Die Perikope vom zwölfjährigen Jesus im Tempel (Lk 2.40–52) weist eine Reihe von Parallelen zu Jugendepisoden der hellenistischen biografischen Literatur auf. Mit diesen motivischen Übereinstimmungen verfolgt der Evangelist den Zweck, die außerordentliche σοϕια des jugendlichen Jesus zu illustrieren und ihn so als anbetungswürdigen Gottessohn darzustellen. Die Verwandtschaft des Abschnitts zur hellenistischen Literatur will in gleichem Maße wie seine Verwurzelung im alttestamentlichen Denken gewürdigt werden. Die Endgestalt des Textes besitzt zweierlei geistesgeschichtliche Wurzeln: nämlich einerseits hellenistische und andererseits auch jüdische.

It is not easy to review 49 volumes of a periodical, amounting to 196 numbers, each number containing, on average, at least six pieces. I cannot claim to have read all the articles when they first appeared; I have read only two in preparation for this celebratory note. I have known NTS from the day of its birth, and indeed (in a sense to be explained) from before its birth. No praise from me could enhance its reputation. Of course, it does not maintain an unvarying excellence, but its best contributions are among the best pieces of New Testament study to be found anywhere, and a great deal is written that falls below its lowest level.

Die Gleichnisse Jesu und der Rabbinen schöpfen unabhängig voneinander aus dem gleichen Repertoire jüdischer Bilder und Erzählmuster. Da die rabbinischen Gleichnisse der Schriftauslegung dienen, sind sie oft durch eine Straffheit der Gedankenführung und eine Konzentration auf die wesentlichen Züge der Handlung gekennzeichnet. Ihre neutestamentlichen Gegenstücke spiegeln die soziale Wirklichkeit lebendiger wider und weisen eine ausgeprägtere Erzählstruktur auf, um für die Gottesherrschaft zu werben. Dabei wird das Geschick der Sünder im Gegenüber zum Geschick der Gerechten thematisiert und die Integration von Randgruppen Israels in die Gottesherrschaft verteidigt. Diese unverwechselbaren Züge der Gleichnisse Jesu berechtigen nicht zur Abwertung der rabbinischen Gleichnisse.

The angels still do not know how to sing during Christmas night. Some have three lines in Luke 2.14, others only two. Some have good liturgical hymns in their textbooks, others must use bad prose versions. This article reconstructs a Hebrew version with its focus on the righteous remnant of Israel, the Anawim in Jerusalem who saw Jesus as the beginning of the restoration of Israel, and goes on to analyse the original and the liturgical versions in Greek, different Latin translations and renderings into Syriac and Coptic. Finally it gives some later interpretations of the canticle in literature, art and music. There are good reasons to include much more of reception history into the NT discipline.

It is often assumed, especially in North American scholarship, that the Q source used by Matthew and Luke reflects a special community different from those reflected in other writings of the NT. This community is located in Galilee, where the ‘Q gospel’ is supposed to have been composed. In this article it is argued that current theories regarding the composition and location of Q are untenable. It is also concluded that there was no significant difference in terms of beliefs and practices between Jesus-believing Jews in Galilee and in Jerusalem.

Wie konnte ein inhaltlich jüdisches Gebet ohne exklusiv christliche Anteile zum Zentralgebet der Christen werden? Mit der Suche nach den Gründen der Durchsetzung wird oft die Frage nach der Urheberschaft Jesu verbunden. Der Versuch einer Antwort mit Hilfe der Analyse des Inhaltes führt zu widersprüchlichen Ergebnissen. Sicher greifbar ist dagegen das Phänomen der frühen und unumstrittenen Akzeptanz des Vaterunsers, hier nimmt die vorliegende Untersuchung ihren Ausgang.

Entscheidend für die Durchsetzung des Vaterunsers war weniger sein Inhalt als seine Funktion. Durch seine schon in den Evangelien grundgelegte Kennzeichnung als ‘Gebet des κυριος’ wirkte das Vaterunser nach innen integrierend und nach außen abgrenzend. Eine weitere Christianisierung seines Inhaltes erübrigte sich. Daraus ergeben sich neue Perspektiven auf das Herkunftsproblem.

An approach to Gospel narratives that treats them as realistically depicted stories and emphasises the way their details function within the time-of-Jesus scenes they portray yields substantial exegetical results. Alternative approaches such as allegorical reading, focus on theological words, and the pursuit of intra-Gospel allusions sometimes stand in tension with this kind of concrete reading, and can distract interpreters from attending to surface-level scenes and details. The value of concrete reading and the effects of alternative approaches may be seen through examining several texts: the Nicodemus narratives of John; Mark 8.22–6; John 1.35–9; Mark 14.38; and John 21.15–17.

Bei der sprachlichen Darstellung eschatologischer Themen scheinen Metaphern, die auf räumlichen Kategorien aufruhen, eine bevorzugte Rolle zu spielen. Das wird in vier Schritten an ausgewählten Texten aus Antike und frühem Christentum, die es in irgendeiner Weise mit der ‘Behausung’ zu tun haben, gezeigt. In der Alkestis des Euripides spiegelt die Anlage des Hades den Lebensraum der Oberwelt wieder. Platon schafft im Phaidon einen eigenen Weltenraum, um seine These von der Unsterblichkeit der Seele zu illustrieren. In Joh 14 bedarf unter anderem das Verhältnis der ‘vielen Bleiben’ in 14.2 zum ‘Bleibe Nehmen’ von Vater und Sohn beim Glaubenden in 14.23 einer Erklärung. Als platonisierende Fortschreibung des Modells aus Joh 14 erweist sich die Erzählung vom himmlischen Palast in der 2. Praxis der Thomasakten. Als ein gemeinsamer Fluchtpunkt wird abschließend der Raum der Erinnerung thematisiert.

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.

Despite widespread agreement on the significance of Rom 1.16–17, agreement on its meaning has been elusive. This study focuses on one disputed phrase, εκ πιστεως εις πιστιν, suggesting that it should be read, in the light of Greek idiom, as indicating growth. In the context of Rom 1 the growth Paul is celebrating is not individual faith. Rather, in the gospel – the prophetic announcement of the arrival of eschatological salvation in Christ – the righteousness of God is revealed, resulting in the growing faith of the Gentiles. Paul does not cite Hab 2.4 in Rom 1.17 as a messianic prophecy but as scriptural confirmation that faith is the appropriate response to the gospel.

Rhetoricians of the ancient world make reference to a technique useful for signalling that a transition is being made from one text unit to another. Ancient texts spanning centuries and provenance testify to the utility of this technique, not least texts of the NT. In this essay, four Lukan examples of this technique are cited, focusing particularly on what is perhaps the most intriguing of them: Acts 11.27–12.25. After demonstrating the way in which this passage is animated by the transition technique under consideration, the structural implications of these Lukan transitions are discussed in relation to the narrative of the Acts of the Apostles.

The conclusion to the parable of the tenants in Mark (12.1b–9) involves the vineyard owner killing the refractory tenants and re-letting his vineyard to others. In legal terms the man employs ‘self-help’ – the satisfaction of a real or pretended claim without the permission of the defendant or the intervention of a court. Most advocates of a metaphorical approach to the parable (Pesch, Snodgrass, Evans, Hultgren), and some who argue that Jesus spoke in realistic fiction, have argued or assumed that Mark 12.9 is an original part of the parable, believing it to be a ‘realistic’ element of Mark's story. But an examination of Greek, Roman, Graeco-Egyptian, and biblical legal rulings indicates that resorts to self-help were discouraged and even criminalized in this period. Mark 12.9 is not a realistic component of the parable, but is part of its secondary allegorization.

This study is concerned with one text-form of the Greek Life of Adam and Eve in particular: the qz-text. This text-form is demonstrably of Christian origin, although the name of Jesus Christ nowhere features in it. It seems to share a certain anthropology with the epistles of Paul, but it is unlikely that its editor had any knowledge of the Pauline letters beyond the most superficial. It is concluded that the Life of Adam and Eve, which in all its forms and redactions primarily deals with questions of everyday life, reflects a living oral narrative tradition shared by Jews and Christians.

Most scholars who have tried to understand the divisions that arose at the Lord's Supper in Corinth in the light of their concrete domestic setting have done so with regard to the physical structure of the Roman villa, with its triclinium, atrium, etc., often following the work of Jerome Murphy-O'Connor. However, there are a number of reasons, related both to the nature of the archaeological evidence and to the likely socio-economic level of the Corinthian Christians, why such a setting is far less plausible than is generally thought. Certainly, other possible kinds of domestic space should also be carefully considered. The excavations east of the theatre at Corinth carried out during the 1980s provide just one case study of a different kind of domestic space, which, it is argued, offers a more plausible background.

This study identifies several dimensions of the Greek Life of Adam and Eve that provide fresh points of entry to Paul's thought in Rom 1.18–25. Principal among these are the suppression of truth, the advent of divine anger, the onset of death, and, most notably, two related exchanges – God's glory for mortality and natural dominion for unnatural subservience to animals. While such features do not specifically characterize Gen 1–3, they belong to a shared conception of the drama of human sin that characterizes and unites both Rom 1 and the Greek Life of Adam and Eve.

The first part of this article investigates the relationship between the origins of the Jesus tradition and the two-source hypothesis. As more recent investigations have shown, there is no direct connection between the earliest synoptic sources and the beginnings of the Jesus tradition. Moreover, a division between sayings and narratives, although plausible with regard to the overall process of transmission, cannot be applied to Q and Mark. Therefore, the two-source hypothesis needs to be revisited. In the second part vestiges of the earliest sayings tradition are analysed with special regard to the Pauline writings. Paul does not distinguish between sayings of the exalted κυριος and the pre-Easter Jesus. In addition, in several writings the transmission of ‘synoptic’ sayings without attribution to Jesus can be detected. This latter tendency is demonstrated with regard to Rom 12.14–21, but can also be observed e. g. in James and the Didache. Both aspects reveal that the sayings tradition by itself is not orientated biographically, but leads to parenesis (as e. g. in 1 Clement 13) or to the concept of the ‘hidden sayings of the living Jesus’ in the Gospel of Thomas. The third part asks about the relationship of the sayings tradition to the earliest narratives about Jesus. It is argued that for the sake of historical memory of Jesus the sayings tradition had – and has – to be incorporated into narratives. More recent approaches to the historical Jesus via Q or the sayings tradition in general have therefore to be replaced by a more balanced perspective which relates the sayings tradition to the data gained from the narrative tradition.

In Jesus' second temptation in Luke 4, he is offered world dominion by the devil in exchange for acceptance of the latter's authority. This article considers the devil's offer in the light of Dan 1–6. Both Daniel and Luke make use of legal terminology, ultimately derived from Aramaic property documents, to illustrate the idea that the Creator has made over the world to the powers of chaos. Satan initiates a new and ironic twist on this theme when he attempts to lure the Creator's servant with the promise of sharing in his own God-given authority.

The importance of the quotation of Isa 54.1 in Gal 4.27 for understanding Paul's allegorical reading of the story of Sarah and Hagar (Gen 16–21) in Gal 4.21–5.1 has often been underestimated. Paul uses this quotation to give his interpretation of this story an eschatological dimension that, unlike the eschatology of Second Isaiah, is both profoundly christological and apocalyptic.

Zunächst ist die Leseanweisung in 1 Thess 5.27 an die gerichtet, die den Brief als erste in die Hand bekamen und für seine Verlesung in der Gemeindeversammlung verantwortlich waren. Aber es erhebt sich die Frage, was diese Anweisung, die ja Teil des Textes ist, den alle hören, für die gesamte Gemeinde bedeutete. Diese Studie schlägt folgende Erklärung vor: Die Zuhörer sollten durch die Leseanweisung erkennen, dass der Brief zwischen ihnen keine Differenzen hervorrufen sollte. Alle sollten die gleichen Informationen und die gleiche Unmittelbarkeit zum Apostel haben. Dadurch gestaltet die Leseanweisung das Verhältnis der Gemeindeglieder zum Apostel und untereinander. Das Ziel ist die Einigkeit der Gläubigen. Der Vergleich mit Kol 4.16 und außerbiblischen Briefen bestätigt diese Deutung.

Dem vieldiskutierten Problem des Verhältnisses von 1 Thess 2.15f. und Röm 11 wird hier unter dem Aspekt der Funktion des Topos vom verfolgten Propheten nachgegangen. Es zeigt sich, dass Paulus in den je verschiedenen konkreten Fragestellungen von 1 Thess 2.13–16 und Röm 11.1–10 das Motiv vom verfolgten Propheten einsetzt, um die Durchsetzungsfähigkeit des Evangeliums aufzuweisen. Die vermeintlichen Gegensätze zwischen 1 Thess 2.13–16 und Röm 11 sind dahingehend einander zuzuordnen, dass es Paulus sowohl im 1 Thess als auch im Röm primär um die Wirkmächtigkeit des Evangeliums geht, die die Behinderung der Rettung der Heiden überwindet (1 Thess) und Israel letztlich der Rettung zuführt (Röm 11).