This article will examine the parodic characterisation of the image of the beast (Rev 13.15) who mimics the two witnesses (11.3–12) from a literary perspective. There is evidence of this mimicry based on the appearance of the textual markers, εἰκών and πνεῦμα. This study will examine parody in relation to other parodic characterisations that appear in the Apocalypse.

This article seeks to explain Matthew's description of Joseph as righteous (δίκαιος) by investigating Matt 1.18–25 within its ancient context, especially Judean practices of marriage and divorce as illuminated by Judean legal papyri from the Dead Sea region in the first and second centuries ce and from the Judean politeuma of Herakleopolis in the mid-second century bce. The examination will demonstrate the importance of these papyri for understanding the narrative in Matt 1.18–25 in its original social setting where honour was a dominant value, especially the extent to which it reveals Joseph to be an exemplar of Matthean righteousness.

The Gospel of Thomas (GThom) is a collection of sayings, most of which come with the stereotypical introduction ‘Jesus said: …’ The GThom thus looks like a loose collection of disparate material. However, several sayings in the collection are introduced by ‘He said: …’, thus omitting explicit reference to Jesus as the speaker. This points to greater (narrative) coherence: when the speaker's name is missing in a logion, the logion depends on the surrounding context and ceases to be a self-contained unit. This article views the GThom as a sayings collection on the way to becoming a literary composition titled ‘The Gospel according to Thomas’.

In 1963, New Testament Studies published an article by Pierson Parker in which he argued that the commonalities of the Third and Fourth Gospels result from direct contact between their respective authors. This article strengthens Parker's case. It highlights additional patterns of commonality between the two Gospels. It demonstrates that these areas of commonality align with events in the Fourth Gospel allegedly experienced by the Beloved Disciple. It considers the best explanation of this phenomenon.

This article defends the salience of situating Christ worship in the context of urban neighbourhoods and identifies some historical problems in conceptualising belonging at that level of society, akin to similar work on other levels of society such as the household and polis. An ekklēsia or collegium is, like all neighbourhood structures, capable of fostering or delimiting social interactions among neighbours who identify differently. A case study of 1 Cor 14.22–5 illustrates how Paul's model ekklēsia functioned in the context of the neighbourhood, and considers the impact of adding the ekklēsia to the street on which it was located.

Several recent studies have proposed that according to Paul gentiles join Abraham's lineage in a quasi-physiological way by being infused with material πνɛῦμα. This article assesses that proposal, finding it to be an inaccurate description of Paul's language and rationale, and sets forth an alternative proposal based on Romans 4 and Paul's descriptions of baptism. This alternative proposal is that Paul understood the forging of an Abrahamic and divine pedigree for gentiles to be a divine act of creation from nothing, that is concomitant with believers’ proleptic death and resurrection in solidarity with the messiah.

Jesus’ hyperbolic saying that ‘it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven’, present in the synoptic tradition (Matt 19.24; Mark 10.25; Luke 18.25), has long been subject to the suggestion that the ‘eye of a needle’ does not refer to an actual needle but is the name of a small gate in the Jerusalem wall. Today, most biblical scholars are convinced that this theory is incorrect, but no study identifies the sources of the error and traces the history of this myth. This note focuses on tracking the origins of the flaw and points specifically to the sources of the misconception that the term ‘eye of a needle’ should not be taken literally.

The earliest note that mentions a gate called the ‘eye of a needle’ seems to be a gloss attributed to Anselm of Canterbury (11th cent.). This gloss can be found in the thirteenth-century work of Thomas Aquinas Catena aurea. What is false, however, is the oft-repeated belief that the source of the information is the eleventh-century Gospel Commentary of Theophylact.

This article, originally presented as the presidential address at the 2021 SNTS meeting, held virtually via Leuven due to Covid-19 conditions, investigates the nature of Pauline interpretation, past and present. It brings into the scholarly conversation a neglected ancient source, John Chrysostom's occasional homily on 1 Cor 7.2–4 (Hom. 1 Cor. 7–4 (CPG 4377)), and provides an analysis of key passages showing how the late antique orator-bishop seeks to turn Paul's words from the fifties to Corinth into a magical incantation, and, as inscribed on various materials, a talisman against the evils associated with porneia. The article concludes with defence of the category ‘Christian love magic’ and an argument that New Testament studies constitutes a unified field which should unite (rather than separate out) the work of philology, historical contextualisation, literary criticism, humanistic commitments and hermeneutical sophistication as we trace and analyse the ways human agents construct meanings with New Testament texts, then and now.

This is the second part of a two-part article focused on a fragmentary parchment codex, whose three extant leaves, designated in Leo Depuydt's catalogue as P.MorganLib. 265, are housed at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York. These fragments bear witness to 1 Cor 2.12–3.18; 7.16–30; 15.3–30 in the ‘classical’ variety of Fayyūmic Coptic (dialect F5). The first part of this article was published in NTS 68 (2022) 89–104. In the second part, I discuss the witnesses to the Fayyūmic version (fa) of First Corinthians, the relationship between fa and the Bohairic version (bo), and the text-critical value of the variant readings attested in P.MorganLib. 265. This is followed by the editio princeps of the manuscript, notes on the Coptic text, an English translation and images.

It is commonly stated that while the author of Acts records some conversions that resulted from Paul's Athenian ministry, it is unlikely that a church was established in the city. This article argues, through an analysis of the use of the κολλάω word family in Luke-Acts, the Septuagint, early Christian writings and other relevant texts, that Luke uses the participle κολληθέντɛς as a way of signifying that a Christian community was indeed gathered together in Athens at this time. Leaving other social groups to join Paul and the other new believers, the new group is fused together by their shared faith, forming a new faith community in this ancient city.

In this article I catalogue and analyse every form of the title – inscriptions, subscriptions and kephalaia – that appears in the New Testament papyri, bringing together this material for the first time. The titles provide new evidence for examining questions related to traditions of entitling in antiquity more broadly and offer a space to consider the dynamic relationships between medium, materiality, book-forms, paratextuality and interpretation, both in antiquity and in our own scholarly culture that stands between print and digital forms. The material also highlights interesting divergences in labelling strategies between the titles of works in the various New Testament sub-corpora and suggests that the kat’ andra formula is not the only way to entitle a Gospel.

This article argues for a renewal of the discipline of New Testament studies through a focus on the question of truth. To make the argument, the article first engages a recent essay that is highly critical of mainstream NT scholarship and subsequently works with the thought of Søren Kierkegaard, Stanley Cavell, Cora Diamond and Hans-Georg Gadamer to pursue the interpreter's implications in the NT's assertions of truth. The article also briefly exegetes five passages from the NT to illustrate the way the NT makes claims that require judgements about truth. Along the way, the article also engages contemporary NT scholars who argue vociferously against ‘theological’ readings of the NT and others who argue for their inherent necessity.

It has been often suggested that Paul's escape from Damascus (2 Cor 11.32–3) alludes to the corona muralis, a Roman military award originally given to the first soldier to surmount the enemy wall during a siege. This article evaluates this hypothesis, employing an extensive range of ancient references to the corona muralis to determine where relevant passages from Second Corinthians (10.3–5; 11.30–3) may signal an allusion to the corona muralis.

Matthew's Gospel is known for its long, flowing discourses. The speeches in Luke, by contrast, are shorter and scattered throughout his narrative. Some believe this difference is evidence against the so-called ‘Farrer hypothesis’ – the view that Luke used both Mark and Matthew as sources. One response, however, is that Luke wanted to bring his speech lengths into closer conformity with the literary standards of Greco-Roman bioi. An analysis of seventeen representative bioi suggests that Matthew's speeches were exceptionally long for medium-sized biographies such as his own. This fact provides a plausible literary motivation for Luke to abbreviate Matthew's discourses.

Scholarly work on Luke has often noted the significance of Marcion's Gospel for understanding the textual history of the third canonical Gospel. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the past new insights into Marcion's Gospel have led to revisions in the apparatus of the highly influential Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece, now in its 28th edition. In view of the precedent for continually updating the Nestle-Aland text and apparatus, this article revisits the apparatus to Luke in the light of recent research on Marcion's Gospel in order to highlight problematic references that should be changed or removed in the apparatus of future Nestle-Aland editions.