Based on recent theoretical reflections on the links between space and rituals, this paper re-examines early Christian meal practice. Since the 1980s, many scholars have agreed that early Christ groups met in private houses inside a given city and celebrated their meals in the form of the Greco-Roman banquet. However, the idea that early Christ groups met ‘almost exclusively’ in private houses has been disputed in recent years. This paper expands on one of the suggested alternative meeting spaces: the graveyard. Tombs of the rich and poor lined the roads running in and out of an ancient city. The tradition handed down by Paul and the Synoptic Gospels (1 Cor 11.23–5/Mark 14.22–4 par.) can be located here. It contains a story fragment linked in form and content to laments that might have been part of a dramatically narrated passion account with a subsequent mortuary meal. This shows how spatial contextualisation can expand the reconstruction of the diversity of early Christian meal celebrations.

In the first part of the twentieth century, Henry Cadbury argued for the unity of Luke and Acts and made the phrase Luke-Acts a standard expression in scholarship. While there have always been challenges, in recent decades the number of these has increased. One area that has not been adequately explored is the study of how ancients produced multi-scroll works. This study analyses two practices using four examples for each: two Hellenistic and two Jewish. The first is the practice of composing secondary prefaces for the second and subsequent scrolls in multi-scroll works. The purpose of the secondary preface was to create a link between the scrolls. The second is the practice of releasing a scroll when it was completed before the full complement of scrolls for the work was composed and ready for circulation. This essay suggests that Acts 1.1–2 is a secondary preface that binds Acts to Luke and that there is a gap in time between the release of Luke and the release of Acts, which helps to explain both their differences and their independent circulation in the early church. It is not an argument about genre since these practices were common in various genres. It is an argument that Luke and Acts cannot be separated from one another without ignoring ancient conventions.*

Contra graecum, against the Greek, is a term used in the critical apparatus of the so-called Oxford Vulgate to indicate passages where individual manuscripts, early Christian authors or the entire Latin tradition present a text that differs from the Greek witnesses. This contribution discusses three ex-amples from 1 Corinthians (1 Cor 7.33–4, 15.5, 14.11). At 1 Cor 7.33–4, verse divisions have varied ever since the first printed New Testament with modern verse numbers (Estienne 1551). This is partly due to the different interpretations of the verb μεμέρισται either as masculine or feminine. The difference is discussed already in early Christian authors, with Jerome finding meaning in both despite a preference for the masculine form. In 1 Cor 15.5, the number of people to whom Christ appeared differs, with ‘twelve’ in Greek and ‘eleven’ in Latin. Only a few Greek witnesses read ‘eleven’, including bilingual codices (Claromontanus, Boernerianus and Augiensis). Again, the difference was discussed already by early Christian authors, with Augustine finding meaning in both numbers. In 1 Cor 14.11, the Greek text identifies both the speaker and the listener as unintelligible ‘barbarians’ to each other. In contrast, the Latin text refers to two speakers, thus interpreting the passage strictly in the context of speaking in tongues (1 Cor 14.9, 13). The three examples from 1 Corinthians illustrate the main challenges of New Testament textual criticism, including those of contamination, coincidence of readings, incomplete transmission, and, in the case of bilingual manuscripts, mutual influence of readings.

In research literature and works of art, the textual gap of Mary’s bodily action, implicit in Jesus’ phrase μή μου ἅπτου (John 20.17b), is frequently filled either with a proskynesis or a standing embrace. Against the background of Judith Butler’s theory of gesture, this article analyses attempts at filling in the gaps in the text. The notion of gesture as bodily quotation helps to interpret Mary and Jesus not as counterparts, but as a performative unit enacting continuity and difference after Jesus’ death. The reading offered in this article focuses on the interaction between bodies, and it undermines the dichotomy between speech and body, man and woman, heaven and earth. This article examines exegetical interpretations of Mary’s gesture, alongside artistic interpretations, to show that the way the textual gap is filled is significant because gestures are significant.

The Latin translators of the New Testament often rendered the middle/passive verb διακρίνοµαι with words for doubt or indecision (haesito, dubito). However, in post-classical Greek, διακρίνοµαι never means ‘to doubt’. Earlier practitioners of a theologically driven philology supposed that the New Testament authors themselves created a new meaning for the word – an untenable position from the perspective of modern lexicography. How then did διακρίνοµαι become ‘doubt’? This article offers a two-pronged answer through literary-historical and cognitive linguistic analysis. First, I trace how the Greek words διακρίνοµαι and δίψυχος (‘double-minded’) became associated with the concept of ‘doubt’ through the Christian reception of the Jewish Two Ways tradition and the Letter of James. I show how the discursive connections between διακρίνοµαι, δίψυχος and ‘doubt’ (διστάζω) influenced the rendering of both terms within Coptic and Latin translation traditions. Second, I show how the same data can be analysed within a cognitive linguistic perspective, offering a model for lexicographical analysis that is grounded in modern linguistic theory.

One of the intriguing features of the Petrine household code (1 Pet 2.18–3.7) is the lack of instructions to masters. A common view claims that there are no instructions because there were no Christian masters in the community. This view, however, is textually and historically unlikely. This essay, rather, considers how the instructions to enslaved persons and the lack of instructions to masters might have been heard from the perspective of a Christian master. The first part of the essay highlights some features of literature on household management and perceptions of enslaved persons’ moral competency. The essay then turns to 1 Peter to analyse the theological perspective of the household code and the description of enslaved persons. I propose that the author has intentionally ignored masters as part of his defining the house of God.

The essay explores the implications of Paul's description of himself as an ‘old man’ (πρεσβύτης) in Phlm. 9 for his rhetorical strategy, his psychological state and his social role. The essay first counters the interpretation of πρεσβύτης in Phlm. 9 as ‘ambassador’ and identifies the sources of the interpreters’ resistance to Paul’s description of himself as an ‘old man’. On the basis of demographic data, the essay suggests that Paul was a man of about sixty when he wrote to Philemon and that Paul would have aged prematurely in consequence of what he had suffered as an apostle. The essay then argues that Paul’s description of himself as an ‘old man’ functions in the argumentative rhetoric of his epistle both as a pathetic and an ethical appeal, simultaneously arousing pity and engendering respect. Finally, the essay contemplates the source of the ‘confidence’ shown by Paul in his appeal to Philemon, despite his senescence and imprisonment.

This article explores the critical possibilities that arise in New Testament studies when we view palaeography as a subjective discipline. In response to recent trends in palaeography that contrive new tools and techniques for making ‘objective’ judgements regarding the dates of manuscripts, I argue that another equally valid approach is to embrace palaeography as a practice akin to aesthetics, one that relies on observation and judgements about shapes to create new contexts for interpretation. Even if palaeography is no longer considered as ‘scientific’ as it was in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there are multiple new opportunities that arise when we place palaeographic discourse and its critical practices into conversation with other disciplines.