Philippians 3 is central to the question of integrity of the letter. While those who argue for three fragments struggle with the intention of the chapter, those who argue for the letter's integrity vote for its function as an exemplum. This article argues that there is some truth in both positions. Philippians 3 imitates the Jewish testament genre in which an ideal biography is depicted to become a model of religious advice. But while Paul deals critically with genre, he became a religious hero in the canonical letter, which was edited by the Philippians in the early second century ce.

Heuristic use of classical rhetorical theorists' discussion of appeals to the emotions allows the interpreter to discern the strategic arousal of three principal pairs of emotions in the seven oracles of Revelation: fear and confidence, friendship and enmity, and shame and emulation. While some of these emotional responses are evoked in multiple oracles, certain ones tend to be more fully nurtured in particular oracles, being more strategic to achieving the speaker's specific goals for the audiences in those settings. John gives attention to the multiple dimensions of appeals to emotion as discussed by Aristotle (nurturing the frame of mind that is disposed to that particular emotion, identifying particular ‘others’ in regard to whom that emotion is rightly directed, and inscribing situations that naturally give rise to that emotion).

Ascribing inspiration to the composition and canonisation of the NT did not exempt it from the flux of history. Its contents were variously copied, quoted and interpreted. For example, early-church responses to Matthew's use of some of the OT prophets illustrate the freedom with which perhaps the most Jewish of the evangelists, having appropriated some of Judaism's greatest figures, was in turn appropriated by early Christianity, how also he was read by pagans and Jews, and how all, in good faith or not, sought to expose or defend or correct what readers thought to be its problems.

In Rev 16.13–14 we encounter minor characters of the book's diabolic bestiary, ‘three unclean spirits like frogs’ that proceed from the mouths of the Dragon and the two Beasts. This article attempts to understand this detail in relation to the metaphorical connotations other ancient Greek and Jewish writers attributed to frogs: they were mostly connected with silliness and loquaciousness. In this context, the picturesque detail of frog-like demons belongs to John's strategy of reassuring his audiences by ridiculing the Dragon and the Beasts and the powers they represent.

Rev 11.1–2 refers to the destruction of the temple in 70 ce. The measuring of the temple area does not signify that it will be protected, as is commonly thought, but symbolises that it falls under God's judgment. The underlying idea is that the destruction of the temple at the hands of the Gentiles has been possible only because it was preceded by God's judgment, a notion also found in contemporary apocalyptic literature. John argues that God has given the Gentiles the authority to ‘trample the holy city’, including the temple, for a limited period of time.

In an earlier issue of this periodical attention was paid to the problem of retranslating a ‘versional’ text into a supposed Greek ‘original’.T. Baarda, ‘The Reading “Who wished to enter” in Coptic Tradition, Matt 23.13, Luke 11.52, and “Thomas” 39’, NTS 52 (2006) 583–91. The reason for that article was the ‘reconstruction’ of a quite extraordinary Greek text as the hypothetical source of an early Middle-Egyptian Coptic text of the Gospel of Matthew. This reconstruction was presented in the splendid edition of the Gospel of Matthew in Middle-Egyptian Coptic that was published by the late Professor Hans-Martin Schenke.H.-M. Schenke, Das Matthäus-Evangelium im mittelägyptischen Dialekt des Koptischen (Codex Schøjen) (Oslo: Hermes Publishing, 2001). The deviations of this ‘retranslation’ led Schenke to his daring thesis that the Coptic text was based on a Greek text that was completely different from our present Greek Matthew, being an independent translation of the Hebrew or Aramaic Gospel of Matthew mentioned by Papias. In this short note the reader will find another example of the problematic character of such retranslations.

Friedrich Nietzsches Philosophie kann mit Paul Ricoeur unter dem Aspekt der ‘Hermeneutik des Verdachts’ gesehen werden. Er ist mit Nachdruck hermeneuti_scher Philosoph. Im ‘Nachlaß’ (Ende 1886 bis Frühjahr 1887) spricht er seine hermeneutische Grundüberzeugung aus: Es gibt nur Interpretationen, aber keine Tatsachen. Diese Aussage richtet sich entschieden gegen allen Positivismus. Wenn er etwa erklärt, er sei ‘gegen das Atom’, so antizipiert er in gewisser Weise moderne physikalische Überzeugungen, nach denen das Atom nicht als Vorstellung gedacht werden kann, sondern nur in mathematischer Interpretation. Die Schwierigkeit bei Nietzsche ist, daß er aufgrund seiner Inspiration von Sils-Maria 1881 seine Überzeugung von der ‘Ewigen Wiederkehr des Gleichen’ dogmatisch vertritt und sie nicht als bloße Interpretation versteht. Die Frage bleibt offen und bedarf der weiteren Klärung in der Nietzsche-Forschung.

‘Agapius of Hierapolis’ and Michael the Syrian's versions of the Testimonium Flavianum, a passage about Jesus from Josephus' Jewish Antiquities, both derive from the Syriac translation of Eusebius of Caesarea's Historia Ecclesiastica. Michael's Testimonium is more authentic than Agapius' Testimonium, and it is more authentic than the textus receptus in reading that Jesus was ‘thought to be the Messiah’. Some features of Agapius' Testimonium previously considered to be more authentic than the textus receptus can be explained by distinctive readings in the Syriac text that Agapius used.

This article focuses on novel computer-based techniques for style characterization which have been tested on NT texts. The techniques are derived from the fields of information theory, communications engineering, and bioinformatics, and treat text as linearly sequenced information. They employ computer algorithms capable of detecting patterns in character strings, thereby permitting characterization of a given text or comparison of various texts. The application of the techniques to NT books has so far yielded results generally concordant with other methods, and suggest that the new techniques, if further refined, could complement other approaches to Biblical-textual questions.

This paper examines Augustine's text of the Gospel according to John to trace the process by which he adopted Jerome's revision of the Gospels. An important feature is the distinction between ‘primary citations’ taken from a codex and ‘secondary citations’ likely to have been made from memory, which change affiliation at different rates. Augustine's progress from Old Latin to Vulgate text-types is illustrated by the comparison of selected passages with surviving manuscripts. Textual variants in these citations suggest that Augustine's biblical text has been transmitted accurately.