Amongst scholars who say that Paul's letters provide evidence of change and development in Paul's thinking,1 the major emphasis has been seeing this change taking place towards the later stages of Paul's writings, rather than in the earliest stages.2 However, the most significant change in Paul's thinking probably took place shortly before he wrote what are generally regarded as his earliest letters, the letters to the Thessalonians. An exegesis of these letters, together with established research revealing the stages behind the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians3 (though with modifications to certain conclusions about Paul's earliest eschatology), gives support to this suggestion. Whilst changing emphases appear in Paul's later letters, attention should be directed to the probability that the biggest change in his Christian eschatology took place with the surviving correspondence.

Über die Aufnahme der Jesus-Überlieferung im frühen Christentum ist schon viel nachgedacht und geschrieben worden. Dabei interessiert das Problem meist wegen des auffallenden Sachverhaltes, daß Pauls allenfalls dreimal ausdrücklich auf Herrenworte zurückgreift (I Kor 7, 10; 9, 14; vgl. I These 4, 15), wobei I These 4, 15 ohne erkennbare synoptische Parallele ist. Verschärft ist dieser Sachverhalt noch dadurch, daß Pauls speziell im I Kor offen zugeben kann, kein Jesuswort zur Regelung von Gemeindeverhält-nissen zu besitzen (7, 12. 25. 40).

Die Apokalypse des Johannes ist hinsichtlich ihrer theoiogischen Bedeutung seit der Frühzeit der Kirche bis in die Gegenwart hinein stark umstritten. Vor allem scheint sie einem Vergleich mit den Grundaussagen paulinischer Theologie nicht standhalten zu können und erfährt daher des öfteren eine Abwertung.1 Im Folgenden soll versucht werden, anhand eines Themenkomplexes, der für die Apokalypse des Johannes von zentraler Bedeutung ist, nämiich das Verhältnis zwischen Christus und seiner Gemeinde,2 einen wesentlichen theologischen Aspekt im letzten Buch der Bibel zu erfassen.

Rudolf Bultmann in his magnum opus, Theology of the New Testament, tends to dismiss the Epistle to the Hebrews as ‘allegorical’,1 ‘legalistic’,2 exemplaristic',3 and ‘sacramentalistic’.4 This is overly negative. The Book of Hebrews may be a unique contribution to New Testament thought, and may possess its own peculiar logic and expression; nevertheless, it is a decidedly Christian document.5

This paper draws attention to two features of the teaching about the kingdom of heaven in the first Gospel. Firstly that ή βασιλєία τῷν ούρανῷν is pictured as an imminent but entirely future reality, in distinction to the five occurrences of ή β⋯σιλєία το⋯ θєο⋯ which represent a present kingdom. Secondly, that ethics and faith are presented as conditions for entry into the kingdom of heaven and not as future possibilities realizable only when the kingdom of heaven is present. I shall examine all the sayings about the kingdom of heaven under a series of headings, following for the most part the order in which they appear in the Gospel, but occasionally linking later passages with earlier discussions to avoid repetition. The sayings about the kingdom of God will be examined as a group at the end.1

This paper takes its cue from L. Hartman's study of ‘Scriptural Exegesis in the Gospel of Matthew and the Problem of Communication’,1 and more specifically from two comments on that paper made by Professor M. D. Hooker.2 The first was to the effect that the title of Hartman's study involved a promise which was not fulfilled, in that he did not in fact deal significantly with ‘communication’, in the sense of discussing what the ordinary reader might have been expected to get out of Matthew's scriptural quotations and allusions. The second was the related question whether the ordinary Jew of New Testament times, as opposed to the professional theologians or the exegetes of Qumran, could be expected to have as full an acquaintance with the Old Testament as Hartman assumed. This last point reminded me of a principle set out in a recent article by Humphrey Palmer, which neatly articulated a persistent doubt which I have felt when reading suggestions of sophisticated midrashic developments in the Gospels: ‘The complexity of allusion intelligible to a modern scholar with lots of books and little else to do is much greater than that accessible to any member of Jesus' audience.’3 A civilization based on the printed book may be in danger of forgetting that a scroll of even one Old Testament book was in the first century an inconvenient and expensive luxury, and so of assuming an ease of reference which is more appropriate to the age of the ‘pocket Bible’ than to primitive Christianity.

In the course of an inquiry into the origins of Luke's understanding of the poor I was forced to ask the question how far Luke might have been influenced not only by certain texts in Isaiah but also by wider themes. In answer to this question one is often referred to C. H. Dodd's According to the Scriptures, where he concluded that when NT authors quoted small OT texts they often did so with knowledge of larger passages or collections of passages from which the text was drawn. This principle has become a commonplace and is frequently used illegitimately to find ideas in the NT which are not otherwise discernible.1 The recent study of B. Lindars (‘The Place of the Old Testament in the Formation of New Testament Theology: Prolegomena’, N. T. S. xxiii (1977), 59–66) argues that NT writers had no interest in the meaning of the OT for its own sake, but simply quarried texts to support and illustrate a pre-existing NT theology. Both these views need to be kept in mind. It may be that each is correct in different places. What is needed is a closer study of the practice of individual authors and their use of different parts of the OT. Only then will it be possible to give any confident judgement of how much an NT author may have carried in the way of related ideas, theology and contextual understanding when he quotes or alludes to the OT.2

In the Journal of Biblical Literature LXIV H. A. Rigg carefully developed the remarkable theory that Jesus of Nazareth was known to his contemporaries as Jesus bar Abba and that crowds of people called for his release at the time of his trial.1 Twenty-five years later, in New Testament Studies XVI (1970), H. Z. Maccoby independently arrived at a virtually identical conclusion.2 Both men based their arguments on the fact that the tradition of the privilegium paschale is unlikely to have had any historical foundation.3 Rigg, further, makes a case that the reading ‘Jesus who is called Barabbas’, found in some early texts of Matthew, is authentic.4 The intention of this short study is not to rehearse their arguments—and both men adduce more than mentioned above—but to show that there is even more evidence in support of their theory than their articles presented and that their theory is worthy of very serious consideration.

In the Qumran scrolls there are two passages that talk about a future figure called Geber (= Man). In this article we relate this figure with the Spirit-Paraclete promised in the farewell discourses in the Gospel of John (14. 15–17, 25–6, 15. 26–7, 16. 7–15) but before discussing such a relationship we place before the reader the contents of the two passages about Geber, so that he may relate them with our subsequent considerations without having to turn to the scrolls or a translation of them.

Daß die Vokabel παρθένος im ‘Gleichnis von den zehn Jungfrauen’1 die ‘Gespielinnen der Braut’2 bezeichnet, die Brautjungfern also, und daß das Wort ἓλαιον (ebenda) nicht Olivenöl, sondern Butter3 meint, kann kaum noch zweifelhaft sein. Bei παρθένος ergibt sich dies aus dem Kontext und bei ἓλαιον aus der Tatsache, daß man als ‘Brennstoff für die Lampen’4 im Palästina der Tage Jesu hauptsächlich (ranzige) Butter verwendet hat, nicht das wertvollere Olivenöl.5

It seems singularly unfortunate that in the twentieth century Matthew's Gospel has so often been studied with more attention being given to the Marcan source than to the Matthean narrative.1 Nowhere is this tendency more evident than in the account of the visit of the women to the tomb of Jesus (Matt. 28. 1; Mark 16. 1–2; cf. Luke 24. 1). A survey of the commentaries on Matthew quickly reveals how pervasive this interest in the Marcan narrative is.2 But while it may well be a reasonable exegetical procedure to compare one Gospel with another, the way in which the perspective described above can also hinder an understanding of Matthew's Gospel is strikingly apparent in M. D. Goulder's treatment of this passage in a recent article in New Testament Studies. Goulder writes:

The motive for the women's visit to the tomb is coherent in Mark. Joseph has rolled Jesus' body in linen, but it is not said that he anointed it: the women come to supply this need – they see where he is laid (xv. 47), and come to anoint him (xvi. 1). Matthew's story is incoherent: he does not mention the ointments throughout, and the women, having sat opposite the tomb (xxvii. 61), come, weakly, to see the tomb (xxviii. 1). On Marcan priority this is easily understood: Matthew has introduced a guard on the tomb, so an anointing venture must seem impossible. But, on Matthaean priority, what would they want to come and see the tomb for at first light?3

When Paul writes about the imparting of the holy Spirit, he normally uses quite ordinary verbs: God gives (δÍωμι, Rom. 5. 5), we receive (λαβάνω, Rom. 8. 15). But in I Cor. 12. 13 he uses an unusual, rather surprising word:

That one holy Spirit was poured out for all of us to drink (NEB).