This paper inquires into the situation of small children during the Hellenistic-Roman era, including NT texts and later Christian writings in the first two or three centuries. There was an early form of ‘Christian education’, and probably, children of baptized parents belonged to the Christian communities. In 1 Cor 7.14, Paul indirectly argues in favour of a ‘Christian influence’ on the ‘holy children’ by the ‘believing’ father or mother. In Eph 6.4, the author, speaking about παιδϵία καὶ νουθϵσία κυρίου, argues that in a Christian household children should have instruction in the Christian faith. The question of the baptism of small children might be answered by the interpretation of 1 Cor 1.14–16, where Paul precisely distinguishes between baptism of individuals (1.14) and baptism of the ‘house of Stephanas’. Mark 10.13–16 is a mirror of a discussion between those who ‘rebuke’ people for bringing children to Jesus, and Jesus himself who interprets their action as a ‘prevention’, thus escalating the conflict to a fundamental one, which probably refers to the question of baptism of children. During the last century, we have learned (again?) to see childhood not only as a transitional period of human life but one to be protected by society. Possibly similar ideas existed during the times when our texts were written.

The occurrence and significance of the five women in Jesus' genealogy in the Gospel of Matthew has been a source of continuous scholarly debate. Taking a gender-sensitive approach, this contribution argues for looking at the five women as one group, viewing them as simultaneously accentuating the messianic line that Jesus is part of and vindicating his somewhat irregular birth, as well as substantiating the openness of Israel for Gentiles by adducing precedents from Israel's history.

For much of the twentieth century scholars tried to reconstruct various cultic hymns beneath the surface of NT texts. With the rise of rhetorical criticism the focus of research has shifted to the properties of epideictic rhetoric. Exegetes, therefore, often tend to contrast ‘encomia’ with ‘hymns’ or ‘psalms’. To avoid any shadow boxing one has to consider which descriptive language would fit best the texts. A brief examination of ancient hymnic traditions and their treatment in rhetoric demonstrates that while encomia interact strongly with hymns each genre has its own characteristics; hymns, whether in poetry or prose, consist especially of praise of divinities and are addressed to divinities. Future formgeschichtliche analysis has to distinguish carefully between ‘hymn’ (in a narrow sense), ‘hymnic praise’ and ‘encomion’ (which does not refer particularly to divine beings). In early Christian literature, as far as it relates to the textual surface, we find beside hymns to God only a few hymns directed to Christ. Nevertheless Christ's divine status is praised with rich hymnic rhetorical devices. This amazing tension corresponds exactly with what we call ‘Christological monotheism’.

Much current NT scholarship holds that Paul conducted a ‘Law-free’ mission to Gentiles. In this view, Paul fundamentally repudiated the ethnic boundaries created and maintained by Jewish practices. The present essay argues the contrary: Paul's principled resistance to circumcising Gentiles precisely preserves these distinctions ‘according to the flesh’, which were native to Jewish restoration eschatology even in its Pauline iterations. Paul required his pagans not to worship their native gods—a ritual and a Judaizing demand. Jerusalem's temple, traditionally conceived, gave Paul his chief terms for conceptualizing the Gentiles' inclusion in Israel's redemption. Paul's was not a ‘Law-free’ mission.

The three Pastoral letters present themselves as Paul's personal correspondence, but their contents would fit better the genre of a community letter. The pseudonymous author has forged them as personal letters from ‘Paul’, because he had to reckon with his readers' critique concerning their authenticity, above all with critical scrutiny directed at possible contradictions in their circumstances of origin. Through the genre of a private letter he has attempted to concoct previously unknown letter-situations, and to make understandable the late discovery of the letters. At the same time, through the construction of three letters he has made a claim for general validity in respect of geography and time, so as to spread the ‘right meaning’ of the statements in the Corpus Paulinum.

Orthographic variation within the manuscripts of the Greek NT is seldom a cause célèbre beyond the ranks of diehard textual critics. Even among these most will concede that orthographic irregularities amount to little more than evidence of scribal incompetency or inconsistency in their spelling practices. To find the same word both spelled correctly and misspelled within a single manuscript by the same scribe is not uncommon. It approaches the norm. The critical editions of our Greek NTs have therefore opted, on good grounds, to exclude textual variants displaying non-standardized spelling. To include them would make it impossible for anyone to use the critical apparatuses in a meaningful way. The deluge of senseless errors would drown out variants of demonstrable textual significance.