Mission in Matthew's Gospel is not limited to the obvious missional texts – Matt 28.16–20 and Matthew 10. Verbal and thematic parallels between Matt 28.16–20 and Matt 24.1–31 invite an interpretation of these texts as mutually significant. Matthew 24 portrays the present for Matthew's community as darker and more vulnerable than is generally observed in Matt 28.16–20. This article explores both the similarities and contrasts between these Matthean passages and some other key intertexts, particularly Isa 42.1–4. Matthew's eschatological program is discerned, including the nature of Christ's ‘presence’ in Matthew 24 and the mission to the nations as an eschatological imperative.

Mark 7.15, which contrasts two modes of defilement, appears in the gospel as a response to the Pharisaic custom of washing hands before eating. In this article, it is argued that this custom embodies an innovative approach to ritual impurity. Hand washing, which originated, so it is argued, in the Greco-Roman practice, was promoted by the Pharisees along with other purity laws, but stands in contrast to the biblical priestly purity system. In this logion, Jesus rejects the Pharisees' new conception of ritual purity, which was designed to guard the self from impurity. This interpretation offers both a coherent narrative and a plausible understanding of the custom within its historical-social context.

Der Osterglaube verdankt sich einmal der besonderen Heilserfahrung, die Jesu Jünger mit seinem Wirken angesichts der andringenden Gottesherrschaft gemacht haben; zum anderen entspricht er im Blick auf die Überzeugung von Jesu himmli_scher Erhöhung dem außerordentlichen Sendungsbewusstsein des irdischen Jesus als Repräsentant der Gottesherrschaft, das ihn mit Ostern zum himmlischen Mandatar derselben werden ließ. Dan 12.1–3 ist dabei die grundlegende Verstehenstradition, die sowohl den Glauben an Jesu Auferweckung wie den an seine Erhöhung bestimmt hat.

The key for conceptualizing both the Galatians' former pagan religion and an existence ‘under the Jewish law’ as ‘serving the στοιχεια’ (Gal 4.3, 9) lies in their characterization as ‘weak and impotent’ in Gal 4.9. As suggested by passages in the writings of Philo, the στοιχεια do not possess inherent creative power and thus are unable to solve the anthropological problem of sin. To overcome the passion of σαρξ, Philo suggests a process of forming and strengthening the immortal soul by way of the Mosaic law. Paul, by contrast, denies the renewing, life-giving power of the νομος and thus categorizes the law as στοιχεια του κοσμου.

Paul typically uses ουδε to convey a single idea, as do the two closest syntactical parallels to 1 Tim 2.12. In the overwhelming majority of Paul's and the NT's ουκ + ουδε + αλλα syntactical constructions, ουδε joins two expressions to convey a single idea in sharp contrast to the following αλλα statement. Furthermore, the earliest known commentary on 1 Tim 2.12, Origen's, treats it as a single prohibition. Accordingly, the most natural reading of 1 Tim 2.12 conveys, ‘I am not permitting a woman to teach and [in combination with this] to assume authority over a man’.

Ascribing inspiration to the composition and canonisation of the NT did not exempt it from the flux of history. Its contents were variously copied, quoted and interpreted. For example, early-church responses to Matthew's use of some of the OT prophets illustrate the freedom with which perhaps the most Jewish of the evangelists, having appropriated some of Judaism's greatest figures, was in turn appropriated by early Christianity, how also he was read by pagans and Jews, and how all, in good faith or not, sought to expose or defend or correct what readers thought to be its problems.

In an earlier issue of this periodical attention was paid to the problem of retranslating a ‘versional’ text into a supposed Greek ‘original’.T. Baarda, ‘The Reading “Who wished to enter” in Coptic Tradition, Matt 23.13, Luke 11.52, and “Thomas” 39’, NTS 52 (2006) 583–91. The reason for that article was the ‘reconstruction’ of a quite extraordinary Greek text as the hypothetical source of an early Middle-Egyptian Coptic text of the Gospel of Matthew. This reconstruction was presented in the splendid edition of the Gospel of Matthew in Middle-Egyptian Coptic that was published by the late Professor Hans-Martin Schenke.H.-M. Schenke, Das Matthäus-Evangelium im mittelägyptischen Dialekt des Koptischen (Codex Schøjen) (Oslo: Hermes Publishing, 2001). The deviations of this ‘retranslation’ led Schenke to his daring thesis that the Coptic text was based on a Greek text that was completely different from our present Greek Matthew, being an independent translation of the Hebrew or Aramaic Gospel of Matthew mentioned by Papias. In this short note the reader will find another example of the problematic character of such retranslations.