The logion of Matt 11.27 (// Luke 10.22) – ‘All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him’ – has long been considered a ‘Johannine meteorite in the Synoptic sky’ and, after fierce exegetical battles, a sort of ‘foreign body’ in both Matthean and Lukan theological projects. This paper intends to question this assumption on the basis of recent works both on the historical Jesus and on Synoptic theology. It suggests that this verse not only fits very well with the theological and literary project of the Synoptics’ authors but can also shed some light on Jesus’ theology of creation. The way Jesus articulates his own special relationship to ‘his father’ with the human relationship of God's children to ‘their father’ is coherent with the theology implied by this logion.

The present study of the oldest and most relevant extant manuscripts that contain 1 Cor 14.33b–35 shows that v. 33b (ὡς ἐν πάσαις ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις τῶν ἁγίων) is not connected with vv. 34–5. Scribes would consider 33b to be a part of 33a. Manuscripts א, A, B, Fuldensis, D, F, G, ms. 88* clearly read 1 Cor 14.34–5 as a separate paragraph. In these manuscripts, where vv. 34–5 are found after v. 40, v. 33b closely follows 33a. P46 and P123 are damaged and require reconstruction. Moreover, Greek New Testament editions that link v. 33b with v. 34 reflect exegetical decisions and are not based on external evidence.

Genre looms large in contemporary Lukan scholarship. While many scholars are content to label Luke as biography and Acts as history, others argue that both volumes must belong to a single genre. This solution preserves the generic unity of Luke-Acts by shoehorning one or both volumes into ill-fitting categories; such a move only makes sense within an understanding of genre-as-classification. By exploring recent scholarship on genre and privileging ancient practice over ancient theory, we propose reading Luke-Acts as a unified narrative influenced by and modelled after a wide range of Greek prose narratives, rather than representing one genre in particular.

This article foregrounds a fact so basic that it often goes unnoticed: stories frequently depict the acts of reading and/or interpreting stories; many narratives are themselves concerned with proper modes of narrative interpretation. I contend that such scenes work rhetorically to inculcate particular kinds of hermeneutical skills in their audiences, and thus can be read as pedagogical scenarios vis-à-vis implied readers. I begin the article by introducing the contemporary notion of narrative reflexivity and situating that concept within the broader literary sub-field of rhetorical narratology. Then, I turn to Acts 8.26–40 as a brief case study in order to demonstrate how narrative reflexivity can help us to think in fresh ways about the pedagogical force of ancient narratives. Specifically, I argue that this story in Acts reflexively commends the following hermeneutical principle for its readers: because reading is not synonymous with understanding, one ought to have an authoritative interpretive guide, and embrace a hermeneutic of hospitality towards the received narrative. Finally, I highlight several examples from ancient literature that demonstrate why my proposed reading coheres with ancient views about pedagogy and textual interpretation more broadly.

The perspective on the Pastoral Epistles presented in this paper differs from the established scholarly consensus and moves beyond the controversy concerning pseudonymity versus authenticity. After examining the development of the ‘Corpus Pastorale’ theory and clarifying some methodological questions, the paper argues for an interpretation of the Pastorals separately from each other and in their specific relation to Paul and his tradition. Significant examples indicate the possibility of understanding 2 Timothy and Titus as authentic letters of Paul, whereas 1 Timothy proves to belong to the second century ce. From this perspective, many otherwise contradictory aspects of the history of interpretation regain their rationale.

The claim to communicate the divine ‘without lies or deception’ appears both in the Epistle to Titus and in contemporaneous debates about the truth value of oracles, but not because of any direct literary borrowings from an original source. The Epistle to Titus exemplifies a trend in the second century that created from oracular one-liners a literary discourse about divination, which defended traditional religious knowledge against the rise of unauthorised agents. Shared responses to contemporary phenomena best explain the parallels – and, for example, the quotation of a pagan oracle in the letter, ‘All Cretans are liars’ (Titus 1.12).

The curious resurrection account in the Gospel of Peter (10.39–42) is not simply the author's creative innovation, but is based on a Christocentric interpretation of LXX Ps 18.1–7. The Gospel of Peter’s unusual description of Jesus’ exit from the tomb, whereupon he expands gigantically so that his head enters heaven (GPet 10.39–40), derives from an early Christian interpretation of LXX Ps 18.5c–7. The following conversation between God and the glorified cosmic cross (GPet 10.41–2) derives from a Christocentric interpretation of LXX Ps 18.2. In addition, the cross's verbal affirmation that it had preached to the dead (GPet 10.42) follows from a literalising yet Christocentric reading of LXX Ps 18.2b.