Markus nimmt seine Gegenwart als dunkle, düstere Zeit wahr und bearbeitet mit seiner Jesuserzählung die krisenbehaftete Gegenwart. Ein zentraler Baustein in seinem Krisenmanagement ist ein strategischer Einsatz literarisch-theologischer Mehrdeutigkeiten. Die vorliegenden Beobachtungen illustrieren diesen strategischen Einsatz am Beispiel der programmatischen Basileiaaussage in Mk 1,15. Unsere Kernthese lautet: Markus bändigt die Ambiguität der ἤγγικɛν-Aussage in 1,15 durch die ἤγγικɛν-Aussage in 14,42 und beansprucht damit Deutungshoheit inmitten einer existentiellen krisenhaften Zuspitzung in der erzählten Welt. Dieser Gewinn an Deutungshoheit marginalisiert weder die Krisenerfahrung am Vorabend des Todes Jesu noch die Krisenerfahrung in den 70er Jahren, sondern dient dazu, ein wenig festen Boden in all der verbleibenden Unklarheit und Ungewissheit unter die Füße zu bekommen.

Die Untersuchung der Schöpfungsthematik in der Didache ist ein Forschungsdesiderat. Daher werden Übersetzungen und Kommentare daraufhin überprüft, welche griechischen Wörter an welchen Stellen schöpfungstheologisch interpretiert werden. Dieses vorläufige Netz der Schöpfungsterminologie wird durch weitere Analysen verfeinert, um einen Gesamteindruck der Schöpfungstheologie zu gewinnen. Im schöpfungsethischen Ausblick wird die Frage herausgegriffen, wie es für die Didache zukünftig mit der Schöpfung weitergeht, was im Horizont gegenwärtiger Herausforderung besprochen wird. Die Didache hat weder ein vordergründig ökologisches Interesse noch eine pauschale Abwertung der gegenwärtigen Schöpfung. Dennoch steckt in der Didache ein ökotheologisches Potenzial.

Uncertainty has attached to a medieval library catalogue entry mentioning Papias cum sermonibus diversis at Stams Abbey. Most recent editors of Papias have suspected that it refers to the medieval lexicographer rather than the second-century Christian author of the same name. This note calls attention to a marginal citation in a Stams manuscript from the lexicographer that helps put to rest the hypothesis of a full Latin manuscript of Papias of Hierapolis.

This article offers a new interpretation of καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα in Mark 7.19c. After reviewing and offering some nuance to an emerging non-antinomian interpretation of 7.15a/18b, I turn to Mark 7.19c and argue that the phrase καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα should be understood as a part of Jesus' speech in 7.18–19. Jesus’ argument, I suggest, is that ritually defiled food cannot defile humans through ingestion because humans purify all foods from ritual impurity through digestion. This reasoning depends on a widespread Jewish view that excrement is impervious to ritual impurity: because all excrement is pure, the stomach acts as a purifying agent that purifies all food from ritual impurity. I proffer that the common translation of Mark 7.19c – ‘Thus he declared all foods clean’ (NRSV) – should therefore be abandoned.

This article reconsiders the classed and gendered construction of the Author in the Roman Mediterranean, a construction that generates the intertwined notions of authorship and authenticity. Modern scholarly conversations about authorship and pseudepigraphy in the Roman Mediterranean often proceed from the uninterrogated assumptions that (a) ancient texts (including early Christian texts) were the monographic products of solitary authors and (b) everyone in antiquity, regardless of gender or class, had access to the status of being an ‘Author’. While conversations about (in)authentic textual production extend beyond the works that become part of the New Testament, these twin assumptions form the basis for modern debates about ‘forgery’ in New Testament literature. This article challenges both assumptions by first surveying the role of uncredited collaboration in Roman literary culture and then analysing ancient Christian discourses surrounding (a) illicit textual meddling and (b) inappropriate textual ascription. These two discursive categories reveal how the categories of class and gender are entangled with early Christian ideas of the Author. Ancient discourses of authenticity and authorship were not simply about who produced texts but about policing which acts of textual production count as ‘authoring’.

Dans la perspective de la préparation d'une nouvelle édition annotée de l'Évangile selon Thomas, à paraître dans la collection « Bibliothèque copte de Nag Hammadi » (Leuven, Peeters), cet article revient sur quelques-unes des questions qui ont été débattues à propos de cet écrit, à savoir son lieu et sa date de composition, ainsi que sa langue d'origine.

This short paper considers and critiques the view that the named people greeted in Romans 16.3–16 are not also among the recipients of the letter to ‘all God's beloved in Rome’ (Rom 1.7). Variants of this view spring from the work of Mullins (1968): that the second-person greeting involves the greeting of ‘a third party who is not intended to be among the immediate readership of the letter’ (Mullins, 1968: 420) and are found in Thorsteinsson (2003), Stowers (2015) and Campbell (2023). A series of arguments are made against this view. In particular, the plural form of the imperative (ἀσπάσασθɛ) and the open nature of the addressees mean that Mullins' simple principle does not apply. In addition, Paul's usage elsewhere (including in Romans 16.16) contradicts Mullins' principle.

Paul's letters depict gentiles and Jews with different characteristics of sin. This article focuses on Paul's rhetoric about Jewish shortcomings and argues that he has an eschatological myth of Jewish sin: it is the period in the Jewish deity's plan when he has hardened his people into disobedience and disloyalty. While scholars have traditionally tried to connect Paul's ideas about Jewish sin to deficiencies of historical Jews, Paul's claims are primarily animated by his Jewish eschatological scheme and competitive rhetorical needs. Paul re-emerges as a Jewish writer within his competitive social landscape wherein ethnic differentiation was an expected way of imagining the human and divine realms.

Ausgehend von der kulturwissenschaftlichen Forschung zu Familienalben und deren Gemeinsamkeiten mit dem Neuen Testament lädt dieser Beitrag dazu ein, darüber nachzudenken, was sich verändert, wenn wir die Fragen der Einführung in das Neue Testament durch die Brille der Theorie des sozialen Gedächtnisses betrachten. Aufbauend auf Forschungsergebnissen der Oral History und kulturwissenschaftlichen Gedächtnistheorie wird argumentiert, dass die allgemeine Einleitung in den Bereich des kulturellen Gedächtnisses und die spezielle Einleitung in den Bereich des sozialen/kollektiven Gedächtnisses fällt. Beide sind durch den Floating Gap getrennt, was die vielfach wahrgenommenen Veränderungen in der ersten Hälfte des zweiten Jahrhunderts erklärt. Im nächsten Schritt wird ein Modell, das auf dem Dreigenerationengedächtnis, der Generational Gap (nach einer Generation), der Floating Gap (nach 3-4 Generationen) und den ersten Generationen von Jesus-Anhängern aufbaut, mit Vorschlägen zur Datierung neutestamentlicher Bücher aus der Einleitungswissenschaft ins Gespräch gebracht. Es zeigt sich, dass die vor und nach dem Generational Gap verwendeten Genres je unterschiedliche Eigenschaften haben, die den Erwartungen an Medien des sozialen und kollektiven Gedächtnisses entsprechen. Der Beitrag schließt mit allgemeinen Fragen zu Medien und Medienwandel im Neuen Testament, d.h. Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit, identische Texte und Textkritik, dem Kanon als primärem Kontext, der Ausweitung des Geltungsbereichs sowie fluiden Gattungen, und kommt zu dem Schluss, dass kulturwissenschaftliche Gedächtnistheorie in der Tat neue Perspektiven für die Einleitungswissenschaft bietet.

Scholars have long been aware of the close relationship between two ninth-century Greek-Latin bilingual manuscripts, Codex Boernerianus (GA 012, VL 77) and Codex Augiensis (GA 010, VL 78). However, assessments of the nature of this relationship differ. The present article seeks to resolve this question by comparing full electronic transcriptions of the Greek texts of these manuscripts in Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, and First Timothy. An examination of the points of divergence, including unique readings, word division, corrections and lacunae confirm that their Greek text was either copied from the same exemplar, or that one served as exemplar for the other. Close analysis of the types of errors and the way in which corrections in Codex Boernerianus are handled in Codex Augiensis proves that the latter was copied from the former. These findings indicate that, as a copy of an existing manuscript, Codex Augiensis should no longer be cited in the apparatus of the Greek New Testament.

In this paper, I examine several sources of authority to which Origen laid claim as he set about the task of interpreting scripture. On occasion, in both his commentaries and his homilies, Origen provided accounts of his access to three different, though connected sources of authority that contributed to his self-presentation as an expert interpreter. These sources are as follows: 1) participation in the lineage of the apostles, particularly his exegetical role model, Paul. The second source of authority is a result of the first: 2) direct communication from the Logos, whom he understands to be Christ himself, and 3) angelic assistance and engagement with his pastoral exegetical project. In some instances, Origen even claimed to be on par with two of these sources of authority; he can be found claiming to have exegetical abilities similar to Paul's and, on some rare occasions, to have reached the same epistemological level as the angels. This analysis provides us not only with a case study of the kind of self-fashioning and authorising strategies used by elite scriptural exegetes in the first few centuries of the common era, but it also allows us to shift our focus away from exegetical methods towards the figure, personality and social position of the exegete him or herself. From this shift of focus we gain a better appreciation of a topic to which exegetical authors themselves dedicated considerable energy: just who it was that could occupy the office of authoritative Christian exegete and why.

First Corinthians 6.1–6 is consistently read as a Pauline criticism directed against members of the Pauline ekklēsia in Corinth, taking each other to Roman courts. I argue that this understanding of 1 Cor 6.1–6 is implausible in light of practices of Roman law in the provinces and in the colonies. Within a formal court procedure, the Corinthians would not have had the freedom to appoint their own judges, as Paul's language implies. I suggest instead that it is private arbitration which Paul criticises. Papyri dealing with private arbitration and mediation support this reading. Much of Paul's legal terminology in the passage is found in these papyri, making private arbitration a highly plausible suggestion. The suggested reading points to the community's good social ties with the pagan population in the city. It also depicts Paul as working within the framework of Roman law rather than against it. The article exemplifies the benefits of integrating up-to-date studies of Roman law in New Testament Studies.

Der 2. Korintherbrief sucht in seinem ersten Hauptteil (1.15–7.16) die Anstöße aufzuarbeiten, die die Gemeinde im Vorfeld des Briefs an der Ausübung des apostolischen Dienstes durch Paulus genommen hat. Wie die Eröffnung dieses Hauptteils in 1.15–2.2 zu verstehen ist, ist aber in der Forschung umstritten.

Der Aufsatz untersucht die literarische Verortung, den formalen Aufbau und die sprachliche Ausgestaltung des Gedankengangs, um dessen Sinngehalt und Funktion zu klären. Es wird aufgezeigt, wie der Abschnitt einerseits die Modifikation der paulinischen Besuchsabsichten, andererseits das Unterlassen eines angekündigten weiteren Aufenthalts verteidigt. Vor dem Horizont einer grundsätzlichen Reflexion der Basis, Eigenart und Aufgabe des paulinischen Apostolats korrigiert er die negative Wahrnehmung des Paulus auf Seiten der Adressaten und zeigt in drei Schritten auf, dass dieser gerade mit seinen die Gemeinde enttäuschenden Entscheidungen den ihm und seiner Mitarbeiterschaft gegebenen apostolischen Auftrag sachgerecht wahrgenommen hat.

The modern discipline of New Testament Studies has subjected the various components of the New Testament to close scrutiny, yet it persistently fails to ask critical questions about the New Testament considered as a whole. In its familiar twenty-seven book form, the New Testament may be seen as a fourth-century anthology of early Christian writings based on earlier collections or sub-collections (the fourfold gospel, the Pauline letter collection), yet innovative in establishing a sharply defined boundary between included and excluded texts. An analysis of contributions to this journal over a recent five-year period demonstrates the pervasive influence of this fourth-century construct in determining the scope and priorities of (so-called) ‘mainstream’ scholarship. Greater attention to the contingencies of canon-formation will enable us to locate the texts that came to form the New Testament within a wider early Christian literary landscape.

In Christian tradition, Paul is the apostle to the nations. However, his portrayal in the Book of Acts is more nuanced. For a longer period, Paul's ministry is limited to Jews. Only from Acts 13 onwards does Paul slowly emerge as ministering to non-Jews. Yet even then, Paul remains foremost an emissary to diaspora Judaism. In its apology for Paul and his disputed way of including non-Jews into the people of God, Acts emphasises that Paul did so without diminishing the priority of Israel, as a staunch proponent of Jewish monotheism and in a way that took full account of the precarious situation of diaspora Judaism.

Scholars generally agree that Moses and Elijah appear at the Transfiguration because they are connected to each other in some way, and that this connection informs the significance of the story as a whole. However, there is no consensus regarding how Moses and Elijah are related, and consequently there is significant disagreement about how their presence contributes to the Transfiguration. The present study, which focuses on Mark's account (Mark 9.2–8), argues that Moses and Elijah appear together because they received similar theophanies at Mount Sinai and, as a result, the Transfiguration should be read as a mountaintop theophany in which Jesus constitutes the personal presence of Israel's God.

Das Papier bezieht sich auf die exegetische Auffassung, es beruhe die Argumentation von Gal 3,10 gerade auch auf einer unterdrückten praemissa minor („die Toravorschriften lassen sich nicht vollständig einhalten“), und es richtet sich gegen die These von P. C. Moore, nach welcher die in 2,16c aufgenommenen Worte aus Ps 143(142),2 genau diese Prämisse bieten sollen. Nicht zuletzt die Aufeinanderfolge der Partikeln γάρ, (ὅτι) δέ, ὅτι und δέ in Gal 3,10b, 11a, 11b und 12a lässt auf ein deutlich wahrscheinlicheres Szenario aufmerken: Paulus argumentiert in 3,10-12 mittels zweier Syllogismen, und er benutzt dabei letztlich durch biblische Formulierungen (aus: Deut 27,26; Hab 2,4; Lev 18,5) vorgegebene, abgesicherte Prämissen.

The paper re-examines the parable of the king pondering about engaging in war with a more powerful enemy (Luke 14.31–2), focusing on questions commonly asked in antiquity and still relevant today with respect to war and suing for peace. These regard the cause of the war and the reasons for fighting, the tension between bravery and wisdom, the circumstances that may contribute to the defeat of a superior army and the costs of peace making. I explore this parable in the context of other Lukan passages touching on the topic of war and peace. I challenge the assumption that Luke was a pacifist, and I argue that the parable cannot provide answers to contemporary questions about the ethics of peace and war.

The Markan Passion narrative alludes to Ps 22 (LXX Ps 21) in reverse, culminating with Jesus’ cry: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Mark 15.34; cf. Ps 22.1). I argue that this ‘extended inverted allusion’ was an admired literary technique. Through select examples of this technique in the writings of the Hebrew Bible and Greco-Roman literature, I demonstrate its various functions—it can be employed to reverse meaning, to dissociate causation or to create new narrative trajectories. Reading Mark 15 in light of the literary functions of inverted allusion reveals new interpretive possibilities. In the Septuagint, Psalm 21 suggests that the psalmist's suffering was merited because of transgressions, but the inverted allusions to this Psalm in Mark 15 reinforce that Jesus’ suffering is unmerited (cf. Mark 15.10, 14) by decoupling the suffering from the transgressions. Additionally, in LXX Ps 21, the psalmist moves from forsakenness on account of transgressions toward divine deliverance. By alluding to this Psalm in reverse, Jesus travels the psalmist's journey in reverse. Rather than move from forsakenness toward divine deliverance, Mark's Jesus moves toward forsakenness, precisely to bring about divine deliverance.

After Paul, Silvanus and Timothy left Thessalonica, members of the fledgling Christ group in that city experienced death within their social network. Opinions differ as to whether the authors’ comments in 1 Thess 4.13–18 are addressing puzzlement internal to the Christ group alone, or whether these recent deaths also played into the wider discourse of the city. In addressing this issue, I adopt the view, propounded especially by Richard Ascough, that the Thessalonian Christ group had its origins in a civic association. In contrast to Ascough, I propose that the association did not undergo a complete ‘conversion’ to a new deity; instead, it experienced a rupture in its membership, with some members splitting off to form a new assembly of Christ-devotion. This ‘ruptured association’ scenario offers a different explanation than Ascough's regarding the issue the authors of 1 Thess were addressing in 4.13–18. The argument draws upon comparanda from the database of Greco-Roman associations and offers an interpretation in closer alignment with the primary emphasis of the text.