This article challenges the argument of John Moles that Luke's preface (1.1–4) resembles a Greek decree more than any other type of writing. Although Moles is not the first to recognise the supposed decree-like features in Luke's preface, he goes further by arguing that the preface is intentionally structured like a decree for the author's rhetorical aim. In this article, I demonstrate that Moles’ argument goes too far and that Luke's preface simply displays features conventional to prefaces of historiographical writing – despite common structural patterns of preface writing and decree formulae – and is not layered with additional rhetorical meaning.

Les données lucaniennes viennent remettre en question les lectures du personnage de Judas qui cherchent à le déculpabiliser, voire à le déresponsabiliser, pour en faire un ami de Jésus. Le présent article se propose d'utiliser l'analyse narrative pour étudier la personnification de Judas dans la séquence narrative de Lc 22.1–62, en lisant notamment Lc 22.21–2 dans son contexte. Il en résulte la mise en évidence de la dimension symbolique du personnage de Judas: cette dimension ouvre à la perception d'une anthropologie ouverte et risquée dans l'œuvre de Luc.

Dass der Menschensohn in der Vision des Stephanus (Apg 7.55–56) zur Rechten Gottes steht, scheint für frühe Rezipienten und Tradenten nicht im Widerspruch zu dem aus Ps 110.1 gewonnenen Christologoumenon der ‘sessio ad dexteram’ gestanden zu haben: Der textkritische Befund ist völlig unauffällig. Die ‘statio ad dexteram’ in Apg 7.55–56 konnte wohl als bewusste Verfremdung der ‘sessio’ aufgefasst werden, mit deren Hilfe das Motiv der Throngemeinschaft um ein märtyrerchristologisches Moment erweitert werden sollte. Der, den Stephanus sieht, ist durch sein Stehen gekennzeichnet als der Menschensohn, der ihm ins Martyrium vorausgegangen ist und von Gott zu sich erhöht worden ist.

This paper discusses ways in which NT scholarship can engage meaningfully with contemporary studies in Greco-Roman culture, using recent archaeological exploration in Galilee as samples of such a strategy. Three examples are discussed, dealing respectively with aspects of Hellenisation, Judaisation and Romanisation of the region. These illustrate how specific finds can be brought into dialogue with the literary evidence, providing fresh readings. Such approaches, which recall earlier debates between the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule and the Biblical Theology Movement, raise the issue of how NT scholarship can still be regarded as theological in its aims and objectives. Some tentative answers to this perennial question are offered by way of conclusion.

Unter der Leitfrage ‘Was überzeugt und gewinnt die Hörer?’ werden die (1) Authentizität des Redners sowie die Techniken der (2) Visualisierung, der (3) Einwirkung auf die Affekte und des Raumlassens für (4) Kreativität des Hörers behandelt. Mit paulinischem Material lassen sich Quintilians Erkenntnisse zu diesen vier Themen exemplifizieren. Sodann kommen der Prozess der (5) Kreativität des Autors/Redners sowie das (6) Gedächtnis in den Blick.

The majority of commentators contend that αυτοπται και υπηρεται (‘eyewitnesses and ministers’) in Luke 1:2b refers to the followers of Jesus who later become identified in Acts as his apostles and other key witnesses such as Stephen, Philip, and Paul. This essay challenges the majority opinion in arguing that numerous parallels between the characters in the infancy narrative and the disciples as portrayed in Luke 24 and Acts signal the evangelist's intent to present the faithful heralds of John's and Jesus' birth in Luke 1–2 as among those who are ‘eye-witnesses and ministers of the word’.

Investigation of attitudes towards sexuality in Qumran and related literature shows that the myth of the Watchers served as an aetiology of wrongdoing, but not of sexual wrongdoing in particular as one might have expected, nor as its paradigm. Intermarriage was a major concern, although conflicts over sexual wrongdoing which feature in early sectarian writings disappear in what appear to be later ones. Extensions to holy space and time produce greater restrictions on sexual relations, but without disparaging them in proper space and time. Eschatology which leaves no space for sex created challenges for defending its place in the interim.

This article proposes to interpret the appearance of the risen Jesus to the community of the disciples on Easter evening in terms of a Johannine theology and spirituality and as integral to the Johannine resurrection narrative as a whole. The scene is a narrative exploration of Johannine ecclesiology, that is, the establishment of the New Covenant with the New Israel and the raising of the New Temple, the body of Jesus, in it midst.

Paul's reference to his adaptability to different groups in 1 Cor 9.19–23 is central to recent discussions about Paul's Jewishness. This paper argues that the crucial context for Paul's metaphor of self-enslavement (1 Cor 9.19) is not to be found in anthropological passages such as Rom 6 or Gal 5, but rather in the conditions of a slave's life in antiquity. This leads to an interpretation that combines essential concerns of a Paul within Judaism perspective with those of more traditional exegesis.

That Jesus carried the horizontal bar of the cross, also named patibulum, is often assumed, and argued by John Granger Cook. Gunnar Samuelsson disagrees, however, and argued that we grope in the dark about the exact nature of the σταυρός that Jesus carried. Both major crucifixion scholars refer in their argumentation to Latin sources in which a patibulum is carried. But these sources have not been thoroughly assessed on their own. In this article the eight Latin sources mentioned in support of the ancient practice are analysed. It is argued that only four of these sources should be counted as referring to ‘traditional’ cross-bearing practices.

For centuries, Christians have understood some of the texts included in the New Testament as ‘Jewish,’ in the sense of them being written by (converted) Jews for other Jews. From a historical perspective, a new development in the academy suggests that such approaches do not do justice to the nature of these texts. Indeed, even more recent attempts at understanding the New Testament against the background of Judaism are also found wanting. Instead, placing these texts within the broader context of the diverse ways of embodying Jewish ancestral customs in the pre-rabbinic Second Temple period, this interpretive trajectory, involving scholars from a wide array of backgrounds, insists that Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Revelation etc., should be understood as expressions of Judaism. This article highlights key issues involved in such re-readings of New Testament texts, including ways in which they may or may not relate to normative-theological positions among Christians and Jews today. First, the study looks at how the question is asked in our contemporary setting. Then, moving down historical layers, issues related to history and categorisation are addressed before we, finally, return to the present to consider possible implications of our findings.

The Greek word έξήγησις means ‘explanation’ or ‘interpretation’. When applied to the Bible, it would appear to mean ‘explication de texte’. However, Biblical exegetes are often in the habit of contrasting what they do with ‘eisegesis’, i.e. the imposition of ‘subjective’ meanings onto the text. This contrast suggests that the meaning derived by exegesis is gotten ‘out of’ the text, where it is thought to reside, by means of the ‘correct’ exegetical methods, of which the exegete is the master. Like Philip the Evangelist, the exegete responds to the plea for help implied in the reader's befuddled question, ‘How can I [understand], unless someone guides me?’ (Acts 8.31).

Certainly since the groundbreaking work of Ferdinand de Saus-sure, the social character of language has been axiomatic for most linguists. Saussure writes: ‘The structure of a language is a social product of our language faculty. At the same time, it is also a body of necessary conventions adopted by society to enable members of society to use their language faculty.’ Eugene Nida and Johannes Louw, writing in the supplement to their New Testament lexicon, acknowledge the connection between their treatment of semantics and sociology, but they refrain from specifying what they think the relationship between language and society to be. Nida is somewhat more forthcoming in his study of componential analysis when he writes:

There are analogies between the structure of a culture and the semantic structure of a corresponding language, but there is no set of one-to-one correspondences. A language must be free to describe a variety of possibilities, including those which have not as yet entered the culture. Nevertheless, the language does reflect in certain aspects of its semantic structure those aspects of the culture which for one reason or another have become salient in the lexical contrasts.

Die Psalmen Salomos sind ein für die frühjüdische Vorstellung von der δικαιοσύνην Gottes überaus wichtiges Zeugnis. Werden sie in der Forschung zumeist als Ausdruck pharisäischer Frömmigkeit, in der die Vorstellungen von der Gerechtigkeit Gottes und seiner Barmherzigkeit auseinanderfallen, gewertet, so versucht der vorliegende Beitrag zu zeigen, daβ die Verhältnisbestimmung beider Gröβen differenzierter ist. Die PsSal rücken die Vorstellung von der Gerechtigkeit Gottes eng mit seinem züchtigenden Handeln an den Frommen zusammen und gebrauchen hierfür die Termini παιδεία bzw παιδεύειν. Ein vergleichen-der Blick auf das Qumran-Schrifttum zeigt, daβ beide frühjüdischen Konzeptionen in je eigenerWeise als Hintergrund der paulinischen Rede von der δικαιοσύνην θεοῦ relevant sind.

Sixteen years ago I published a brief study in NTS1 in which I ‘underscore[d] the “tackiness” of using rabbinic material in support of or against an interpretation of NT material’. The present article returns to that subject by means of an examination of the use of a passage in the Babylonian Talmud in the magisterial two volume work by Raymond E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah.2 It is not, however, intended to be a comment on anything in this massive work other than the discussion on pages 376–7. My attention to the passage was drawn by a comment on an enclosure that came with the volumes: ‘…No one concerned with Jewish-Christian relations should fail to study his deliberate, sensitive and nuanced treatment of the Trial of Jesus.’

Mit der Wahl von ϰρηματίζειν zur Umschreibung der Gen 6–7 an Noah ergangenen Gottesoffenbarung greift der Verfasser des Hebräerbriefs Hebr 11.7 einen Terminus auf, der in der Orakelsprache beheimatet ist und in diesem Sinne auch vom hellenistischen Judentum rezipiert wird. Dadurch soil die im AT noch unmittelbar vorgestellte Kommunikation zwischen Gott und Mensch in eine mittelbare, d.h. sich im Orakel oder im Traum ereignende, überführt werden. Bestätigung findet diese These einerseits in der Zeichnung Noahs als Mantiker innerhalb der früüdischen Literatur (Jub; Philo), andererseits in der Existenz eines Henochorakels am Ende der Welt, das neben anderen auch von Noah selbst (2 Hen65.1–12) befragt wird.