It is argued that ἐκκλησία was first used by the Hellenists, probably in Jerusalem, and that it was chosen because of its strong background in the lxx. This raises the issue of why ἐκκλησία was chosen rather than συναγωγή, which occurs over twice as often in the lxx. The case is put that ἐκκλησία was chosen because συναγωγή was already in use by Jewish communities as a designation for their groups and their buildings. This view has not been argued for in detail, and the implications of this choice have not been fully explored. Through the use of ἐκκλησία the Hellenists could express their continuity with the OT ‘assembly’ of the people of God and could also distinguish themselves from other Jewish communities, without making the claim that they alone were the heirs of that people.

The use of Ioudaioi in the Fourth Gospel (hereafter, FG) has attracted much scholarly attention. It is a consistent conclusion of such investigation that the term Ioudaioi in the gospel has a variety of meanings. It is also noted and generally agreed upon that one of the ways in which the term is used is unique to John among New Testament authors and indeed among ancient authors in general; it is this unique usage of Ioudaioi which has been the focus of the investigation. However if we look only at this peculiarly Johannine use of Ioudaioi we find that scholars have disagreed both about which texts within the gospel constitute this usage and also about the identity of the persons referred to by the term. Some authors have seen this usage as referring to the entire Jewish nation composed of both the common people and the narrower circle of religious authorities. Other scholars have considered the term to refer exclusively to religious authorities.

Die Interpretation der neutestamentlichen Haustafeln ist bis heute bestimmt durch die von Martin Dibelius begründete und von seinem Schüler Karl Weidinger ausgeführte These, die Haustafeln seien in der Tradition der Pflichtentafeln vor allem der stoischen Philosophie zu interpretieren. Der klassische Text, der seither in kaum einer Äußerung zum Thema fehlt, ist Epiktet, diss. 17, 31: ‘Ich will als Frommer und als Philosoph und als umsichtiger Mensch wissen, was meine Pflicht gegenüber den Göttern ist, was gegenüber den Eltern, was gegenüber den Brüdern, was gegenüber dem Vaterland, was gegenüber Fremden.’ Wichtig ist hier auch das von K. Praechter aus verschiedenen Stobaios-Exzerpten rekonstruierte Werk des Stoikers Hierokies – spätere Textfunde haben Praechters Rekonstruktion glänzend bestätigt. Die Aufnahme solchen traditionellen ethischen Guts geschah nach Dibelius unter Vermittlung durch das hellenistische Judentum, was er und Weidinger mit Josephus, Philo und PsPhokylides belegen.

In a number of episodes in the Fourth Gospel, Jesus appears to act inconsistently. That is, he proceeds to act positively after giving a negative response to a suggestion that has been presented to him in view of something considered to be an urgent human need. Four episodes that contain this repeated pattern prove to be the beginning of his signs (John 2. 1 ff.), the second, encore sign at Cana (4. 46 ff.), the discussion about going up to the feast of Tabernacles (7. 2 ff.), and the sign of the raising of Lazarus (11. 1 ff.). Some, like Bultmann, have noted elements of the pattern in one or other passage only to misconstrue the issue. Others, notably R. H. Lightfoot, R. E. Brown and C. K. Barrett, have singled out two or three instances of the pattern and have shed some helpful light on its function, albeit in a restricted literary context. Together, all four commentators prompt one's attention to these four related passages. Neither their inquiries nor those of others suggest that additional Johannine passages need directly be considered. Curiously, however, no one scholar has indicated that all four passages exemplify the same pattern. Not surprisingly, the various analyses of the pattern that scholars have offered prove to be inadequate. For they have not attempted to cover all the relevant instances. Nor, as will appear, have they explained in a way that does justice to the data in the text the instances that they have noted.

This article examines the relationships between adornment, gender and honour in the Graeco-Roman world in order to provide a broad context for understanding the attempts to curtail women's adornment in 1 Tim 2.9 and 1 Pet 3.3. It argues that while many male writers criticize women who adorn themselves, often accusing such women of luxuria, not all women shared such a perspective. Rather, women may well have valued jewellery, fine clothes and elaborate hair as means of conveying status and honour, and as important forms of economic power. These factors require consideration when attempting to understand why the authors of 1 Timothy and 1 Peter counsel women to avoid gold, pearls, braided hair and fine clothing.

Ματθαιος μεν εγραψεν Εβραιοις θαυματα Χριστου,

Μαρκος δ Ιταλιη,

Λουκας Αχαιαδι,

Πασι δ Ιωαννης,

κηρυξ μεγας, ουρανοϕοιτης.

(Gregory of Nazianzus, Carmina dogmatica 1.12.6–9)

Richard Bauckham has called on scholars to abandon the reading strategy of redaction criticism that had risen to prominence especially in the 1960s, and return to the way the gospels had always been understood before that – as having been written ‘for all Christians’. The present essay resituates this debate as actually yet another instance of a very old and enduring hermeneutical problem in the exegesis of Christian literature: the relationship between the particularity and universality of the gospels. Study of patristic gospel exegesis reveals no author who says the gospels were written ‘for all Christians’, and, even more importantly, shows that early Christian readers – through evangelist biographies, localizing narratives, audience request traditions, and heresiological accounts of the composition of individual gospels, as well as in their theological reflections on the fourfold gospel – engaged in a sustained and deliberate dialectic between the local and universal audiences of the gospels which defies any simple dichotomy between ‘specific’ and ‘indefinite’ readers.

It is fitting that the first major attention given by the SNTS to sociological concerns should occur in Paris, the home of Auguste Comte (often called the father of sociology) and his circle. Actually there seem to have been many fathers and many more offspring, such that the present genealogy of the discipline presents an almost bewildering profusion of perspectives, goals, models and methodologies. This is a productive situation and a sign of health, but it suggests right away that I cannot analyse in this paper a single or simple sociology of the New Testament. Those of us who are experimenting – and that cautious phrase must be taken literally – with sociological approaches have come from different backgrounds and perspectives, borrowing from sociology where it seems useful and tentatively trying out various methods and models. The exploration has really just begun.

It is instructive to see the similarities and the differences between the account of the origins of the synagogue in the Jewish Encyclopedia of 1907 and the more extended discussion of the subject in the Encyclopedia Judaica of 1971. In the earlier work, Wilhelm Bacher observes that by the time the synagogue had become the central institution in Judaism, it was already regarded as of ancient origin, dating back to Moses.1 He was of the opinion that the synagogue as a permanent institution originated during the Babylonian captivity,2 and conjectured that the reference in Isa 56. 7 to the temple as a ‘house of prayer’ was to be understood as connected with the term for place of prayer, proseuche, which was used during the exile and among Jews in the diaspora in later centuries. Balcher's theory continues that it was Ezra and his successors who reorganized the religious life of Israel into congregational worship, with special place for prayers and the reading of the scriptures. This development, he proposed, took place in parallel with the revival of the temple cult and led to the building of synagogues. He finds evidence for synagogues in Palestine in the pre-exilic period in Ps 74. 8, although in fact this psalm comes from the Maccabean period or even later.3 Then, astonishingly and without any attempt to explain, he asserts that the complete absence of allusions to synagogue in 1 or 2 Maccabees is the result of the author's primary concern for the purity of the temple ritual.

The subject presents one of those questions in New Testament criticism in which mental bent, apart from the bias of prejudgment, is chiefly influential in deter-mining the conclusions reached.

This statement with which I. T. Beckwith introduced in 1919 his discussion of the authorship of the Apocalypse (Apoc) still proves to be true today. It can be equally applied to the question whether the Apoc should be assigned to the same school or circle that was responsible for the Fourth Gospel (4G) and the Johannine Epistles. The judgement moreover also pertains to the historical and theological interpretation of either the Apoc or the 4G. Mental bent and systematic presuppositions determine the various reconstructions of the history of the Johannine community as well as the theological interpretations of its literary works.

The instructions to slaves and masters in the Colossian Haustafel have long raised questions about their concrete meaning for their intended audience. Drawing principally on recent research on the Roman family, but also on other texts, inscriptions and imagery, this article seeks to show that the implications of the household code for the sexual treatment of slaves must have varied widely. Important factors included the believing or non-believing nature of each household and the complexity of familial arrangements generally. Ultimately, Colossians appears implicitly to recognise a degree of honour in the case of slaves, a view that may sometimes have led to greater respect for familial/sexual boundaries than was otherwise usual.

Brent Shaw has recently argued that the Neronian persecution never occurred. In fact, there are no grounds for doubting Tacitus’ report of the persecution. Sources later than Tacitus (Melito, Dionysius of Alexandria) date the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul to the reign of Nero, but those reports have no bearing on the veracity of Tacitus’ account.

Die Anfänge der christlichen Mission standen nach dem Standardwerk Harnacks jahrzehntelang nicht mehr im Mittelpunkt der Forschung. Erst in jüngster Zeit ist ein Umschwung zu bemerken. Seit der Arbeit von Ferdinand Hahn, 1963, folgte jedes Jahr eine neue Monographie. Dieser neuerwachte Eifer deutet zugleich auf ein wachsendes Interesse gegenüber der Geschichte des Urchristentums überhaupt hin. Die unaufhaltsame Ausbreitung des christlichen Glaubens im Mittelmeerraum während der ersten 120 Jahre ist der rote Faden für jede Geschichte des Urchristentums. Wenn heute immer Wieder danach gefragt wird, worin die ‘Kontinuität’ der Botschaft des NT bestehe, so könnte man antworten, daß sich deren ‘faktische Kontinuität’ —ganz gleich, wie sie dargestellt wird—auf jeden Fall in dem für die Antike einzigartigen Erfolg der urchristlichen Mission erweist.

While Pontius Pilate is often seen as agnostic, in modern terms, the material evidence of his coinage and the Pilate inscription from Caesarea indicate a prefect determined to promote a form of Roman religion in Judaea. Unlike his predecessors, in the coinage Pilate used peculiarly Roman iconographic elements appropriate to the imperial cult. In the inscription Pilate was evidently responsible for dedicating a Tiberieum to the Dis Augustis. This material evidence may be placed alongside the report in Philo Legatio ad Gaium (299–305) where Pilate sets up shields – likewise associated with the Roman imperial cult –honouring Tiberius in Jerusalem.

The origins and the theological significance of the fourfold Gospel raise a set of teasing questions. Why did the early Church eventually accept four partly parallel foundation documents? There is no precedent for this either in the OT Scriptures or elsewhere in earliest Christianity. Did retention of four gospels assist or hinder the early Church in the presentation of its claims concerning Jesus? No doubt to some, insistence that there were four gospels implied that there were basic flaws in the single gospels. Was the second century church's decision to bring together four separate gospels wise? What were, and what are, the theological implications of the fourfold Gospel? A critical theology cannot avoid asking these questions.

Das Gesetzesverständnis des Paulus ist in letzter Zeit wieder in den Brennpunkt der Diskussion getreten. Dabei scheint mir über dem systematischen Interesse an der inneren Einheit der untereinander so spannungsreichen Aussagen die einfache historische Frage, ob Paulus denn wirklich in all seinen Briefen eine durchweg einheitliche Konzeption zeige, immer noch zu wenig Gewicht zu erhalten. Zwar verlockt der integrale Charakter des Römerbriefs dazu, die hier zweifellos vorhandene, im Zusammenhang vorgetragene Konzeption als Rahmen zu benutzen, in den sich die Aussagen der übrigen Briefe einordnen lassen. Aber auf diesem Wege liegt zugleich die Gefahr nah, daß, die Aussagen der übrigen Briefe zu wenig in ihrem je eigenen Skopos zur Geltung kommen, weil sie dem des Römerbriefs zu- und eingeordnet werden und so ihre Eigenart, ja u.U. auch manche Gegensätzlichkeit verlieren. Der umgekehrten Betrachtungsweise kommt jedenfalls zunächst der methodische Primat zu: die Briefe des Paulus in chronologischer Reihenfolge durchzumustern, so daß die Aussagen des Römerbriefs erst am Schluß ihren Ort bekommen. Damit öffnet sich zumindest die Möglichkeit einer Entwicklung im Denken des Paulus. Die folgende Skizze soll ein Beitrag dazu sein.