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.

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.

Ruben van Wingerden's articles on carrying a patibulum and σταυρός are admirably precise. However, his analyses of two texts of Plautus and a fragment of Clodius Licinus are problematic. In contrast to van Wingerden's rather minimalistic conclusions regarding carrying a patibulum or σταυρός, it seems likely that carrying a patibulum was a general element in Roman practice in accounts in which patibula are mentioned in conjunction with crucifixions – even when there is no explicit reference to carrying the patibulum through the streets.

This article surveys the subscriptions to the Gospel of Mark in 157 Greek manuscripts, noting their gradual development from being identical to the title in the earliest phase to becoming more and more elaborate and significant for the history of interpretation. Early on, as reflected in the title, the Second Gospel was associated with Mark, known to be Peter's disciple and interpreter. In the fourth or fifth century, an editor added the information that it was written (or spoken) by Mark in Latin in Rome as reflected in the Peshitta and later Byzantine manuscripts. At some point between the seventh and ninth centuries, an unknown editor added dates for each of the four Gospels from a source which has been attributed to Hippolytus’ Chronicle, and in the process made a cascading error which resulted in too early dates for Mark, Luke and John. In the archetype of Family 13, these traditions were combined which suggests that the archetype of Family 13 is no earlier than the eighth century. A main factor behind this gradual growth of the subscriptions is authentication and authorisation – in the case of the Second Gospel, the association with Mark and Peter legitimates its claim of apostolicity and orthodoxy. Moreover, the situating of each Gospel in time and space through the subscriptions not only satisfies human curiosity but contributes to the construction of an ancient Christian ‘landscape of memory’, reflecting the collective memory of the early Christians, thus shaping and enhancing their identity.

Four of the witnesses selected for the Editio Critica Maior of Mark are witnesses to a unique combination of catena commentaries on the Gospels not found in any other manuscripts. An analysis of their text in the Gospel of Mark, using the tools of the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method, shows that they also feature an almost identical form of the biblical text that frequently diverges from both the Majority Text and all other Greek New Testament manuscripts. These four manuscripts, GA 238, GA 377, GA 807 and GA 1160, therefore, constitute a group within the textual tradition of the Gospels. This article provides the evidence that GA 377 is a direct copy of GA 807. No other instances of direct copying can be proven within the group, but their agreement raises the possibility that they are siblings. The format of the catenae may explain the high degree of homogeneity in this group of Gospels manuscripts.

Onomastic congruence (a feature defined in this article) is characteristic of historiographic biographies from the Early Empire. The Synoptic Gospels display onomastic congruence, as well as conservatism in their treatment of names. The preservation of names, especially those centred around key roles and events, suggests that some names may have been preserved in the oral archives of early Christian communities to footnote living eyewitness sources, paralleling historiographical situations.

Vat. iber. 4, a membrum disjectum of the manuscript Sin. geo. 49, contains on two of its folios the Syriac Gospel text as the lowest layer (scriptio ima) within a double palimpsest. Comparison with known Syriac versions of the extant text – Matt 11.30–12.26 – shows that the text represents the Old Syriac version, and is particularly akin to the Curetonianus (Syc). On palaeographic grounds, the original Gospel manuscript can be dated to the first half of the sixth century. The fragment is so far the only known vestige of the fourth manuscript witness to the Old Syriac version.

Numismatic inscriptional evidence consistently employs the ΕΥΕΡΓ- word group in describing a superior providing some material public benefit to an inferior, typically an entire city, nation or kingdom. This is evidenced in the present study's comprehensive survey of several hundred numismatic types, extant in many thousands of specimens from the second century bce to the first century ce. Within this context, 1 Timothy 6.2 is discussed, wherein it is noted that the apparent identification of a slave's labour as ɛὐɛργɛσία not only heightens the significance and value of that service but is a deliberate inversion of expected social and linguistic norms.

Λιβανωτός is a rare word in the Biblia graeca and means ‘frankincense’. It appears once in the canonical Septuagint in 1 Chron 9.29 as part of a list of ingredients which were under the care of the Levites: flour, wine, olive oil, incense and spices. In the Apocrypha, it appears in 3 Macc 5.2 as a drug, together with unmixed wine, for maddening or running elephants wild. Then it is used only in Rev 8.3, 5 in constructions which made lexicographers unanimously define λιβανωτός as a container (censer or brazier). However, when one examines the usage of this noun in Greek writing at large, he or she observes, not without surprise, that λιβανωτός exhibits impressively stable semantics. Virtually everywhere in the history of Greek, the term is a spice (frankincense). Why then should Rev 8.3, 5 be an exception? The study probes into the claim that λιβανωτός means ‘censer’ in the Johannine Apocalypse, shows how well the regular meaning of incense fits in the scene John witnesses, and draws important implications for the understanding of the text and the lexicographical task.

Aus dem direkten Vergleich der beiden möglichen Leseweisen lässt sich ein Fazit formulieren. Die Technik der „Doppelkodierung“ (R. Feldmeier) zeigt sich darin, dass Lk 18,1–8 eine Alltagsepisode mit einem Moment des spöttelnden, vielleicht sogar stumpfen Humors erzählt und dabei eine Semantik benutzt, die auch in den Schriften Israels beheimatet ist. Auch wenn die „jüdische“ Denkwelt der Weisheitsliteratur in Lk 18,1–8 auf den ersten Blick keine Rolle zu spielen scheint, so wird sie dann für die Folgeszene in Lk 18,9–14 relevant. Lk 18,1–8 ist keine Relecture der Weisheitsliteratur, sondern mutet mehr wie eine Hommage an. Es klingt hier sprachlich bereits etwas an, das erst in der nächsten Perikope inhaltlich sichtbar verarbeitet wird. M.E. handelt es sich bei dieser Technik nicht um ein Zufallsprodukt, sondern um eine bewusste Entscheidung. Lukas ging so souverän mit den Schriften um, dass er sie kreativ mit hellenistisch anmutenden Erzähletappen verschmelzen konnte. Ebenso zeigt sich, dass er in den Schriften nicht nur Dekoration sah, sondern mit Hilfe der Frömmigkeitskritik arbeitete, um daraus für die Völkerwelt geöffnete, „jüdische“ Ideen über Gerechtigkeit und Glaubenspraxis entstehen zu lassen. Vor dem Hintergrund der Lektüre zeigt sich eine Unsicherheit, ob die Kategorien „Judenchrist“ und „Heidenchrist“ bei Lukas wirklich funktionieren.

This article argues that, based on a close reading of the ancient textual, documentary and epigraphic evidence, the expression ὁ μικρός in Mark 15.40 is most likely a nickname regarding this James’ particular height or potentially an affectionate indication that he is a child. The expression ὁ μικρός is not an indication of comparative age to another person (‘younger’). The evidence from ancient epigraphy and the LXX, initially provided by Adolf Deissmann to support a longstanding reading of ὁ μικρός as ‘the younger’ in Mark 15.40, proves to be less than reliable.

In Luke 6.11, the scribes and Pharisees are filled with ἄνοια after they witness Jesus’ healing on the Sabbath. Modern English translations, beginning with the RSV, translate the word ἄνοια as rage or fury, whereas older English translations render it as madness, and modern German translations follow Martin Luther by rendering the phrase with terms such as unsinnig (‘wurden ganz unsinnig’) or Unverstand (‘wurden mit Unverstand erfüllt’). This article argues that Plato's explanation of the word ἄνοια in Timaeus 86b provides the typical semantic range of the word; it includes ἀμαθία (the folly of ignorance) and μανία (the folly of madness, or the loss of one's rational faculties), but not anger.1 This twofold usage is reflected in Greek literature from the fifth/fourth century bce through the fifth century ce, including in 2 Tim 3.9, the only other text in which ἄνοια occurs in the New Testament. To say that the scribes and Pharisees are filled with rage in Luke 6.11, therefore, both exceeds the typical function of the word ἄνοια and risks further dehumanising two groups of people who are too often dehumanised by Christian tradition.

The article explains the problematic Second Teacher episode in the so-called developmental interpretation of IGT recently proposed by M. R. Whitenton and J. R. C. Cousland. The article shows that the killing of the second teacher in the text of Gs, which is appropriately identified as problematic for the developmental interpretation, appears to be a later version of the episode that most likely already sought to supplement a more original account. In the earliest recoverable form, preserved in the early versions (Syriac, Latin and Ethiopic), the story consistently does not blame Jesus for the death of the second teacher, either in the episode itself or in the other passages. So in the earliest surviving version(s), the teacher dies but not because of a curse from Jesus. Therefore, this episode does not disturb the so-called developmental interpretation.

The article presents evidence for a direct, both formal and contentual, dependence of Jesus’ triple accusation in Luke 23.2 upon Socrates’ triple accusation in Plato's Apol. 24b–c.

The use of συντɛλέω to speak of God's ‘completion’ of the new covenant (Heb 8.8) has generated various explanations. Yet none of them factor in an important clue in Hebrews, namely, the rest discourse. By establishing literary and theological connections between Heb 3.7–4.13 and 8.8–12, this study argues that the promise of the completion of the new covenant evokes the completion of creation and its ensuing sabbath rest. Such an evocation brings to surface a logic of Christology and new creation embedded in Hebrews.

The so-called Hymn of the Bride is found in Chapters 6–7 in the first Act of the apocryphal Acts of Thomas. The manuscripts containing it show a particular history of the text which does not always coincide with that of the rest of the Act. For instance, family gamma (Γ) often presents a summarized version of the first two Acts, thus heavily shortening the Hymn.

A study of the text is essential to establish a new edition with translation, which is the aim of the project in which this study is embedded. However, analysis of the manuscripts omitting or summarizing the Hymn is also relevant for other goals, such as a proper understanding of the interrelationships between the different manuscripts and of the interest in the text, and its use by early Christian communities and by later readers.

Consequently, in this paper, I will analyse the particularities of such a textual tradition and offer a few conclusions that will, in turn, contribute to the broader analysis of the Acts of Thomas.