The article investigates the composition of Mark 14:1-52, in particular the words of Jesus, who speaks 14 times, including the four "Amen-words". The analysis is based mainly on the number of syllabes but also on the number of words used in the text. It reveals an ingenious design of considerable refinement and complexity. Mark"s composition method appears to be determined by a remarkable sense of order and technical precision and by a high degree of professional literary skill.

The syntax of Rom. 9:22-23 raises difficult questions and has very close implications with understanding the text. That’s why both aspects are examined in this paper. Rom. 9:22-23 is neither treated syntactically as anacoluthon nor understood as aposiopesis. It makes more sense to view the two verses to be a kind of consecutive clause used as a transition to the comments following. The syntactic difficulties are resolved, if the introducing "ei dé" is perceived as a “stereotype” (like "ei dé mé") in the sense of “truly, however” resp. “accordingly”, thus adopting the functions of a conjunction (cf. also Rom. 2:17). So, in Rom. 9:22f., Paul draws the conclusion from what he has discussed before (cf. Rom. 9:17ff.) and leads over to the thoughts following (cf. Rom. 9:24).
In the first segment of Rom. 9 (cf. Rom. 9:6ff.) Paul had stated why God being the initiator and author of Israel’s election has the right to judge the “unfaithful” in Israel, without making void his covenant promises for the people. In Rom. 9:24ff. the idea of the “extension” of God’s “salvational intention” to the Gentiles is added, whilst on the other hand the apostle points out that only a “remnant” of Israel will be saved. God’s longsuffering in his judgments aims at making his salvational intention known to Jews and Gentiles. Rom. 9:17 implies this notion already. God’s purpose in judging Pharaoh was to proclaim his “name” throughout all the earth. This purpose is more clearly exposed in Rom. 9:23, and from Rom. 9:24 on Paul stresses that now particularly the Gentiles can get to know this salvation of God.

In light of recent developments in the study of Koine Greek, this paper proposes to examine the difference between the aorist imperative and the present imperative in the Pastoral Epistles. The first section of the paper surveys the various scholarly positions on the imperative mood (including the prohibitory aorist subjunctive). The second portion of this paper examines every use of the aorist imperative and the aorist prohibitory subjunctive in the Pastoral Epistles, while the third section draws some conclusions based on this analysis. This paper concludes that the aorist tense should be regarded as the default, generic tense (but not necessarily the “background tense” as verbal aspect theory argues), and that its only significance lies in its insignificance. In contrast, however, the present tense does seem to possess a durative/habitual sense.

This article argues that Rev 6-8:1 is structured on Zech 1-2. It first undertakes a survey of interpretational difficulties that exist in Revelation 6-8:1. It contains a survey of commentators’ views regarding the unit of discourse. Then there is a demonstration that structuring Rev 6-8:1 on Zech 1-2 solves many of the difficulties, notably the rapid shift in scenes in the text. An exploration of the issue of reference ensues with the intention of suggesting that one should import information from Zech 1-2 into Revelation. Consequently, there is an investigation into the meaning of Zech 1-2. Finally, information from this book is imported into Rev 6-8:1.

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This article resolves the occurrences of the thirteen NT verbs of “giving” into seven usages and considers the interpretation and translation of the verbs with each usage. The introductory discussion develops the semantic and syntactic criteria for identifying verbal usages and the distinguishing characteristics of verbs of “giving”. The study identifies the semantic, syntactic, and lexical properties of all occurrences of each verb with each usage, clarifies potential difficulties for interpretation, and proposes procedures for translation that accommodate the interpretive constraints with each usage. The concluding discussion distinguishes the function of complements with the same lexical realizations in different usages.

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This study examines the treatment of the Future tense among the major contributions in the discussion of verbal aspect in the Greek of the New Testament. It provides a brief comparative summary of the major works in the past fifty years, focusing on the distinction between aspect and Aktionsart on the one hand, and the kind of logical reasoning used by each proposal on the other. It shows that the neutrality of the method is best expressed in an abductive approach and points out the need of clarifying the nature and the role of Aktionsart in aspect studies.

Porter’s analysis of the prominence conveyed by the aorist, imperfect and present is contrasted with Longacre’s claims about the same tenseforms. Both are wrong in equating respectively “foreground” (Porter) and “background” (Longacre) with the imperfect. Relevance Theory claims that non-default forms may result in a variety of cognitive effects. This explains why imperfectives correlate with background, yet sometimes have foregrounding effects. Additional non-default forms and structures can also be accommodated, such as inchoative aorist "erxanto" and the combination of aorist "egeneto" and a temporal expression. Finally, a non-default form or structure may give prominence not to the event concerned, but to the following event(s).

In Chapter 15 of Acts, a point of critical importance for the growth of the Church and its relationship with Judaism is reached. Luke narrates the difficulty posed for Jewish Jesus-believers by the increasing number of Gentiles believers and the decision taken by the Church leaders in Jerusalem not to subject them to the usual conditions for proselytes. In the Bezan text, some conflict of opinion between Peter, Paul and Barnabas on the one hand, and James on the other is apparent, a tension that is attenuated in the Alexandrian text. Further conflict is also highlighted in Codex Bezae between Paul and Barnabas who separate following the meeting in Jerusalem.

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