The death of Christ has not been prominent in the significant recent debate about the centre of Paul's theology, between E. P. Sanders and H. Hübner. Sanders characterizes Paul's pattern of religion as a ‘participationist eschatology’ as compared to the ‘covenantal nomism’ of the contemporary Judaism. H. Hübner champions the centrality of ‘justification by faith’, over against a ‘mystical identification with the crucified and risen Christ’. The former comes from Luther, and the latter from Albert Schweitzer. Hübner says of Sanders' book that in several passages it sounds as if Schweitzer redivivus were speaking. Sanders tends to make Paul's religion too intellectual — a change of world view, rather than a response to experience. Hübner does not take seriously enough the convincing evidence that Paul's problem with the Mosaic law was not the same as Luther's, namely that it promoted a ‘works righteousness’ which caused pride, but rather that in its social role as the guardian of the boundaries of the Jewish community, it excluded the Gentiles. Both, however, do not take the Cross seriously enough.

In a recent article on ‘1 Cor 7:32–35 and Stoic Debates about Marriage, Anxiety, and Distraction’, David L. Balch offers a contribution to the debate whether Stoic ideas, are reflected in Paul's discussion. Balch concludes, in part, that the Roman Stoic Musonius Rufus and the Apostle Paul agree that ‘marriage is helpful for some, not advantageous for others’.

Compte non tenu de la tradition attestéee en Q (Lc 13. 35 par.) sur la ‘maison’ abandonnéee,1 des propos relatifs à la mine du Temple sont attribuées à Jéesus en divers lieux: au début du discours apocalyptique de la triple tradition (Me 13.1–2 par.); lors de la comparution de Jéesus devant le Sanhedrin (Me 14. 58 par.); pendant la scèene de la déerision des passants (Me 15. 29 par.); dans le réecit johannique de la ‘purification’ du Temple (Jn 2.19), enfin lors du proces d'Etienne (Ac 6.14).2

In this article I propose to examine some of the Greek words used in Acts 28. 30–31.1 shall argue that the associations of these words become more apparent when we search the Hellenistic sources which use them. This searching can now, with the aid of the compact disc supplied by the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, be done more thoroughly than before. Though the disc in use in 1988 at the time of writing is not complete, it does contain some 40 million words of Greek, and its predecessor also contains a substantial (but incomplete) collection of the papyri. Although I do not claim to have examined every use in Greek texts of the words discussed below, I have examined a very substantial proportion of them based upon a sample containing at least two thirds of the entire corpus. I argue that at least three of the terms used have clear and specific legal connotations. They do not all retain those connotations in the present literary context of Acts, but they have a technical background in civil rather than criminal law and there may be some echo here of details of Paul's stay in Rome. Though I am arguing for a technical background in civil law for some of the terms, I am ready to agree that the description of Paul's stay in Rome does also have implications for the leniency with which he was treated during proceedings on a criminal charge, and also significant theological resonances. These further connotations will emerge from a detailed discussion of some of the key words and phrases in the Greek of the closing verses of Acts.

The formula ’he or she who has an ear let him or her hear’ occurs eight times in the Book of Revelation. The formula will be called ‘Hearing formula’ (an invitation to hear). In German it is often called ’Weckformel’ or ‘Weckruf’. In the Book of Revelation the formula is used seven times in the second and third chapters in connection with the letters and once in the 13th chapter combined with an apocalyptic vision.

Im Jahre 1969 stieß ich bei der systematischen Lektüre jüdischer Zeitschriften des 19. und beginnenden 20. Jahrhunderts an zwei Stellen auf Fragmente eines hebräischen Textes weisheitlichen Charakters aus der Kairoer Geniza. Es handelte sich um Fragmente, die Harkavy in der REJ 1903 (und in demselben Jahre in Ha-Mizrach in Krakau) und die Schechter in der JQR 1904 abgedruckt hatten, nur einen Text davon mit Übersetzung. Der Text wird von den hs. Fragmenten in babylonischer Punktation geboten. Ich fand heraus, daß Lazare Belleli das längere Fragment in einer eigenen Publikation bereits als ‘Un nouvel Apocryphe’ in Jahre 1904 besprochen hatte und ein Entstehungsdatum zwischen 70 und 135 nach Chr. annahm. Danach aber hat niemals wieder jemand sich zu dieser Schrift geäußert, und sie ist in Vergessenheit geraten. - Ich habe dann 20 Jahre lang über diese Schrift recherchiert, Experten befragt und alle nur möglichen Analogien gesammelt, um eine Datierung des interessanten Inhalts möglich zu machen.

Chapter 9 is the pivot of Luke's gospel containing, as it does, the transfiguration as well as marking the transition from the Galilee ministry to the journey to Jerusalem. Not only is it rich in incident, it is also rich in the range of titles given to Jesus. It includes the first recognition, outside the infancy narrative, of Jesus' messianic role (9. 20), the first passion prediction of the Son of Man (9. 22) as well as the first mention of the future Son of Man (9. 26). Furthermore, the chapter contains two titles peculiar to Luke, Master (έπιστάτες, 9. 33, 49) and Chosen One (έκλελγμένος, 9. 35). Luke presents this wealth of christological material in answer to the question posed by Herod, ‘Who is this about whom I hear such things?’ (9. 9). The complexity of the christology in Luke 9 stems not only from the variety of the explicit titles but also from Luke's direct mention of, or allusions to, OT prophets who are used as antetypes for the prophetic role of Jesus. The prophetic ideas in the Lucan writings have been set out by Tiede but the importance of the prophetic element in Luke 9 seems to have been somewhat overlooked in the more detailed studies of this chapter. Ellis, in his essay on the sources of the christology of Luke 9, has noted the Moses typology and possible allusions to Isaiah's servant, although it is doubtful whether the use of κλελεγμέ in 9. 35 (cf κλεκτόζ, Isa 42. 1) and the prediction of Jesus' suffering and rejection are sufficient to make the presence of the servant idea here more than speculative.

The speeches in Acts continue to arouse a variety of opinions; however, there is almost universal agreement that the style of the speeches belongs to Luke rather than to the persons to whom the speeches are attributed. This seems like a reasonable enough position given the convention among ancient historians to provide a précis of speeches rather than a verbatim transcription. However, Dibelius in his seminal essay on the speeches took Lukan style to be an indication of his unreliability: ‘Admittedly the speeches do, on the whole, reflect his (Luke's) style as regards vocabulary and phraseology; and it is this very fact which must constantly lead us to doubt their authenticity.’

In my book Authority in Paul and Peter: The Identification of a Pastoral Stratum in the Pauline Corpus and 1 Peter, I claim to have established not certainty, but a balance of probability, that an extensive layer of Pastoral-type redaction overlies this literature. I did so on the basis of an accumulation of converging lines of evidence which came to light in applying different kinds of criteria to relevant passages. Something I did not do, which I propose now to consider and illustrate, is how to weigh degrees of probability that particular passages are later addition or interpolations, whether they can be connected with the Pastoral Epistles or not.

The Forty-fourth General Meeting of the Society was held at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, during 24–28 July under the Presidency of Professor F. Neirynck. About 270 members, spouses and guests were present.

R. H. Charles, noting that no one had successfully explained how the living creatures of Rev 4.6 could be at the same time ‘in the middle of the throne’ and ‘around the throne’, boldly but logically throws out έν μέσῳ το θρόνου καί as a gloss. Since no manuscript omits the phrase έν μέσῳ το θρόνου, those with a literary conscience less robust than Charles' have tried to explain it. Yet attempts to interpret έν μέσῳ το θρόνου as ‘in the middle of each side of the throne’, ‘at the height of the middle of the throne’, or ‘in the center where the throne was’ heighten our surprise at the author's choice of words even as they explain his phraseology. Affirming that John has added ‘around the throne’ to the traditional ‘in the middle of the throne’ explains how the contradiction might have arisen but hardly lessens the tension between the two phrases.

Matt 5. 27–32, from the Sermon on the Mount, and Mark 9. 42–10.12 are passages that contain similar material, although neither is directly dependent on the other. Both have sayings that deal with ‘offences’ caused by certain body members (the verb used is σκανδαλίζω), and both contain a version of Jesus' prohibition of divorce. Between these two passages and a third, b. Nid. 13b, from the Babylonian Talmud, there also exist several similarities. Despite this intriguing configuration of materials, which might indicate that all three passages are dependent on a common set of traditions, scholars have approached these texts from a very different perspective. Those who posit a connection between the synoptic and the rabbinic materials do so only with respect to Matt 5, never Mark 9; and several scholars have instead sought parallels to the synoptic passages in Hellenistic gnomic literature, disregarding or ignoring the rabbinic material altogether. In the present study I intend to challenge the validity of these approaches and propose that there is indeed a common set of traditions to which all three of these texts are indebted. I will begin my investigation by highlighting three peculiarities of Mark 9. 42–48, and then posit a relation between this passage and b. Nid. 13b. Following this I will bring the material from Matt 5. 27–32 and Mark 9. 49–10. 12 into consideration. One of the results of this study, as I shall explain more thoroughly in the conclusion, will be the identification of a discussion on male sexuality that took place in Jewish and Christian circles sometime in the middle of the first century C.E

In this article I shall argue for two points: first, that Col 1. 15–20 exhibits, without the deletion of any of its parts, a clear structure which can, in some meaningful senses, be called ‘poetic’; second, that the passage, read as a poem in the way I shall suggest, exhibits a characteristically Pauline form of what we may call Christological monotheism. This will point on to some further suggestions regarding the place of the passage within Colossians as a whole.

The opening words of 1 Corinthians 13 have undergone numerous translations since their initial composition in the first century C.E. Although translators have often differed in semantic emphasis, there is remarkable agreement regarding the function of ἤ. Indeed, in every translation ἤ has been rendered as a disjunctive conjunction, equivalent to the English ‘or’. Unfortunately, this consensus has never produced a wholly satisfactory translation, resulting instead in some rather creative etymological crusades.

Scholars who have commented on John's use of the two verbs range from those who view the words as having very different meanings to the recent trend of seeing no difference. The following analysis argues for reversing that trend, and in the process sharpens our understanding of an important part of John's vocabulary.

There is a well known textual problem in 1 Thess 2. 7. The problem occurs in the second clause of the verse and concerns whether the text should read ν⋯πιοι (infants) or ἤπιοι (gentle). My aim in this short note is to argue that there are neither sufficient text-critical reasons, nor sufficient contextual reasons for preferring ἤπιοι to ν⋯πιοι. This argument swims against the tide of contemporary scholarly opinion. Almost all of the major commentators on this text read ἤπιοι, gentle. Further, all the standard English translations read ‘gentle’.