The Pauline epistle known as Philemon is generally understood to be a letter written by Paul to a slaveowner on behalf of the runaway slave Onesimus requesting that the latter be allowed to return without penalty to the household in which he served. This article proposes a new interpretation of the letter that differs from the traditional in four major points: (1) the letter is written to a church, a congregation of which the individual addressed in the main body of the letter is a member; it is not a personal letter. (2) the slave Onesimus is with Paul in prison because he was sent there by the individual addressed in the main body of the letter (probably Archippus) on behalf of the Colossae church; Onesimus did not run away. (3) Paul writes to request that Onesimus be released from his obligations in Colossae in order that he might remain with Paul to work in the church in a Christian ministry. (4) Paul makes clear that Onesimus is no longer to be considered a slave within the Christian community, and separately suggests Onesimus be manumitted.

At the primary, narrative level the riddle of Mark's brief account of Jesus' death and its immediate aftermath must still be pronounced unsolved. There has been a steadily growing awareness among scholars that, for all the insights they have afforded us, form and redaction criticism have tended to deprive the Evangelists of reputations for competence as narrators and their story-lines of coherence and integrity and that this tendency does them injustice. Yet though the latest study of Mark 15. 37–39 is sensitive to this issue, it cannot be pronounced successful in making complete sense of Mark's narrative qua narrative. This paper offers a solution to the riddle and argues what I realize is the rather radical thesis that Mark intended a connection between the events of these verses that has never been fully and properly understood.

In recent studies of the parables, including some of those dealing with the judge and the widow, there has been an overemphasis on philosophical-theological and existential meaning. At the same time, there has been a lack of concern for the writers' vocabulary, methods when dealing with sources, and style and literary methods as these things relate to the study of parables. Such things, rather than the meaning of the parable, are my primary concern in dealing with the parable of the judge and the widow.

The most significant recent contribution to the understanding of Matt 6. 22–23 (= Luke 11. 34–36: Q) comes from Hans Dieter Betz. In his article on ‘Matthew vi.22f. and ancient Greek theories of Vision’ Betz claims to find in the pre-Socratics, in Plato, and in Philo the clues by which the enigmatic logion about the eye as the lamp of the body can best be elucidated. He directs attention to the following texts in particular: (1) Plato, Timaeus 45B–46A. In discussing the creation of the human body by the gods, Plato speaks of the ‘light-bearing eyes’(φωσφόραμματα), and he asserts that, within the human eye, there is a type of fire, a fire which does not burn but is, as Bury translates, ‘mild’. When we see, this fire, which is both ‘pure’ (είλıκρωές) and ‘within us’ (έντòς ὴμῶν), flows through the eyes and out into the world, where it meets the light of day. Now since like is attracted to like, the light of the eyes coalesces with the light of day, forming one stream of substance. And then, to quote Plato, ‘This substance, having all become similar in its properties because of its similar nature, distributes the motions of every object it touches, or whereby it is touched, throughout all the body, even unto the soul, and brings about the sensation which we term seeing.’ In fine, we see because we have within us a light that streams forth through our eyes.

Chapters 144–148 of the Acts of Thomas contain a long prayer of the apostle Judas Thomas, in which he anticipates the completion of his apostolic task at his approaching martyrdom.1 The prayer has one dominant theme: the apostle prays that, since he has faithfully accomplished the work God has given him to do, he may inherit his heavenly reward. This theme is elaborated by means of, first, a series of allusions to Gospel parables (145 [end]–146), and then a series of allusions to metaphorical sayings of Jesus (147). It is the sequence of parable allusions which concerns us here. For the text of this passage not only the Syriac but also two divergent Greek versions (represented by MS. U and by MS. P and four other MSS.)2 are extant. There are some differences between the three versions, but, apart from the loss of a few lines in MS. U by homoioteleuton at the end of ch. 145 and the beginning of ch. 146,3 the sequence of parables is the same in all three. It begins (at the end of ch. 145) with a mixture of allusions to the parables of the Sower (Matt 13. 3–8, 18–23) and the Tares (Matt 13. 24–30, 37–43), which the author may have known in a conflated version, rather than in the canonical versions. At the beginning of ch. 146 there is a passage which alludes to no known parable. Then the sequence continues with allusions to the parables of the Talents or Pounds (Matt 25. 27; Luke 19. 23), the Pounds (Luke 19. 16, 26), the Unmerciful Servant (Matt 18. 28–34), the Great Supper (Luke 14. 16–24), the Wedding Garment (Matt 22. 2–3, 11–13), the Watching Servants (Luke 12. 35–36),4 the Servant put in Authority (Matt 24. 45–46; Luke 12. 42–43), and the Thief (Gospel of Thomas 21, 103; cf. Matt 24. 43; Luke 12. 39).5 In each case Thomas identifies himself with a character in the parable, and claims either to have done what a praiseworthy character in the parable did (the servant who traded his pound and gained ten, the watching servants whose lamps remained alight, the wise servant who remained vigilant in his master's absence, the householder who stayed awake to guard his house6) or to have done what a blameworthy character in the parable should have done but failed to do (the servant who should have deposited his money with the bankers, the supper guests who should not have made excuses, the wedding guest who should have worn a wedding garment).7

In 1859 Friedrich Düsterdieck, then Director of Studies at the Prediger-seminar in the Monastery of Loccum near Hannover, published a commentary on the Revelation of John. It was his contribution to the series inaugurated in 1829 by another Hanoverian cleric, Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer. Commenting upon the description in Rev 14. 4 of the 144,000 elect, οῡτοί είσιν οί μετὰ γυναικην ούκ έμολύνθησαν παρθένοι γάρ είσιν, Düsterdieck wrote:

‘παρθένοι) Das Prädicat wird nicht selten auch Männern gegeben. Vgl. Fabricius, Cod. apocr. vet. Test. II, p. 92.98 (wo Joseph ein άνὴρ παρθένος heisst), Kypke, Observ. sacr. ad h.1. (παρθένον υα, aus Nonnus ad Joh. 19,26), Suidas, s.v. ‘Άβελ.’