This study's point of departure is the important article of H. D. Betz, ‘The literary composition and function of Paul's letter to the Galatians’, published in this journal in 1975. In that article the author suggests a new approach to the letter to the Galatians, by using the generative rules of Graeco-Roman rhetoric to analyse the structure of the letter. A rigorous examination leads him to the conclusion that the form of the various parts and the order in which they are arranged completely conform to the classical rules of rhetoric for a judicial speech (genus iudiciale). Paul is under accusation by opponents. The Galatians play the role of judges. The letter contains a speech in which Paul, following all the rules of the art, defends himself before the jury.

In Joh 14. 12, der Rede von den gröβeren Werken, begegnet dem Leser eine Äuβerung, die ihn, liest er nicht flüchtig darüber hinweg, vor eine seltsam verschlossene Türe führt. Der johanneische Christus verheiβt den an ihn Glaubenden, daβ sie nach seinem Weggang dieselben Werke tun werden, die er getan hat – nein, diese Verheiβung genügt noch nicht: die Glaubenden werden gröβere Werke tun als er. Was wird hier bedacht? Welche Problematik verbirgt sich hinter dieser fast verwegenen Ankündigung: die Jünger werden Jesu Tun nicht nur erreichen, sie werden es übertreffen –? Gesteht man sich die Verlegenheit ein, in die dieser Satz zunächst führt, und verharrt man fragend in solcher Verlegenheit, dann wird die Rede von den gröβeren Werken zu einem Schlüssel, der die Tür zu einem weiten Raum aufschlieβt, zu einem Einblick in das Selbstverständnis und die geschichtliche Lage der johanneischen Gemeinde.

Joseph Tyson's The Death of Jesus in Luke-Acts and Robert Tannehill's The Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts, published in 1986, are good examples of the interpretive wealth being mined by scholars who are adopting literary-critical methods for approaching the Lukan writings. What most distinguishes these critics' approaches from older, more familiar ones is the claim that the Bible's historical narratives are imaginative re-enactments of history – thus, in form, more akin to fiction than to theology, biography, or history. Robert Alter called the Biblical stories ‘historicized fiction’, meaning in our case that the author of Luke and Acts employed the artifices of fiction-writing, among others, supplying feeling and motives and creating speeches and dialogue for his characters. Professors Tyson and Tannehill, and other literary scholars like them, are helping us better discern how these techniques were used in Luke and Acts, thus opening new windows to the characters, the way that the author ascribes intentions to them, the plot, themes, nuances, points of view, uses of irony, and word-plays and associations in the writings.

In a recently-published article, P. Stuhlmacher has outlined three major contemporary theories of the occasion of Paul's letter to the Romans: 1) Romans is addressed to a specific situation within the Roman community itself, 2) it is composed primarily with Paul's forthcoming delivery of the collection to Jerusalem in mind, and 3) it emerges from a convergence of the first two motivations. While not wishing to deny that the Jerusalem trip was a preoccupation of Paul as he composed Romans (see Romans 15. 25, 30–32), I intend in this study to strengthen the Roman side of the equation, first by surveying a range of arguments about the Roman situation as it relates to the letter, then by suggesting a new approach to the question.

At Gal 3. 2 and 3. 5 the apostle Paul sets ἔργα νόμου, ‘works of (the) Law’, over against ἁκοη πίστεως in two rhetorical questions with which he begins his attack against the position of his nomistic opponents in the Galatian churches. One hopes that this phrase άκοη πίστεως was less puzzling to the Galatian Christians than it has been to modern interpreters. The problem of interpretation is compounded by the fact that both words of the phrase can have quite different meanings. 'Ακοή can mean either the faculty or act of hearing or a message or report (that is, what is heard). Πίστις can name either a ‘subjective’ human act or attitude or the object of believing (that is, the Christian proclamation). Two important recent studies of Galatians have added their support to the view that by áκοη Paul means not ‘hearing’ but ‘proclamation’. In his Galatians commentary Hans Dieter Betz translates άκοη πίστεως as ‘[the] “proclamation of [the] faith”’. In The Faith of Jesus Christ, Richard B. Hays argues at some length that Paul means either ‘the message that evokes faith’ or ‘the message of faith (= the gospel-message)’.

Martin Dibelius long ago described the oration on the Areopagus as ‘… a hellenistic speech about the true knowledge of God’. In this paper it will be argued that the exordium of the Areopagus speech clearly conforms to conventions of hellenistic rhetoric in regard to exordia; secondly, that this exordium functions as an introduction to a deliberation on the topic of religion; and finally, that both the exordium and the speech as a whole bear witness to what Frederick Danker has aptly described as the author's ‘broadly ranging rhetorical competence’.

Regarding the biblical authors, St. Augustine the rhetor remarks, ‘Thus there is a kind of eloquence fitting for men most worthy of the highest authority and clearly inspired by God.’ Whatever we may think of this bold statement, the NT does indeed contain numerous portions which exhibit a knowledge of and even a mastery of Greco-Roman rhetoric. Many of these portions of the NT remain unanalyzed from a rhetorical perspective, including the Johannine Epistles.

Während die lukanische Kindheitsgeschichte im ganzen recht zusammenhängend konzipiert erscheint, weist ihr matthäisches Gegenstück zahlreiche Widersprüche und Ungereimtheiten auf. Dies gilt besonders für die im zweiten Kapitel geschilderten Vorgänge. Ohne plausible Erklärung bleiben z.B. das verhängnisvolle Zusammentreffen der Magier mit Herodes und die merkwürdigen Himmelsbewegungen des Wundersterns. Engelserscheinungen im Traum dienen wiederholt dazu, entscheidende Handlungsmomente notdürftig zu motivieren. Doch in der Situation nach dem Tode des Herodes versagt selbst diese Erzählfigur. Nachdem ein ἃγγελος κυρίου Josef versichert hat, die Verfolger des Kindes seien gestorben (2. 20), verläßt die Hl. Familie Ägypten und kehrt zurück in das ‘Land Israel’. In Judäa aber stellt sich heraus, daß die tödliche Gefahr nach wie vor besteht, denn nunmehr regiert dort Archelaus, ein Sohn des Herodes (2. 22).