Robert Gundry, in a new major commentary on Mark, advances convincingly the thesis that the second Gospel is an extended apology for the cross. More specifically, Gundry argues that Mark portrays the passion of Christ as an aspect of his glory. This article intends to follow that thesis up an avenue not travelled in Gundry's commentary – namely the Via Dolorosa, which, I will argue, replaces the Sacra Via of Rome and renders the passion a triumph in a quite literal sense. In other words, I will maintain that details of a particular segment of the crucifixion narrative (Mark 15.16–32) evoke a Roman triumphal procession, and that Mark designs this ‘anti-triumph’ to suggest that the seeming scandal of the cross is actually an exaltation of Christ. In this interpretation, many details of the crucifixion narrative that appear to be incidental are in fact important features in a parabolic drama which a late first-century Roman audience would be uniquely situated to comprehend.

It is difficult to find a more vigorously debated topic in NT studies today than the issue of anti-Judaism in early Christian documents in general and in Luke–Acts in particular. In regard to Luke–Acts, the range of viewpoints to be found among scholars is truly bewildering. In order to set the context for explicating my own position, I will outline my understanding of the contributions of Jacob Jervell and Jack T. Sanders, whose approaches appear to stand at opposite poles from one another and establish the limits within which other scholars customarily work.

Ein dunkles, viel umrätseltes und mißdeutetes Wort nennt Walter Schmithals den kurzen Abschnitt von den zwei Schwertern (Lk 22.35–8), der die testamentarische Rede Jesu in Lk 22 abschließt:

(35) Und er sagte zu ihnen: ‘Als ich euch ohne Geldbeutel und Vorratssack und Sandalen aussandte, hat euch jemals etwas gefehlt?’ Sie antworteten: ‘Nichts’. (36) Er aber sagte zu ihnen: ‘Jetzt aber, wer einen Geldbeutel hat, nehme ihn und ebenso einen Vorratssack und wer nicht hat, verkaufe sein Obergewand und kaufe ein Schwert. (37) Denn ich sage euch: dieses Schriftwort muß in mir erfüllt werden; “Und er ist zu den Gesetzlosen gezählt”; denn, was mir bestimmt ist, kommt zu seiner Vollendung.’ (38) Sie aber sagten: ‘Herr, siehe, hier sind zwei Schwerter.’ Er aber sagte zu ihnen: ‘Es ist genug.’

The gospel story of the Woman Caught in Adultery (John 7.53–8.11), has captured the hearts of many listeners because it stirs up strong feelings of compassion for a human being in a vulnerable situation, even someone who has betrayed his or her marriage vow and committed a serious wrong. The love, acceptance and forgiveness of Jesus as well as his profound wisdom as a respected teacher come out of the narrated scene. Jesus answers a question that solves a very severe problem. These elements of the dramatic episode from the life of Jesus are clear. The Jewish people in the story, however, are viewed as antagonists. The Pharisees threaten the woman's life and seek to accuse Jesus. Silhouetted against the passion, this accusation might even be viewed by some readers as a charge to bring about the death of Jesus. Is this the only possible interpretation of the Pharisees' role in the gospel story?

In Romans 4 Paul turns to the scriptural figure of Abraham, a vivid personification of faith and obedience in Jewish thought. While the most obvious reason for Paul's depiction of Abraham is to undermine any use of Abraham as a counterexample to his foregoing argument, Paul turns the common Jewish conception of Abraham on its head and offers him instead as positive support for his own position. The nature of Paul's argument in the previous two chapters of Romans has been identified by James Dunn and others as rejecting the Jewish assumption that covenant privileges are strictly associated with ethnic Israel and therefore unavailable to Gentiles. Over against the Torah, Paul has instead offered faith as the identifier or boundary marker of those who are members in God's people – a difference which allows Gentiles full participation in the covenant.

From a practical standpoint, it is a great advantage to ‘kill two birds with one stone’. But it is rare indeed to be able to confront and accomplish three significant tasks in one unified effort. That, however, is exactly what this slender treatment proposes to do: tackle the questions of structure, unity and theme that have long haunted the study of Philippians essentially in ‘one fell swoop’.

The identity of Paul's opponents in Philippi continues to elude historical illumination. It is usually assumed that the persons referred to in Phil 1.15–17, who ‘preach Christ from envy and rivalry’ (v. 15) and attempt to afflict Paul in his imprisonment (v. 17), are with Paul in Ephesus (or wherever Paul is thought to be imprisoned). Attempts to discern the identity of the opponents in Philippi, therefore, usually focus on the teachings in 3.2–21. Most attention is given to the warnings against ‘dogs’, ‘workers of evil’, and ‘mutilation of the flesh’ in 3.2, and against ‘enemies of the cross’ in 3.18–19, which seem to represent direct evidence for at least the presence of opponents. These warnings are followed by affirmations (3.3–16 and 20–1) which are assumed to distinguish Paul's own understanding of Christian existence from that of his opponents, and thus to reflect the views of the opponents in ‘indirect’ ways. This evidence, however, has been worked over again and again with no consensus regarding the identity of the supposed opponents.

Because ancient writers spoke as they wrote, their texts were understood to have oracular quality. Authors, limited by the convention of scriptio continua (the practice of writing words, frequently abbreviated, without spaces and punctuation), were careful to supply their readers with aural clues of textual structure, clarifying their emphases by various means of repetition. Readers listened for the writer's ‘voice’: for clues of aural structures – rhetorical devices (anaphora, inclusio, antithesis, etc.), for enthymemes and topoi in deductive reasoning and for examples in inductive reasoning – even as they voiced the words of the text. ‘Reading’, as Paul J. Achtemeier points out, ‘was … oral performance whenever it occurred and in whatever circumstances. Late antiquity knew nothing of the “silent, solitary reader”’ (original emphasis).