Abstract George H. van Kooten has recently argued that Paul’s use of ‘from him/whom’ language with reference to God the father in Romans 11.36 and 1 Corinthians 8.6, in light of the semi-technical use of this prepositional formula in the Greek metaphysical traditions, indicates that God/the father is a material cause. And this coheres, so van Kooten further argues, with other indications that Paul’s metaphysic is fundamentally Stoic. This article focuses on van Kooten’s claim that Paul’s use of ‘from him/whom’ language with reference to God the father indicates that the latter is, for Paul, a material cause. In this regard, van Kooten has mistranslated and misconstrued key data both in the ancient metaphysical traditions and in Paul and also committed the genealogical fallacy: taking individual lexemes, formulas and/or tropes to suggest that the entire metaphysical construct of one of the earlier philosophical schools (in this case, Stoicism) from which they derive should wholly govern their interpretation in a much later and different text.

Abstract Recognition of the parallels between Q material and the Epistle of James has developed in recent years, and has convincingly attested to James’ literary dependence upon Q. If James does constitute an independent witness to the Sayings Gospel, there indeed may be some merit to a limited deployment of the Jacobean epistle in studies of the Synoptic Problem. The present contribution considers the reconstruction of Q through comparison with several of its Jacobean parallels, surveying the extent to which James can be fruitfully deployed. While scholars should certainly exercise caution in using James to reconstruct Q, selective comparison may offer us some new insights, particularly in adjudicating discrepancies between Matthew and Luke. Although the Epistle’s utility is limited because of its lack of verbatim citation of Q, James may be particularly helpful in the contentious debate about the inclusion of the Lucan woes (Q/Luke 6.24–6) into Q and offers some force to the minority position that the woes constituted an original component of Q’s Beatitudes.

German AbstractDie Untersuchung der Schöpfungsthematik in der Didache ist ein Forschungsdesiderat. Daher werden Übersetzungen und Kommentare daraufhin überprüft, welche griechischen Wörter an welchen Stellen schöpfungstheologisch interpretiert werden. Dieses vorläufige Netz der Schöpfungsterminologie wird durch weitere Analysen verfeinert, um einen Gesamteindruck der Schöpfungstheologie zu gewinnen. Im schöpfungsethischen Ausblick wird die Frage herausgegriffen, wie es für die Didache zukünftig mit der Schöpfung weitergeht, was im Horizont gegenwärtiger Herausforderung besprochen wird. Die Didache hat weder ein vordergründig ökologisches Interesse noch eine pauschale Abwertung der gegenwärtigen Schöpfung. Dennoch steckt in der Didache ein ökotheologisches Potenzial.

Abstract There are good warrants for believing that either the word Christianos or the word Christiani, a reference to the Christians, was probably in a graffito on the wall of the atrium of the house now identified as vii.11.11 in Pompeii when Giuseppe Fiorelli excavated it in 1862. Karl Zangemeister edited it in 1871 as CIL iv, 679 and included two divergent transcriptions. In 1995, Paul Berry published a book in which he claimed that he had made an image of the word Christianos using an industrial microscope and high-intensity light. A research project to investigate that claim could be potentially useful for verifying or falsifying Berry's results.

Abstract In this paper, I examine several sources of authority to which Origen laid claim as he set about the task of interpreting scripture. On occasion, in both his commentaries and his homilies, Origen provided accounts of his access to three different, though connected sources of authority that contributed to his self-presentation as an expert interpreter. These sources are as follows: 1) participation in the lineage of the apostles, particularly his exegetical role model, Paul. The second source of authority is a result of the first: 2) direct communication from the Logos, whom he understands to be Christ himself, and 3) angelic assistance and engagement with his pastoral exegetical project. In some instances, Origen even claimed to be on par with two of these sources of authority; he can be found claiming to have exegetical abilities similar to Paul's and, on some rare occasions, to have reached the same epistemological level as the angels. This analysis provides us not only with a case study of the kind of self-fashioning and authorising strategies used by elite scriptural exegetes in the first few centuries of the common era, but it also allows us to shift our focus away from exegetical methods towards the figure, personality and social position of the exegete him or herself. From this shift of focus we gain a better appreciation of a topic to which exegetical authors themselves dedicated considerable energy: just who it was that could occupy the office of authoritative Christian exegete and why.

Abstract Four of the witnesses selected for the Editio Critica Maior of Mark are witnesses to a unique combination of catena commentaries on the Gospels not found in any other manuscripts. An analysis of their text in the Gospel of Mark, using the tools of the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method, shows that they also feature an almost identical form of the biblical text that frequently diverges from both the Majority Text and all other Greek New Testament manuscripts. These four manuscripts, GA 238, GA 377, GA 807 and GA 1160, therefore, constitute a group within the textual tradition of the Gospels. This article provides the evidence that GA 377 is a direct copy of GA 807. No other instances of direct copying can be proven within the group, but their agreement raises the possibility that they are siblings. The format of the catenae may explain the high degree of homogeneity in this group of Gospels manuscripts.

Abstract After reviewing and offering a critical evaluation of the main interpretations of the sayings in Mark 9.43–7, the paper proposes a new reading that considers them in the Jewish context and in their co-text (Mark 9.33–50). The context is the marginal condition in which physically impaired people lived in Jewish society and communities. In view of this context, it is possible to point out the consistency of Jesus’ logia on self-maiming in order to enter the kingdom of God (Mark 9.43–7) with their co-text. The disciples are urged not only not to scandalise the little ones of the community (Mark 9.42), but also to share their minority state, thus avoiding stumbling in their own discipleship because of claims of greatness and superiority.