Meist wird die Erforschung der neutestamentlichen Textgeschichte vor allem als ein Hilfsmittel auf der Suche nach dem ‘Urtext’ angesehen. Dass auch in textkritischer Hinsicht vielleicht zweitrangig erscheinende Zeugen von hoher theologischer wie auch historischer Relevanz sein können, zeigt sich auf mehreren Ebenen. So lassen sich nicht nur Verbindungen zwischen der konkreten Textform manchen Manuskripts und theologiegeschichtlichen Problemstellungen der ersten Jahrhunderte aufweisen, auch die Beschaffenheit des Materials, seine Funktion etwa als Amulett oder im christlichen Schulunterricht, seine Verwendung als Grabbeigabe oder die Wiederverwertung für verschiedenste Zwecke ermöglichen wertvolle Schlüsse auf den frühchristlichen Umgang mit dem NT.

Some scholars view the Last Supper as a symbolic action, one that articulates a rejection of the Jewish temple. This essay presents an alternative approach. The Last Supper traditions are more subtle than is generally recognized. Also, a good deal of evidence demonstrates that the temple remained an important institution in early Christian practice and thought. Therefore it is necessary to drop the problematic practice of describing sacrificial metaphors as ‘spiritualizations’ of the cult. Rather, we should place the sacrificial metaphors of the Last Supper tradition within the broader ancient Jewish effort to channel the temple's sanctity into various non-sacrificial practices, such as eating and praying.

The importance of purity legislation and the ‘separateness’ that it implied within Second Temple Judaism confirms the significance of the renewed interest in purity issues in ‘historical Jesus’ research. The relevance of John the Baptist's ‘baptism’ is less clear than at first appears. But that Jesus himself shared at least some purity priorities is implied by Mark 1.44 and by his ‘cleansing of the Temple’. Yet he also sat loose to the purity halakhoth regarding clean and unclean and table-fellowship, which suggests that Jesus did not regard such concerns as central to the definition of Israel and its practice.

The metaphor of a boundary as that which separates ‘us’ from ‘the other’ is central in modern discussion of identity as constructed, yet it is also recognized that such boundaries both articulate power and are permeable. The model is readily applicable to the Greco-Roman world where kinship, history, language, customs, and the gods supposedly separated ‘us’ from barbarians, but also enabled interaction; Jews and Christians engaged in the same strategies. At the textual level it is the different ways in which boundaries are constructed, particularly using diet and sexuality, that invite attention. This may offer a way of addressing questions of unity and diversity, of Judaism versus Judaisms, and of how ‘Christianity’ emerges as separate from ‘Judaism’.

In several NT passages an audience is urged to be ready for the parousia of Christ, which will come upon them ‘like a thief in the night’. This image plays upon a common stock of cultural lore regarding the nocturnal activities of house burglars. A review of the evidence suggests that poor people and women had the most to fear from burglars. For them, the idea of Jesus coming ‘like a thief in the night’ might have induced feelings of fear rather than anticipation. In the case of women, the image may have functioned as a means of social control.

There is no adequate evidence of a ‘Son of Man’ concept in Jesus’ time, nor of a common Aramaism for ‘man’ (misunderstood by Aramaic-speaking evangelists). Ps 8.6 was widely used to explain the delay in Christians’ resurrection: the υιος ανθρωπου to whom all would be subjected in time was Jesus. Heb 2.8–9 makes this explicit, proving Jesus’ incarnation (‘briefly inferior to angels’), cross and resurrection (‘crowned . . . because of the suffering of death’). Mark exploits the title: Jesus was the Son of Man, prophesied to come, to die and to rise; and the similar phrase in Dan 7.13 suggests his parousia and authority.

The significant differences on geographical matters between the Synoptics with their sources and John with its sources – especially the question of Jesus' ‘place’ – should not be resolved simply in favour of Mark. Cana as a place in John is almost as significant as Capernaum in Mark; this is the case in the first century, the gospel narratives and the pilgrim tradition. Both Cana and Capernaum show the continuing vitality of Jewish and Christian communities into the Byzantine period, so that the archaeological investigation of Khirbet Qana will be increasingly significant for historical questions.

James M. Robinson and Christoph Heil have read P. Oxy. 655, i, 1–17a as a pre-Q text, to whose tradition Q 12.22b–31 added originally independent sayings. The present article reads Q 12.22b–31 as an original unity, and P. Oxy. 655, i, 1–17a as a redaction of Q 12.22b–31 or its canonical derivatives.

This report of opened tombs and risen saints is conventionally deemed to mark Jesus’ death as the dawn of the new age. However, this understanding obscures Matthew's studied climax in v. 54. Defending the theory that vv. 51b–54 are a Matthean creation, it is argued here that Matthew drew his scene of risen saints from 1 Enoch 93.6, where ‘visions of the Holy Ones’ accompany the gift of the Torah. Matthew utilized this motif from the Mosaic era not to infuse Jesus’ death with eschatological significance, but to provoke the centurion's acclamation of Jesus as ‘son of God’ as the climax of the crucifixion narrative.

The article seeks to provide an answer to the question of why Paul says so little about Jesus in his letters. Paul's relative silence on Jesus' words is dealt with in the light of a socio-historical perspective. The study seeks to elucidate how Paul mitigates Jesus' seemingly radical remarks over ethical issues on marriage and the requirements of inheriting the kingdom of God in 1 Corinthians (6.9–10 and 7.10–11), so that his teaching may fit into the new Sitz im Leben of the Corinthian Christian community.

The notion of the variety of Jewish theologies echoes the variety found within Israel's sacred scriptures. Paul, in his Torah-centred period, based his theology mainly on notions derived from the Deuteronomistic school; later, after his call to be the apostle of Jesus Christ, he was indebted to the theology of the Priestly Code (see especially the figure of Abraham in Rom 4). Just as the Torah remains the privilege of Israel, so also the covenant. Non-Jews participate in the divine promises. Accordingly, ‘scripture’ as such cannot be invoked as witnessing to Paul's gospel; instead, Pauline theology is constituted on the basis of certain passages found within the corpus of Israel's sacred scriptures.

Many current Matthean scholars argue that Matthew employs the phrase ‘kingdom of heaven’ as a circumlocution for the divine name. However, by analysing the author's rhetorical and sociological strategies one finds that ‘kingdom of heaven’ combines with other ‘heavenly’ language (especially ‘Father in heaven’) to reaffirm the readers' identity as the true people of God. This language defends Jesus as a Davidic messiah, showing that he came to establish a heavenly, not earthly, kingdom. Furthermore, the ‘heavenly’ language reinforces the disciples' commitment to Jesus in the midst of persecution, reminding them that their identity, affirmation, and goal are in heaven.

Die Thematik Verus Israel im Blick auf Paulus zu behandeln, ist schwierig – schon weil er ein solches Syntagma nicht gebraucht, für den Sachverhalt vielmehr andere Termini verwendet. Außerdem ist der Ausdruck Verus Israel insofern unscharf, als dabei an wirkliche Juden oder (auch) an Nicht-Juden gedacht werden kann. Der Beitrag schlägt eine ‘mengentheoretische’ Neubeschreibung des Befundes vor, die hier deutlich unterscheidet. Dabei zeigt sich: Der Apostel dürfte bei der Wortfamilie um 'Ισραηλ, im Unterschied zu anderen Zusammenhängen (‘Jude’; ‘Beschneidung’; Abrahamskindschaft; ‘Volk Gottes’), die Grenze zwischen Juden und Nicht-Juden nicht überschreiten (auch in Gal 6.16 nicht) – in Übereinstimmung mit den traditionsgeschichtlichen Daten.

After having briefly dealt with the egô in Rom 7 and stated that all the rhetorical techniques support its non-Christian identity, the article shifts to the background of the passage and shows that it must be Jewish and Greek, and stresses the relevance of such a double background for the anthropology of the pericope.

Based on an integrated reading of the social and sacramental dimensions of 1 Cor 11.17–34, this study suggests that, rather than denoting the private homes of the wealthy, Paul's use of οικια/οικος (11.22, 34) refers to the domain of the Corinthian church's gathering. As a result, his exhortation in these verses entails not a tacit endorsement of stratified resources but a concerted argument for the feeding of the hungry in the community's shared meal (δειπνον), a meal he hopes will imitate Jesus' pattern of self-sacrifice and so will become a meal that is ‘of the Lord (κυριακον δειπνον)’.

Die Untersuchung des ‘bildspendenden Bereichs’ des Jungfrauengleichnisses hat gezeigt, dass einzelne Motive des Gleichnisses als Elemente zeitgenössischer Hochzeitsbräuche erklärt werden können: So muss die nächtliche Ankunft des Bräutigams nicht allegorisch auf die Parusieverzögerung gedeutet werden, sondern entspricht dem griechischen Ritus, nach dem der Bräutigam erst spät am Abend die Braut in sein Elternhaus geleitet, nachdem zuvor im Haus der Braut das Hochzeitsmahl gefeiert wurde. Die Jungfrauen könnten Mägde aus dem Haus des Bräutigams sein, die auf die nächtliche Rückkehr ihres Herrn warten und die Brautleute nach ihrer Ankunft mit Gefäßfackeln ins Brautgemach begleiten, bevor die Tür zu demselben verschlossen wird.

2 Cor 9.6–15 is crucial for understanding Paul's collection for Jerusalem, and this investigation exegetically examines the text while giving particular attention to three dimensions: sapiential material, rhetoric, and the socio-economic nature of the Corinthian church. The study concludes that the sapiential material comes from a Hellenistic Jewish background, though it shares affinities with Greco-Roman themes. Paul employs deliberative logos in vv. 6–10 as he addresses those in the lower socio-economic levels of the church, while he primarily employs pathos in vv. 12–14 and addresses those in the higher socio-economic levels of the church.

In the much-studied ethical thinking of Paul one aspect has been overlooked: the impact of role thinking. In his letters Paul assigns to the Christians several roles taken from social life, among which the sibling (brother/sister) role has a central position. Paul's frequent and often pointed use of sibling terminology shows that he employs ideas generally associated with social/biological siblingship in order to characterise and influence his co-Christians' attitudes and actions. By doing this, he reinforces and broadens the motivational basis for his ethics, and introduces elements which in important ways shape both its character and its content.

The widespread assumption that Paul's letter to the Galatians can be analysed in terms derived from the classical Greek and Roman rhetoric theorists has increasingly become doubtful. Above all it is challenged by the fact that the ancient theorists themselves made a clear distinction between oral speech and epistolography. However, the principal value of the rhetorical approach must not totally be denied. The absence of the addressees forced Paul to develop a strategy of argumentation based on elementary advices of rhetoric rules with which he was acquainted. Thus he tried to affirm the threatened state of the Galatian churches as εκκλησιαι and to prevent them from turning to a different gospel proclaimed by his opponents.

Mark 10.42b, οι δοκουντες αρχειν των εθνων, seems an allusion to Isa 11.10 LXX comparing those seeming to rule the Gentiles now to the prophesied messiah in Isaiah who will rule them in the eschaton. The messianic eschatological significance of Isa 11.10 LXX, evident in its development and prior use, seems continued in Mark 10.42–5, particularly as context for the preparatory, sacrificial Son of Man Christology of Mark 10.45. The allusion also suggests the prophetic applicability of all Isaiah 11 to Mark 10.42–5. The allusion's implied progression between Jesus’ self-sacrifice and his messiahship permits Mark 10.42–5 to function as an independent rhetorical unit applicable to church leadership in the interregnum and as a theologically climactic unit within Mark. Undeveloped by later readers of Mark, this allusion should be highlighted to preserve the passage's eschatological expectation.