Over the years textual critics have given great attention to the New Testament text of the Acts of the Apostles. Like all New Testament texts, it merits particular attention, but especially because its textual tradition is enriched by the principal representative of the so-called ‘Western’ text, the Greek Acts of Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis. The presence of this defining element of the ‘Western’ text has made the Acts of the Apostles an exceptionally fertile environment for the production, evaluation, and refinement of theories about the history of the Greek New Testament text. The favoured status of the Greek Acts extends to the ancient versions as well. Even the Old Georgian version of Acts has been grouped with ‘Western’ witnesses – F. C. Conybeare studied a few chapters of one manuscript of the Georgian Acts and concluded that it had many ‘Western’ readings.

The short study by G. J. Cuming in the January, 1981, issue of New Testament Studies, pp. 283–5, has raised again the question of the interpretation of the verb iiroriadrjuev in 1 Cor. 12. 13. Along with most modern commentators Cuming rejects a reference to the Lord's Supper and finds instead a reference to the rite of baptism administered by affusion

Le prologue est le passage du IVe évangile qui a été le plus discuté, le plus souvent commenté. Dans les monographies des trente dernières années, deux grandes questions dominent la recherche: celle de la formation de cet hymne au Logos et celle de sa structure. Le premier problème, qui est celui de la critique littéraire, est au cœur des débats dans l'exégèse de langue allemande. Par centre, c'est en français qu'ont été écrites la plupart des études sur la structure; quelques-unes cependant ont aussi paru en anglais: les deux dernières en date sont celles de R. Alan Culpepper et de Ch. Homer Giblin. Nous voudrions, à notre tour, présenter une analyse de la structure du prologue, mais d'un point de vue à la fois littéraire et théologique.

Die Frage nach dem religionsgeschichtlichen Hintergrund der Perikope von der Hochzeit zu Kana ist noch immer nicht zufriedenstellend beantwortet.

This article has three main purposes: (i) to discuss the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke x. 25–37) in some detail to decide what form of discourse the historical Jesus, as distinct from the later tradition or the final redaction, intended it to be when originally given; (ii) to extrapolate from this one parable and investigate, but in lesser detail, the other major ‘exemplary stories’ in the parabolic teaching of Jesus and to ask whether there are any such authentically stemming from Jesus himself; (iii) on the basis of this analysis to raise certain problems and questions with regard to method in parable exegesis and to meaning in parable interpretation.

In NTS 25/4 (1979), pp. 523–525 John W. Wenham attempts to unravel the formerly obscure variants in Mark 14. 30, 68 and 72. With the use of common sense, and a detective skill with the traces of alternative readings, he finds that the shorter readings are right. At verse 30 one should understand ‘before the cock crows, thou shalt deny me thrice’; at verse 68 no reference to the cock should appear; and at verse 72 we read ‘and the cock crew’ and ‘before the cock crows, thou shalt deny me thrice’. This is, after all, what St John says.

In a recent article Helmut Koester argues against the current practice of distinguishing between canonical Gospels, on the one hand, and apocryphal gospels, on the other, and treating the apocryphal gospels as ‘step children’ of New Testament research. Koester maintains that there are a number of the ‘apocryphal’ gospels which ‘belong to a very early stage in the development of gospel literature — a stage that is comparable to the sources which were used by the gospels of the New Testament.’ One of those texts to which he points is the Nag Hammadi tractate the Apocryphon of James. This paper is an attempt to legitimize one ‘step child’ of New Testament scholarship as a valid source for investigating the earliest levels of the Jesus traditions.

Strukturanalysen sind da mit Vorbehalt durchzuführen, wo die Bindung eines Verfassers an vorgegebene literarische Quellen stärker ist als seine Freiheit, den gewählten Stoff nach ihm eigenen Prinzipien syntaktisch und semantisch kohärent durchzugestalten. Sieht man bei Lukas z.B. die Akoluthie der Logienquelle treuer bewahrt als bei Matthäus, der große Teile der Wortüberlieferung nach systematischen Gesichtspunkten in Reden Jesu untergebracht hat, dann wird man beim dritten Evangelisten, der mit den Spruchfolgen der Logienquelle im großen und ganzen auch deren Struktur-muster bewahrt hat, mit einer Überlagerung solcher Muster mit den Makro-strukturen seiner Gesamtkonzeption rechnen und sich folglich vor ein-dimensionalen Strukturanalysen hüten. Trotzdem ist man überrascht, wie geschickt und kreativ Lk. mit seinen Quellen umgegangen ist und mit bescheidenen Mitteln, wie etwa der Wiederholung bestimmter redaktio-neller Signale, Umstellungen, Verknüpfungen und anderen der Verschmelzung der Stoffe dienenden Kunstgriffen, diesen seine eigene Konzeption aufzuprägen wußte. Anhand der Perikopenfolge Lk. 5. 1–6. 19, in der Lk. größtenteils seiner Mk.-Vorlage folgt, läßt sich seine kunstvolle Arbeits-weise gut illustrieren; dabei wird deutlich, daß er Ästhetik und Rhetorik als Prinzipien seiner Darstellungsweise ganz in den Dienst der Sache gestellt hat, von der er seine Hörer überzeugen will.

Bei einem Streifzug durch biographisch orientierte Texte aus alttestamentlich-jüdischer Tradition sowie aus der griechischen und lateinischen Literatur der Antike zeigt sich wiederholt, dass die Altersangabe ‘30 Jahre’ mehr als eine bloße numerische Angabe darstellt. Die Zahl ‘30’ kann vielmehr dazu dienen, eine besondere Altersschwelle zu markieren. Das scheint auch im Lukasevangelium (3.23) der Fall zu sein. Die Altersangabe Jesu ist im lukanischen Erzähltext vor allem hinsichtlich ihrer Positionierung aufschlussreich. Der Erzähler setzt dabei nicht nur biographische und literarische Akzente. Auch in heilsgeschichtlicher und christologischer Perspektive erweist sich Lk 3.23 als besonders interessanter Erzählerkommentar.

In this paper I wish to maintain that behind the two passages, Eph. i. 3–14 and I Pet. i. 3–12, lie forms of liturgical prayer, similar in structure, though not identical in content. I shall argue that the relation between each passage and the form which lies behind it is the same, namely that what we have is homily based on a form of prayer, and to some extent reproducing its words. Taken by itself, the evidence for the Ephesians passage is, I think, much stronger. It is possible there, with some show of plausibility, to restore, in its main outline, and some of its details, the original form. When taken together, the two passages add strength to each other.

The Veronese manuscript LI (49) includes twenty-four homilies by the Arian Bishop Maximinus. Most of these were furnished with marginal notes in Gothic, said to be contemporary with the Latin text of the fifth/sixth century, giving a brief indication of the subject of the homily. Twelve of these marginals are still more or less legible.

The central section of the Gospel according to St Luke (ix. 51—xix. 28) contains some of the most precious portions of Jesus' teaching. But it also occasions a perplexing problem, which may be briefly stated as follows. From its opening words the reader gathers that in what is to follow Luke purposes to give a chronologically ordered running account of Jesus' last journey from Galilee to Jerusalem. But on examination what follows does not appear to be an account of that kind. In ch. x Jesus is in the home of Martha and Mary and therefore, it is to be assumed, has reached Bethany on the outskirts of Jerusalem, but in ch. xvii he is no further south than the border line between Galilee and Samaria. Again in ch. xiii there are words of Jesus which, according to a possibly correct interpretation of them, indicate that he has not yet set out on his journey.

In a previous article, ‘Synoptic Parousia Parables and the Apocalypse’, I discussed certain features of the tradition-history of three parousia parables: the Thief (Matt. 24. 43 f. par. Luke 12. 39 f.; Gosp. Thomas 21 b, 103), the Watching Servants (Luke 12. 35–38; cf. Matt. 24. 42; Mark 13. 33–37;Gosp. Thomas 21 b, 103), and the Servant in Authority (Matt. 24. 45–51 par. Luke 12. 42–48). In the cases of the Thief and the Watching Servants, there is remarkably good evidence outside the Gospels for the popularity of these parables in the early church (1 Thess. 5. 2; 2 Pet. 3. 10; Rev. 3. 3, 20; 16. 15; Did. 16. 1), and on the basis of this evidence, as well as the Gospels, I suggested that the forms in which these parables and allusions to them occur can best be explained by a process of ‘deparabolization’, in which the narrative form of a parable is partly or wholly replaced by more direct application of the imagery of the parable to the hearers or readers, as metaphor or simile. Both because of their extensive use in early Christian paraenesis and because of their amenable subject-matter, the parables of 130 the Thief and, especially, the Watching Servants were subject to considerable deparabolization.

Röm 1. 18–32 bilden den ersten Abschnitt eines längeren Argumentationsgangs; er führt bis 3. 20, danach nimmt Paulus die These von der Rechtfertigung aus Glauben (1. 16 f.) wieder auf. In diesem Argumentationsgang (1. 18–3. 20) legt Paulus das Scheitern und die Erlösungsbedürftigkeit der Menschheit dar; er erläutert die negative Voraussetzung der Heilszuwendung, und zwar mit besonderer Blickrichtung auf den tora-frommen Juden. Die Argumentation berührt das Fundament sowohl der paulinischen Theologie (speziell seiner Soteriologie) als auch der gegnerischen Position. An der Stringenz der Gedankenführung hängt zwar nicht die Wahrheit des Evangeliums selbst, wohl aber die Einsicht in diese Wahrheit.

Many scholars employ a different kind of criterion of coherence from the standard, i.e., the criterion that Jesus’ authentic sayings hold together in a coherent whole; yet Jesus scholars differ regarding the nature of this coherence. When we then understand that Jesus was a charismatic leader of a new religious movement, and when we examine how such persons in general behave, we see the importance of randomness for charismatic leadership, and we understand that we cannot expect systematic coherence among the sayings of Jesus. Jesus may have said things that appear contradictory, but they will have enhanced his charismatic authority.