The Missing Middle in Thomas Synoptic Comparisons

There is a curious feature about several of the parallels between the Gospel of Thomas and the Synoptics. On at least four occasions where Thomas has lengthy parallels with the Synoptics, he lacks a parallel to the middle part of the story. It is a phenomenon I label the missing middle. It is easy to see when we lay out Thomas in parallel with the Synoptics. Here is the first example:

Log and Speck

Matt. 7.3-5 3. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4. Or how can you say to your brother, `Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5. You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

Luke 6.41-2 41. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 42. Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.

Thomas 26 Jesus said, You see the speck in your brother’s eye, but you do not see the log in your own eye. When you take the log out of your own eye, then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.

Look at that wedge of white space on the right. It is unmissable. The middle of the story as it is found in Matthew and Luke is missing, but Thomas has clear parallels to the beginning and the end of the story. The same phenomenon happens again in the following example:

Wheat and Tares

Matt. 13.24-30 24. Another parable he put before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field; 25 but while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. 27 And the servants of the householder came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then has it weeds?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ 29 But he said, ‘No; lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

Thomas 57 Jesus says, “The Kingdom of the Father is like a man who had [good] seed. His enemy came by night and sowed weeds among the good seed. The man did not allow them to pull up the weeds; he said to them, ‘I am afraid that you will go intending to pull up the weeds and pull up the wheat along with them.’ For on the day of the harvest the weeds will be plainly visible, and they will be pulled up and burned.”

Again, the middle of the story is missing, and this time to the detriment of the story's flow and logic in Thomas. The missing middle features the introduction of the servants who begin a conversation with their master. In Thomas, we just hear about "them" without introduction. The antecedent for "them" is missing, in a way similar to Synoptic examples of editorial fatigue.

There are further examples of the same phenomenon. In the Parable of the Rich Fool (Luke 12.15-21 // Thomas 63), Thomas lacks the middle part of Luke's story, 12.18b-19, in which the Rich Fool is reflecting on his apparent great fortune, "And I’ll say to myself, 'You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.'" Thomas's fool is thinking things in his heart, but the full content of Luke's version provides a much better antecedent than the blander, truncated soliloquy of Thomas's version.

Similarly, in the Tribute to Caesar story (Matt. 22.15-22 // Mark 12.13-17 // Luke 20.20-26 // Thomas 100), Thomas lacks the middle part of the Synoptic story in which it is revealed that the coin has Caesar's image on it, the exchange that results in the aphorism shared with Thomas, "Render to Caesar . . ." (with Thomas's remarkable addition, ". . . . and to me what is mine").

It is interesting to see this repeated feature in Thomas's parallels to the Synoptics. My thesis is that it shows just how familiar Thomas is with the Synoptic stories he is retelling. In the rush to retell the familiar story, he does not notice that key parts have been left out. It reminds me of people who can't tell jokes, and who rush ahead too quickly, after having introduced it, to the punchline. Thomas sets the scene, gets the ball rolling, and then fast forwards to the story's conclusion. It may be that this is a casualty of writing a Sayings Gospel rather than a narrative Gospel. The Synoptic writers are all, to varying degrees, used to writing mini-narratives in their Gospels, and on the whole they make a good job of it. But Thomas is focused on shorter, self-contained sayings, with minimal narrative settings. When it comes to writing a fuller narrative, he is not as well practised as the Synoptic evangelists.

Review of Biblical Literature latest

Latest from the SBL Review of Biblical Literature on the NT:

Tomas Bokedal
The Scriptures and the Lord: Formation and Significance of the Christian Biblical Canon; A Study in Text, Ritual and Interpretation
Reviewed by Tobias Nicklas

David A. Brondos
Paul on the Cross: Reconstructing the Apostle's Story of Redemption
Reviewed by D. A. Carson

Philip L. Mayo
"Those Who Call Themselves Jews": The Church and Judaism in the Apocalypse of John
Reviewed by David L. Barr

Kim Paffenroth
The Heart Set Free: Sin and Redemption in the Gospels, Augustine, Dante, and Flannery O'Connor
Reviewed by Alice M. Sinnott

Udo Schnelle; trans. M. Eugene Boring
Apostle Paul: His Life and Theology
Reviewed by Kenneth Atkinson

Edward Stourton
Paul of Tarsus: A Visionary Life
Reviewed by Valérie Nicolet Anderson

Brian J. Walsh and Sylvia C. Keesmaat
Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire
Reviewed by Angela Standhartinger

I have also gone through and labelled all previous NT Gateway posts on the Review of Biblical Literature, so clicking the Review of Biblical Literature label will take one to a comprehensive list.

Apocalypse of Peter on-line

A couple of year's ago (Apocalypse of Peter on-line), I transcribed and uploaded the Greek text of the Apocalypse of Peter from Lic. Dr. Erich Klostermann (ed.), Apocrypha I: Reste Des Petrusevangeliums, Der Petrus-Apocakalypse und des Kerygmati Petri (Bonn: A. Marcus und E. Weber’s Verlag, 1903): 8-11. I have made a couple of minor updates to the MS Word and PDF of the files, which are still found here:

The Apocalypse of Peter (Akhmim Fragment) [MS Word]

Apocalypse of Peter (Akhmim Fragment) [PDF]

The Future of the New Testament Gateway

On Codex Blogspot, Religious Studies Review: Religion and the Internet, and now on Sansblogue, Online Biblical Scholarship, there is a discussion of the latest Religious Studies Review (Volume 32, number 4, October 2006), a special issue on Religion and the Internet. One of the articles in this journal is written by Matthew Mitchell, "Biblical Studies on the Internet". The article focuses on the following four resources:

• The New Testament Gateway
• iTanakh: Resources for Academic Study
• K.C. Hanson’s Homepage
• The Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature

I have reason to be delighted with Mitchell's review because he says some great things about The New Testament Gateway, a site I have run for almost a decade now, for example:

For the study of the NT, the choice is extremely easy. Bart Ehrman (2004) recommends this site in his work The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings as his only Web resource, stating that it is one of the few that “will be around for a very long time and which provides trustworthy scholarly information” (xxix). There is little disagreement on this point. The New Testament Gateway is an exceptionally good resource and can be recommended with very little reservation . . .

. . . . This site is easily the best resource for biblical studies on the Web, even if simply as a gateway to other sites, and it is constantly evolving. Secondary materials are continually being added to the Weblog section . . . .

And so on. All very encouraging stuff. But Mitchell appears to be a thoughtful and critical observer, and he makes the following remarks that require some serious thinking:

The recurrent problem with this site, if it can be called such, is that it is ultimately the work of a single person. Thus, “energy” issues are the only shortcoming as the sheer number of links inevitably results in some dead or broken ones no matter how energetic or dedicated Goodacre is. (Some links to the University of Birmingham remain.) Goodacre is a publishing NT scholar with full-time teaching duties and is also serving as the series editor of the Library of New Testament Studies. The credentials that make him well suited to create such a site must also make him occasionally wonder about the number of hours available in a given day for what is, all accolades aside, a professional service.

In the past I have tended to answer points like this by reasserting my energy levels and saying that I continue enjoy working on the NT Gateway, and that the enjoyment is the stimulus to continue. Ultimately, though, that answer is of course inadequate. The sheer volume of on-line resources now makes it virtually impossible to keep up with everything, and I have to prioritise. It is no longer the case that one can cover the majority of good academic NT resources available free-for-all on the net, which was certainly the situation for the first few years of the site. And as the internet resources expand, my time to spend on the site diminishes. There is an academic career curve whereby one becomes ever more busy as one becomes better known, and every day more requests for one's time are made. I am actually quite good at saying "no" these days, but even then I have decreasing amounts of time to spend on the site, which I regret. A site that is so closely associated with just one person's efforts is only as good as that person's efforts. If the NT Gateway is still going to be around, and still found useful, for years to come, it's important to think about the future.

The internet keeps on changing, and it is important to change with it if one's site is to stay current, to take advantage of new ways of doing things if a site is to mature. Blogging has definitely helped me with maintaining the NT Gateway, not least because the blog combines several elements that I was doing on the main site in a more clumsy way, e.g. Featured Links, Logbook and so on. When I began this blog three and a half years ago, I folded several of those elements into the blog. But what is next? What current trends on the net could help with the development of the NT Gateway? Given the issues mentioned above, there is no question now that the NT Gateway is only going to survive in good shape if elements of collaboration are added. For the NT Gateway to get bigger, I need to get smaller.

Over the coming months, I will be exploring ways of adding more collaborative features to the site. I would like at least some Wiki functionality so that people can go in and correct a broken link, for example, rather than emailing me to change it. There are, of course, issues about going wiki, and one of them is quality control. But I am not worried about that. My role would become more overseeing, and I can devote my time to that role. Nor would I simply open up the site to everyone indiscriminately. The big question, though, is how to achieve added wiki functionality. If I were starting the site from scratch, it would be straightforward. But it is much less straightforward to add wiki functionality to an existing site, especially one as large as the NT Gateway. I am still at the exploration stage with this, but I will be reporting back as time goes on. I have accepted an invitation to speak to the Computer Assisted Research Group at the SBL Annual Meeting in November on the future for internet resources on the NT, and I hope to have made significant progress on the transformation by then.

Promotion and Tenure Criteria for New Media

Some of those brave pioneers who have celebrated what the internet has to offer the experience of university teaching, and who have looked towards the internet to enhance their offerings, may well have found it somewhat frustrating to find that their initiatives have not always met with wholehearted endorsement from their bosses. I am one of the lucky ones. I was in an institution (the University of Birmingham, Dept of Theology and Religion) that was open to initiatives in electronic media, and I always felt supported and encouraged in my attempts to try new things, something that was often controversial, especially in the relatively early days of the world wide web. Although I would not have managed promotion in that system if I had focused solely on electronic media for teaching and research, I did feel that the use of electronic media, especially in teaching, was recognized and valued. I think the same was true here in getting tenure in the Duke University Dept of Religion too, a sense that while print publications were paramount, the use of electronic media played a reasonable supporting role. I make these remarks to make clear that I have no personal axe to grind here, because it is clear that not everyone feels this way about their institutions, and I have talked to some scholars who have been pioneers in the use of internet resources in academia who have not felt supported by their institutions. It is felt that print publications will always trump the internet, and recognition will not be forthcoming for those who spend too long staring at their computer screen.

One of the difficulties is that in some institutions, those involved with appointments, promotions and tenure, have not yet realized how rapidly the scene has changed in the last decade or so, and just how valuable it can be to have academics who invest a lot of time and energy in new media. It is encouraging, therefore, to see reference on The Stoa Consortium to this piece from the University of Maine:

New Media Department, University of Maine
Promotion and Tenure Guidelines Addendum: Rationale for Redefined Criteria
New Criteria for New Media

ABSTRACT: An argument for redefining promotion and tenure criteria for faculty in new media departments of today's universities.

As the Stoa post comments, "It seems to provide an excellent point of departure for a discussion of how to include a proper assessment of new media contributions in the tenure and promotion processes in Humanities and Social Sciences." I agree. I hope to see other universities following suit.

James Robinson on the Jesus of Q

Latest from Augsburg Fortress, and on a topic that is a particular favourite of mine:

		Who was Jesus, really?
		In Jesus: According to the Earliest Witness, James M. Robinson, one of the premier scholars of the New Testament and the Sayings Gospel Q, asks what we can know of Jesus from what many believe was the earliest written source behind the Gospels. Over the years perhaps no one has reflected more sensitively and insightfully on the significance of Q for our understanding of earliest Christianity than James M. Robinson....In these essays Robinson exhibits the broad-ranging historical exegesis for which he is so well known, but also with surprising candor, lays out what he thinks it all means and why it is so important to listen to the earliest remembered voice of Jesus. —Stephen J. Patterson, Professor of New Testament, Eden Theological Seminary Robinson explores the trajectories in orthodox Christianity and Gnosticism alike, from this early witness to the canonical Gospels and beyond. Surprising insights abound and the author includes an autobiographical essay charting the important currents in New Testament scholarship over the last fifty years. Order your copy today!

More on Metzger

Evangelical Textual Criticism is collecting tributes to Bruce Metzger, so far Iain Torrance, Princeton Theological Seminary and Mike Holmes. No doubt there will be many more to come. Here's an obituary from the LA Times:

Bruce Manning Metzger, 93; New Testament scholar helped edit, update Bible translations
By Mary Rourke, Times Staff Writer

The piece focuses on some of the gender inclusive language in the NRSV translation:

. . . . Soon after Metzger and his colleagues completed their work in 1989, he pointed out some of the changes in an interview with The Times.

The phrase, "Man shall not live by bread alone," from the Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy and the New Testament Gospels of Matthew and Luke, was adjusted to read, "One shall not live by bread alone."

"O men of little faith," in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, became "O you of little faith." The original Greek text did not use the word for man in that phrase, Metzger said. To insert it was "an unnecessary, restrictive" addition, he told The Times . . .

This reminds me of the one occasion I met Prof. Metzger. He came to lecture in Birmingham on the NRSV in 1996 and my colleague David Parker, a friend of Metzger's, introduced me -- and he was as delightful in person as everyone says he was. I remember one thing in particular from his lecture. When discussing the issue of gender inclusive translation, he explained the difficulties over translating sentences traditionally translated with male-specific language, like "Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear". Prof. Metzger explained that he had received a letter from someone strongly urging him to use the new gender inclusive pronoun "thon", thus "Whoever has ears to hear, let thon here." He said that he replied to her by saying that he would be willing to consider the use of "thon" as soon as it appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Ben Sira and Luke

Over on Scripta de Divinis, Tim Brookins has an introductory post on Ben Sira, including some NT parallels. One of the most remarkable parallels between Ben Sira and the NT is, I think, the Rich Fool parable in Luke:

Sirach 11.18-19 (RSV): [18] There is a man who is rich through his diligence and self-denial,
and this is the reward allotted to him:
[19] when he says, "I have found rest,
and now I shall enjoy my goods!"
he does not know how much time will pass
until he leaves them to others and dies.

Luke 12.15-21 (NASB): 12:15 Then He said to them, "Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions." 16 And He told them a parable, saying, "The land of a rich man was very productive. 17 "And he began reasoning to himself, saying, ''What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?'' 18 "Then he said, ''This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 ''And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry."' 20 "But God said to him, ''You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?'' 21 "So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."

The fact that this parable also appears in Thomas 63 raises some interesting questions about the relationship between Thomas, Luke and Ben Sira, but I don't have time to blog on them just now.

Over use of "precisely"

My contribution to the blogger-cooler discussion of Pet Peeves in the use of language features some easy targets. It seems I am not the only one who is irritated to an irrational degree by "Revelations", for example. So here is a more controversial example of a pet peeve that has developed in recent scholarly writing. It is the over use of the word "precisely", especially in contexts where it is modifying a conjunction as in "it is precisely because this issue is so important that I am trying to be precise about it".

The usage is widespread, but I think Tom Wright uses it more than most. Future generations who are trying to distinguish authentic Wright from pseudepigraphical Wright will be looking at percentages of the use of "precisely" in the writings in question. The article Paul's Gospel and Caesar's Empire, for example, features precisely eleven examples:

The book thus invites us to approach what has been called Paul's theology, and to find in it, not simply a few social or political "implications", to be left safely to the final chapters of a lengthy theological tome, but a major challenge to precisely that imperial cult and ideology which was part of the air Paul and his converts breathed.

Politically, it cannot but have been heard as a summons to allegiance to "another king", which is of course precisely what Luke says Paul was accused of saying (Acts 17.7).

What the older history-of-religions argument failed to reckon with was the Jewish understanding that, precisely because of Israel's status within the purposes of the creator god, Israel's king was always supposed to be the world's true king.

Paul endorsed this train of thought, and he believed it to have been fulfilled in Jesus. He knew, of course, that Jesus was very different from the other Messiahs who flit through first-century history, but it is precisely part of the characteristic tension of his whole theology to claim that this crucified Jesus was and is the Jewish Messiah promised in scripture.

Simultaneously, and precisely because of the inner dynamic of just this Jewish tradition, Paul was announcing that Jesus was the true King of Israel and hence the true Lord of the world, at exactly the time in history, and over exactly the geographical spread, where the Roman emperor was being proclaimed, in what styled itself a "gospel", in very similar terms.

When, therefore, God's righteousness was unveiled, the effect would be precisely that the world would receive justice: that rich, restorative, much-to-be-longed-for justice of which the Psalmists had spoken with such feeling.

And the point of having "citizenship in heaven", as has often been pointed out, is not that one might eventually go home to the mother city; Rome established colonies precisely because of overcrowding in the capital, and the desire to spread Roman civilization in the rest of the empire.

Before we pick up the stones of our post-enlightenment sensibilities to throw at Paul, or at any interpreter who dares to suggest that Paul might have done any such thing, we should recall that precisely this move was a standard way in which many Jewish groups in the second-Temple period would define themselves over against one another.

Paul is thus not only located on the map of second-Temple history, but, by employing an inner-Jewish rhetorical strategy in which one's opponents were cast as pseudo-pagans, he is able to use the device in a quite new way, setting up precisely this polemic so as to serve a new purpose, namely his anti-Caesar message.

Just as the Messiah had obeyed the covenant plan of God, and was now identified as the Lord of the world, so the Messiah's people were to find their covenant identity precisely "in" the Messiah, in his dying and rising, in his faithfulness, in the covenant membership which would be God's gift bestowed upon faithfulness.

It is precisely because they are assured they are indeed the people of the one true God, formed in the Messiah through his death and resurrection, that the Philippians will have the courage and confidence to trust him as saviour and lord and so to renounce the imperial claims of Caesar.

My least favourite example of the usage is in the phrase "precisely because" since it is rare that it adds anything substantial to the clause. I suppose the point is to add some stress to the clause in question, as in "It really is because . . . . ."; "It is because of this very thing that I wish to stress. . . ." so it becomes a shorthand for adding emphasis. I don't want to give the impression that I am unfairly criticizing Wright's prose. Indeed it is precisely because I so admire his writing style that I can't help noticing this widespread feature of scholarly prose making such a marked impression on his writing. The usage is becoming difficult to avoid; it's one of those little language trends that we can't help finding ourselves pulled into. Although I would never consciously use it myself, it is a creeping usage that is becoming ever more pervasive.

Pet Peeves

On Blue Cord, Kevin Wilson has a great list of pet peeves, following Chris Heard's lead on Higgaion. Well, isn't this what blogging is for? One of Kevin's is a pet peeve of mine, the incorrect use of "beg the question", now very common. Here are a few of mine, some found in scholarly writing, some in students' writing and some in popular culture:

• "Exegete" as a verb rather than "to do exegesis of / write an exegesis of".


• "Critique" as a verb rather than "to write a critique of".


• "Quote" as a noun. "To quote" is a verb. The noun is "quotation". This is even found in some scholarly writing.


• Unnecessary use of Latin, as in theologia crucis when "theology of the cross" will do just fine.


• "Revelations for Revelation (Book of). I find this irritating to an irrational degree. It is particularly common in film and fiction.


• Whingers. People who worry about minor little aberrations in the use of language. CHILL.

Bruce Metzger

On Evangelical Textual Criticism, P. J. Williams passes on the sad news of the death of Bruce Metzger yesterday. On the Novum Testamentum blog, Brandon Wason has links to news articles in the Home News Tribune and NewsDay.com

All Things Considered on Lampeter

One of my regular BBC podcasts is BBC Wales's weekly religion programme called All Things Considered. This week's episode was wholly devoted to a feature on and interviews with the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Lampeter. It's not often (ever before?) you get an entire radio programme devoted to a Theology or Religion department. According to the programme, the department at Lampeter is the largest in the UK, with 49 academic members of staff. We used to say in Birmingham that we were the biggest, with almost 40, but it looks like Lampeter are now winning on the size front. The documentary is found here, either for download (podcast), or streaming. It begins with an excerpt from a class on the Gospel of Thomas:

All Things Considered

JETS latest

The December 2006 issue of the Journal of the Evangelical Theology Society, which has free for all access over on FindArticles, is now available:

Journal of the Evangelical Theology Society (December 2006)

Articles include:

* MEANING OF MOP[Phi]H IN PHILIPPIANS 2:6-7, THE
by Jowers, Dennis W

PAUL CONFRONTS PAGANISM IN THE CHURCH: A CASE STUDY OF FIRST CORINTHIANS 15:45
by Jones, Peter

OF MUZZLES AND OXEN: DEUTERONOMY 25:4 AND 1 CORINTHIANS 9:9
by Verbruggen, Jan L

I won't link to all the book reviews relevant to the NT because it will take me too long to do so, but here is the list, and individual links can be found after going to the main link above. Authors of the reviews and not the books are listed:

* Contextualization in the New Testament: Patterns for Theology and Mission
by Larkin, William J

* Historical Jesus in Recent Research, The
by Ingolfsland, Dennis

* Rhetoric at the Boundaries: The Art and Theology of New Testament Chain-Link Transitions
by Harvey, John D

* Legend of the Septuagint: From Classical Antiquity to Today, The
by Jobes, Karen H

* Revelation of John: A Commentary on the Greek Text of the Apocalypse, The
by Percer, Leo

* Colossians & Philemon
by Bateman, Herbert W IV

* Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, The
by Wallace, Daniel B

* Crux of Election: Paul's Critique of the Jewish Confidence in the Election of Israel, The
by Yinger, Kent L

* Acts
by Green, Joel B

* Johannine Discipleship as a Covenant Relationship
by Estes, Douglas

* Gospel according to Saint John, The
by Shidemantle, C Scott

* Studies in Matthew: Interpretation Past and Present
by Pennington, Jonathan T

* New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers. Vol. 1: The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers, The
by Warren, David H

* Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile: Restoration Eschatology and the Origin of the Atonement
by Kennard, Doug

Life of Brian: The Musical Latest

Variety has the latest on Not the Messiah:

'Messiah' in Idle hands
'Spamalot' creator announces next project
By RICHARD OUZOUNIAN

. . . . Idle was unwilling to disclose details about the work other than to say, "I promise it will be funnier than Handel, although probably not as good."

One question, though, is whether it will include "Brian's" best-known tune: "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life," already part of "Spamalot." . . . .

H.T.: Peter Chattaway on Filmchat. Cf. also my previous post on it.

István Czachesz URL Update

I've adjusted the URL of Apostolic Commission Narratives in the Canonical and Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles by István Czachesz on my Non-Canonical Christian Texts page.

Historical Jesus articles update

A couple of updates on my Historical Jesus: Articles page: revised URL for Robert Miller's Jesus Seminar and Its Critics and the addition of E. P. Sanders, "The Question of Uniqueness in the Teaching of Jesus" (cf. my previous blog post on this).

Review of Biblical Literature latest

Latest from the SBL Review of Biblical Literatue under the NT and related heading:

Thomas Hieke and Tobias Nicklas
"Die Worte der Prophetie dieses Buches": Offenbarung 22, 6-21 als Schlussstein der christlichen Bibel Alten und Neuen Testaments
Reviewed by Beate Kowalski

Deborah Krause
1 Timothy
Reviewed by Angela Standhartinger

Fergus Millar
A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief Under Theodosius II (408-450)
Reviewed by Daniel Schowalter

Annette Yoshiko Reed
Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity: The Reception of Enochic Literature
Reviewed by Siam Bhayro

E. Randolph Richards
Paul and First-Century Letter Writing: Secretaries, Composition and Collection
Reviewed by William "Chip" Gruen

Thomas A. Robinson
Mastering New Testament Greek: Essential Tools for Students
Reviewed by Robert E. Van Voorst

Christine Schlund
"Kein Knochen soll gebrochen werden": Studien zu Bedeutung und Funktion des Pesachfests in Texten des frühen Judentums und im Johannesevangelium
Reviewed by Craig R. Koester

Shmuel Shepkaru
Jewish Martyrs in the Pagan and Christian Worlds
Reviewed by Daniel R. Schwartz

William Shiell
Reading Acts: The Lector and the Early Christian Audience
Reviewed by Verlyn D. Verbrugge

Dieter Zeller
Neues Testament und hellenistische Umwelt
Reviewed by Joseph Verheyden

Journals page update

I have updated the New Testament Gateway: Journals page, with an adjusted URL for Bibliotheca Sacra, with thanks to Tommy Wasserman for pointing it out.

The Synoptic Problem in Eight Easy Steps

(a) The Synoptic Gospels are so similar in order and wording that there must be some kind of literary link between them.

(b) Mark is consistently the “middle term”, i.e. agreements between Matthew and Luke are often “mediated” via Mark. Matthew and Luke are rarely the middle term.

(c) The easiest way to explain Mark as middle term is that it was the major source for both Matthew and Luke. This explains all the “triple tradition” (Matthew // Mark // Luke) material.

(d) But two hundred verses or so of major agreements between Matthew and Luke remain, the “double tradition” (Matthew // Luke).

(e) If Matthew and Luke used Mark independently, the double tradition must be derived from an hypothetical source, called “Q” (for Quelle, source).

(f) Thus the “Two Source Theory”, that Matthew and Luke had two major sources, Mark and Q. It is the majority view.

(g) But there is good evidence that Luke knew Matthew as well as Mark, e.g. some major and many minor agreements between Matthew and Luke against Mark.

(h) Q is therefore unnecessary. Matthew knew Mark; Luke knew Mark and also Matthew. This is called the Farrer Theory.

Did Paul discourage Jewish Christians from keeping the Law?

Over on Euangelion, in a post headed Paul, the Law and the Jews, Michael Bird asks the question, "Did Paul expect Jewish Christians to adopt the non-Torah policy that he had for Gentiles?" and quotes a section from William Campbell's Paul's Gospel in an Intercultural Context, the first part of which is:

Because Paul cannot yield on this point [the gospel is available to Gentiles without having to proselytize] does not mean that he opposed all things Jewish or that he would discourage Jewish Christians from following a Jewish lifestyle after they had become Christians. This stipulation that Jewish Chrsitians recognise the right of Gentile Christians to be accepted into the people of God and continue to live a Gentile (Christian) lifestyle, does not mean that such Jewish Christians as recognised this, should not also have the freedom to continue to live in a Jewish life style.

It is a fascinating question. One way I try to focus it when teaching Paul is to ask my students whether they think Paul would have encouraged his fellow Christian Jews to circumcise their male children at eight days. Let's face it: over twenty or thirty years, Paul must have come into contact with many Christian Jews who were in this situation. They have just had a baby boy. Do they circumcise him? What about Paul's nephew (Acts 23.16); did Paul encourage his sister to circumcise him when he was born, and what about his brothers, or their children?

In the Campbell quotation above, it depends a bit on what we mean by the word "discourage". Given that Paul not living "under the Law" at all times, does that not act as a kind of discouragement to other Christian Jews from keeping the Law? Paul's "all things to all people" policy (1 Cor. 9.19-23) must have appeared to some as an encouragement to other Christian Jews not to keep the Law, whatever the content of Paul's actual preaching was. In other words, I find it easy to imagine how the charge of Acts 21.21 could have been made. Paul was not "teaching all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children nor to walk according to the customs," but the charge had a ring of truth to it if one observed Paul's actual practice.