Jesus rebukes Peter at Caesarea Philippi by calling him ‘Satan’. The redactor of Matthew adds to this: ‘You are a stumbling block for me!’ This article argues that this editorial addition reflects a tendency in Jewish sources (1) to use the image of ‘stumbling’ to talk of sin, and (2) to identify the diabolic figure (e.g. Satan, Belial, Evil Inclination) as the cause of ‘stumbling’, earning it the title ‘stumbling block’. This tendency has its origins in the Hebrew Bible, is clearly expressed in the literature of the Qumran community, and is further developed in rabbinic sources.

In 1954 the first issue of New Testament Studies (NTS) was released under the auspices of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas (SNTS), which was founded on 16 September 1938 in Birmingham. The journal aimed to interlink (European) NT scholarship and to ensure its quality and standards by the society's members. Why did it take so long to release the journal, even though the Dutch NT scholar Johannes de Zwaan (1883–1957), who initially came up with the idea, intended the publication of an international quarterly right from the beginning? In 1953 he was not considered for election to the Editorial Board and therefore decided to publish another New Testament journal whose first issue appeared in 1956: Novum Testamentum. De Zwaan's correspondence with some of SNTS's first members and other so far unknown sources can elucidate these circumstances.

The enigmatic name of the poor man in Luke 16.19–31 has invited diverse interpretations of its significance for the parable's meaning. After sketching the character and function of the poor man, this study evaluates several such interpretations, both ancient and contemporary. It then argues for a narrative-critical reading of Lazarus’ name that is congruent with Luke's putative purpose in including this parable in his narrative of Jesus’ ministry, where the poor are afforded honour and the rich are exhorted to respond to the material needs of their neighbours.

Past scholarly literature has interpreted the orientation of the teaching of the Paraclete in the Fourth Gospel as either retrospective or prospective. First, I will argue that it is prospective, but that this does not imply that the Paraclete teaches things that have not yet been taught by Jesus. The Gospel text challenges us to conceive the teaching of the Paraclete as prospective, but also as repeating Jesus’ teaching. A synthesis of the retrospective and prospective interpretation is thus required. Second, I will argue that this paradoxical synthesis can be obtained on the basis of Kierkegaard's category of repetition.

Paul's strange confession in Gal 2.19–20 poses a question: is the ‘I’ who was crucified with Christ and no longer lives the same self as the ‘I’ who now lives and in whom Christ lives? To ask this question is to be drawn into conversation with the reception history of Galatians and also to be invited to locate the Pauline ‘I’ in and across the movements from death to life. This article suggests, in dialogue especially with Martin Luther, that for Paul the movement from the state of creation to the state of sin is a movement from life to death; the movement from sin to salvation, conversely, is a movement from death to life. Within or across these ruptures, salvation is as radical as death and resurrection. In this sense, the no longer and now living selves are not identical: the ‘I’ is in another as a gift. And yet, the ‘I’ who lives by grace is also the ‘I’ who was, is and will be loved by the ‘Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.’

This article proposes that the Synoptic Gospels’ pronouncements of Isa 40.3 (Matt 4.3; Mark 1.2–3; Luke 3.4–6) invite a comparison with the Roman road system and its extensive broadcast of Roman imperial ideology. Heralding the sovereignty of a coming king on newly constructed roads through difficult terrain, Matthew, Mark and Luke portray the coming of the kingdom of God in terms analogous to the laying of Roman roads followed by the enforcement of Roman rule throughout the Roman Empire. If Isa 40.3 heralded the arrival of the true God through the ministry of Jesus, as the Synoptic Gospels proclaim, then Rome's pretentions were by implication counterfeit. The engineering feats of raising ravines, levelling heights, smoothing terrain and making straight highways denoted Roman expansion, conquest and the standardisation of Roman imperial ideology. In contradistinction, the Synoptic Gospels’ citations of Isa 40.3 presage the triumph of God, while simultaneously parodying Roman imperial ideology.

Drawing on recent insights into textual authority, this article examines how the authoritativeness of the Jewish scriptures is manifested in 1 Clement. The article argues that the relationship between the letter and the writings it uses in its argumentation should be seen as a two-way process of mutual authorisation. Moreover, the article illuminates the interrelatedness of textual authority, scriptural argumentation and the legitimation of leadership and power. Thus, the analysis both contributes to ongoing scholarly discussions of scriptural authority and highlights the role of scriptural argumentation in the identity-building of early Christians.

The apostle Paul has been viewed by many as a cosmopolitan thinker who called Christ-followers to embrace the ideal of a single humanity living in harmony with a divinely ordered cosmos. A close comparison of Paul's apocalyptic theology with various interpretations of ‘cosmopolitanism’ over the centuries, however, shows few points of agreement. Paul was fundamentally a Jewish sectarian whose vision for a better world embraced only Christ-followers and involved the cataclysmic end of the present world order. Those who accepted and lived by this vision were effectively relegated to the same marginal position in civic life as the local Jewish community.