Preliminary Remarks. There are in the Synoptic Gospels many examples of Sayings joined in pairs or larger groups. Separately and in other connections such texts have certainly been discussed again and again. But the phenomenon as such has hardly been dealt with in a coherent study. Therefore I have chosen to gather a number of these instances and discuss them together, especially those cases where two parts of a double saying are built up in an analogous way. But the present study has – as the sub-title ‘Analysis versus Theories’ indicates – also a synoptic intention. This is not, as in the case of most synoptic studies, to corroborate some already existing synoptic theory or to present a new one. The analysis has to be carried through radically. But why, then, especially take up those texts where we meet with ‘Coordinated sayings and parables’? Because here we have an opportunity not only to make a comparison between the versions of the evangelists, but also to complete this with a comparison between the coordinated sayings.

It is fitting that the first major attention given by the SNTS to sociological concerns should occur in Paris, the home of Auguste Comte (often called the father of sociology) and his circle. Actually there seem to have been many fathers and many more offspring, such that the present genealogy of the discipline presents an almost bewildering profusion of perspectives, goals, models and methodologies. This is a productive situation and a sign of health, but it suggests right away that I cannot analyse in this paper a single or simple sociology of the New Testament. Those of us who are experimenting – and that cautious phrase must be taken literally – with sociological approaches have come from different backgrounds and perspectives, borrowing from sociology where it seems useful and tentatively trying out various methods and models. The exploration has really just begun.

Es wird heute in der neutestamentlichen Forschung beider Konfessionen zwar nicht mehr einhellig angenommen, daΒ der urchristliche Glaube seinen Ansatz im Glauben an den auferstandenen Christus hat, die Rückführung des urchristlichen Glaubens auf den ‘historischen Jesus’ wird zunehmend vertreten, dennoch dürfen wir mit der Annahme, daΒ der urchristliche Glaube Ostern entstand, einsetzen, da unsere Untersuchung über die in I. Kor 15, 3–7 von Paulus zitierte Tradition eben diese Annahme bestätigen wird. Die ersten Christen glaubten an den Κúριος ησοũς χριστóς pios ‘li-aous Xpicrros, weil er ihnen als solcher erschienen war und nicht wegen einer Autorität, die der vorösterliche Jesus von Nazareth erworben hatte und die sich über seinen Tod hinüberrettete. Wenn wir diese von der formgeschichtlichen Forschung erarbeitete Position einnehmen, muΒ sich aber die Frage stellen, was dieser Glaube inhaltlich besagte. Wir können uns nicht damit zufrieden geben, daΒ er die Realität der Auferstehung bezeugt; denn welchen sachlichen Inhalt sollte der Glaube an einen Auferstandenen haben? Inwiefern ist mit Jesu Auferstehung der Tod besiegt, wie Paulus es I. Kor 15, 54 schreibt? Diese Frage hat die neutestamentliche Forschung bisher kaum berührt. Sie ist aber gerade darum in jüngster Zeit wesentlich geworden, da die Aussage von Jesu Auferstehung als urchristliches Glaubensbekenntnis mehr und mehr jeden Inhaltes entleert wurde. Wozu brauchten die ersten Christen die Aussage über Jesu Auferstehen, wenn sie nur‘die Sache Jesu’ weitergehen lassen wollten? Warum gaben sie ihm die Titel Kyrios und Christus, wenn nur seine Sache, die Verkündigung des kommenden Gottesreiches, weitergehen sollte? Es hatte genügt, ihn als Prophet wie es spater Rabbi Aqiba gegeniiber geschah. Wir haben darum alien Grund zu fragen, welcher spezifische Inhalt sich mit der Aussage I.

In a number of episodes in the Fourth Gospel, Jesus appears to act inconsistently. That is, he proceeds to act positively after giving a negative response to a suggestion that has been presented to him in view of something considered to be an urgent human need. Four episodes that contain this repeated pattern prove to be the beginning of his signs (John 2. 1 ff.), the second, encore sign at Cana (4. 46 ff.), the discussion about going up to the feast of Tabernacles (7. 2 ff.), and the sign of the raising of Lazarus (11. 1 ff.). Some, like Bultmann, have noted elements of the pattern in one or other passage only to misconstrue the issue. Others, notably R. H. Lightfoot, R. E. Brown and C. K. Barrett, have singled out two or three instances of the pattern and have shed some helpful light on its function, albeit in a restricted literary context. Together, all four commentators prompt one's attention to these four related passages. Neither their inquiries nor those of others suggest that additional Johannine passages need directly be considered. Curiously, however, no one scholar has indicated that all four passages exemplify the same pattern. Not surprisingly, the various analyses of the pattern that scholars have offered prove to be inadequate. For they have not attempted to cover all the relevant instances. Nor, as will appear, have they explained in a way that does justice to the data in the text the instances that they have noted.