The story of the raising of Lazarus (John 11.1–44) is one of the most dramatic and impressive of the compositions in the Fourth Gospel. For this very reason it raises a host of problems for the biblical critic. There can be no dispute that it has a theological purpose which dominates the whole narrative. This is clearly set out in the first words attributed to Jesus: ‘This illness is not unto death; it is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by means of it’ (v. 4). The same point is referred to again just before the climax of the narrative in v. 40. But the more prominent the theological aim, the more difficult it becomes to view the narrative simply in terms of history. It must surely be the case that John has based his composition on a source, which was probably much simpler and briefer than the splendid story which it has become in his hands. But the source must be reconstructed before we can begin to think of it in historical terms. The modern tendency is to give up such attempts as hopeless, and to concentrate on the meaning of the text as it stands. But even that presents pitfalls to the critic. All seems well until we come to v. 33: ‘Jesus…was deeply moved in spirit (ένεβριμήσατο τῷ πνεύματι) and troubled.’ Unfortunately the Greek words do not mean ‘deeply moved in spirit’ (RSV). In his recent commentary on John in the Word Biblical Commentary, G. R. Beasley-Murray marshalls a great array of evidence to show that the meaning must be ‘became angry in spirit’. But why should Jesus be represented by John as angry? The effort to answer this question affects the interpretation of the whole story.

The passage Romans 5.12–21 has long been a crux interpretum, and especially v. 12 in that passage.

This essay is a social-scientific study of Paul's deployment of holiness language in 1 Corinthians. Specifically, an interpretation of holiness is offered to explain Paul's argument in 1 Cor 7.12–16 in favour of non-separation in the case of a believer married to a non-believer. For Paul, holiness involves participation in the oneness of God interpreted christologically. This participation is embodied in the holiness-as-oneness of the church. In relations between believers and unbelievers, purity rules to do with sex and marriage carry a significant symbolic burden. In some cases, clear lines of demarcation are drawn. Other cases constitute grey areas; and the suggestion here is that ‘mixed marriages’ are one such. For Paul, holiness is a matter of neither genealogical nor cultic purity. Rather, it has a boundary-transcending quality. In the case of a mixed marriage, the unbelieving partner, together with the children, is sanctified by remaining in oneness with the believing partner. Paul's concern for the oneness of the church spills over into a concern for the oneness of the household.

Commentators regularly note the alleged tension in John 15 between ‘friendship’ and ‘obedience’. This article employs numismatic inscriptional evidence to explore the ΦΙΛ- lexeme and more carefully denote the semantic domains of relevant terminology. This analysis confirms that no such tension exists within the socio-political context in which the Gospel was written. The inclusion of specific political terminology on Roman coins (for example, ΦΙΛΙΑ; ΦΙΛΟΚΑΙΣΑΡ; ΦΙΛΟΚΛΑΥΔΙΟΣ; ΦΙΛΟΡΩΜΑΙΟΣ; ΦΙΛΟΣΕΒΑΣΤΩΝ) was one way in which elite concepts of political friendship, evidenced in Cicero and Seneca, were communicated to the masses. In light of the numismatic evidence, the ΦΙΛ- lexeme can refer not only to the emotional bond of friendship, but also the dimension of obligation.

Although an increasing number of works are focusing on depictions of God in the New Testament, none so far specifically focus on how these depictions rely on anthropomorphic language in their presentation of God. This article attends to this oversight by turning to the Synoptic Gospels (and the book of Acts) as a test case. Not only do these narratives lack an explicit anti-anthropomorphic agenda, but they also rely on divine anthropomorphisms that are derived from Jewish Scripture. To demonstrate this claim, the article concentrates on how Matthew and Luke expand Mark's anthropomorphic presentation of God and how Luke's presentation emerges as the most anthropomorphic of all. It also discusses how Mark, Matthew, and Luke's respective narratives depict God's human, or human-like, characteristics according to the following four categories: (1) God's human roles and titles, (2) God's depiction as an acting subject who speaks and desires to be in relationship with humans, (3) God's concrete presence located in space, and finally, (4) God's description as a character with recognisable body parts and other markers of corporeality. In the end, we shall see that anthropomorphism is a central component of God's characterisation in the Synoptics and that this anthropomorphic characterisation better enables readers to see the Jewish, scriptural shape of God as a personal deity who desires to be in relationship with humans.

It is a common notion among modern biblical scholars that Origen doubted Paul's authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews. This article offers an examination of Origen's writings on this question, and shows that the evidence is wildly misrepresented in contemporary discussions. It does this by beginning with Origen's Letter to Africanus, continuing with an overview of his Hebrews citations across his writing career, and concluding with an analysis of his oft-cited comments in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History. This examination shows that while Origen suspects Hebrews’ composition to involve more than Paul alone, his surprisingly consistent testimony is that the epistle is indeed Paul's.

Paul's address to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 stands at the center of an extended treatment of the internal life of the church (20.1–21.17), and constitutes Luke's last portrait of the believing community. In this section, scenes of community life (20.7–12, 17–38; 21.8–14) alternate with travel episodes (20.1–6, 13–16; 21.1–7, 15–17) to show the relationship among groups of believers scattered around the Aegean and back to Caesarea. The resulting portrait of believing communities echoes some important features of the early descriptions of community life in Jerusalem. In this larger literary context, the speech to the Ephesian elders takes on a different appearance from its usual characterization as the farewell address of Luke's hero, Paul. The speech repeatedly connects the church to God, introducing Luke's larger themes of God's plan, the action of the Holy Spirit, and the instruction of Jesus himself. These features show that the church's future, in Luke's view, has less to do with its imitation of Paul than with its relationship to the God who calls it into being.

Der bekannte Satz, da² kein Meister vom Himmel fällt, gilt auch für den Exegeten. Zur Erlernung dieser höchst verwickelten Aufgabe bedarf es eines erfahrenen tüchtigen Lehrers, weicher sprachliche Kenntnisse, hermeneutisches Vestandnis und geschichtskritischen Sinn in gleicher Weise in sich vereinigt. Von Walter Bauer darf man sagen, da² er als historisch kritischer Forscher durch gründliche Werke ausgewiesen ist, vom Leben Jesu im Zeitalter der neutestamentlichen Apokryphen angefangen bis zu seinem lange Jahre nicht sehr beachteten, aber in letzter Zeit stark diskutiertem Werk über Rechtgliubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum.

Anyone who wants to say something about the earliest Christian use of Christos should start with the oldest written sources: the (genuine) letters of Paul.

1.1.1. Paul's use χριοτòς has been set out convincingly by N. A. Dahl1 and W. Kramer.2 The apostle uses the term very frequently: 270 out of the 531 occurrences of the word in the New Testament are found in the genuine letters of Paul.3 He also uses it in combinations with other words: Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus, Jesus Christ the Lord; but never in the combination κúρως χριτóς.4 Certain patterns can be recognized in the use of Jesus Christ and Christ Jesus and also in the use of the article with χριτóςbut nowhere with a clear difference in meaning.5 Dahl says: χριτóς is never a general term; the word is also never used as a predicate. Paul never feels the necessity to state ‘Jesus is the Christ’; a genitive is never added (Paul does not use χριτòς κυριου or related expressions) and also Ίηιοṽςò Χριιτóς is not found.6

Eines der schwierigsten Probleme der Überlieferung der Schriftzitate in der patristischen Literatur stellt sich durch die Beobachtung, daß Justin (J) und Pseudoklemens (PsKl) in nicht wenigen ‘Textmischungen’, d. h. Verbindungen von Zitattexten insbesondere aus den synoptischen Evangelien, zumindest teilweise miteinander übereinstimmen. Zwar handelt es sich nur um sechzehn vergleichbare Zitate, so daß angesichts der großen Zahl von alttestamentlichen und neutestamentlichen Schriftbelegen bei J und PsKl man fragen könnte, ob dieses Phänomen in der Forschung nicht überschätzt worden ist. Jedoch erhält es ein besonderes Gewicht, wenn man den nach W. Sanday, W. Bousset, M. v. Engelhardt und E. Lippelt durch A. J. Bellinzoni geführten Nachweis für gelungen ansieht, wonach Justin neben den synoptischen Evangelien und anderen frühchristlichen Überlieferungen in seinen Zitaten eine schriftliche nachsynoptische Evangelienharmonie benutzte. Von hier aus ist dann der Schluß nahegelegt, daß die Justin-Zitate zusammen mit den Paralleltexten bei späteren Kirchenvätern eine Vorstufe oder gar die Grundlage für Tatians Diatessaron darstellen. Allerdings hängt für die Bildung eines begründeten Urteils viel davon ab, daß nicht nur Justins Belege, sondern auch die Parallelen in der patristischen Überlieferung eingehend beachtet werden. Dies ist in Bellinzonis breit angelegter Arbeit in Hinsicht auf PsKl nur eingeschränkt der Fall. Daher füllt die bei der Harvard University in Cambridge/Mass. eingereichte, kürzlich veröffentlichte Dissertation von L. L. Kline eine Lücke, indem sie die These Bellinzonis durch Untersuchung der Schriftzitate in den Pseudoklementinen zu bestätigensucht. Darf man sagen, daß die Evangelienharmonie-Hypothese nunmehr über ein solides Fundament verfügt, von dem die künftige Forschung ausgehen kann? Diese Frage soll im folgenden kritisch untersucht und beantwortet werden.

The attempt to get behind the gospel record back to the authentic words and acts of Jesus has occupied many scholars of this generation. This has come about because of a scepticism regarding the historical value of the sayings as recorded, and has often concluded by assuming that the New Testament throws light only on what the early Christian community believed Jesus said rather than on what he did say. It is not the writer's intention to belittle the problem, but to suggest it may be approached from a fresh angle. This article seeks to show that in one respect at least the words of Jesus, as recorded in the gospels, are of a distinctive character, especially when compared with the editorial comments of the evangelists, and hence the form of the first may not be as dependent on the evangelists and the early church as sometimes claimed.

Of all the New Testament writings, it is the Fourth Gospel which raises in their most acute form the problems which were to vex the Church in the Trinitarian controversies of the third and fourth centuries. Many of the arguments set forth both by the heterodox and by their orthodox opponents consisted of exegesis of Johannine texts, and at the centre of the Monarchian controversies of the third century and the Arian controversy of the fourth was the question of the correct exegesis of John x. 30, I and the Father are one (ὡ ἕ ).