In the year in which we commemorate the centennial of both the Archaeological Institute of America and the Society of Biblical Literature, it may be appropriate in the pages of the Harvard Theological Review to offer an appreciation of one of Harvard's own faculty, the only American scholar who was a leading theoretician in both the fields of biblical theology and biblical archaeology, the late G. E. Wright.

Critical scholarship on the Hebrew Bible a hundred years ago held a much lower estimation of the role of law in the religion of ancient Israel and of the value of biblical law than do scholars today. Julius Wellhausen, for example, whose work was the most influential of the nineteeth century, maintained that in its creative period, Israel had no law, but only “usage and tradition” which “were looked on to a large extent as the institution of the Deity.” Thus, the prophets, whom Wellhausen stressed, did not preach out of any legal tradition in his view, but rather “out of the spirit which judges all things and itself is judged of no man.” In their canonical shape, however, the materials ancient Israel bequeathed us are so strongly nomistic that even Wellhausen could not deny that at a certain point law became central, displacing the spirit. That point marks the transition from Israelite religion to something new called “Judaism,” which is distinguished by the idea of a written Torah. Judaism, in Wellhausen's theory, represents the senility of Israel, for “a body of traditional practice should only be written down when it is threatening to die out, and … a book should be, as it were, the ghost of a life which is closed.” This transition from usage to codified law reflects a fundamental change in the nature of the relationship of God and Israel, a change from a purely natural relationship to one of covenant.

At least from the time of the influential analysis of B. Duhm in 1899, a scholarly consensus has developed which judges Psalm 89 to be a composite of poems of widely different date. Often cited is the view of H. Gunkel: to an old hymn (vv 29–52) a lament (vv 39–52) has been appended. The hymn was joined to the lament by interposing vv 20–38 and at the same time vv 4–5 were inserted. Articles in recent years have challenged the prevalent view of original disunity. J. M. Ward in 1961 showed that arguments based on metric considerations are not conclusive and that logic, vocabulary links throughout the whole poem, and poetic structure all argue that the psalm was a single poem from the that logic, vocabulary links throughout the whole poem, and poetic structure all argue that the psalm was a single poem from the beginning. In 1972 J.-B. Dumortier showed convincingly on purely literary grounds that at least two of the sections commonly thought to be diverse, the so-called royal poem of vv 2−5+20−38 and the cosmic hymn of vv 6–19, were in fact originally one.

A quick glance through the commentaries and translations will show that most scholars see no serious textual problems in Isa 28:12. Laberge has suggested that “he said,” be corrected to “I kept saying,” and everyone notes the extra aleph at the end of “they were (not) willing …,” but otherwise the text appears to be universally regarded as sound. The present writer does not share that optimism, however. Perhaps the following stichometric arrangement of the verse will convey the difficulty he perceives:

The concluding line of the short eschatological passage in Hab 2:2–4 is a locus classicus both within the biblical tradition and for subsequent theological reflection in the light of that tradition. Within the Bible it connects by well-beaten paths with other classic loci such as Gen 15:6, Rom 1:16–17 and Heb 11:1 (through the latter's contiguity with Heb 10:37–39). Beyond the Bible its importance is perhaps best known, within the Christian tradition, through Martin Luther's sola fide interpretation of it as quoted in Romans.

While the study of word pairs and word patterns in Hebrew reaches back even before Lowth's lectures on poetry in 1753, it has intensified considerably since the discovery of the Ugaritic texts and the recognition of both shared and distinctive word patterns in Hebrew and Ugaritic poetry. There is no need to rehearse here the history of this research. Avishur has summarized that with relatively full bibliography in his article in Semitics. The result of these investigations is to make the reader of biblical and extrabiblical texts more aware of both the traditional material and patterns available to the writers of prose and poetry as well as the creativity of the poet, especially in shaping a poem or lines of poetry in different ways as individuality and the traditional are blended together in the poetic composition.

In view of the enormous expansion of biblical studies in the last century it is highly exceptional when a book published more than a hundred years ago remains today the basic work on its subject. Such is Jakob Freudenthal's study of the Hellenistic Jewish writers preserved by Alexander Polyhistor. Like any classic which remains influential for a long time, Freudenthal's work has not only laid the foundations for further study but has also perpetuated a number of misconceptions. One case where Freudenthal's opinion has distorted subsequent research is the epic poem of Theodotus, preserved in Eusebius' Praeparatio Evangelica 9.22.1–11. Freudenthal classified Theodotus with the so-called Ps. Eupolemus, Cleodemus Malchas, and Thallus, all of whom he regarded as Samaritans and all of whom have strongly syncretistic features. This view of Theodotus has persisted in much of the literature, from Schürer down to the recent reviews by Denis, Hengel, and Wacholder. We will argue, on the contrary, that the surviving fragments present a rigidly exclusive view of Judaism and reflect the anti-Samaritan propaganda of the Hasmoneans. The combination of a distinctively Hellenistic form with a militant and exclusive Judaism provides an interesting example of the blending of Judaism and Hellenism in the period following the Maccabean revolt.

The problem addressed in this paper is implied in the title. The terms “apocryphal” and “canonical” reflect a traditional usage which implies deep-seated prejudices and has had far-reaching consequences. Any standard dictionary, like Merriam-Webster, will explain the term “apocryphal” as “not canonical; unauthentic; spurious.” The synonyms are listed under “fictitious,” i.e., “invented or imagined rather than true and genuine,” and the term “apocryphal” is explained here as follows: “implies a mysterious or extremely dubious source of origin.”

The following reassessment of present-day NT textual criticism requires, by its very nature, a brief statement of the circumstances that occasioned it. Seven years ago, in the W. H. P. Hatch Memorial Lecture at the 1973 annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, I attempted in fifty minutes an adventuresome—if not audacious— assessment of the entire scope of NT textual criticism during the past century. Though this was an instructive exercise for me and one that others report as instructive also for them, it was inevitable that so bold an undertaking would elicit sharp criticism. The first hint of this came from Münster in 1976, but more clearly within the past year or so in an invitation to subscribe to a Festschrift for Matthew Black containing an article by Kurt Aland of Münster with an announced title—appearing as it did in English—that had a highly familiar ring: “The Twentieth-Century Interlude in New Testament Textual Criticism,” obviously the title of the Hatch Lecture, which, following its presentation, had been published in the 1974 volume of JBL When the Festschrift itself appeared, it seemed obvious from Professor Aland's article that some reassessment of the course and significance of twentieth-century NT textual criticism was in order. Late in September 1979, Aland's article was reprinted in the annual report of his Münster foundation for NT textual research, now under the title of “Die Rolle des 20. Jahrhunderts in der Geschichte der neutestamentlichen Textkritik.”

An important component in the recent discussion of the Second Gospel has been a continuing fascination with the Markan passion narrative. John Donahue has summarized the research under three headings, which represent recurring questions that scholars have put to the text. (1) What roles did the Scriptures and their motifs play in the formation and growth of the Markan passion narrative? (2) Did Mark make use of an extant passion narrative, and if so, what did it look like? (3) To what extent and in what ways does the Markan passion narrative reflect Mark's own theological and literary interests?

Mark 4:1–8:26 is a compositional unit whose external boundaries are determined by its internal structure. Because neither this structure nor the unit it defines has been observed previously I shall concentrate on them, dealing with other views of Mark's composition only when they are relevant to my argument. My purpose is to identify the compositional structure of Mark 4:1–8:26, and to point to some of the hermeneutical implications of the structure. The method to be followed is composition-critical to the extent that it is concerned both with the segmentation of the narrative into its constituent units and with their arrangement as a key to their significance in their Markan literary context. I acknowledge that most of these units originated in pre-Markan traditions, some of which may have been accessible to Mark in the form of collections, and that Mark's dependence upon such material determines the hermeneutical problem of his narrative. This problem can be expressed either as the question of the author's investment in his material or as the question of the literary significance of the once preliterary material. Because the answer to the former question is necessarily an inference from the answer to the latter, my orientation is to the latter, namely, to the question of the relevance of the compositional structure of Mark 4:1–8:26 for understanding the compositional significance of its parts.

With the letter to the Romans our firsthand source of information for Paul's activity and achievements as a devoted supporter of the one whom years before he had bitterly opposed comes to an end. In all probability, Romans, written in Corinth as he planned for his subsequent activity in the West, whither he was soon to go, after a final visit to Jerusalem which he apparently viewed with concern, even reluctance, was the last letter to come from his pen, for the letters commonly styled “Letters of the Captivity”—Philippians, Colossians, Ephesians (if actually written by Paul), and Philemon—were not subsequently written from Rome, but in all probability were the product of his years in and about Ephesus, where in all likelihood he had suffered once again “prisons more abundantly, stripes above measure, deaths oft.”

Paul's remark about the intercessory prayer of the Spirit in Rom 8:26–27 is unparalleled in the NT and has traditionally caused difficulties for the translator or interpreter. There is, for example, the tendency in modern versions to soften the statement that “we do not know what to pray for as we ought” to “we do not know how to pray as we ought” (RSV). The problem here may be a failure to acknowledge Paul's eschatological perspective in the immediate context in Romans 8 in which the focus is on the invisibility of what the Christian is called upon to hope for (8:24–25). Neglect of the context has also led to a failure in many modern versions to preserve the continuity of the metaphor στενάζειν/στεναγμός in vv 22, 23, 26: the RSV, for example, renders the noun in v 26 “sighs” but translates the verb “groans” in the other verses. Such a shift of language makes the initial ὡσαύτως of v 26 a problem, for it is precisely the repetition of στενάζειν/στεναγμός which undergirds the comparison. It is not the intention of this note to discuss these issues in detail, but to concentrate on the meaning of v 27.

Rudolf Bultmann's dissertation is still the best general description of diatribal style and remains the authority on the subject for most NT scholars. Bultmann draws attention to the dialogical element in the diatribe in which a speaker or writer makes use of an imaginary interlocutor who asks questions or raises objections to the arguments or affirmations that are made. These responses are frequently stupid and are then summarily rejected by the speaker or writer in a number of ways, for example by οὐδαμῶς (“by no means”), οὐ πάντως (“not at all”), οὐ μὰ Δία (“indeed not”), or minime (“by no means”). The limited purpose of this paper is to examine the way in which μὴ γένοιτο (“by no means”) is widely used in the diatribal literature, usually thought to be represented in Greek by the Dissertation of Epictetus, certain Moralia of Plutarch, various works of Philo, and by Bion, Teles, Musonius, Dio Chrysostom, Lucian, and Maximus of Tyre. In fact, however, this particular rejection, as it appears as a response in a dialogue without being part of a larger sentence, is unique to Epictetus and Paul. Bultmann's interpretation of the diatribe is heavily dependent on Epictetus despite the latter's peculiar development of the style, and the generalization about the use of μὴ γένοιτο in the diatribe is made on the basis of Epictetus.

In Jesus the Magician I argued that the earliest pagan reports of persecutions of Christians—those in Suetonius, Tacitus, and Pliny the younger—indicate that the persecutors believed the Christians were practicing magic. Here I want to explain their belief by reviewing the eariest evidence for Christian congregational practices and indicating how these practices would have been understood by the ancient Christians' neighbors. This does not imply that there were not other grounds for the persecutors' belief. Magic seems to have figured in the charges for which Jesus was condemned; it certainly was prominent in the propaganda against his cult that was spread by rival Jewish groups. Such propaganda doubtless shaped the expectations with which many outsiders viewed early Christianity, and people are apt to see what they expect to see. Nevertheless, Pliny's famous letter shows that Roman authorities sometimes tried to get beyond rumor to the facts. Accordingly we should ask what the facts would have looked like to men of the Greco-Roman world in the late first and early second centuries, a world in which magic was practiced on all levels of society and almost universally believed to be effective. As “the facts” we may take, with some reservations, the evidence about Christian congregations to be found in Paul's relatively unquestioned letters—Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, or Philippians, and Philemon.

Many difficulties beset the interpreter of Paul's response to the case of incest at Corinth. With the partial exception of the letter to the Romans, Paul's letters are occasional pieces written in response to very particular circumstances in the communities addressed. The occasional character of the first letter to the Corinthians is evident as Paul responds to oral reports (1:11; 5:1; 11:18) and to written queries (7:1). The interpreter is acutely aware of having access to only one side of a conversation, to only half a correspondence. Because of the close contact between writer and addressees, much could be left unsaid.

Even though the text of 1 Cor 15:31–32 printed above agrees with all recent critical editions of the NT, it almost certainly is false to the autograph. The basis for this claim comes neither from new textual evidence nor from a more scientific analysis of the old evidence, but from conjecture prompted by internal problems in the passage which other methods have not yet solved. Before I make my case, however, I should mention the two points in these verses where the ancient versions differ. Some texts do not contain the ἀδελϕοί (“brothers”) in line 31b, and others expand it to ἀδελϕοί μου (“my brothers”) or to ἀδελϕοί ἡμῶν (“our brothers”). Because it is difficult to know which reading is best, the American Bible Society edition is wise to put ἀδελϕοί in brackets and to acknowledge the difficulty in the apparatus.

One of the most controverted questions in the study of the Epistle to the Hebrews is the nature of the eschatological perspective which it represents, and a focal point of the debate about this issue is the passage on the “rest” which awaits the addressees (4:1–11). The two ends of the spectrum of recent interpretation are represented by Theissen on the one hand, who sees Hebrews here as developing a “Gnostic” tradition paralleled by materials in Philo, and by Buchanan and Hofius on the other, who see Hebrews as working wholly within the framework of Jewish apocalyptic expectations. Parallels adduced by these interpreters are, to one degree or another, illuminating, but the concentration on these parallels may obscure the dynamics of Hebrews' argument, which should serve as the fundamental criterion by which to assess the work's eschatology. This brief paper will attempt to illuminate those dynamics.

First published in 1934, Walter Bauer's Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum warned against simply equating the words “orthodoxy” and “heresy” with the notions of majority and minority and with the process of deviation from correct belief to wrong belief. Bauer sought to show that in the first two Christian centuries orthodoxy and heresy did not stand in relation to one another as primary and secondary. He tried to prove that in many regions what came to be known in the ecclesiastical tradition as “heresy” was in fact the original manifestation of Christianity. For example, according to Bauer, the major figures in earliest Christianity at Edessa were the “heretics” Marcion, Bar Daisan, and Mani. In Egypt a gnostic form of Christianity appears to have been dominant before A.D. 200, and in Asia Minor “orthodox” leaders such as Ignatius and Polycarp waged only moderately successful battles against gnosticism and judaizing Christianity.