It is not easy to review 49 volumes of a periodical, amounting to 196 numbers, each number containing, on average, at least six pieces. I cannot claim to have read all the articles when they first appeared; I have read only two in preparation for this celebratory note. I have known NTS from the day of its birth, and indeed (in a sense to be explained) from before its birth. No praise from me could enhance its reputation. Of course, it does not maintain an unvarying excellence, but its best contributions are among the best pieces of New Testament study to be found anywhere, and a great deal is written that falls below its lowest level.

Bei der sprachlichen Darstellung eschatologischer Themen scheinen Metaphern, die auf räumlichen Kategorien aufruhen, eine bevorzugte Rolle zu spielen. Das wird in vier Schritten an ausgewählten Texten aus Antike und frühem Christentum, die es in irgendeiner Weise mit der ‘Behausung’ zu tun haben, gezeigt. In der Alkestis des Euripides spiegelt die Anlage des Hades den Lebensraum der Oberwelt wieder. Platon schafft im Phaidon einen eigenen Weltenraum, um seine These von der Unsterblichkeit der Seele zu illustrieren. In Joh 14 bedarf unter anderem das Verhältnis der ‘vielen Bleiben’ in 14.2 zum ‘Bleibe Nehmen’ von Vater und Sohn beim Glaubenden in 14.23 einer Erklärung. Als platonisierende Fortschreibung des Modells aus Joh 14 erweist sich die Erzählung vom himmlischen Palast in der 2. Praxis der Thomasakten. Als ein gemeinsamer Fluchtpunkt wird abschließend der Raum der Erinnerung thematisiert.

Paul's address to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 stands at the center of an extended treatment of the internal life of the church (20.1–21.17), and constitutes Luke's last portrait of the believing community. In this section, scenes of community life (20.7–12, 17–38; 21.8–14) alternate with travel episodes (20.1–6, 13–16; 21.1–7, 15–17) to show the relationship among groups of believers scattered around the Aegean and back to Caesarea. The resulting portrait of believing communities echoes some important features of the early descriptions of community life in Jerusalem. In this larger literary context, the speech to the Ephesian elders takes on a different appearance from its usual characterization as the farewell address of Luke's hero, Paul. The speech repeatedly connects the church to God, introducing Luke's larger themes of God's plan, the action of the Holy Spirit, and the instruction of Jesus himself. These features show that the church's future, in Luke's view, has less to do with its imitation of Paul than with its relationship to the God who calls it into being.

The first part of this article investigates the relationship between the origins of the Jesus tradition and the two-source hypothesis. As more recent investigations have shown, there is no direct connection between the earliest synoptic sources and the beginnings of the Jesus tradition. Moreover, a division between sayings and narratives, although plausible with regard to the overall process of transmission, cannot be applied to Q and Mark. Therefore, the two-source hypothesis needs to be revisited. In the second part vestiges of the earliest sayings tradition are analysed with special regard to the Pauline writings. Paul does not distinguish between sayings of the exalted κυριος and the pre-Easter Jesus. In addition, in several writings the transmission of ‘synoptic’ sayings without attribution to Jesus can be detected. This latter tendency is demonstrated with regard to Rom 12.14–21, but can also be observed e. g. in James and the Didache. Both aspects reveal that the sayings tradition by itself is not orientated biographically, but leads to parenesis (as e. g. in 1 Clement 13) or to the concept of the ‘hidden sayings of the living Jesus’ in the Gospel of Thomas. The third part asks about the relationship of the sayings tradition to the earliest narratives about Jesus. It is argued that for the sake of historical memory of Jesus the sayings tradition had – and has – to be incorporated into narratives. More recent approaches to the historical Jesus via Q or the sayings tradition in general have therefore to be replaced by a more balanced perspective which relates the sayings tradition to the data gained from the narrative tradition.

In Jesus' second temptation in Luke 4, he is offered world dominion by the devil in exchange for acceptance of the latter's authority. This article considers the devil's offer in the light of Dan 1–6. Both Daniel and Luke make use of legal terminology, ultimately derived from Aramaic property documents, to illustrate the idea that the Creator has made over the world to the powers of chaos. Satan initiates a new and ironic twist on this theme when he attempts to lure the Creator's servant with the promise of sharing in his own God-given authority.

Most scholars share the opinion that Luke 10.18 is an authentic saying of Jesus. But by analysing the vision we can see that the saying in Luke 10.18 fits exactly in Lukan theology. In all probability this Jesus saying is written by Luke as an ‘internal heterodiegetic analepsis’ within the temporal frame of the Gospel. Even the positioning in the scene of the return of the disciples, and its genre as a vision can be explained as Lukan. This paper demonstrates that the ‘historische Plausibilitätskriterium’ proposed by Gerd Theißen and Dagmar Winter should begin with a ‘literarisches Differenzkriterium’. That is to say, to establish historical plausibility it must be possible first to show that the saying probably once had a life of its own and does not fit exactly in its present literary context. But the Jesus saying of Luke 10.18 does not fulfil this initial criterion.

The recent resurgence of interest in ancient Greco-Roman ethics has prompted many studies of NT ethical thought in the light of Aristotelian and Stoic approaches to ethics. The purpose of this article is to compare Rom 12 with Stoicism. Rather than looking for similarities between Stoic ethics and Pauline moral teaching, however (as Troels Engberg-Pedersen does in Paul and the Stoics), it is argued that a comparison between Paul and the Stoics is better achieved by a comparative process more interested in differences rather than similarities. Such a comparison undertaken in relation to Rom 12 reveals Paul's interaction with Stoic ethics, but in the interests of presenting a radically different moral vision.

The majority of Pauline scholars depict the eschatological orientation of Colossians as ‘realized’. Furthermore, a number of interpreters juxtapose the eschatological ‘already’ which arguably earmarks the epistle with the eschatological ‘not yet’ which ostensibly permeates Paul. This article questions the common contention that Colossians, in contradistinction to Paul, is virtually void of futurist eschatology. It is argued herein that even though the ‘already’ may feature in the letter, the ‘not yet’ is more pervasive than is frequently supposed. Correlatively, this study suggests that there is less variance between the eschatological perspectives of Colossians and Paul than is typically recognized.

Wer die Bildworte der Bibel liebt, hat sicher schon die Schwierigkeiten empfunden, die aus dem Zitat Ps 118.22 im NT (Mk 12.10f. par; Eph 2.20; 1 Petr 2.6) erwachsen: Christus sei der ‘Eckstein’ (κεϕαλη γωνιας oder griechischer: λιθος ακρογωνιαιος) jenes Baues, den die Kirche darstellt. Die landessprachlichen Übersetzungen und die kirchliche Lehrtradition wollen gern einen ‘Grundstein’ daraus machen; denn darauf soll ja der ganze Bau – wie man meint – ruhen.