In recent decades, emphasising the ‘orality/aurality’ of the Roman world, some scholars have asserted that in early Christian circles texts were ‘performed’, not ‘read’ (and could not have been read), likening this action to descriptions of oratorical delivery of speeches (from memory) or theatrical performance. It has even been suggested that some texts, particularly the Gospel of Mark, were composed in ‘performance’, and not through an author working up a text in written form. These claims seem to be based on numerous oversimplifications (and so distortions) of relevant historical matters, however, and also involve a failure to take account of the full range of relevant data about the use of texts in early Christianity and the wider Roman-era setting. So, at least some of the crucial claims and inferences made are highly dubious. In this essay, I offer corrections to some crucial oversimplifications, and I point to the sorts of data that must be taken into account in drawing a more reliable picture of the place of texts and how they functioned in early Christianity.

Paul's boasting is often considered to be problematic. This paper explores Pauline boasting from the perspective of Plutarch's views on self-praise. Outlining what kinds of self-praise were and were not acceptable to someone like Plutarch, the paper analyses and positions Paul's boasting in Phil 3 in this context, concluding that, however offensive it may be to modern ears, this boasting was probably less so to the ears of his contemporaries.

This article endeavours to illuminate the socio-economic dimension of Paul's κοινωνία with the Philippians. It initially adduces a representative sample of philological evidence which demonstrates that κοινωνία and its cognates (κοινωνός, κοινωνέω) frequently convey the sense of partnership in some economic enterprise, and establishes a semantic equivalence between κοινωνία and societas (partnership). It is then argued that, from a Roman socio-economic and legal perspective, Paul's κοινωνία consisted of a societas unius rei (i.e. societas evangelii), whereby Paul supplied the ars and opera (skill and labour), while the Philippians contributed the pecunia (funds) to ensure the progress of his mission.

This essay examines Ephesians in light of current research in ethnic studies. The methodological advance of such an approach is twofold: first, it moves the exegesis of the domestic codes to the wider frame of the letter; and, second, it goes beyond the limited hermeneutical framework of the ‘origins’ of the reconciliation language to the more productive examination of its function in the text. The concept of ‘one new humanity’ provides evidence for the author's ethnic reasoning, which participated in ancient cultural affirmations of the essential fluidity and changeability of all ethnicity. The author of Ephesians domesticates the mythical language of baptism by making it fit the conventional morality of a household economy, thus presenting the letter's most important ecclesiological concept, that of ‘the body of Christ’, as a unity that is more moral than mythic.

There is a widespread assumption in Acts' scholarship that the Ethiopian eunuch is an elite official who reflects Luke's larger interest in high-status individuals. Such an assumption, however, overlooks the inextricable connection between status, gender and ethnicity in the Greco-Roman world, and how the eunuch's repeated designation as ‘the eunuch’ would have affected his status in particular. This article thus problematises the depiction of the eunuch as an elite convert by contextualising the eunuch's identification as both a ‘eunuch’ (εὐνοῦχος) and an ‘Ethiopian’ (Αἰθίοψ). Overall, the eunuch is an ambiguous figure who embodies the boundary-crossing nature of the gospel itself.

This article responds to a recent proposal by Richard Last that 1 Cor 11.19 speaks of the necessity of holding regular ‘elections’ (αἱρέσεις) for the appointment of church officers who would assist in the administration of the Lord's Supper (11.17–34). In addition to exaggerating difficulties inherent in traditional explanations, Last's proposal introduces a number of insurmountable discourse problems, rendering his interpretation more problematic than those he intends to replace. A traditional reading should be retained, in support of which further arguments are here added.