There are good warrants for believing that either the word Christianos or the word Christiani, a reference to the Christians, was probably in a graffito on the wall of the atrium of the house now identified as vii.11.11 in Pompeii when Giuseppe Fiorelli excavated it in 1862. Karl Zangemeister edited it in 1871 as CIL iv, 679 and included two divergent transcriptions. In 1995, Paul Berry published a book in which he claimed that he had made an image of the word Christianos using an industrial microscope and high-intensity light. A research project to investigate that claim could be potentially useful for verifying or falsifying Berry's results.

Roy D. Kotansky* argues in ‘The Star of the Magi: Lore and Science in Ancient Zoroastrianism, the Greek Magical Papyri and St. Matthew’s Gospel’ that the pericope in the M Source regarding the star of Bethlehem reflects Zoroastrian traditions about Magi who divine from a star seen falling to Earth the birth of a coming saviour, who will deliver the world from bondage and inaugurate the blessing of a new millennium. Following Nikos Kokkinos’ chronology for Jesus’ birth, Kotansky argues that the star of Bethlehem is not part of a midrash fulfilling the prophecy that ‘a star shall come forth out of Jacob’ (Num 24.17), but Halley’s comet, which appeared twice (perihelion) in the sky in 12 bce during the rulership of Herod the Great. According to Kotansky, the author of the Gospel of Matthew integrated Zoroastrian interpretations of this astronomical phenomenon with Jewish messianic and Bethlehemic segments such as Mic 5.2 (Matt 2.6). As Kotansky acknowledges, his interpretation results in two Synoptic dates for Jesus’ birth – (1) 12 bce with the appearance of the comet (Matt 2.2, 9, 10), and (2) 6/7 ce at the time of the census by Quirinius (Luke 2.2). This essay explores whether the messianic and Bethlehemic segments of Matthew 2 refer to a lost tradition of the birth of John the Baptist that took place in 12 bce at the time of Halley’s comet, suggesting a separate tradition of Jesus’ birth in 6 ce at the time of the ‘first census’.

In Christian tradition, Paul is the apostle to the nations. However, his portrayal in the Book of Acts is more nuanced. For a longer period, Paul's ministry is limited to Jews. Only from Acts 13 onwards does Paul slowly emerge as ministering to non-Jews. Yet even then, Paul remains foremost an emissary to diaspora Judaism. In its apology for Paul and his disputed way of including non-Jews into the people of God, Acts emphasises that Paul did so without diminishing the priority of Israel, as a staunch proponent of Jewish monotheism and in a way that took full account of the precarious situation of diaspora Judaism.

This article offers a new interpretation of καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα in Mark 7.19c. After reviewing and offering some nuance to an emerging non-antinomian interpretation of 7.15a/18b, I turn to Mark 7.19c and argue that the phrase καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα should be understood as a part of Jesus' speech in 7.18–19. Jesus’ argument, I suggest, is that ritually defiled food cannot defile humans through ingestion because humans purify all foods from ritual impurity through digestion. This reasoning depends on a widespread Jewish view that excrement is impervious to ritual impurity: because all excrement is pure, the stomach acts as a purifying agent that purifies all food from ritual impurity. I proffer that the common translation of Mark 7.19c – ‘Thus he declared all foods clean’ (NRSV) – should therefore be abandoned.

In John 4.9, most translations render the phrase οὐ γὰρ συγχρῶνται Ἰουδαῖοι Σαμαρίταις as ‘Jews do not associate with Samaritans’. However, the ancient evidence that is presented for this translation consists of examples that are ambiguous, or that use συγχράομαι with one of its other common meanings. However, the history of translation into Latin and other languages, as well as some early interpreters, provide some limited evidence for the traditional translation. A few newer translations (NRSV, NET) and many commentaries, following a 1950 article by D. Daube, render the phrase as ‘Jews do not share vessels with Samaritans’. The translation ‘share vessels’ has two main problems. First, it is grammatically almost impossible, since συγχράομαι always takes the dative as an object, not as a co-ordinate subject. Thus, the dative object Σαμαριταῖς must function as an actual object, not as a co-ordinate subject. Second, as with the traditional translation, all of the proposed examples are either ambiguous or lend themselves much better to one of the other known meanings of συγχράομαι. Strangely, the major lexica all have demonstrably mistaken references to ancient literature in support of these proposed translations. However, there are many ancient examples of συγχράομαι meaning ‘get help from’ when the dative object is a person. This proposed translation makes sense in the passage, as the Samaritan woman is surprised at Jesus seeking help from a Samaritan. It is also consistent with Josephus’ criticism of Samaritans that they do not help Jews in times of need.

Markus nimmt seine Gegenwart als dunkle, düstere Zeit wahr und bearbeitet mit seiner Jesuserzählung die krisenbehaftete Gegenwart. Ein zentraler Baustein in seinem Krisenmanagement ist ein strategischer Einsatz literarisch-theologischer Mehrdeutigkeiten. Die vorliegenden Beobachtungen illustrieren diesen strategischen Einsatz am Beispiel der programmatischen Basileiaaussage in Mk 1,15. Unsere Kernthese lautet: Markus bändigt die Ambiguität der ἤγγικɛν-Aussage in 1,15 durch die ἤγγικɛν-Aussage in 14,42 und beansprucht damit Deutungshoheit inmitten einer existentiellen krisenhaften Zuspitzung in der erzählten Welt. Dieser Gewinn an Deutungshoheit marginalisiert weder die Krisenerfahrung am Vorabend des Todes Jesu noch die Krisenerfahrung in den 70er Jahren, sondern dient dazu, ein wenig festen Boden in all der verbleibenden Unklarheit und Ungewissheit unter die Füße zu bekommen.

After Paul, Silvanus and Timothy left Thessalonica, members of the fledgling Christ group in that city experienced death within their social network. Opinions differ as to whether the authors’ comments in 1 Thess 4.13–18 are addressing puzzlement internal to the Christ group alone, or whether these recent deaths also played into the wider discourse of the city. In addressing this issue, I adopt the view, propounded especially by Richard Ascough, that the Thessalonian Christ group had its origins in a civic association. In contrast to Ascough, I propose that the association did not undergo a complete ‘conversion’ to a new deity; instead, it experienced a rupture in its membership, with some members splitting off to form a new assembly of Christ-devotion. This ‘ruptured association’ scenario offers a different explanation than Ascough's regarding the issue the authors of 1 Thess were addressing in 4.13–18. The argument draws upon comparanda from the database of Greco-Roman associations and offers an interpretation in closer alignment with the primary emphasis of the text.

Der 2. Korintherbrief sucht in seinem ersten Hauptteil (1.15–7.16) die Anstöße aufzuarbeiten, die die Gemeinde im Vorfeld des Briefs an der Ausübung des apostolischen Dienstes durch Paulus genommen hat. Wie die Eröffnung dieses Hauptteils in 1.15–2.2 zu verstehen ist, ist aber in der Forschung umstritten.

Der Aufsatz untersucht die literarische Verortung, den formalen Aufbau und die sprachliche Ausgestaltung des Gedankengangs, um dessen Sinngehalt und Funktion zu klären. Es wird aufgezeigt, wie der Abschnitt einerseits die Modifikation der paulinischen Besuchsabsichten, andererseits das Unterlassen eines angekündigten weiteren Aufenthalts verteidigt. Vor dem Horizont einer grundsätzlichen Reflexion der Basis, Eigenart und Aufgabe des paulinischen Apostolats korrigiert er die negative Wahrnehmung des Paulus auf Seiten der Adressaten und zeigt in drei Schritten auf, dass dieser gerade mit seinen die Gemeinde enttäuschenden Entscheidungen den ihm und seiner Mitarbeiterschaft gegebenen apostolischen Auftrag sachgerecht wahrgenommen hat.

The author to the Hebrews makes the seemingly strange choice to introduce two quotations from the LXX with indefinite markers (Heb 2.6; 4.4). While some commentators do not consider these introductions, others have argued that they function either rhetorically to engage the audience or theologically to highlight the divine speaker. This article argues that a hermeneutical function better explains the author's choices: the author uses the indefiniteness to guide his audience in how to interpret each quoted passage. The author uses the indefinite marker of place (που) to remove both Gen 2.2 and Ps 8.5–7 LXX from their salvation-historical context; this results in the rest of God (Heb 3–4) and the role of humanity within creation (Heb 2) applying equally to the present and the coming ages. He pairs this with the indefinite marker of person (τις) in his introduction to Ps 8 to indicate that the audience should not interpret it prosopologically as the speech of the Son to the Father; rather the Psalm testifies to the role of humanity within the present and the coming worlds, a role which the Son incarnate fulfils. This hermeneutical explanation aligns with other instances of indefinite citation markers in Second Temple Judaism, most notably in Philo. This argument, therefore, both adds depth to the characterisation of the author as a careful reader of Scripture and brings out the intended meaning and function of Ps 8 and Gen 2 in the discourse of Hebrews more clearly.

The Gothic translation of Phil 2.6–8 differs from the Greek in three ways: it says that Christ did not think it robbery to be ‘like God’; it breaks the parallelism between the ‘form of God’ and ‘form of a slave’; and it states explicitly that Christ was obedient ‘to the Father’. Scholars have focused exclusively on the first element, crediting it to the Homoian ‘Arian’ prejudices of the translator, Wulfila, or to his opposition to modalist tendencies in pro-Nicene thought of the 340s. Neither interpretation is satisfactory, the first because the Gothic displays no generalised Homoian bias, the second on philological grounds. When the passage is viewed as a whole, an explanation can be found in the history of exegesis. Homoian churchmen, who followed a theology close to the elderly Wulfila’s, seem to have construed ἁρπαγμός (Gothic wulwa, English ‘robbery’) as res rapienda, in the typology developed by N.T. Wright. Christ did not ‘seize’ equality with God. Incompatible with this view, the Gothic is a better fit for res retinenda (Christ did not ‘hold fast’ his divine status). In an ancient analogue to modern ‘functional equivalence’, it is representing the meaning of the text, as agreed among Greek exegetes, on the translation’s surface. Just why Wulfila did this remains obscure: certainly to clarify the passage’s Christology, but possibly also to head off misinterpretation in his Gothic context. Either way, the Gothic text shows a more flexible approach to translation than scholarship, still focused on stereotyped ‘Arianism’ and lexical equivalence, has yet recognised.

Paul's letters depict gentiles and Jews with different characteristics of sin. This article focuses on Paul's rhetoric about Jewish shortcomings and argues that he has an eschatological myth of Jewish sin: it is the period in the Jewish deity's plan when he has hardened his people into disobedience and disloyalty. While scholars have traditionally tried to connect Paul's ideas about Jewish sin to deficiencies of historical Jews, Paul's claims are primarily animated by his Jewish eschatological scheme and competitive rhetorical needs. Paul re-emerges as a Jewish writer within his competitive social landscape wherein ethnic differentiation was an expected way of imagining the human and divine realms.

Jesus' response to the Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7.27 is sometimes seen as sexist, racist, or abusive. The force of his response depends in part on the diminutive form κυναριον, which is often dismissed as a faded diminutive that lacks true force. But a statistical, semantic, and contextual analysis of the word indicates that it does, in fact, have diminutive force in Mark 7:27. Because of this, the pejorative force found in direct insults employing the word ‘dog’ is lacking in Jesus' response. In addition to failing to recognise the diminutive force of κυναριον, interpreters sometimes assume a social context in which Jews routinely referred to Gentiles as dogs. Finally, the analogy that Jesus makes is often read allegorically, assuming that ‘children’ and ‘dogs’ have direct counterparts in ‘Jews’ and ‘Gentiles’. These assumptions are found to be dubious. The point of Jesus' analogy is about the proper order of events: children eat before the puppies; Jews receive the benefits of his ministry before Gentiles. The Syrophoenician woman outwits Jesus by arguing that the puppies may eat simultaneously with the children. The interpretive upshot is that Jesus' saying is unlikely to be misogynistic or abusive, but simply asserts Jewish priority, a priority that admits of exceptions and change.

The modern discipline of New Testament Studies has subjected the various components of the New Testament to close scrutiny, yet it persistently fails to ask critical questions about the New Testament considered as a whole. In its familiar twenty-seven book form, the New Testament may be seen as a fourth-century anthology of early Christian writings based on earlier collections or sub-collections (the fourfold gospel, the Pauline letter collection), yet innovative in establishing a sharply defined boundary between included and excluded texts. An analysis of contributions to this journal over a recent five-year period demonstrates the pervasive influence of this fourth-century construct in determining the scope and priorities of (so-called) ‘mainstream’ scholarship. Greater attention to the contingencies of canon-formation will enable us to locate the texts that came to form the New Testament within a wider early Christian literary landscape.

Dans la perspective de la préparation d'une nouvelle édition annotée de l'Évangile selon Thomas, à paraître dans la collection « Bibliothèque copte de Nag Hammadi » (Leuven, Peeters), cet article revient sur quelques-unes des questions qui ont été débattues à propos de cet écrit, à savoir son lieu et sa date de composition, ainsi que sa langue d'origine.

Uncertainty has attached to a medieval library catalogue entry mentioning Papias cum sermonibus diversis at Stams Abbey. Most recent editors of Papias have suspected that it refers to the medieval lexicographer rather than the second-century Christian author of the same name. This note calls attention to a marginal citation in a Stams manuscript from the lexicographer that helps put to rest the hypothesis of a full Latin manuscript of Papias of Hierapolis.

The numerous testaments on papyrus provide a valuable basis for an investigation of legal language around διαθήκη in the Pauline letters. Of particular importance is the ancient practice of revoking wills, which I consider to be the legal frame of reference for the recipients of the Pauline letters to grasp expressions like καινὴ/παλαιὰ διαθήκη. In the Corinthian correspondence the conformity to the current legal practice is evident, but in Galatians Paul turns the whole procedure upside down, manipulating in the construction of his argument not only the practice of testamentary cancellation, but also the traditional connection of Abraham with circumcision. We are compelled to a text-internal solution of the problem in Gal 3.15–17 by the fact that the papyrological evidence shows clearly that no other type of document than the ordinary revocable διαθήκαι can be taken into consideration. This approach is not compilatory, as it is often the case when dealing with documentary papyri applied to New Testament texts, but heuristic, with the purpose of elaborating new exegetical insights in old controversies.

Das Papier bezieht sich auf die exegetische Auffassung, es beruhe die Argumentation von Gal 3,10 gerade auch auf einer unterdrückten praemissa minor („die Toravorschriften lassen sich nicht vollständig einhalten“), und es richtet sich gegen die These von P. C. Moore, nach welcher die in 2,16c aufgenommenen Worte aus Ps 143(142),2 genau diese Prämisse bieten sollen. Nicht zuletzt die Aufeinanderfolge der Partikeln γάρ, (ὅτι) δέ, ὅτι und δέ in Gal 3,10b, 11a, 11b und 12a lässt auf ein deutlich wahrscheinlicheres Szenario aufmerken: Paulus argumentiert in 3,10-12 mittels zweier Syllogismen, und er benutzt dabei letztlich durch biblische Formulierungen (aus: Deut 27,26; Hab 2,4; Lev 18,5) vorgegebene, abgesicherte Prämissen.