Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Ahead of Print. Transpositions of large sections of text in New Testament manuscripts occurred only when omissions and chronological problems were ‘corrected’. It is argued here that the words commanding that women be silent in 1 Cor. 14.34–35, which appear elsewhere in Western manuscripts, were interpolated, and the interpolator probably created a textual variant at 14.37 and transposed Prisca and Aquila at 16.19 so that a woman would not host a church. Textual variants at 16.19 in the Western manuscripts are explicable if Prisca originally preceded ..read more

Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Ahead of Print ..read more

Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Ahead of Print. Previous scholarship on 1 Corinthians 5.1–5 has primarily used parallels from the Greek Magical Papyri (PGM) and curse formulae (defixiones) to understand Paul’s instructions about delivering a sexually immoral man over to Satan. This paper diverges from such an approach, instead looking at apotropaism in Second Temple Jewish literature and a parallel found in the Damascus Document that concerns a man excommunicated from the community due to sin done while in a state of spirit-possession. Obedience is often viewed in Second Temple Jud ..read more

Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Ahead of Print. Can the Markan disciples still be viewed as potential role models for the Gospel audience if Mark’s writing is identified as a biography? This long-standing line of narrative interpretation has recently been rejected as anachronistic by Helen K. Bond, who maintains that in Graeco-Roman biographies, secondary characters are only included for what they bring to the portrait of the protagonist. In response, this paper demonstrates that ancient biographies regularly use followers of their main characters to provide multiple mimetic patter ..read more

Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Ahead of Print. Scholars have long suggested that Luke employs idealized, philosophical language to describe the life of the Christ-believing community in Acts 2.44–47 and 4.32–35 for the purpose of garnering social capital for the movement. In defense of this case, many scholars point to the similar cultural appeal evident in descriptions of the communal life of the Essenes in the works of Josephus and Philo. Against this consensus, I argue that the communal summaries of Acts 2 and 4, unlike the comparable accounts in Josephus and Philo, do not shar ..read more

Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Ahead of Print. This study revisits a contested textual variant concerning the presence, placement, and person of an imperative directed at wives in Eph. 5.22. Most previous treatments of this variant have decided the matter (typically in favor of the reading without an imperative) on the basis of manuscript support and transcriptional arguments about how readers and copyists of the text would have changed it, but the intrinsic probabilities of what the author would have written based on his argument and style have generally been neglected. This stud ..read more

Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Ahead of Print. This article explores how intertextual analysis of New Testament (NT) narratives’ engagement with the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible (OT/HB) might be fruitfully integrated with intersectional analysis of characters’ embodied lives in communities. Taking Elizabeth’s characterization in Luke 1 as a test case, I demonstrate that intersectional analysis not only deepens the insights arising from intertextual analysis but also sheds light on Luke 1’s relevance to ongoing issues of conflict and marginalization today. Intersectional-intertextual ..read more

Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Ahead of Print. Paul commands the Corinthians to give an incestuous man to Satan in 1 Cor. 5.5. Scholars often see this as a punishment for sin, but why does incest require this particular response? This article offers an answer by reading 1 Cor. 5 in light of other discussions of incest and pollution in Greco-Roman literature. It highlights connections between incest, pollution, and communal danger and explores means of resolving pollution. It then examines Paul’s discussion of incest in 1 Cor. 5.5 and concludes that his instructions concerning the ..read more

Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Ahead of Print. What does ‘equality’ (ἰσότης) mean in 2 Cor. 8.13–14? What is the significance of the phrase ἀλλʼ ἐξ ἰσότητος (8.13)? To date, no one has sufficiently dealt with Paul’s striking use of ἐκ in the phrase ἐξ ἰσότητος. Dieter Georgi sought to explain it by comparing Paul’s use of ἰσότης with Philo’s understanding of the term as a divine cosmic power, but the majority of scholars have rightly rejected this comparison as unconvincing and implausible. However, in so doing, they overlook one of his major insights. Paul wrote ἐξ ἰσότητος (8.13 ..read more

Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Ahead of Print. Written in late second-century Rome, Tatian’s Diatessaron is one of the earliest and most influential Gospel harmonies in history. The original text of the Diatessaron was lost, and its surviving translations suffered from alterations. However, the attention of scholarship has recently shifted toward revisiting the Arabic Diatessaron with the aim of gathering fresh evidence from its text. This study examines Mark 16 in the Arabic Diatessaron, considering an innovative approach to its text with a new body of evidence. I will study ibn ..read more