Discussions on the possibility that Mark's Gospel may have been modelled, either consciously or subconsciously, on Greek tragic drama have gathered momentum in recent years. It has also been shown that a most important feature of Greek tragedy is the repetitive device of ‘foreshadowing’, a technique which has rightly been seen as essential to the development of mnemonic structures in oral epic. The use of this device in the Bible, it may be argued, is no less pronounced than in Greek drama. C. H. Lohr, in particular, has argued strongly for the presence of foreshadowing in Matthew's Gospel, and it is our purpose here to enquire whether the writer of the Second Gospel, too, was aware of this dramatic device. Matthew achieved the desired effect by means of dream episodes (Matt 1. 20; 2. 12, 13, 19, 22; 27. 19) and the repetition of divine names, especially ‘Son of David’, at strategic points (Matt 9. 27; 12. 23; 15. 22; 20. 30, 31; 22. 43). There are certainly no dream narratives in Mark's Gospel, and even the references to divine titles may seem to have been arranged in a somewhat arbitrary fashion at first glance. On the other hand, it can hardly be denied that we find in Mark's vivid account an inexorable drift towards death: the inevitable shadow of the cross falls across the text even as early as Mark 2. 20 – the disciples may not fast until ‘that day’ when the bridegroom is taken from them. And there is the hint of opposition to Jesus even prior to that! There is little doubt in my mind that Mark was keenly aware of the effective use to which the device of foreshadowing could be put, but his technique differs from that which Lohr has ascribed to Matthew. In true tragic style he wants to emphasise the inevitability of the cross as the omega point of Jesus' destiny, and to do that he uses not dreams or prophecies, but actors who engage Jesus in controversy or conflict at strategic points within the gospel story. It matters to Mark who these actors are, what role they play, and precisely when and where they make their entrances on stage. We shall thus be concerned to show, in the remainder of this paper, how the Evangelist treats the various groups of Jewish opponents as a literary device for foreshadowing Jesus' crucifixion.

Ernst Käsemann's theory that the Christ hymn in Col 1. 15–20.is an adapted pre-Christian hymn about the Gnostic Urmensch-Erlöser, who had both a cosmological and a soteriological significance, has not fared well. Even with the deletion of the words δι⋯τοû αἴματος τοû σταυροû αύτοû in v. 20, the sentiment persists that the second part of the hymn – which is soteriological – cannot speak of anyone else than Christ. More importantly, evidence for the existence of a Gnostic Urmensch-Erlöser is lacking until Mani's time. As a matter of fact, even pre-Manichean Gnosticism, in which we find both various Urmensch figures and redeemers, cannot be proven to antedate Christianity.

Die Beziehung zwischen Jesus von Nazareth und der Urchristenheit, nach E. Hoskyns/N. Davey das Rätsel des Neuen Testaments, wird meist von der Verkündigungsseite aus bestimmt, d.h., es wird gefragt: Was verkündigte Jesus? und: Was verkündigte die Urgemeinde? Die Lösung dieses Problems hängt stark von der Stellung des betreffenden Autors zur formgeschichtlichen Methode ab. So wird bei R. Bultmann eine Diastase postuliert: Die Verkündigung Jesu und das Kerygma der Urgemeinde sind recht verschiedene Größen und in der Weise einander zugeordnet, daß die Verkündigung Jesu eine der geschichtlichen Voraussetzungen des Kerygmas ist. Wer formgeschichtlich anders denkt als Bultmann, etwa H. Schürmann, kann hier hingegen eine viel größere Kontinuität feststellen.

All scribes followed rules in general. That would be what they learnt from their masters during their apprenticeship: how to sit and hold the pen; how to attend to the manuscript they were copying whether by eye or by ear; how long to write, when to break, and for how long; the height of the letters, the length of the line, the number of lines to a page. There must have been rules about spelling, rules like ‘Correct spelling mistakes’, or ‘Copy the spelling of the manuscript and do not attempt uniformity.’

Four variants are listed in the apparatus of the 3rd corrected edition of the Greek New Testament (UBS3) in 1 Cor 13. 3. They are:

κανχήσωμαı (P A B 048 pc)

κανθήσωμαı (K ψ majority text)

κανθήσομαı (C D F G L pc)

κανθήσεταı (1877 2492 pc)

Of these variants κανθσομαı seems to be the most popular, occurring in texts such as the 2nd edition of the British and Foreign Bible Societies, Vogels, Kilpatrick's Diglot, Von Soden, Tischendorf's 9th edition and the 25th edition of Nestle-Aland. It is also favoured by Elliott, De Boor, Grosheide, Godet, Morris, Bachmann, Billerbeck, Wolff, Weiss, Robertson and Plummer, Pop, Groenewald, Lietzmann, Barrett and Kieffer. Κανθήσωμαı seems to be the second most popular reading, occurring in amongst others the Textus Receptus, Alford, The Greek New Testament according to the Majority Text, Souter and Scrivener.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS: We have attempted to indicate that the ask-logion of Matthew 7. 7a, 8a is an independent saying (probably of Jesus himself) which originally called for or described a response within the context of the earliest, eschatological preaching of the Kingdom of God. The uncontrolled and volatile possibilities inherent in this independent saying led the church to begin a process of ‘definition’ of the saying. In this process the context in which the saying is found changes and often its form undergoes changes in order to bring the saying within the church's understanding of what was possible and permissible. The pressures of the ecclesiastical and the eschatological ethical traditions are both present in the Matthean version. A very sketchy suggestion (arising from our study) for the plotting of this development is offered in the accompanying diagram.

It is well known that earlier ways of measuring the style of Paul's epistles have in recent years been supplemented by specific tests based on calculations of the frequency of certain particles, sentence lengths, use of the subjunctive, use of specific tenses and the like. Two prominent works using such methods reach very different conclusions. In an important recent book Anthony Kenny puts forward a conclusion phrased in terms which reflect the judicious caution of one well versed in philosophy. He does not boldly assert that it is probable that Paul wrote twelve of the surviving epistles, merely that on the evidence which he collected he saw ‘no reason to reject the hypothesis that twelve of the Pauline epistles are the work of a single, unusually versatile author’.