Ancient eschatological texts are, as literary remains, undecoded hieroglyphs and enigmas unless we are able to recreate the world of experience of which they are only ambiguous tokens. Modern study of biblical eschatology is constantly confronted with problems as to the proper interpretation of the cosmic and transcendental language. Depending on the context such questions arise as the following: Did the writer mean his words to be taken literally—including the references to immediate fulfilment? Are they to be read as ‘Oriental poetry’, or as ‘poetic heightening’, or as an ‘accommodation to language?’ Are we to take the figurative discourse as a ‘clothing’ of otherwise incommunicable revelation or vision? Is the cosmic language supposed to refer to ‘spiritual’, that is, super-mundane realities; or to such realities seen as paralleling earthly phenomena; or is it rather an imaginative version of the earthly phenomena themselves? At what points are we to recognize more or less transparent historization of older myth and symbol? Does the eschatological imagery of Deutero-Isaiah represent merely a poetic idealization of a mundane New Age while that of the late apocalypses denotes the absolute end of all created existence? Does this later dualistic eschatology signify in fact the end of the world and a sheerly miraculous future state, or does it teach by hyperbole the transformation of the world?

In an article entitled ‘Zum Problem “Johannes und die Synoptiker”, S. Mendner has again raised the question of the relationship between the Gospel of John and the Synoptics (Syn). Comparing John vi. 1–30 with the synoptic parallels, he discovers that John's account of the Feeding of the Five Thousand is a literary development of the synoptic account. On the other hand Mark and Matthew have moulded the account of Jesus walking on the sea after the Johannine example.

Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus has been the neglected member of the family of great uncials. Photographic facsimiles have been produced of ℵ, A, B, D, and others, but only a sample page or two of the valuable palimpsest is available in textbooks. All the important codices have been studied and collated more than once. But as regards Codex C only Tischendorf has transcribed its text and edited it according to modern standards. In textbooks on textual criticism Codex C has been given—almost without excepdon—less than half the space of any of the other main uncials. To be sure, it is a difficult manuscript to read, and many lacunae exist. Yet because of its age and the quality of its text, as well as the fact that it contains portions of all the sections of the New Testament, every possible detail should be accurately extracted from this once beautiful codex. Owing to this unwarranted neglect of Codex C, especially the fact that no one had tested the accuracy of Tischendorf's work, a new study was undertaken and a new edition is being prepared. The present article will include (1) a brief history Of thern manuscript and its use by textual critics; (2) introductory items on which new light may be shed or on which previous statements need to be corrected; and finally, (3) a list of the more significant errors found in Tischendorf's edition.