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’.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Les données lucaniennes viennent remettre en question les lectures du personnage de Judas qui cherchent à le déculpabiliser, voire à le déresponsabiliser, pour en faire un ami de Jésus. Le présent article se propose d'utiliser l'analyse narrative pour étudier la personnification de Judas dans la séquence narrative de Lc 22.1–62, en lisant notamment Lc 22.21–2 dans son contexte. Il en résulte la mise en évidence de la dimension symbolique du personnage de Judas: cette dimension ouvre à la perception d'une anthropologie ouverte et risquée dans l'œuvre de Luc.

Rom 5.18–19 summarises Paul's view of condemnation in Adam and salvation in Christ. Since Paul believes that all human beings participate in Adam's sin and in Christ's ‘righteous act’, a universal salvation is affirmed. This view is clearly at variance with other parts of Romans (not to mention his other extant works). The difference in view could be explained by the fact that Paul in Rom 5.18–19 is using the mythical concept of participation and that he is focusing on the effects of Christ's reconciling act rather than on how the reconciling word is brought to human beings.

1 Peter was written for the dual purpose of exhortation and consolation. Recent studies have focused on the former of these purposes (exhortation); this article attends to the latter (consolation). It argues that the last section of 1 Peter (4.12ff.), which since Perdelwitz has been identified as a concluding ‘Trostwort’, develops at length the popular consolatory topos ‘nihil inopinati accidisse’ (‘nothing unexpected has happened’). This topos was common in contemporary Greco-Roman philosophical consolation. It also appears in Philo and in the genuine letters of Paul and the Gospel of John.