Michael Goulder

David and Yahweh in Psalms 23 and 24

This article challenges the common understanding of Psalm 23 as being the song of an individual faithful Israelite. With so many expressions having national overtones, it seems more likely that the singer is a national leader, perhaps the king, rather than a lay person. The psalm belongs together with Psalm 24; these two psalms may well have formed part of a liturgy going back to Davids reign. The annual autumn festival was an opportunity to celebrate Yahwehs kingship, with a ritual procession of the ark up to the Temple. But it was also an opportunity to confirm and celebrate the human kingship of David and his dynasty, which was not quite so secure.

Deutero-Isaiah of Jerusalem:

It is usually thought that Deutero-Isaiah (DI) prophesied in Babylon. However, this article argues that DI addresses ‘my people’, most of whom were left in Judah, and equates them with Zion/Jerusalem. This is often a physical city, with towns of Judah close by, with walls and gates; Cyrus will rebuild it, and bring the produce of Africa and Sabean slaves to ‘thee’ (feminine). It becomes necessary for DI to ‘oscillate’ between the literal Zion and a metaphorical name for the exiles who did not live there. Also Yahweh will provide her poor with springs streaming from the bare heights, and they hide in holes in the earth, which hardly suit the banks of the Tigris; and Media is a ‘distant land’, although it shares a frontier with Babylonia. There are many details suggesting that DI lived in Jerusalem.

Colossians And Barbelo

The nature of the ‘Colossian heresy’ remains obscure. It has gnostic features, but ChristianGnosticism is usually dated to the second century. It has elements of Judaism, but we know nothingof first-century Jewish gnosis. It may be a syncretistic ‘philosophy’, but such a description is barren, and explains nothing. It may be a kind of mysticism, but again the idea is difficult todefine, and the picture is left vague. I am proposing in this article to draw a comparison with anearly Gnostic document, the Apocryphon Johannis , which has clear Jewish roots; and to explain Colossians as Pauls response to a Jewish-Christian countermission which preached a myth close to, but distinct from, that in Apoc. Joh .

Did Peter ever go to Rome

Paul and Acts suggest that after Easter Peter lived in Jerusalem and had special responsibility for the mission to Palestine. 1 Clement mentions his two-plus labours (cf. Acts 3–4, 5, 12), but not Rome and not martyrdom. It places him second of seven chronologically ordered victims of jealousy between AD 40 and 70. Asc. Is . 4:2–3 is about Nero redivivus, not the historical Nero, and has nothing to do with Peter. By AD 100 legends were forming about his sojourn in Rome (1 Peter) and his martyrdom (John 21). He probably died in his bed in Jerusalem about AD 55.

A POOR MAN'S CHRISTOLOGY

The Jerusalem church called itself oι πτωχoι (Gal 2.10), probably from Isa 61.1, and held a prophetic Christology (Acts 3, 7). The Ebionites in Irenaeus and Epiphanius traced their name to Acts 2–5, and held Jesus to have been a prophetic figure, conceived naturally and possessed by the Spirit/‘Christ’ from baptism till before the passion. The same prophetic/possessionist Christology seems to be taught by Jewish Christians opposed by Justin and Ignatius: the ‘docetists’ believed that Christ (not Jesus) seemed to have suffered. It is also opposed by Polycarp, by John (especially in 1 John 4–5), by Paul (dramatically in 1 Cor 12.1–3), and in the pre-Marcan traditions.

Silas in Thessalonica

In 1 Thessalonians Paul frequently reminds the Thessalonians that he discussed the points in the letter while he was with them during the brief mission. These are: the need to keep working, the Parousia in the near future, the desirability of marriage, and his own integrity. Parallels with 1 Corinthians and so forth suggest that all these points are related, via a counter-teaching that the kingdom of god had already begun. Hence converts gave up work and sex and were grief-stricken when a fellow- Christian died. A similar situation seems to underlie 2 Thessalonians, where false doctrines appear to have made ground—that the day of the Lord has come, and that one should cease working, with more reminders of what Paul said in his mission. So the false teaching probably comes from Silas—he was there, a Jerusalem man, he was treated rather coolly and he suddenly vanishes from the scene.