Die Talio ist keineswegs nur in der Heiligen Schrift der Juden und Christen belegt,2 sondern findet sich in vielen Kulturräumen der Antike. Auf das Abendland bezogen sind hier vor allem Griechen-land3 und das Römische Reich zu nennen, in denen die Talio breit bezeugt ist, aber auch die Ägypter, Altbabylonier, Perser und Germanen haben sie gekannt.4 Im Iran kann sich noch heute ein Mörder durch die Zahlung des sog. Blutgeldes an die Angehörigen des Opfers (arab. diyah, pers. dieh) Strafmilderung oder in be-stimmten Fällen sogar Straffreiheit ‘erkaufen’, obwohl im Islam normalerweise Mord grundsätzlich durch den Tod des Mörders gesühnt wird.5 An dieser Regelung ist der Charakter der Talio als Milderung (gegenüber der Ausübung der unbeschränkten Rache) noch erkennbar.6

Since the publication of Paul Schubert's article, ‘The Structure and Significance of Luke 24’, considerable attention has been paid to what Schubert called Luke's ‘proof-from-prophecy theology’ and what others have identified as the pattern of prophecy/promise and fulfilment. Whatever term is used, it is generally agreed that Luke–Acts presents Jesus' life and the beginning of the church as the fulfilment of God's design for salvation as announced through his prophets. Yet most discussions of this aspect of Luke's theology have focused on Luke's interest in showing that Jesus and the earliest Christians fulfilled OT prophecy, while less attention has been paid to the predictions made in the narrative itself.Even less attention has been paid to the relationship between the fulfilment of OT prophecy and the fulfilment of these narrative predictions. This study will show how the narrative predictions in Luke–Acts contribute to Luke's theology of fulfilment and discuss the ways in which these predictions interface with Luke's emphasis on the fulfilment of OT prophecy.

It is one of the more surprising facts of academic life that no one has as yet attempted a detailed literary analysis of John 11.1–44. This narrative text, perhaps more than any other in the New Testament, calls out for sustained aesthetic appreciation. In many ways, John's story of the raising of Lazarus represents the pinnacle of the New Testament literature. It is a tale artfully structured, with colourful characters, timeless appeal, a sense of progression and suspense, subtle use of focus and no little sense of drama. Yet, even in the context of the well-documented paradigm shift from historical to text-immanent approaches to the Gospels, I know of no article or book which has exposed this story to a synchronic and aesthetic interpretation. This article is therefore a long overdue contribution to Fourth Gospel research. In it, I shall be examining John 11.1–44 from the following, recognizably literary, angles: context, genre, form, plot, narrator and point of view, structure, characterization, themes, implicit commentary, and reader response. My hope is that this article helps readers not only to appreciate the riches of John's storytelling, but also demonstrates in accessible terms how to approach the New Testament narrative literature.

Paul's problems with the law are notorious today; they were problematic in his own day too. Less notorious is Paul's view of nature. The two concepts come together in a unique passage in the Pauline corpus, one which seems to indicate that Paul knows of people, Gentiles no less, who do the law – though it is not certain what law – by nature. This contradicts much of what Paul says about Jewish inability to do the Mosaic law. I would like to argue, however, that Paul perceives this ability to do the law by nature as practically impossible. The basis for this argument is not a desire to save Paul from possible contradiction, but Stoic claims about the wise man, the only person capable of following the law of nature.

While for many the mention of Romans 7 calls immediately to mind the problem of the identity of the ἐγώ in w. 7–25, one could argue that Paul's marriage analogy at the outset of the chapter, though receiving less scholarly attention, has proved to be equally perplexing for interpreters of Romans. Stephen Westerholm indicates the complexity of this passage in his comment that Paul's picture ‘is not the most perspicuous in the literature’, while John A. T. Robinson speaks for many in asserting that the details of the analogy are ‘the more difficult the more you inspect them’.p

One of the most interesting passages to deal with the apostle Paul's thoughts on the Last Day and the final Judgment is found in 1 Cor 3.10–15. Far from being an excursus, a digression or an insertion, having almost nothing to do with its context, the verses are an important element in Paul's arguments on the diversity in the Christian community in Corinth in chapters 1–4. It runs partly parallel with vv. 5–9, illustrating the same point along more or less similar lines: people responsible for the growth of the Christian communities are just servants of God and will be recompensed according to their labours at the end of time.

Reflecting upon ethical ideals upheld by the Apostolic Fathers scholars have noted the presence of a ‘positive attitude towards pagan society’, ‘ideas comparable to those of nineteenth-century petty bourgeoisie’, a vision of the church made up of ‘generous householders, well-disciplined children, submissive wives, and reliable slaves’. Commenting on the renunciation of Paul's preference for virginity by the beginning of the second century, Elizabeth A. Clark concludes that ‘… the ordering of the household deemed normal by late ancient pagan society tended to prevail in Christianity as well’. Recent work on the implications of remaining unmarried for the lives of early Christian women has perhaps allowed the tipping of the scale away from the preference for the privileges of virginity towards the ideal of wifely submission to stand out in even fuller relief. The obvious question is why the Christian ideal of the married couple with its apparent openness to Greco-Roman ethics emerges so boldly at the turn of the century. The attractive solution most frequently proposed is, as Clark puts it, that wives exhibiting the characteristic virtues of good domestic order, discretion and modesty, stood as ‘apologists for the new faith’.