Though Martin Luther was doubtless not the first student of the NT to notice the apparent discrepancy between Paul's general affirmation in Galatians 3. 10a and the citation he introduces to support it in 3.10b, his statement of the problem has scarcely been improved upon in the centuries that have followed. As it stands, the Pauline text does present something of a conundrum. Whereas Paul's own statement appears to pronounce a ‘curse’ upon anyone who would attempt to live by the Jewish Torah, the biblical text to which he appeals clearly affirms the opposite: its ‘curse’ falls not on those who do the Law, but on those who fail to do it. What is Paul trying to say? Does he simply misunderstand his citation at this point? Or is there an underlying link between text and ‘interpretation’ that is not evident at first sight?

Because of their early date (mid-second century) and interesting variants, the gospel citations of Justin Martyr — he almost always refers to his source as άπομνημονεύματα τν άποστόλων (‘memoirs of the apostles’), and only rarely as a ‘gospel’ — have long attracted scholars’ attention. It is self-evident that the citations contain numerous variant readings and are frequently harmonized; the dispute has been over what best explains this phenomenon. Semisch and Zahn said that the variant readings and harmonizations were due to lapses of Justin's memory. Credner argued that Justin's non-standard citations were the result of his reliance upon extracanonical gospels. Bousset opined that Justin had access to presynoptic traditions; this explained both the similarities and the differences between Justin's text and the later (revised) synoptic text. Von Engelhardt suggested that Justin used a post-synoptic gospel harmony. This position found support in the researches of Bellinzoni, who investigated the ‘sayings of Jesus’ genre in Justin. He noted passages cited more than once in exactly the same harmonized form, suggesting a written document, and passages paralleled in other early Christian sources in very similar harmonized form. Bellinzoni interpreted this as indicating that Justin had used a gospel harmony, which was also used by other early Christian writers. He noted that Justin's variant citations and harmonizations seemed especially close to those found in the Pseudo- Clementine Homilies and Recognitions. Bellinzoni concluded that this harmony was post-synoptic, excluded John, and ‘had great influence on the later manuscript tradition of Matthew, Mark and Luke’. In the last paragraph of his book, Bellinzoni speculated that the harmony used by Justin might have links with the Diatessaron: ‘Tatian was a pupil of Justin, … It is now apparent that the concept of a gospel harmony did not originate with Tatian.’

1. ‘Denn als wir noch bei euch waren, haben wir euch vorausgesagt, daß wir in Bedrangnis geraten werden, wie es auch — das wißt ihr ja — eingetroffen ist’, schreibt Paulus in 1 Thess 3.4 and die junge Christengemeinde in Thessalonich. Er konnte ihr demnach bereits bei seinem Gründungsaufenthalt kommende Leidenserfahrungen ankündigen, die sich offenbar dann auch umgehend eingestellt haben (vgl. noch 1. 6; 2. 13–14). In dieser Erinnerung an Anfänge und Geschick der Gemeinde in Thessalonich spiegelt sich der auch anderswo im Neuen Testament belegte historische Sachverhalt, daß die frühen christlichen Gemeinden von Anbeginn an mit der Realität des Leidens konfrontiert waren und daß diese Leidenswirklichkeit ihren maßgeblichen Grund in der Existenz der Gemeinden an sich, d.h. in ihrem Bekenntnis zu Jesus Christus und den daraus für ihr Leben gezogenen Konsequenzen hatte. Insofern die christlichen Gemeinden als Minderheiten von den religiösen und sozialen Normen der nichtchristlichen Umwelt abwichen, teilten sie das typische Geschick gesellschaftlicher Minoritäten: Ihre Leidenserfahrungen konkretisierten sich vor allem in sozialer Isolation wie aggressiver Ausgrenzung, aber auch in blutiger Verfolgung. Dieser ursächliche Zusammenhang von Christsein und Leiden wurde auch von den frühen Christen selbst als solcher wahrgenommen. Dies macht eine Reihe von Präpositionalverbindungen sichtbar, die die Erfahrung des Leidens als ein Leiden ‘um Christi willen’ u.ä. bestimmen. Der damit gegebenen Gefahr, sich dem Leiden durch die Abwendung vom christlichen Bekenntnis zu entziehen (vgl. Mk 4.17; 8.34–38; Joh 12.42–43; 16.1; 1 Thess 3.3–4; 2 Tim 1.8, 12; 2.12–13; 1 Petr 4.16; Apk 2.13; 3.8 u.ö.), versuchen die neutestamentlichen Autoren dadurch zu begegnen, daß sie die Leidenserfahrungen ihrer Gemeinden in einer Weise theologisch deuten, die dem Leiden seinen Charakter als Differenzerfahrung nimmt und den Gemeinden eine positive Bewältigung ihrer jeweiligen Leidenswirklichkeit ermöglicht. Diese Deutung zielt darauf ab, die Gemeinden tröstend ihrer Identität als von Gott erwählter eschatologischer Heilsgemeinschaft zu vergewissern, indem sie die bedrückende Leidenswirklichkeit als ein konstitutives Element christlicher Heilswirklichkeit sichtbar zu machen sucht, d.h. als eine Erfahrung, die nicht einen heillosen Entfremdungszustand der Gottesferne markiert, sondern positiv in den Vollzug heilvoller christlicher Existenz hineingehört.

Some scholars continue to argue on compositional grounds that the Two-Document Hypothesis is to be preferred to the view that Luke first copied Matthew and that Mark then copied Matthew and Luke. The best way to answer such claims is to take a test case and discuss the matter in detail. It will be argued that the evidence indicates that there are serious difficulties with the view that Matthew and Luke independently copied Mark, a view essential to the Two-Document Hypothesis. It will further be argued that the view that Luke knew Matthew and that Mark used both Matthew and Luke is, in comparison to the Two-Document Hypothesis, the hypothesis to be preferred on compositional grounds.

The bulk of these chapters is invariably understood as a general, or as it were abstract, exposition of Christian virtues, without particular reference to a situation at Rome. We read in Luther, for example, that ‘the apostle is about to teach a Christian ethic’ when he begins chapter 12. Nygren states that none of Romans is aimed at circumstances peculiar to Rome, and that chapters 12–13 contain Paul's ‘central view of the ethical life of the Christian’. Käsemann regards 12–13 as general exhortation, only 14.1–15.3 being directed at problems in Rome. According to E. P. Sanders, nothing in Romans is called forth by the situation of the letter's recipients. ‘It seems best’, he writes, ‘to view Romans as being Paul's reflection on the problem of Jew and Gentile, in the light of the coming encounter in Jerusalem’. There are, however, several difficulties with this view. One is that the chapters do not include areas of Christian ethics with which we know Paul was concerned, such as marriage (1 Cor 7; Col 3.18 ff.), slavery (Col 3.22 ff.; Phlm), slander (1 Cor 6.10), suffering for Christ (2 Cor 1.7), generosity (2 Cor 8.6 ff.), avoiding witchcraft and gluttony (Gal 5.20; Phil 3.19), working hard (1 Thess 4.9–11). If Paul were writing a deliberately general ethic, we should have expected perhaps more system and certainly a greater range of items.6 More importantly, the view leads to fussy, artificial or disjointed divisions of the chapters into a multiplicity of exhortations which fail to grasp the broad sweep of Paul's thought. In particular the precise relevance of 13.1–7 is left obscure.

In this article I propose to examine some of the Greek words used in Acts 28. 30–31.1 shall argue that the associations of these words become more apparent when we search the Hellenistic sources which use them. This searching can now, with the aid of the compact disc supplied by the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, be done more thoroughly than before. Though the disc in use in 1988 at the time of writing is not complete, it does contain some 40 million words of Greek, and its predecessor also contains a substantial (but incomplete) collection of the papyri. Although I do not claim to have examined every use in Greek texts of the words discussed below, I have examined a very substantial proportion of them based upon a sample containing at least two thirds of the entire corpus. I argue that at least three of the terms used have clear and specific legal connotations. They do not all retain those connotations in the present literary context of Acts, but they have a technical background in civil rather than criminal law and there may be some echo here of details of Paul's stay in Rome. Though I am arguing for a technical background in civil law for some of the terms, I am ready to agree that the description of Paul's stay in Rome does also have implications for the leniency with which he was treated during proceedings on a criminal charge, and also significant theological resonances. These further connotations will emerge from a detailed discussion of some of the key words and phrases in the Greek of the closing verses of Acts.

The formula ’he or she who has an ear let him or her hear’ occurs eight times in the Book of Revelation. The formula will be called ‘Hearing formula’ (an invitation to hear). In German it is often called ’Weckformel’ or ‘Weckruf’. In the Book of Revelation the formula is used seven times in the second and third chapters in connection with the letters and once in the 13th chapter combined with an apocalyptic vision.

R. H. Charles, noting that no one had successfully explained how the living creatures of Rev 4.6 could be at the same time ‘in the middle of the throne’ and ‘around the throne’, boldly but logically throws out έν μέσῳ το θρόνου καί as a gloss. Since no manuscript omits the phrase έν μέσῳ το θρόνου, those with a literary conscience less robust than Charles' have tried to explain it. Yet attempts to interpret έν μέσῳ το θρόνου as ‘in the middle of each side of the throne’, ‘at the height of the middle of the throne’, or ‘in the center where the throne was’ heighten our surprise at the author's choice of words even as they explain his phraseology. Affirming that John has added ‘around the throne’ to the traditional ‘in the middle of the throne’ explains how the contradiction might have arisen but hardly lessens the tension between the two phrases.

The opening words of 1 Corinthians 13 have undergone numerous translations since their initial composition in the first century C.E. Although translators have often differed in semantic emphasis, there is remarkable agreement regarding the function of ἤ. Indeed, in every translation ἤ has been rendered as a disjunctive conjunction, equivalent to the English ‘or’. Unfortunately, this consensus has never produced a wholly satisfactory translation, resulting instead in some rather creative etymological crusades.

Scholars who have commented on John's use of the two verbs range from those who view the words as having very different meanings to the recent trend of seeing no difference. The following analysis argues for reversing that trend, and in the process sharpens our understanding of an important part of John's vocabulary.

Out of all the NT books, the Gospel of John has the most witnesses among the papyrus MSS – twenty-two to date (P2, 5, 6, 22, 28,36, 39, 44, 45, 52, 55, 60, 63, 66, 75, 76, 80, 84, 90, 93, and 95). Two of these MSS, P66 and P75, contain a good portion of this gospel by themselves; and when all the MSS are compiled together, they cover nearly the entire book, with a great deal of overlap. The missing portions are as follows: 14. 31; 15.1; 16. 5, 8–10; 21.10–11, 14, 16, 21–22. Many more verses, especially in chapters 14–21, have lacunae.