While the Gospel of John makes some forceful and explicit claims about the identity of Jesus and the character of his mission, it also invites readers into a deepened appreciation of its claims. Part of its strategy for doing so is to exploit ambiguity and to point to what the readers do not know. The article explores three examples of this pedagogical strategy: the deliberately hidden identity of the Beloved Disciple; the initial deeds of Jesus, labelled ‘signs’, which, however, do not in any direct and obvious way ‘signify’ anything, as the later works do; and the question debated by the crowds in Jerusalem, of where Jesus is from. In each case recognition of the unknown can be the first step towards discovering Truth.

Several recent studies have argued for the importance of democratic practices and ideology for a proper understanding of the issues and debates reflected in Paul's Corinthian correspondence. This new perspective stands in tension with older scholarship which emphasised the role of patronage in the structure and dynamics of the house churches that made up the ekklēsia of Christ-believers at Corinth. This essay draws upon new research into the political sociology of Greek cities in the early Empire, which highlights evidence of the continuing vitality of democratic assemblies (ekklēsiai) in the first and second centuries, despite the limitations imposed upon local autonomy by Roman rule. Special attention is devoted to the epigraphic evidence of first-century Corinth, whose political institutions and social relations were those of a Roman colony. The essay seeks to ascertain whether the politics of the Christ groups mimicked those of the city in which they were located or represented an alternative.

This article interprets Paul's self-reflections in Phil 1 in light of the most current discourse about the ‘(introspective) self’ in antiquity: it is argued that Paul – in his last letter writing during his final imprisonment (in Rome?) – offers insights into his ‘inner self’ by construing the reflective mode of introspection. Similar to how ancient philosophers – such as Seneca in his letters – develop introspection when dealing/coping with the expectatio mortis, Paul too, in Phil 1–3, has to respond to his expectation of his pending death. While Phil 1.21–6 – which is to be read in the frame of chapters 1–3 – reflects Paul's situation highly individually and autobiographically, ancient philosophical introspective speaking modes in general tend to remain generic. In its ‘autobiographical consolidation’ Phil 1.21–6 is also to be seen in a ‘contrastive analogy’ to Rom 7.

The debate over the translation of μαλακοί and ἀρσενοκοῖται in 1 Cor 6.9 can and should be settled by a non-polemical and complete survey of the material now that comprehensive databases of ancient texts are available. The translation of ἀρσενοκοῖται by Tertullian, several Vetus Latina MSS and the Vulgate has the best evidential foundation. To establish the meaning of this term one has to turn to etymology and usage, a semantic domain of terms for sexual intercourse, and patristic and classical texts. Once the semantics of ἀρσενοκοίτης is better grounded, the ancient Latin translation of μαλακοί becomes the most probable.

This article problematises the widespread assumption that the God of early Christianity is an invisible God. This assumption is found in both popular and academic discourse and often appeals to biblical critiques of divine images to make its case. Yet while Hebrew Bible scholars have recently questioned this axiomatic belief, New Testament scholars have yet to do the same. To address this oversight, this article first looks at divine images and idol polemic in the ancient world and then turns to Luke's depiction of divine images in the book of Acts as a test case. Here I demonstrate how Acts depicts God as a visible – and even embodied – being, while at the same time critiquing visual representations of the divine. With Acts, we find that not all Christians ‘imaged’ God as invisible.

Most modern commentaries and translations of the Gospel of John take John 6.52 to read: ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ There is, however, an important variant reading here that lacks the αὐτοῦ (thus: ‘How can this man give us flesh to eat?’), which has received very little attention. This article contends that the shorter reading creates yet another example of Johannine dramatic irony, as the contempt of οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι for Jesus’ teaching echoes the unbelief of the wilderness generation who were ‘given flesh to eat’ along with the manna. The article tentatively concludes that this intertextual reading advances the ‘internal probability’ of the shorter text.

In early Christian literature the death of Judas is broadly understood as a fitting end to the life of the betrayer of Jesus. Papias’ description of Judas’ death can be illuminated by comparison with ancient biographical and medical literature, in which oedema and parasitic infections are a consequence of greed, and also apocalyptic texts, in which worms become an emblematic form of divine punishment after death. Viewed in this context the death of Judas serves a pedagogical function as a warning about the dangers of greed.

In Gal 3.16 Paul asserts that Abraham's seed is the messiah. While some have suggested that the rationale for this assertion is Paul's identification of Abraham's seed with David's seed, few have identified evidence for this rationale in the immediate context of Galatians 3, and none have genuinely argued for it. Noting that the reappropriation of scriptural idioms is a common feature of ancient messiah discourse, I demonstrate that Gal 3.19 entails a reappropriation of the wording of Gen 49.10, an oracle often interpreted as Davidic-messianic, and thereby I elucidate the scriptural reasoning undergirding Gal 3.16.

The view expressed in BDAG that Hebrais refers not to Hebrew but to ‘the Aramaic spoken at that time in Palestine’ derives from a century-old argument that because Hebrais could mean either Aramaic or Hebrew, and since the average person could not understand Hebrew, Hebrais must mean Aramaic. This article challenges the view that Hebrais(ti) could mean Aramaic (1) by using an exhaustive list of all instances to show that Aramaic was consistently distinguished from Hebrew, and (2) by explaining the evidence to the contrary: Aramaic-looking words in John, Josephus and Philo that are said to be Hebraisti.