To speak, in general terms, of trends in modern biblical study is often to over-simplify; and certainly to claim that there has been, in recent years, a trend away from the traditional classicist or ‘hellenist’ approach to New Testament problems towards a more Hebraic or semitic-centred approach would be to be guilty of the same exaggeration as E. C. Hoskyns in 1930: ‘(There are) grounds for supposing no further progress in the understanding of … Christianity to be possible unless the ark of New Testament exegesis be recovered from its wanderings in the land of the Philistines (sic) and be led back not merely to Jerusalem, for that might mean contemporary Judaism, but to its home in the midst of the classical Old Testament Scriptures — to the Law and the Prophets.’ There is, nevertheless, some truth in A. M. Hunter's later statement: ‘After ransacking all sorts of sources, Jewish and Greek (and, we may add, starting all sorts of “hares”, some of which have not run very well), (scholars) are discovering the truth of Augustine's dictum, “The New Testament lies hidden in the Old, and the Old is made plain in the New”’ (Novum Testamentum in vetere latet, vetus in novo patet).

The Christian canon contains only two apocalypses: the Book of Daniel and the Apocalypse of John. Today no less than 19 apocalypses and closely related documents are gathered together in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (2 volumes; Garden City, New York, 1983–1985). In light of these apocalypses and apocalyptic writings new possibilities for interpreting the documents in the New Testament can be seen. Only one example can be chosen now; it is a significant one, revealing the indebtedness of the Apocalypse of John to the continuum of Jewish apocalyptic thought and clarifying the roots of Christology in Early Judaism.

For three decades I have lived in the United States. After the war-torn forties, there came the smug fifties, when Americans saw opportunities and the British difficulties; then the searing sixties, which, along with much that was very salutary, brought the tragic suffering of Vietnam and the horrendous human wreckage of the drug culture; followed by the sobering seventies and now the unpredictable eighties. It is tempting to ask how the developments in biblical and theological studies are related to the social, political and economic changes which those decades saw. But I must confine myself to my discipline.

Précis: Here is a call for an investigation of the linguistic formulation of the term ‘Trinity’. Can it be that the phrase ‘kingdom of God/heaven’ is a functional equivalent in the New Testament of the later term ‘Trinity’? As a political term, kingdom (or monarchy) provides a framework for collegiality in the exercise of an undivided power. As a philosophical term, however, monarchy (or monotheism) entails subordinationism. Recent theological works recall that time is an essential category in theology. The description of time is compared to the description of light in physics, and the principle of complementarity is used to hold together spatialized time (Parmenides) and dynamized space (Heraclitus). The first use of the term ‘Trinity’ (by Theophilus of Antioch, ca. 170 C.E.) referred to the first three days of creation, which are called types of the Trinity. Thus, God was not described as beyond time and history, as Origen assumed, but rather we are summoned to a quest for the historical God, who takes our individual stories up into the total story of God and the world.

To date, work on Theodore Beza has dealt with his life, his theology, his biblical works, some aspects of his political activity and treatises, and his contribution to literature. Beza as a pastor, as a shepherd of souls concerned for their growth in Christ, has not yet received attention. But it is through such a study that Beza's character becomes known to us. Beza was not merely a skilled diplomatist, an excellent poet, and a devoted professor of the Genevan Academy. As a theologian he defended Calvin's doctrine, developing it as he thought necessary in response to attack or because of a profound insight into the nature of word and sacrament. But at the root of these activities was Beza's own life of faith nourished by Scripture and the Lord's Supper and shared with his flock and his students through a drama, commentaries and sermons, two manuals of prayer, and letters of spiritual advice or consolation.

Recent ecumenical discussion on ministry has tended to emphasise the sign-value of the ordained ministry. This is particularly so in statements concerning episcopacy, but also with respect to presbyteral and diaconal ministry. Close attention is being paid to ‘sacramental’ aspects of ordination and ordained ministry in both ‘Catholic’ and ‘Protestant’ circles. And certainly there is good reason to examine the subject of ministry in terms of sign-value, if not in terms of ‘sacramentality’. But the question is being asked, shyly by some and more stridently by others: We can see what ministers represent, we can even see the sign-value of bishops, but what are they supposed to do?