Attending to basic questions may yield a fresh perspective on the Synoptic ‘Son of Man’. How does the term function, for example, in the narrative logic of Mark's Gospel? The paper argues that: ‘the Son of Man’ serves essentially as a paradoxical incognito. It belongs to a whole pattern of speech that the Markan Jesus employs to resist disclosure of his identity as ‘the Son of God’. And it allows Jesus – a systematic theologian might say – to conceal his person while he reveals his work. If valid, this literary-critical result is not without implication for our historical understanding of the term.

‘New Testament studies’, as most of us learned the discipline, depends on some fundamental assumptions: that scientific history leads us toward objective, secure knowledge of the past; that careful method can unlock the real meaning of a stable text; that we have an audience who genuinely care what we say. Every one of these assumptions has become problematic. For the future, we must not give up on historical research, but we must think more urgently about what it means to write history well. In our role as teachers of Christian communities, we need to examine ways in which texts are used, rediscovering the formative uses in place of an almost exclusive stress by ‘biblical theology’ on the normative. Finally, acknowledging the demise of Christendom, we must seek to engage an ever larger circle of discussion partners, seeking to overcome our isolation within the academy and within a world that has grown rapidly more diverse even as it has become astonishingly smaller.

Gospel research has drawn upon studies of folklore from time to time. An initial impetus from J. G. Herder was followed up by the work of the form critics. More recently, W. H. Kelber introduced to the debate a model based on modern folklore studies and linguistic theory known as ‘oral culture’ or ‘orality’. He stressed the differences between oral ways of thinking, speaking, and transmitting tradition and the thought and communication characteristic of a modern, print-dominated culture: exegesis and hermenutics, he insisted, must be attuned to the former. Drawing largely on Kelber, J. D. G. Dunn has developed this program in a rather radical form in his new book, Jesus Remembered. Through a series of comparisons between Dunn's approach and the author's own, this article argues that the orality model, even in this latest form, fails to provide an adequate solution to the mystery of the oral gospel tradition.

Different portrayals of visions from the Apocalypse exhibit particular ‘readings’ of the text and reflect some of the contrasting exegetical approaches familiar to biblical exegetes. The article surveys the various ways in which artists have sought to enter into, and re-express, the content and character of the visions of John, offers synchronic interpretations of the Apocalypse, gives varying interpretations of the four horsemen, explores the dialectic between heaven and earth in ecclesial and eschatological readings, and engages in political interpretations of the Apocalypse. Historical analogies are offered in order to compare the exercise of imagination in art with other examples of visualizing biblical texts.

The parable core of the widow and the judge (Luke 18.2–5) is frequently considered so weak that it requires its commentaries for any meaningful message. The idea of a judge finally giving in to a pestering widow is hardly profound. Recent scholarly research, however, overturns that judgment when it becomes clear that women were not to frequent the male world of the courts. Thus the widow's frequent visits together with her brief and abrupt command to the judge combine to convey the image of a feisty widow rather than the conventionally meek and subservient role assumed for her. As a result, a long-standing discomfort over how to render the Greek in the judge's stated reasons for granting her justice (v. 5) has its grounds for struggle removed. The climax of the parable makes Luke 18.2–5 one of the most socially critical of the parable collection.

‘Apokalyptik’ ist ein wissenschaftlicher Ausdruck, der nicht wie ein quellensprachlicher Begriff behandelt werden darf. Wir benutzen ihn als einen Sammelbegriff für eine Eigenschaft von Texten, die wir freilich nicht in diesen vorfinden, sondern ihnen zuschreiben. Was wir in den Texten vorfinden, sind vielmehr bestimmte Redeformen mit der Funktion von Leseanweisungen, die so etwas wie eine erkenntnistheoretische Transzendenz voraussetzen und kognitive Grenzüberschreitungen fingieren. Im NT lassen sich apokalyptische Rezeptionsanweisungen in Röm 11.25; 1 Kor 15.51 und Offb 4.1–2a nachweisen, nicht hingegen in 1 Thess 4.13–18 oder Mk 13.

Das geheime Markusevangelium beleuchtet das verbreitete Phänomen, dass über eine Figur aus größter Nähe zum irdischen Jesus der Zugang zu dessen authentischer Überlieferung legitimiert werden soll, wenn deren Anliegen anders nicht zur Geltung kommen kann. Es ist singulär, dass dieses Konzept in Zusätzen zu einem überkommenen Evangelium entfaltet wird, die sich einer literarisch und theologisch äußerst anspruchsvollen Exegese der ‘Vorlage’ verdanken. Wir erhalten dadurch Einblick in das konflikthafte Mit- und Gegeneinander von Gemeindechristentum und seinem ‘inneren Kreis’ in Alexandrien, für das in erster Linie eine Kontroverse über die Geschlechtlichkeit des Menschen verantwortlich zu sein scheint, die sich an der Gestalt der Salome entzündete.

Matthew's five great discourses move from addressing the story's audience to direct engagement with the reader. The first section of the paper demonstrates that this rhetorical function of the discourses has found widespread agreement among scholars employing such diverse methodologies as redaction, narrative, rhetorical, feminist, and reader-response criticisms, as well as structuralism and post-structuralism. The paper's second section analyzes the means by which Matthew's reader is more directly addressed in the discourses than in the narrative portions of the Gospel. The rhetorical devices explored include plot devices in the narrative surrounding the discourses; discourse structural devices; and linguistic, topical, and generic techniques used within the discourses.

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.

Luke depicts the problem of incorporating Gentiles into the Church as rooted in conflicting definitions of purity. Apart from the principal Torah distinction between clean and unclean animals, a third category is mentioned: ‘common’, referring to doubtfully pure food. Parallels to this usage are found in a range of Jewish literature, from the Hasmonaean to the Rabbinic period. The notion of doubtfully pure food can help explain Peter's refusal to slaughter and eat from the mixed group of animals in his vision. Categorizing people like Cornelius as ‘potentially defiled’ may have constituted a human ‘fence’ between scrupulous Jews and unclean pagans. Adherence to the stipulations of the apostolic decree by Gentile Christians removed the last hindrance to Jewish Christians having table fellowship with them.

Cette critique de la rédaction de Lc 24 découpe le chapitre en six unités: les femmes au tombeau (1–11), Pierre au tombeau (12), Emmaüs (13–32), la christophanie à Pierre (33–5), la christophanie aux Onze (36–49) et l'ascension (50–3). Chaque unité a sa fonction propre dans la mise en place des bases essentielles à la continuité théologique, éthique et missionnaire entre Luc et Actes. Par l'enchaînement de ses récits dans une progression calculée, Lc 24 jette la passerelle nécessaire à la perpétuation du message de Jésus de Nazareth à travers l'Église primitive.

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.

Against the contentions of a number of NT scholars, the present article aims to demonstrate that the apostle Paul's gospel language never refers to ongoing Christian instruction and only ever connotes announcements which are news to those who hear them. This conclusion, which is maintained even in connection with Rom 1.15, a key text for the ‘broad-ranging’ view of ευαγγελ-, is shown to conform to the wholly consistent usage of gospel terminology throughout Graeco-Roman, Jewish and early Christian literature: ‘gospel’ is news.

In Col 2.14, the metaphor of the remission of debts appears to be somewhat unmotivated. Because of the reference to the cross in 2.14b, it is hard to understand. The article shows that the verse applies a common profane motif to Christology. In light of the ancient practice of debt register and discharge of debts, the unusual metaphor becomes more plausible. Given the background of the ancient practice of debt discharging, Col 2.14 interprets the death of Jesus as a deputy death, by which God grants universal discharge of sins, which is being applied to every human through baptism.

The role of the mother of Jesus is explored in view of ancient constructions of paternity especially as expressed in the Aristotelian theory of epigenesis. It concludes that beyond framing Jesus' life in the flesh, she is present under the cross as his kin in a group uniquely composed of family and friends together. As Jesus entrusts her and the beloved disciple to each other, a process is begun whereby a familia dei comes into being – in which the matter provided by the mother is superfluous. These children are begotten/born from above ‘not of blood(s) or of the will of flesh or of the will of man but of God’ – alone.

In 1 Thess 1–3, five times Paul directly connects the success of the gospel/the faith of the Thessalonians with his εισοδος. This new observation along with an appreciation of the close parallelism between 1 Thess 1–3 and 2 Cor 1–7 in occasion, tone, style, and content (especially the demonstrations of the integrity of his apostolic ministry in 1 Thess 2.1–12 and 2 Cor 1–7) helps us discern in 1 Thess 2.1–12 Paul's comprehensive apologetic purpose rather than a mere paraenetic purpose.

This paper focuses on the didactic function of the interpretation of Jesus' death in each of the Gospels as it is conveyed through the narrative's implicit commentary. It suggests that the evangelists tied the developing self-understanding of the emerging Christian communities to the death of Jesus. Mark interprets the church as a new ‘temple not made with hands’. Matthew relates the death of Jesus to the signs of the end-time and the hope of resurrection. Luke provides ethical instruction for the church, interpreting Jesus' martyrdom as a noble death, and John develops a rich portrait by which the church could define itself through the themes, images, and allusions of the Johannine passion narrative.

In 1 Thess 1 äußert Paulus seine Freude über die Hinwendung der Thessalonicher zum lebendigen Gott unter gleichzeitiger Abwendung von den Götzen. Die VV. 9b–10 werden in den meisten Kommentaren als Anknüpfungspunkt für die Bestimmung des Adressatenkreises von 1 Thess herangezogen. In dem vorliegenden Aufsatz wird der Versuch unternommen zu zeigen, dass dieser Adressatenkreis sowohl Heiden als auch Gottesfürchtige umfasst. Dazu soll vor allem der Frage nachgegangen werden, ob Gottesfürchtige vor ihrer Konfrontation mit der paulinischen Predigt nur einen Gott verehrten und somit in dieser Hinsicht von der heidnischen Umwelt zu trennen sind.

Interpretation of the opening of Hebrews is vital to understanding the rest of the author's argument predicated upon his principal declaration. Commentators disagree about whether the introductory proposition of 1.1–2a contrasts revelation through the son with an assumed inferiority of earlier means of revelation, or merely compares them. The complete absence, however, of comparison language here makes sustaining either of those models difficult. A more natural reading is that the earlier stages of revelation referred to in 1.1 lead directly into the revelation in the son (1.2). In Hebrews, both of these forms of divine communication are affirmed.

Church tradition from the Old Latin and Vulgate versions and the early Greek and Latin fathers onwards affirms and lauds a female apostle. Yet modern scholarship has not been comfortable with the attribution, as the masculine circumflex of the Erwin Nestle and United Bible Societies' Greek editions from 1927 to 2001 and the masculine Junias in translations from the mid-1940s to the mid-1970s show. More recently, the New English Translation (NET) and the English Standard Version (ESV) concede a feminine but change the attribution from the time-honored ‘of note among’ to ‘well-known to the apostles’. However, an examination of primary usage in the computer databases of Hellenistic Greek literary works, papyri, inscriptions, and artifacts confirms the feminine Ιουνια and shows επισημοι εν plus the plural dative bears without exception the inclusive sense ‘notable among’.