Das auf den Prolog folgende Fragment des Evangeliums nach Johannes spricht über Johannes den Täufer. Dieses Fragment besteht aus zwei Teilen. Der erste dessen Inhalt uns die Person Johannes des Täufers vorstellt, erzählt von seinem Zeugnis vor den Abgesandten des Hohen Rates. Der zweite Teil des Fragments enthält das Zeugnis seinen Schülern gegenüber, und den Bericht von der Berufung der Schüler Christi. Hier wird auch definiert, wer Christus eigentlich ist.

Der Begriff Ethik des Neuen Testaments bezeichnet nicht im philosophischen Sinn ein ethisches System als abstrahierende Reflexion ber Sittlichkeit, sondern den sachbezogenen, also nicht nur begrifflichen Zusam-menhang von ethischen uerungen und Vorstellungen, wie dieser aus den Schriften des Neuen Testaments zu erheben ist. Ethik des Neuen Testaments ist demnach eine systematisierende Darstellung, welche die situations-gebundenen ethischen Aussagen des Neuen Testaments zur Grundlage hat und an diese (als an die Ethik des N.T. im engeren Sinn) gewiesen bleibt.

A study of the relationship between faith and reason in Paul's theology, such as we are now going to undertake, would seem to be a particularly fruitless investigation. We all know from the opening chapters of I Corinthians that the apostle, as a preacher of the message of the cross, fought just as bitterly against the wisdom of this world as against the attempt to achieve righteousness through works. The wisdom of this world and the righteousness based on works are both characteristic of the man who is seeking to assert himself before God and whose attempt miscarries. Just as Christ is the end of the law, it must apply in the same sense that he is the end of the wisdom of this world. God has destroyed it through the cross (I Cor. i. 18ff.). From now on the words ‘He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord’ hold good both for Jews and Greeks alike (I Cor. i. 31). One cannot seriously discount the significance of these passages by saying they contain nothing but exaggerated and casual utterances. Paul has expressed himself here in fundamental, comprehensive and consciously offensive terms, in order to demonstrate the contrast between the news of the Crucified, a σkáνδαλoν for the Jews and a μωία for the Greeks, and the wisdom of the world, which is foolishness in God's eyes. These words of the apostle have in fact given offence again and again. Since the days of Celsus and Porphyrius they have aroused the indignant protests of the opponents of Christianity. Goethe voiced them quite openly, ‘Living till seventy wouldn't be worth the trouble, if all the wisdom of the world were folly in the sight of God’ (Max. und Reflex. 2). We must certainly not forget that in I Cor. i–iii the apostle is speaking about the wisdom of the world and not directly about reason itself. But this distinction does not seem to help us much. The trenchant answer which Paul gives his opponents who contest his claim to be a true apostle and man of the Spirit forces us to ask whether he leaves man's reason any place at all: ‘Yes, we certainly walk in the flesh (έν σαρkί) but we do not wage our war in the manner of the flesh (kατα σαρkα)—for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God for the destruction of strongholds—as we destroy sophistries (λoγiσμoúς) and all arrogance, which exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bring every thought (νóημα) into captivity under the obedience of Christ’ (II Cor. x. 3–5).

In recent studies of the parables, including some of those dealing with the judge and the widow, there has been an overemphasis on philosophical-theological and existential meaning. At the same time, there has been a lack of concern for the writers' vocabulary, methods when dealing with sources, and style and literary methods as these things relate to the study of parables. Such things, rather than the meaning of the parable, are my primary concern in dealing with the parable of the judge and the widow.

Zu den Reliquien der altkirchlichen Literatur, die bis heute der Forschung Rätsel aufgeben, gehört das knappe Papyrusstück P.Oxy. 1. 5, dessen erste Edition B. P. Grenfell und A. S. Hunt zu verdanken ist:

τιν..[

λoς τo πν(ε⋯ματo)ς τo⋯ πρoφητ;[ι

κo ⋯ κε⋯μνoς ⋯π' αὐτ

π[..]. […………]. ν, κα⋯

5 πλησθε⋯ς ⋯ ἄνθρωπoς ⋯κε-

νoς τῳπν(ε⋯ματ)ι τ ⋯γ⋯ῳ λα

λεκαθὼς ⋯ (κ;⋯ριo)ς βo;⋯λετε,

oὕτως φανερ`ν ἔστε τò

πν(εμ)α τς θειóτητoς. τó γ⋯ρ

10 πρoφητικóν πν(εμ)α τó σω

ματεóν ⋯στιν τς πρo

φητικς τ⋯ξεως, ὃ ἔστιν

τò σμα τς σαρκòς 'ἰ(ησo) χρισ(τo)

τò μιγ⋯ν τ ⋯νθρωπóτη

15 τι δι⋯ Mαρ⋯ας. ὅτι δ⋯

δoχ δεκτικóν ⋯στιν

In seiner Studie ‘Jesu letzter Wille nach Johannes 17’ hat Ernst Käsemann ein Bild des Johannesevangeliums als das eines Dokuments einer Christo-logie des auf Erden schreitenden göttlichen Logos entworfen. Worte, die auf die Inkarnation hinweisen, wie 1. 14, deutet ernicht als Ausdruck der Selbsterniedrigung des Erlösers, sondern als ein Zeugnis seiner triumphie-renden Herrlichkeit, die die Barriere der Weltlichkeit überwindet und auch den sündigen Menschen erreicht.

During the first and second centuries of the Common Era the Christ cult spread from rural Palestine to the large cities of the Empire. This article draws insights from social network theory and from epidemiology, arguing that the Christ cult was not a simple contagion, spread by simple contact, but a ‘complex contagion’ that required persuasion, especially because adherence to the Christ cult entailed potential social costs and demanded high signalling costs.

The Gospel of Thomas provides an important component in many recent portraits of Jesus as a non-eschatological sage. Various material is cited from Thomas, yet careful analysis of individual sayings and redactional layers is rare. This is particularly true of sayings without Synoptic attestation. Is it possible that Thomas contains authentic sayings not found in the NT? What methodological steps would be necessary to isolate such material? How would such sayings affect portraits of the historical Jesus? These issues are explored though analysis of Saying 82 of the Gospel of Thomas.

Rome or Syria? This article addresses the issue of the provenance of Mark's Gospel by exploring affinities between the second Gospel and Jewish sectarian groups of the first centuries bce and ce. It is argued that Mark displays certain sectarian tendencies, and that these tendencies, most notably seen in the Gospel's negative evaluation of the Jerusalem temple and its priestly overseers, strongly suggest that the Gospel was written in close geographical proximity to Jerusalem and its temple. Accordingly, an area in the Syrian Decapolis is a much more likely place of origin for Mark's Gospel than that of Rome.

While the Gospel of John makes some forceful and explicit claims about the identity of Jesus and the character of his mission, it also invites readers into a deepened appreciation of its claims. Part of its strategy for doing so is to exploit ambiguity and to point to what the readers do not know. The article explores three examples of this pedagogical strategy: the deliberately hidden identity of the Beloved Disciple; the initial deeds of Jesus, labelled ‘signs’, which, however, do not in any direct and obvious way ‘signify’ anything, as the later works do; and the question debated by the crowds in Jerusalem, of where Jesus is from. In each case recognition of the unknown can be the first step towards discovering Truth.

The importance of the OT theophanies in relation to NT conceptions of the End has never been sufficiently realized. Again and again the prophets and psalmists spoke not merely of the Day of the Lord but they spelled this out in terms of a divine coming. Thus in Mic 1. 3 we read that ‘the Lord cometh forth out of his place, and will come down …’ Psa 96. 13 declares, ‘He cometh to judge the earth.’

A consistent feature of the argument of Hebrews is the claim that Christ offered himself ‘once for all’, which the author develops with the qualitative distinction between the one and the many priests (7.23–28) and sacrifices (9.23–10.18). In placing this distinction of the one and the many within the metaphysical dualism of the two spheres of reality, the author reflects assumptions that are also present in the claim of both Philo and Plutarch that the deity is above the principle of multiplicity (Philo Spec. III.180; Abr. 122; Leg. II.2; Deus 82; Plutarch E. Delph. 393e).