In Luke 24. 13–32, we read of two disciples (Cleopas – who may or may not be the Clopas of John 19. 25 – and an unnamed disciple) being joined on the evening of the day of Jesus' Resurrection as they walk to Emmaus (a village of uncertain location, but said by Luke to be about seven miles from Jerusalem) by the Risen Lord, whom they recognise only after they recline at table with him and he breaks bread and distributes it to them (24. 30–31). Their visitor then abruptly disappears (24. 31) and they return to Jerusalem to tell the Eleven (24. 35).

One of the dominant motifs of the Fourth Gospel is the centrality of Christ for any kind of relationship between man and God. This theme at least stands out as a main purpose of the author, for he sets out to persuade his readers ‘that Jesus is the Christ’, and that believing they ‘may have life in his name’ (20. 31). What is more, he points out the superiority of the revelation in and through Jesus Christ (1. 17;3. 13) as compared with all other claims to offer revelation about God. Whether the author was seeking to persuade non-believers of the truth of the Christian message or Christians to remain faithful to the faith which they already had is much disputed. As far as the present discussion is concerned, however, it will be assumed that the gospel is directed primarily to those who were believers already, rather than being evangelistic in outlook, and is intended to dissuade Jewish-Christians from abandoning their new allegiance to Christ.

Der See Kinnereth (Gennesaret) nimmt in der öffentlichen Wirksamkeit Jesu eine hervorragende Stellung ein. War doch das an seinem Nordufer gelegene Dorf Kefar-Nahum, nicht seine Heimatstadt Nazareth, der eigentliche Wohnort Jesu während seiner Tätigkeit in Galiläa (‘Er nahm seinen Wohnsitz in Kefar-Nahum’, Mt. 4. 13). Dies war ‘seine Stadt’ (‘Er fuhr über den See und kam in seine Stadt’, Mt. 9. 1). Von dort aus unternahm er verschiedene Verkündigungsreisen, aber immer wieder zog es ihn nach Kefar-Nahum zurück. Das ist auch nicht zu verwundern, denn wohl die Mehrzahl seiner zwölf Apostel stammte aus diesem oder benachbarten Orten, oder war zum mindesten dort wohnhaft: Simon bar Jona, Andrea bar Jona, Jakob bar Zebedai, Johanan bar Zebedai, Philippos, Mattai bar Alpai, vielleicht auch Thomas (vgl. Joh. 21. 2); von den übrigen, bis auf Nathanael bar Tolmai, der aus Kana stammte, wird nichts überliefert. Von Andreas und Petrus wird ausdrücklich berichtet, dass sie aus Bethsaida stammten; sie wohnten jedoch in Kefar-Nahum, und Jesus wohnte wahr-scheinlich in ihrem Hause.

In a meeting of the Fourth Gospel Task Force at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in 1972 I made an incidental remark to the effect that everyone agreed that Peter was depreciated in the Fourth Gospel. Immediately I was taken to task by other members of the Task Force! Since I had for years assumed that this was one of the few agreed upon conclusions of Fourth Gospel Research, I decided that it was time to research this area again and see what, in fact, the role of Peter actually is in this Gospel. In the intervening months the significant book coming out of the National Dialogue between Lutheran and Roman Catholic theologians entitled Peter in the New Testament, edited by Raymond E. Brown, Karl P. Donfried and John Reumann has appeared, with a chapter on ‘Peter in the Gospel of John’, which is especially relevant to this study.

The hypothesis of Jude's Alexandrian origin, which was set forth by Ernst Th. Mayerhoff in 1835 and has been supported by D. Schenkel, W. J. Mangold, H. Holtzmann, O. Pfleiderer and James Moffatt, deserves to be revived.

Its associations with Syria and Palestine are superficial. Although the Apostolic Constitutions (Apost. Canon 85) canonizes all of the Catholic Epistles, it was not until the early sixth century that Philoxenus brought Jude into the Syriac canon. Eusebius (hist.eccl. ii,23.25; iii,25.3) placed it among the disputed writings. J. N. D. Kelly deems it unlikely that the readers ‘were converts from Palestinian Judaism, for the Gnostic libertinism attacked cannot have had much attraction for people brought up to reverence the Law’. There is no evidence that libertine Gnostics ever were a problem anywhere in Syria either. There is no point of contact between Jude and either the Judas Thomas apocrypha or Ignatius or the Docetic and Judaizing errors he opposed at home or on the road. Hans Windisch remarked that the suppression of the blood relationship of Judas with Jesus bespeaks the non-Palestinian origin of the letter. The readers of the epistle did respect both Judas and James, who represented Palestinian dynastic Christianity. But such esteem did not prevail at Antioch (Acts 15.1; Gal. 2. 12) or where Matthew (12. 46–50) and Mark (3. 31–35), with their bias against the Lord's brothers, were written. The Synoptic Gospels did not influence Jude. The remoteness of Rome and the West from Judaean Christianity argues against any association with our epistle. Neither 1 Clement nor the Shepherd of Hermas reveals an awareness of the problems with which Jude deals. The epistle has nothing in common with Revelation or Asian millenarianism; Papias did not even include Judas in his list of disciples. Justin's ignorance of Jude tends to forbid its connection with Ephesus or Rome.