Dale Allison is right to assert that ‘the twelve tribes in the Diaspora’ invokes Jewish ideas about the Ten Lost Tribes, but wrong to disassociate this thesis from the scholarly consensus that the pseudepigraphal author sees the church as Israel. For James, rather, the restored Israel consists of members of the Two Tribes of Judah and Benjamin (= Jewish Christians) plus members of the Ten Tribes. The latter, rather than being far away in some mythical, inaccessible realm, have been living since the Assyrian invasion in known Diaspora realms, where they lost their Israelite identity until it was reawakened by their recent encounter with the Gospel. Gentiles who respond positively to the Christian message, then, are for James the Ten Lost Tribes.

Christian and Jewish sources of late antiquity employ ἡ ἐντολή as a term for almsgiving. The development of the locution passes through at least two stages before reaching semantic maturity around the fourth or fifth century. Tobit and Ben Sira record the early notion of charity as a paradigmatic precept, while the Didache attests to a more stabilised and syntactically developed, but still transitional, expression. The use of ἐντολή in 1 Tim 6.14 does not belong to the mature usage, and Test. Ash. 2.8 is a problematic reference point (pace Nathan Eubank). The Didache is more helpful in contextualising the NT evidence.

Jesus' preaching at Nazareth in Luke 4 is usually read as the rejection of a prophet because he is too familiar to his home town, as is the case in Matthew and Mark. This reading puts Luke's text under heavy strains that make it seem inconsistent or misconstrued. We propose that it should rather be read as Jesus refusing to be used for his home country's benefits, based upon a reconsideration of Luke 4.24 in the light of Luke 4.19. We then put this reading in synoptical perspective.

The present essay offers a fresh contribution to the long-standing debate regarding the nature of the resurrection of Christ within the pre-Pauline formula of 1 Cor 15.3–5. The article first provides an analysis of the current state of the discussion, offering new observations and lines of evidence which suggest that a number of common arguments on both sides of the debate are lacking or inconclusive. The essay then offers a new proposal regarding the verb used within the formula for the resurrection event. The article presents previously neglected evidence significant for the debate regarding Jesus' resurrection within this primitive confession.

Against the consensus that ‘peace and security’ in 1 Thess 5.3 is an allusion to a common Roman imperial slogan, it is argued that, while ‘peace’ does, in fact, evoke Roman propaganda's promise of a stable society to her loyal subjects, ‘security’ has its roots in the Hellenistic conception of the polis as the guarantor of stability. Paul himself combined these two catchwords, thereby promoting a counterclaim both to Roman imperial power and to Hellenistic visions of the ideal civic society. Neither can offer true security in the face of the apocalyptic cataclysm he is convinced is coming. That can be found, as far as he is concerned, only in identifying with the community of believers in Jesus.

1 Timothy defines the ekklēsia as the οἶκος θεοῦ. This has led to the conclusion that the Pastoral Epistles regard the ekklēsia as an enlarged oikos, where the roles of the officials and the norms regulating the behaviour of its members reproduce the relationships of the patriarchal household. However, οἶκος θεοῦ is not a household properly speaking. Ekklēsia is a term with political connotations, and thus the community acquires a public dimension. In addition, oikos is used metaphorically, for a larger community. In this, the definition reflects the ancient custom of describing larger communities (the cosmos, the polis, or an association) through the metaphor of the oikos. The ekklēsia is therefore a public, quasi-cosmic space, whose laws and structures receive divine legitimation.