In the following chronicle an attempt is made to survey recent research on the ancient versions of the New Testament. By recent is meant publications which appeared during the five-year period from 1950 to 1954. Under the rubric ancient versions are included the following versions which were made during the first millennium of the Christian era: the Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Gothic, Armenian, Old Georgian, Ethiopic, Arabic, Sogdian and Old Slavic versions. In some cases it was difficult to discriminate between studies dealing with patristic authors and their Scriptural text, and studies dealing with the early versions per se. In most of such cases it was thought wise to follow an inclusive policy and to make some reference to the patristic study.

The thesis which I would like to discuss is the negative one that the sentence ‘flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God’ does not refer to the resurrection of the dead, but is to be understood otherwise. I shall try, firstly, to give a short exegesis of the verse I Cor. xv. 50 and of its context; then, secondly, to re-examine the line of thought of I Cor. xv in the light of this exegesis; and lastly, try to show some consequences of the result for our understanding of the eschatology of the Apostle.

The question whether or not the Fourth Gospel is based upon the Synoptic Gospels has been discussed endlessly, and will no doubt continue to be discussed. The divergent conclusions which different critics draw from the same body of evidence (for it is seldom that really fresh evidence can be adduced) largely depend on their presuppositions. In particular, if the critic takes the view that the writings of the New Testament form a series of literary works in an orderly sequence of development, each depending on its predecessors and influencing its successors, even though some links in the chain may be lost, then wherever the contents of the Fourth Gospel coincide more or less with those of the Synoptic Gospels, he will be disposed, prima facie at least, to see an instance of a writer's use of written sources. Such was, in the main, the presupposition, even if not always the avowed presupposition, of nineteenth-century criticism of the Gospels, and it is by no means entirely abandoned. But the whole course which the investigation of the history and literature of primitive Christianity has followed in the period since the first world war has tended to weaken this presupposition. It suggests that the early Church was not as bookish a community as that, and it tends to emphasize the importance of oral tradition, not only in the dark years before any of the extant Christian writings appeared, but all through the New Testament period. It is not denied that in some cases New Testament writers were probably dependent on written sources, extant or lost, but it is no longer safe to entertain a general presumption that any coincidence of content is due to literary dependence. To prove such dependence some specific evidence is required—some striking or unexpected identity of language, for example, or some agreement in an apparently arbitrary arrangement of material. The question of the relation of John to the Synoptics needs to be closely re-examined from this point of view. In this article I propose to take, as specimens, four dominical sayings in the Fourth Gospel which have parallels in the Synoptics, and to ask whether, if there is no general presumption of literary indebtedness, the phenomena are such as to suggest indebtedness, or whether they rather point to independent use of a common oral tradition.

The vision of the Last Judgment with which St Matthew concludes so magnificently the teaching ministry of Jesus stands out from the Gospel pages with a unique and snow-capped majesty. It is a literary tour de force never quite approached elsewhere in the First Gospel, and it possesses that grandeur of simplicity which removes it toto coelo from the lurid and melodramatic scenes of the End which Jewish apocalyptic, like subsequent Christian thought, found it necessary to paint. As Professor T. W. Manson says, and Professor J. Jeremias agrees (The Parables of Jesus, p. 144), ‘It contains features of such startling originality that it is difficult to credit them to any-one but the Master himself’ (The Teaching of Jesus, p. 249); or, again, in the more recent words of Théo Preiss, it evinces ‘a sobriety of feature and colour, a reserve, a bareness which can come from hardly any other source but that of Jesus himself’ (Life in Christ, p. 47).

The Church to which we are permitted to proclaim the Gospel is no longer the Palestinian Church of the time of Jesus, for whom the real goal of life was to pass safely through the judgement of God. Neither is the Church any longer that of the time of Luther, weighed down by its consciousness of sin and the medieval fear of judgement. Today the message of forgiveness of sins answers a question which, to a large extent, has disappeared from the consciousness of modern man. The modern world is, however, similar in many ways to the Hellenistic world into which the Christian message entered with the proclamation of Paul. The unity of heaven and earth, as it had been perceived in the classic period, is destroyed for the Hellenistic man. The world for him is controlled by powers and forces to which he has been handed over helpless. Ananke or Heimarmene (Fate or Destiny) determines everything and the action of the individual is incapable of altering their established course. The ever-repeated movement of the heavenly bodies, once conceived as the expression of divine harmony, awakens now the concept of a giant machine which mercilessly completes its revolution, deaf to the cries of men. Of course, the Stoic seeks to flee back into the old harmony between God and the world and for that reason declares the whole world to be his polis. But even he knows that everything in this polis is determined by the great powers, their mighty armies, and their modern weapons and no longer by his individual decision. Thus the desires and longings of the Hellenistic man are concentrated upon liberation from the demonic powers of this world and upon participation in the upper, godly world.

The object of this study is to inquire into the nature of Luke's theology, and in particular to see whether we find in his writings a distinctive presentation of the Person and work of Jesus. This is not an easy task. Even if we could readily isolate Luke's own theological outlook from that of the sources which he was using, the fact would remain that the thought of the Lucan writings is seldom clear-cut. The author does not follow any one line of interpretation to the exclusion of all others; on the contrary, he prefers to make a synthesis. Nor does he press any one idea to its ultimate conclusion or content himself with drawing out the significance of a single scriptural image. He prefers to hold a large number of threads in his hand at once, introducing first one and then another into a somewhat untidy and ill-defined pattern, without allowing any one of them so to predominate over the rest as to give unity and coherence to the whole. This tendency is perhaps especially marked in his presentation of the Person and work of Christ, and it is no easy matter to determine how far the looseness and variety of his thought is due to his own cast of mind and how far it is due to the intractability of his material and the difficulty of adapting it to serve the purposes required by his own theological outlook.

Die Leidensgeschichte bei Matthus ist ein geeigneter Ausgangspunkt fr eine Diskussion ber synoptische Fragen und Probleme der Evangelienforschung. Das ist sie zunchst deshalb, weil das literarkritische Verhltnis hier besonders klar zu Tage liegt. Die Matthus-Passion steht der Markus-Passion sehr nahe. Alle Episoden des Markus-Berichtes finden sich auch bei Matthus, es fehlen nur ein paar kurze Notizen (Mark. xiv. 51 f.; xv. 21 b) und dazu einige ausmalende Einzelheiten (Mark. xiv. 34, 7, 1215, 40, 569, 67; xv. 7, 445; xvi. 15) Noch bemerkenswerter ist, da die Ordnung und Reihenfolge innerhalb der Passionsgeschichte bei Matthus und Markus ohne Ausnahme dieselbe ist. In groem Umfange finden sich wrtliche oder beinahe wrtliche bereinstimmungen. Ein Vergleich mit Lukas und Johannes lt sofort erkennen, wie nahe Matthus and Markus zusammengehren. Bei ihnen liegen zwei Varianten eines and desselben Berichtes vor.

Les rouleaux de la Mer Morte ont ramené l'attention sur la connaissance des secrets apocalyptiques. D'aprés W. D. Davies, ces documents fourniraient le milieu littéraire dans lequel il faudrait situer Matt. xi. 25–30; on se contente plus souvent de faire le rapprochement avec la sagesse en mystére de saint Paul. Pourquoi ne pas songer ègalement au logion de Matt. xiii. II ‘A vous il est donné de connaître les secrets du Royaume des cieux’ avec ses parallèles Luc viii. 10 et Marc iv. II? On pourrait tenter l'interprétation de cette parole du Christ dans l'atmosphère des révélations apocalyptiques.

In his recent article, ‘The Birth and Infancy Stories of the Third Gospel’ (New Testament Studies, Vol. i, No. 2, pp. 111–21) Dr Paul Winter adheres to the Semitic source hypothesis for Luke i, ii and one Hebrew document is apparently envisaged (‘a document written in Hebrew formed the basis of this part of the Third Gospel’ (p. 113)). Moreover, he maintains that ‘the theory that the editor…was the author of the first two chapters…and that he wrote these chapters in Greek whilst intentionally adopting a Hebraizing style is untenable’ (p. 121). The article does not allow the possibility that the use of Hebrew sources went hand in hand with consultation of the LXX, nor consider the question whether the evangelist himself translated the Hebrew or whether he found the document in its present Hebraized Greek form. Such questions are fundamental to the problem posed by the article, namely the reason for the ‘barbarous’ language. Thus, in a brief summary of this question, Professor Matthew Black gives due weight to the possibility of the evangelist's indebtedness to the LXX, and suggests that the LXX was an ‘aid’.

In my recent contribution to The Expository Times I acknowledged my indebtedness to Dr G. S. Duncan, whose book (St Paul's Ephesian Ministry(1929)) has convinced me that Philemon and most of Colossians, which I had always thought originated in Rome, were written, as he maintains, at Ephesus; and this has enabled me to simplify, and so to improve, my views concerning the occasions and number of genuine notes in II Timothy. But I found it impossible within the time and space at my disposal to give more than a brief summary of my reactions to Duncan's work in its bearing on the problem of the Pastoral Epistles, and said nothing at all about the bearing of those Epistles on his theory. So, pending his own contribution to the same series of articles, it seems desirable to set down in rather more detail the reasons why, having gone so far to meet him, I cannot go the rest of the way.

This paper makes no claim to present any new contribution to the problem of the relationship between the Qumrân community and the primitive Church; it represents only the present stage of crystallization of the writer's thoughts on some aspects of this fascinating subject, and even so it asks questions rather than answers them.

Most recent writers have seen in a reference to the mercy-seat, and, since this was in normal use only on the Day of Atonement, have concluded that Rom. iii. 25 must be interpreted in terms of the ceremonies of that day. But it seems to the present writer that there is much to be said for the idea which was vigorously upheld in earlier days, and still has some protagonists, that the word is not so specific, and is to be understood as something like means of propitiation.