My intention is to discuss some problems of biblical exegesis using as model the pericope on the Syrophoenician woman according to Mark. I assume the priority of Mark (the two sources theory) in spite of the fact that the Matthean parallel bears some traces of independent origin. They are most probably influenced by oral tradition, which was alive at least until the end of the second century, and partially also by the Matthean redaction (Matt 15.24).

Als ich vor fast zwei Jahren von der Leitung unserer Gesellschaft die ehrenvolle Einladung erhielt, auf dem diesjährigen Kongreβ in Edinburgh einen der Plenarvorträge zu halten, war mir sehr bald klar, daβ ich das Thema wählen würde, das nun über diesem Aufsatz steht. Seither habe ich – immer mit diesem Thema im Hinterkopf – den Eindruck gewonnen, daβ mir sozusagen in jeder Woche ein neuer Aufsatz, eine neue Monographic zur Frage nach den Schriftzitaten aus dem Alten im Neuen Testament oder in der frühjüdischen Literatur bekannt wurde, oft genug freilich nur durch Verlagskataloge oder Literaturverzeichnisse, ohne daβ ich in der Lage gewesen wäre, alle diese Literatur auch wirklich inhaltlich zur Kenntnis zu nehmen oder gar durchzuarbeiten. Aber so viel ist zu erkennen: Viele Kolleginnen und Kollegen waren und sind gegenwärtig an diesem Thema interessiert. Natürlich kann das auch zur Folge haben, daβ einige von Ihnen angesichts meines Themas in den Stoβseufzer ausbrechen: ‘Was will dieser Lotterbube uns dazu noch sagen?’ (Apg 17.18). Denn wir sind ja eigentlich alle ein wenig vom Schlag der Athener, ‘gerichtet auf nichts anderes, denn etwas Neues zu sagen oder zu hören’ (Apg 17.21).

To date, narrative critics have only begun to address the familiar question of what the theology – or better, the ‘theological point of view’ – of the respective canonical Gospels is. To remind ourselves, the theological point of view of a Gospel is the peculiar understanding of faith and life that governs its narrative world. Typically, the implied authors of the Gospels do not ‘tell’ their readers or hearers what their theological points of view are; instead, they ‘show’ their readers what they are through their respective descriptions of the settings, characters, and events found within their Gospels.

A l'exception de quelques textes majeurs tels que Rm 8, le corpus paulinien n'offre guère de développements un peu étoffés sur la théo-logie au sens restreint de ce terme. Est-ce pour cette raison que, tout en émergeant de façon plus sensible dans les travaux récents, le thème reste sous-développé dans les études pauliniennes? Peut-être. En tout cas, quiconque s'intéresse à ce sujet doit avoir la patience de collecter des données éparses. Telle est aussi la situation dans l'épître aux Philippiens, à première vue du moins. Après inventaire il semble en effet possible de regrouper sans trop d'artifice les données principales selon trois aspects. Le premier, pour la désignation duquel on pourrait reprendre la belle épithète philonienne du θεὸς φιλόδωρος, présente Dieu dans sa générosité. Le second, qu'illustrent deux textes dont l'apparentement est communément relevé, Ph 1.6 et 2.13, met en relief l'agir souverain de Dieu. Le troisième, qui s'exprime lui aussi à travers deux passages dont le rapprochement s'impose, Ph 1.11 et 2.11, met l'accent sur Dieu en tant qu'il est le telos.

Wohl nichts charakterisiert die Diskussionslage zum Thema Alter Bund – Neuer Bund deutlicher als die Titel (und Programme) zweier Bücher:

No one who is at all familiar with New Testament studies can fail to be fascinated by the extraordinary range of problems surrounding the so-called pericope de adultera, which appears in some translations as John 7.53–8.11 but which ‘has no fixed place in our witnesses’. ‘By a happy chance’, as the late Barnabas Lindars put it, ‘this fragment from an unknown work has been preserved in the MS tradition of John.’ Its absence from most reliable MSS, and the diversity of readings within the minority of MSS which include it at some point, are sufficiently problematic to prod the creative imagination of critical scholarship into remarkable productivity from time to time, and any new MS discovery is sure to reinvig-orate debate on this particular cause célèbre.

Two areas of biblical study identified as ‘growth points’ are the sociological and narrative approaches to early Christianity and its literature. Although these two approaches may be the offspring of different departments within the university, they are intricately related: narratives relate to a social context to the extent that they reinforce or subvert socio-perspectives. This project explores the interface of the two, examining one aspect of the narrative of the Fourth Gospel and considering ways in which it might have functioned within the social context of Johannine Christianity. While some literary critics draw high walls around a text to contain the ‘text world’ and keep it from outside contamination, others work on the basis that narratives are often referential, pointing to other narratives and building their own storyline in relation to them in some fashion. The latter approach is the one taken here, as certain points in the Johannine storyline are considered in relation to two important stories within early Christian tradition and within Judaism. The starting-point for this investigation is the feeding miracle in John 6.

Timothy 3.11 has long been recognized as an anomalous element in the discussion of deacons in 3.8–13, to which topic the author of the Pastorals has turned his attention as the second of the two offices described in the first half of chapter 3. Interpreters have struggled to identify the women addressed in this verse. Answers have scarcely been lacking, responses notable for their variety and for the unspoken assumptions delimiting the possibilities entertained. This paper, by scrutinizing the syntax of 3.11 and the structure of the passage on διάκονοι, ‘deacons’, discerns new evidence for the identification of these women as partners in ministry with the explicitly named men of the passage.