies involved.

Gehenna, we all know, is a Hebrew word which means hell. It appears often in Jewish texts of the Hellenistic and Roman periods as well as in the New Testament. In this paper we hope to show that the use of this word in Matthew and Luke, when analyzed in the context of Jewish notions of retribution, offers us an important key to understanding Matthew's and Luke's beliefs concerning eschatology, retribution, and their interrelationship.

The Church drew no distinction between such utterances by Christian prophets (ascribed to the ascended Christ) and the sayings of Jesus in the tradition, for the reason that even the dominical sayings in the tradition were not the pronouncements of a past authority, but sayings of the risen Lord, who is always a contemporary for the Church.

Anders als früher wird der erste apokalyptische Reiter (s. Apk 6.1–2) in unserem Jahrhundert (u.a.: W. Bousset; M. Rissi; A. Kerkeslager) oft als negative Gestalt begriffen (I). Wichtige Argumente sprechen gegen diese jüngere und für die ältere Sicht. Synchron (II) ist zunächst das Vokabular geltend zu machen, nämlich zumal das intransitive ṿιкόλεụкό ς; auβer-dem unterscheidet sich das zu diesem Reiter Ausgeführte auch struk-turell erheblich von den Formulierungen hinsichtlich der folgenden Pferde (vgl. bes. 6.2,4 mit der Entgegensetzung in 12.1,3). Überdies gilt diachron (III): Apk 6.1–8 weist deutliche Entsprechungen zu Theo-phanieschilderungen auf, und da hat haufig der positive Aspekt des Erscheinens Gottes vor negativen Phänomenen seinen Platz (s. z.B. Hab 3LXX; äthHen 87–9).

Als niemand ahnen konnte, daß die urchristliche Bewegung einmal die ganze Kultur verwandeln und gestalten sollte, waren ihre Missionare nicht die angesehenen Gründer des Christentums, sondern heimatlos vagabundierende Propagandisten ohne Erwerb und Wohnsitz. Sie verkörperten eineForm sozial-abweichenden Verhaltens, das sich grundlegenden Normen und Notwendigkeiten der Gesellschaft entzogen hatte; man denke an die Nachfolgegebote der Heimat- und Besitz-, Schutz- und Familienlosigkeit. Sie predigten und lebten so eine Freiheit gegenüber grundlegenden sozialen Verpflichtungen, die nur für den praktizierbar ist, der sich den stabilisierendenund domestizierenden Wirkungen kontinuierlichen Arbeitslebens entzogen hat – nicht durch Privilegien des Besitzes, sondern durch die asketische Armut einer ungesicherten Randexistenz, die dem Leben kynischer Wanderphilosophen vergleichbar ist. Nun ist aber auch der größte Asket auf Lebensunterhalt angewiesen. Wenn er selbst nicht arbeitet, heißit das: Er ist auf andere Menschen angewiesen, die für ihn arbeiten. Er bleibt so auf handfeste Weise an diese Welt gebunden, mag er sich auch sonst noch so sehr von ihr distanzieren. Die Frage des Lebensunterhaltsrührt daher an die Wurzeln seiner geistigen Existenz, sie berührtdie Glaubwürdigkeit seiner exponierten Lebensweise. Es ist daher sicherlich kein Zufall, daß diese Frage in den Anweisungen an urchristliche Wanderprediger einen breiten Raum einnimmt (vgl. die Aussendungsrede Lc. x. 3 ff. parr.), daß sie in den Gemeinderegeln für den Umgang mit wandernden Charismatikern dominiert (Mt. x. 40–2; Did. xi) und zu einem zentralen Thema in den Auseinander-setzungen zwischen konkurrierenden Wanderpredigern werden konnte (I Cor. ix; II Cor. x-xiii): Die soziale Legitimität der wandernden Prediger hängt in der Tat weitgehend davon ab, wie sie sich ihren Lebensunterhalt verschaffen.

Previous attempts to explain the case of πορνεία in 1 Cor 5 have inadequately addressed the social and legal consequences of the relationship and the motivation of the individuals. When these are considered from the perspective of Roman law and customs it is more likely that the woman was the concubina of the man's father, not his stepmother. As such, the relationship was unusual but it was not considered illegal or immoral by the Corinthians. Paul, however, would not have understood the difference and thus saw it as.πορνεία

Markan intercalation has been recognized in the scholarly literature for more than sixty years. It is a literary technique in which one Markan story is begun but is then interrupted by another. After the conclusion of this ‘inner’ story the first story is rejoined and completed. The majority of investigators of this storytelling pattern agree that it occurs at least six times in Mark as follows:

The discussion about the meaning of the title ‘Son of Man’ continues to be a lively part of the quest for the historical Jesus. Nevertheless the discussion gives the impression of having come to a kind of stalemate; and this suggests that we ought to examine the method by which it has been pursued, to see if a fruitful alternative method can be found. The method usually followed is dominated by these three characteristics:

(1) Diligent investigation is devoted to trying to distinguish which of the Son of Man sayings in the gospels (if any) are genuine sayings of Jesus.

(2) It is accepted that the synoptic Son of Man sayings fall into three distinct groups, referring (a) to Jesus during his earthly life as Son of Man, (b) to predictions of Jesus' death and resurrection as Son of Man, and (c) to the future coming of the Son of Man at the end of the age. Since the meaning of the title is understood to differ from group to group, and especially between the last group and the other two, the discussion of genuineness has mostly taken the form of asking within which group or groups the genuine sayings are to be sought.

(3) With respect to the meaning of the title, attention is concentrated on the status which it connotes (e.g. lowliness, suffering, exaltation, authority, vindication, heavenly enthronement, etc.), but little inquiry is made concerning the function which the Son of Man performs.