The present article argues that rather than look for a traditional Jewish model behind Mark's passion narrative (such as an account of the Suffering Righteous One), we would do better to understand the composition of the whole gospel – both the central body of teaching in 8.22–10.45 and the passion narrative – as influenced by the genre of ancient philosophical lives. After considering ways in which biographies tended to present the deaths of philosophers, the article examines the death of the Markan Jesus as an example of a shameful, humiliating end. What redeems it for Mark is the fact that Jesus dies in perfect conformity with his teaching. The carefully composed central section of teaching material (8.22–10.52), it is argued, was put together by the evangelist with the specific intention of showing that Jesus died in accordance with his teaching. Thus the crucifixion could become the perfect embodiment of Jesus’ counter-cultural message of self-denial and servanthood, and therefore a powerful symbol of its truth.

This paper seeks to scrutinise the debate about the historicity of Jesus and identify aspects that merit critical reflection by New Testament scholars. Although the question is regularly dismissed, it is a salient one that was formative in the development of the discipline, and has become increasingly visible since the turn of the century. However, the terminology employed by the protagonists is problematic, and the conventional historiography of the debate misleading. The characteristic tropes evident in the contributions are also indicative of substantive issues within the discipline of New Testament studies itself.

In the Gospel of John, the apostles Andrew and Philip enjoy a privileged position right from the beginning. The reason seems to lie in the fact that they, being from Bethsaida in Galilee and probably fluent in Greek, could serve as intermediaries between ‘Greeks’ and Jesus, whom they wanted to ‘see’. Such an encounter happens in John 12.20–2. According to John, Jesus called Andrew before his brother Peter, whom Andrew then led to Jesus. Philip is the second person directly called by Jesus, himself leading another future disciple to Jesus: Nathanael (John 1.35–46). James and John are completely missing not only in the Johannine scene of the calling of disciples but also in the whole of the Fourth Gospel. The importance of Andrew and Philip follows also from the rest of the Gospel of John. The evangelist seems to depend on an early tradition attested in Asia Minor and to modify the synoptic tradition on its basis.

This article explores the origins of the conjectural emendation on 1 Cor 14.33b–35, first made in 1863 by Jan Willem Straatman. It shows that Straatman attributes the instruction on women's silence to Jewish influence and bases his view on a reconstruction of early Christianity in which Paul and his Gentile message were opposed by Jewish adversaries. This anti-Jewish tendency persisted in subsequent scholarship and has continued to characterise the understanding of this passage into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

The Gospel of Peter (GP), often claimed to be theologically unsophisticated, offers a theological reflection upon the saving work of the Lord in his resurrection. GP receives the synoptic tradition, which itself has no narration of the resurrection (but only narrations of ‘appearances’), and fills in this lacuna. The narration of the resurrection is patterned upon GP's narration of the crucifixion, thereby suggesting that the resurrection and the crucifixion are two coordinated salvific events. GP's reception of the synoptic tradition is thus not only apologetic or polemical, but also theological.

While it has recently become a common assumption that the traditional understanding of the grammar of John 3.16 (‘For God so loved the world that …’) is misleading or simply inaccurate, this article demonstrates on the basis of parallel constructions from the ancient Greek corpus that οὕτως … ὥστε, when used with ἀγαπάω, functions as a correlative intensifier–result pair, exactly as it is presented in the traditional understanding.

The title βασιλεὺς βασιλέων in the Apocalypse (Rev 17.14; 19.16) has generated a variety of interpretations in regard to its identification, symbolism and background. Commentators regularly note that joining a singular noun with its genitive plural is a common way to express the superlative in Hebrew. Others find special relevance of the phrase to the time of Domitian when it is said ‘he dictated the form of a letter to be used by his procurators, he began: “Our lord and god commands so and so”’ (Suetonius, Domitian, 13). The present analysis argues that inscriptions on relevant coinage confirm that the title was a clear allusion to the tradition of the Parthian kings, Rome's historic enemy. Within the context of the Apocalypse, the title is applied to Jesus Christ, presented triumphantly conquering Rome in the image of Rome's feared Parthian enemy. Included in the analysis is an extensive tabulation of relevant numismatic evidence.

This article challenges the argument of John Moles that Luke's preface (1.1–4) resembles a Greek decree more than any other type of writing. Although Moles is not the first to recognise the supposed decree-like features in Luke's preface, he goes further by arguing that the preface is intentionally structured like a decree for the author's rhetorical aim. In this article, I demonstrate that Moles’ argument goes too far and that Luke's preface simply displays features conventional to prefaces of historiographical writing – despite common structural patterns of preface writing and decree formulae – and is not layered with additional rhetorical meaning.

In 1 Cor 11.17–34, Paul attempts to correct the practice of a communal meal in Corinth. He notes that consumption of this meal without discernment of ‘the body’ has had disastrous consequences within the community of Christ-followers: ‘For this reason, many among you are weak and sick, and quite a few are dying’ (11.30). This essay offers a physical interpretation of 1 Cor 11.30, contending that Paul presents the bodies of both the ‘have-nots’ and those who shame them as suffering because of the practice of the Lord's Supper, the former from dietary deprivation and the latter from overconsumption.

The archaeology of ancient coin hoards and some basic numismatic analysis help to understand certain cultural presuppositions informing Luke's tangled discourse in his Parable of the Minas. Stories of political unrest and stories of hidden treasure naturally belong together.

It is a common notion among modern biblical scholars that Origen doubted Paul's authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews. This article offers an examination of Origen's writings on this question, and shows that the evidence is wildly misrepresented in contemporary discussions. It does this by beginning with Origen's Letter to Africanus, continuing with an overview of his Hebrews citations across his writing career, and concluding with an analysis of his oft-cited comments in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History. This examination shows that while Origen suspects Hebrews’ composition to involve more than Paul alone, his surprisingly consistent testimony is that the epistle is indeed Paul's.