In order to represent the actions of past-time narrative, Luke can choose to employ either the aorist or the imperfect tense, that is, either the perfective or the imperfective aspect. By selecting one tense over the other Luke manipulates verbal aspect to give organization to his episodic narrative and to create contrastive prominence (enargeia) within individual pericopes. In this way, he follows in the tradition of his historiographical predecessors –most notably Thucydides– who, through their subtle play with verbal aspect, composed narratives concerned with at once the factual representation of the past and their own contemporary, didactic purposes.
The formula of Rev 4:1-2a is composed of three phrases: 1. "Then, in my vision, I saw"; 2. "a door open in heaven"; 3. "the same voice... With that, the Spirit possessed me". The first and the second phrase, which serve to introduce a new vision, were most likely taken from the Pseudoepigrapha of the Old Testament, where they find plentiful analogies, as features of literary style. For the third phrase we cannot find precise parallels in other sources. The author of the article arrives at the conclusion that the subject of the voice (4:1c) was the "One who was sitting on the throne" himself, who, by means of his voice, introduces the visionary into a state of ecstasy.
In the present article, the author summarizes the main outline of a reading of Acts that is very different from the usual one found in articles, books and commentaries on the second volume of Luke’s work, mis-named the "Acts of the Apostles". This reading was previously presented in two volumes in Spanish (El camino de Pablo a la misión de los paganos, 1984, and De Jerusalén a Antioquía. Génesis de la Iglesia cristiana, 1989), and further developed in a 4-volume commentary on Acts in Catalan (Comentari als Fets dels Apòstols, 1991-2000). Currently, the publication of a major commentary based on the Catalan work is being written in English in collaboration with Jenny Read-Heimerdinger, University of Bangor, Wales (The Message of Acts in Codex Bezae. A comparison with the Alexandrian Tradition, I, 2004; II, 2006; III, 2007, forthcoming).
John 1,34 contains a perennial textual problem. Is Jesus depicted as the Son of God, the Chosen One of God, or something else? Previous studies have not been able to solve this problem satisfactorily to all textual critics. This study is a new attempt to resolve it by using a recently noted singular reading in P75*. I argue that this reading changes the transcriptional probabilities. It is lectio difficilior from which all other variant readings derive due second century scribal habits. John 1,34 should read "The Chosen Son". This affects the Johannine theology. This new reading has implications for how to deal with some singular readings elsewhere.
The dearth of external evidence in addition to the support of arguments from a transcriptional probability perspective eliminates the variants kauqh|= and kauqh/setai in 1 Cor 13:3. Besides having a syntactic problem, the variant kauqh/swmai is a theologically motivated scribal intervention. Historical facts, hinder the candidature of kauqh/somai and a syntagmatic approach does not favour either kauqh/somai or kauxh/swmai. In Paul boasting is ambivalent. "To boast in the Lord" is something positive. Furthermore, Petzer justifies kauxh/swmai from a structural point of view. On textual, grammatical and historical grounds kauxh/swmai cannot be a later addition.
An article by the present writer in a previous number of Filologia Neotestamentaria argued that the conventional interpretation of the lo/goj of Heb 4,12-13 as signifying the word of God in Scripture was inadequate because it was inconsistent with the terminology of the context, with the imagery of the context, with the description of the context, and with the language of the context. In contrast, to take the word lo/goj as meaning Christ as Word resolved each of these inconsistencies. The present note situates the proposed interpretation of Christ as Word in the context of Heb 3,7-4,11, arguing that this preliminary passage supposes some agency to account for the assurance of entry into God’s Rest for the People of God as such.
The present section deals with the events concerning the conversion of Peter (Acts 9:31–11:18) whereby he at last comes to understand that the good news of Jesus is for Jews and Gentiles alike. Since the Greek pages of Codex Bezae are missing from 8:29 to 10:14 and the Latin ones from 8:20b to 10:4, we have noted in the Critical Apparatus the variants of other witnesses that differ from the Alexandrian text. From 10:4b (fol. 455a), the Latin text of Codex Bezae is available. The Greek text starts at 10:14b (fol. 455b).