The starting point of the transfiguration of Jesus is the choice of Jesus himself. He had announced a destiny of suffering and death and, then, was faced with rejection of his words by his disciples, especially Peter. Now, they must know by themselves what ‘God's views’ are. The fundamental issue is whether Jesus' announcement really corresponds to the divine will. The answer will come from heaven: the disciples will be the privileged witnesses of the transfiguration granted to Jesus. He will appear as a heavenly figure, flanked by Moses and Elijah and thus preceding them. Peter would like to honour the three figures and prolong the wonderful vision making three dwelling-places, which recall the heavenly dwellings. But he does not realize that Jesus had announced a tragic destiny that falls within God's design. So, God has to speak. After the cloud will cover the three heavenly figures, the divine voice will address the disciples making it clear to them who Jesus is (God's Son) and what they must do (listen to Jesus, namely, accept his announcement of suffering and death).

In Matthean research, the quest for a suitable key to the understanding of the sixth woe (Mt 23.27–28) has not yet provided results that are fully convincing. Against the backdrop of Jewish everyday life, the image of positively connoted white tombs seems to have no relevant point of reference. Rather, white is understood as a warning colour in the context of tombs as it is intended to mark and warn against the tombs’ impurity. In contrast to these findings, the article confirms the existence of prominent white graves which were considered beautiful in first-century Judaism: the tombs of the patriarchs at Hebron and the tomb of King David at Jerusalem, both artfully embellished by Herod the Great. In the light of these parallels, the logic of the comparison, which serves as an argument for the woe of Mt 23.27–28, falls into place and perhaps provides an additional insight into Matthew's view of Herod the Great.

Like its last verse (Jn 1.18), the Prologue of the Johannine Gospel has a double meaning: christological and soteriological. The christological one is mainly connected with John 1–20, the soteriological with John 21, and both are linked to 1 John. Indeed, while the Prologue interacts with the Gospel narrative and with the Epilogue (Jn 21), it works also as a ‘relecture’ (re-reading) of 1 John. It recapitulates the promise by Jesus to lead the believers ‘where he is’—i.e. ‘in(to) the bosom of the Father’ (Jn 1.18//Jn 12.26; 14.2–3, 6; 17.24)—as well as the assertion of the Letter regarding the children of God (Jn 1.12//1 Jn 3.1–2). In adding a Prologue and an Epilogue, the last redactor of Jn created a huge meta-historical arch evoking the whole Divine design, from the Alpha before the Creation (ἐν ἀρχῇ, Jn 1.1–2) to the Omega of the eschatological coming of the Risen One (ἕως ἔρχομαι, Jn 21.22, 23; cf. the παρουσία of 1 Jn 2.28). The Prologue is then the keystone and the reading key of the Johannine literature.

In different ways and with quite different outcomes Dunn, Mournet, Baum, and Burkett invoke practices associated with orality and writing in the ancient world to call into question all or some aspects of the Two Document Hypothesis and to build rationales for alternative source hypotheses. In a criticism of their appeals to ancient media this essay works out the significance of cultural practices associated with orality, writing, and memory for further work on the synoptic problem, especially as regards the uneven patterns of variation and agreement in the tradition.

The image of the narrow door in the Gospel of Luke is to be read in the context of a symposium in a Roman domus. The elaboration of the Q-material is related to patron-client-relationships and their architectural and cultural conditions (salutatio, cena). By announcing an eschatological turn of events the pericope warns householders in the community to open now their residences for wandering prophets, thus fulfilling the teaching of Jesus.

Critics who posit the ‘gospels for all Christians’ theory contend that gospels reflect neither the history nor the concerns of the communities within which they were produced. Despite advocacy for the theory from an increasing number of scholars, others continue to reconstruct diverse gospel communities. There is some common ground between the two sides of the debate: the majority of scholars from both perspectives agree that gospels were composed within communal settings. If we take this agreement as our starting point and investigate communal writing practices in antiquity, we might productively forge an agreeable method for determining the scope of intended gospel audiences. This study analyzes the collective process of writing in ancient associations, now regarded as analogous in many ways to early Christ-groups. In doing so, a framework is provided for understanding how and to whom gospels produced in Christ-groups might have been composed. The study finds the ‘all Christians’ theory inconsistent with communal practices of writing.

The phrase ‘Peace and security’ in 1 Thess 5.3 has traditionally been understood as an echo of the OT prophetic warnings (Jer 6.14; Ezek 13.10; Mic 3.5) against false claims of peace. Stronger evidence exists, however, that the apostle is making use of a popular theme of the imperial Roman propaganda machine. The Romans vigorously promoted themselves through various public media as those who provided not only ‘peace’ but also ‘security’, thereby providing a closer parallel to Paul's statement in 5.3 than any OT text. This essay reviews four kinds of evidence—numismatic, monumental, inscriptional and literary—in order to demonstrate in a decisive fashion that the phrase ‘peace and security’ involves an allusion not to prophetic warning but to Roman political propaganda.

The prophetic concept of a new covenant appears to be the key to the question of how the Gospel of Matthew depicts the life of believers in obedience to the commandments of God. This is made possible by the fact that God forgives all sins and puts his Spirit in the hearts of people, so that they are enabled to fulfil his will. Even though the new covenant is hardly mentioned in Matthew's Gospel, that is because it is written to a community of baptized believers in which the new covenant is presupposed as the foundation of their Christian life.  The essential obligation also to forgive others is stressed in 6.14–15 and in the parable of the unforgiving servant (18.23–35), and the necessity of heart-transformation can be seen besides in the Matthean use of the metaphor of the heart.

This article attempts to demonstrate that the synoptic narratives of the Passion contain a stratum composed in Judea on the eve of the Great Revolt. This proposition may provide a common solution to several controversial issues such as the identity of those who arrest Jesus, the latter's trial before the Sanhedrin and Barabbas’ liberation. There is reason to think that the author(s) of this narrative layer sought to enhance the high priests’ guilt in Jesus’ death, at a time when the members of the high-priesthood were hated by their Jewish brethren on account of their exactions.

This article examines the textual arguments offered for and against the reading Jesus Barabbas in Matthew 27.16–17. While siding with the position that the longer reading, Jesus Barabbas, stood in the original text of Matthew's Gospel, this article argues against the tendency of scholars to deduce from the longer reading that a historical figure called ‘Jesus’ with the patronymic ‘Barabbas’ was released by Pilate, and that this man's name was suppressed by Christian tradition out of reverence for the name Jesus.

This article endeavours to look at the Jerusalem collection from a fresh perspective by examining the language of κοινωνία Paul employs to describe the project in Romans 15.26 and in 2 Corinthians 8.4 and 9.13. After adducing oft-neglected literary and documentary evidence, this essay argues that Paul's audience must have understood κοινωνία to bear significant political and socio-economic implications. This article concludes that the collection was aimed at establishing a new order of socio-economic equality and solidarity among the emergent Christ-believing communities, at both a local and global level, and across socio-cultural and ethnic divides.

1 Thessalonians 4.16–17 has occasioned much scholarly speculation regarding Paul's conception of the resurrected body, the character of those caught up in Christ, the ultimate fate of those who are caught up in the air, and Pauline eschatology in general. The interpretation of the passage may be illuminated by comparison with rabbinic traditions in which the righteous escape judgment and destruction in Sheol by flying and being borne aloft by clouds, traditions that, given Paul's Jewish heritage, could well stand in the background of 1 Thess 4.16–17.

This study examines deliberative syncrisis and its relationship to epideictic syncrisis in Hebrews, with a view to addressing the question of whether the rhetoric of Hebrews is ultimately epideictic or deliberative in its overall tenor and aim. Building on a previous study of epideictic syncrisis in Hebrews, the study argues that epideictic syncrisis is consistently in service in Hebrews to deliberative syncrisis, providing it with both the logical premise and the topical theme by which it advances the argument. This relationship is key, the study argues, both to Hebrews' structure and to its aim, which are decidedly deliberative in nature.

In this essay I take issue with Paul Trebilco's recent argument in this journal that the Christian self-designation of ἐϰϰλησία has a background in the Septuagint. I argue that its Graeco-Roman political meaning in the sense of ‘civic assembly’ was decisive in its adoption by Paul, and that Paul wished to portray his communities as alternative organizations existing alongside the civic assemblies. At the same time, however, I am critical of Richard Horsley's anti-imperialist understanding of the Pauline communities. Paul's contrast between two types of ἐϰϰλησία is an expression of his view on two types of πολίτευμα, a distinction which finds its background in the Stoic doctrine of dual citizenship. Through a sustained analysis of ἐϰϰλησία in the Hellenistic and Roman periods I show that, in many respects, the functioning of the Christian ἐϰϰλησία mirrors the operations of the civic assemblies.

This article argues that πυγμῇ in Mark 7.3 is not as mysterious as much of the history of scholarship has suggested. It seems clear that πυγμῇ reflects a known purity practice in early Jewish law concerned with using the minimal amount of water required for hand-washing. The hand would be sufficiently relaxed in order that an economic use of water poured on it could seep through the fingers to cover enough of the hand required for proper purification. The literal translation ‘fist’, at least with the sense ‘in the form of a fist’, is the most obvious translation of πυγμῇ when placed in the context of hand-washing law.

In an infamous passage in his Letter to the Galatians (2.11–14), Paul called out Peter as a ‘hypocrite’. This passage, especially when read in light of Paul's own appeal to himself as ‘all things to all people’ in 1 Cor 9.19–23, was to cause deep trouble for later Christian interpreters, who sought to defend their movement against charges from outsiders that it had a cracked and unstable foundation in dual ‘hypocrites’. This essay will introduce this ‘pagan’ critique and the cultural force it had, and the various solutions to the inherited dilemma from their scriptures that were offered by patristic authors (Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Jerome and Augustine). In light of this context, we turn to a sustained analysis of an untranslated homily by John Chrysostom, hom. in Gal 2.11 (In faciem ei restiti), which addresses not just the hypocrisy of Peter and Paul, but also the sticky problem of the hypocrisy of the Christian who reads this text approvingly as Paul's ‘in your face’ to Peter. Chrysostom does this by engaging in a convoluted pretence of his own.

The consensus interpretation of 1 Corinthians 3.12–15 assumes that the building materials of 3.12 and the ‘work’ of 3.13–15 refer to the activity of the builders, usually understood as their preaching, teaching, or evangelism. This interpretation, however, leads to severe theological problems in 3.15. An alternative reading, suggested by Adolf Schlatter but largely ignored since, views the building materials and ‘work’ as human persons. This article bolsters Schlatter's reading with contextual, linguistic, theological, and patristic support. Four potential objections to this reading are then met.

1 John 1.9 and 5.16 reflect practices of public confession of sins, intercession, and mediation of God's forgiveness. Divine forgiveness and belonging to the community were integrated in the Johannine community to the extent that one equalled the other. Therefore, these practices had important group-dynamic functions for the Johannine community. First, public confession functioned as a costly signal that deterred less committed group members but was meaningful to committed group members. Second, the practice of intercession induced role taking, allowing the offended party both to empathize with the offender and to restore his or her dignity and honour.

The Graeco–Roman bios depicts its characters through elements of narrative construction. In order to show that it is worth noting those elements within the Gospel of Luke we use an episode in the infancy narrative (Lk 1.39–45) in which the main character at first sight seems to be absent. The semantic and narratological analysis of the figurative elements opens access to the normative ‘presence’ of Jesus, thereby furnishing fresh insights into the narrative mode of Lukan christology.

Building on the research done by E. J. Epp, B. D. Ehrman situates the origin of the ancestor of the text of Codex Bezae in an anti-Semitic milieu, which would explain the anti-Judaic tendencies of that text. This localisation of the ideological discourse in a specific milieu characterized by a negative stance toward the Jewish people on ethnic grounds seems to rest on the assumption that the text was produced by a non-Jewish Christian. The goal of the present contribution is to test this assumption as it relates to the text of the Acts of the Apostles in the Codex Bezae. With the aid of the concept of ethnicity, and especially the idea of common ancestry, we aim to discover how this text, compared to the text of Codex Vaticanus, depicts the relation of ethnic identity with the Jewish people. Contrary to what might be expected from Ehrman's suggestion, the text of Acts in Codex Bezae emphasizes the indicators of Jewish ethnic identity.