Recent investigation of the Pauline corpus has brought into focus several important facets of Paul's rhetorical skill. It is now generally recognized that Paul knew and used the forms and techniques of classical rhetoric. Various analyses of 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Corinthians 1–4, Galatians, for example, have reinforced the conviction that Paul consciously constructed his letters using rhetorical patterns and appeals. This type of investigation does not, however, operate in opposition to the epistolary analysis that was pioneered by Robert Funk and others. Indeed, attention to epistolary clichés and formulae proves especially valuable in reconstructing the ‘rhetorical situation’ of each letter, since these provide a road map of the conversation between Paul and his partners, indicating, for example, what is prior shared knowledge, what is new information and what are the points of controversy in the matters discussed.

In den christologischen und soteriologischen Aussagen der neutestamentlichen Briefe finden sich mehrfach deutliche Bezugnahmen auf das vierte deuterojesajanische Gottesknechtslied Jes 52.13–53.12.1 Wenn diese Bezugnahmen Gegenstand der folgenden Überlegungen sein sollen, so geht es mir weder bloß um eine statistische Ermittlung jener Stellen, an denen sich eine Deutung des Gottesknechtsliedes auf Jesus Christus mit Sicherheit nachweisen läßt, noch auch um eine philologische Entscheidung darüber, ob die entsprechenden Texte dem hebräischen Wortlaut von Jes 53, der Septuaginta bzw. einer anderen griechischen Version oder gar einem aramäischen Targum verpflichtet sind. Mein Interesse gilt vielmehr einer anderen Thematik, – nämlich der Frage: Wie ist das vierte Gottesknechtslied in den Briefen des Neuen Testamentes aufgenommen worden? In welchem theologischen Sinn und Verständnis wurde es hier rezipiert?

In the latter half of the nineteenth century no New Testament scholar in the English speaking world was more respected than J. B. Lightfoot. His New Testament commentaries and his magisterial five volume work on the Apostolic Fathers were models of the scholarly thoroughness of British erudition coupled with the humility of Anglican piety. Their influence would reach well into the twentieth century.

J. H. Ropes has written of James: ‘As in the diatribes, there is a general controlling motive in the discussion, but no firm and logically disposed structure giving a strict unity to the whole, and no trace of the conventional arrangement recommended by the elegant rhetoricians’. Challenging Rope's assessment, the thesis of this study is that James 2 is constructed according to a standard elaboration pattern for argumentation discussed by the Greco-Roman rhetoricians.

The Letters to the Seven Churches (Rev 2–3) have been the subject of extensive study by modern scholars, partly because of the feeling that they may provide a convenient point of entry and even a key to the understanding of some of the complexities and mysteries of the Book of Revelation as a whole. There is a broad consensus today that the letters were not written separately, sent to each church and later collected (the older view championed by Spitta), but were published as a block along with the rest of the book. Each church would thus receive not only the letter addressed to it, but also the letters addressed to the other six churches.

The kiss is defined as the placing of the lips upon another's lips, another person or another thing as a mark of homage or affection. It is a common phenomenon in many religions, generally directed towards inanimate objects.Early Christian sources confine their descriptions and prescriptions of the kiss to a public greeting between two people. Its practice within the community raises two questions: where did it originate? and what function did it serve beyond strengthening the ties of affection that exist in the fellowship? The fact that the command to kiss appears four times in Paul and once in 1 Peter makes it necessary to ask why something as spontaneous as a kiss would need to be commanded. Finally we inquire into the specific meaning of the adjective ‘holy’ (Paul) or ‘love’ (Peter) when attached to the word kiss.

Pauline studies have long dealt with the theology (and sometimes the ethics) of Paul and the career of the apostle to the Gentiles. Lesser attention has been given to the communities of Paul. When Victor Furnish's Forschungsbericht took up ‘the Pauline congregations’, as part of what he termed an ‘overdue refocusing’, the emphases were on (1) relations with Jewish Christianity; (2) Paul's opponents; and (3) social history. The first area still often reflects hypotheses of the Tübingen School; the second, conflicts with rampant Judaizers or Gnostics or both as the opposition. Social world research looks to accumulate descriptive data from antiquity or also to use some modern sociological theory, to interpret Pauline church life and structures.

‘That which was from the beginning, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched, concerning the word of life’ (1 John 1.1). However that claim to ear-, eye- and touch-witness is to be understood, there can be no dispute that for 1 John a claim to ‘that which was from the beginning’ is a linch-pin in the argument and in the theology of the letter. Yet the question of the use of Scripture in 1 John points further – to the relation between New Testament and Old, theologically and historically, but also to the origins and development of Johannine Christianity.