This article explores the relationship of a minor variant in Hebrews 2.9 – Jesus dead ‘apart from God’ (χωρὶς θɛοῦ) – with the minor variant of Mark 15.34 and more broadly with Psalm 22.2, as suggested by Harnack, Michel, Zuntz, Elliott, Ehrman and Rodgers. First, it highlights new elements in the file of the evidence of Heb 2.9 and compares it with the case of Mark 15.34. Secondly, it demonstrates that paying attention to the minor variants of Heb 2.9 and Mark 15.34 allows one to grasp better the diversity of Jewish and early Christian readings of Ps 22.2 or Ps 21.2 LXX: these readings provide a plausible context to explain the emergence of these two minor variants.

The Markan Passion narrative alludes to Ps 22 (LXX Ps 21) in reverse, culminating with Jesus’ cry: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Mark 15.34; cf. Ps 22.1). I argue that this ‘extended inverted allusion’ was an admired literary technique. Through select examples of this technique in the writings of the Hebrew Bible and Greco-Roman literature, I demonstrate its various functions—it can be employed to reverse meaning, to dissociate causation or to create new narrative trajectories. Reading Mark 15 in light of the literary functions of inverted allusion reveals new interpretive possibilities. In the Septuagint, Psalm 21 suggests that the psalmist's suffering was merited because of transgressions, but the inverted allusions to this Psalm in Mark 15 reinforce that Jesus’ suffering is unmerited (cf. Mark 15.10, 14) by decoupling the suffering from the transgressions. Additionally, in LXX Ps 21, the psalmist moves from forsakenness on account of transgressions toward divine deliverance. By alluding to this Psalm in reverse, Jesus travels the psalmist's journey in reverse. Rather than move from forsakenness toward divine deliverance, Mark's Jesus moves toward forsakenness, precisely to bring about divine deliverance.

The present article argues that rather than look for a traditional Jewish model behind Mark's passion narrative (such as an account of the Suffering Righteous One), we would do better to understand the composition of the whole gospel – both the central body of teaching in 8.22–10.45 and the passion narrative – as influenced by the genre of ancient philosophical lives. After considering ways in which biographies tended to present the deaths of philosophers, the article examines the death of the Markan Jesus as an example of a shameful, humiliating end. What redeems it for Mark is the fact that Jesus dies in perfect conformity with his teaching. The carefully composed central section of teaching material (8.22–10.52), it is argued, was put together by the evangelist with the specific intention of showing that Jesus died in accordance with his teaching. Thus the crucifixion could become the perfect embodiment of Jesus’ counter-cultural message of self-denial and servanthood, and therefore a powerful symbol of its truth.

The article addresses the question ‘What is “New Testament Study”?’, considering as possible alternatives ‘Theology’ or ‘Religious Studies’. The issue may be critically determined by who is doing the study, and in what context; but in the context of the SNTS, it is argued that a non-confessional approach is more appropriate today. Part of the distinction between the two approaches may lie in one's attitude to non-canonical literature. In the second part of the article the question is raised as to what difference study of non-canonical texts might make in understanding the NT documents. Examples of the passion narrative in Q, and beliefs about the resurrection of the body (by Paul and other early Christians), are examined. Such issues raise questions about the NT canon, which are briefly addressed in a final section.