Summary: In the New Testament Jude Iscariot is a disciple of Jesus and “One of the Twelve”. He delivered Jesus up to the Sanhedrin. We don’t know the reason for this. We know only the subsequent meaning of the early christian community. – In the Gospel of Jude he is the privileged disciple of Jesus and he received a special revelation from him. The conception is gnostic in opposition to the New Testament witness.

Summary: The Gospel of John’s attitude towards the Torah, the Jewish law, has never been one of the major issues in Johannine research. It is usually dealt with under the more general headline of John’s use of scripture. In Judaism the Torah is and has always been more than just scripture or the five books of Moses. The concept of Torah encompasses written and oral traditions and it consists of both narrative and ethical materials. In this paper those four coordinates are used to evaluate the role of the Torah in John’s Gospel. By doing so one notices that the Torah governs the actions of all protagonists throughout the Gospel, including Jesus and his disciples. John never criticises this practical Torah orientation. It can furthermore be shown that in discussions of halakhic issues (e.g. the Sabbath) John is eager to prove that Jesus does not contradict the Torah – neither theoretically nor practically. For John, the Torah and Jesus cannot and may not be separated. This is due to the fact that John not only considers the Torah to be a witness to Jesus (1, 45; 5, 39.46), the Torah even has its origin in the fullness of the logos (i.e. Jesus [1, 16f]). According to John, those who perceive Jesus in opposition to the Torah err and do not understand the Torah. This very clear cut theology of the Torah which understands Jesus in the light of the Torah and the Torah in the light of Jesus has its place in an inner-Jewish struggle at the end of the 1st century C.E. Read at the beginning of the 21st century it poses a challenge to modern hermeneutics which are interested in a positive relationship between Jews and Christians.

Summary: This study aims at scrutinizing the belief that Pannenberg’s theology of God is immanentist in logic by, first, presenting a method for analyzing Pannenberg’s theological thinking that is shaped by Pannenberg’s own hermeneutic of retrospection (i.e. viewing truth from the end), which he applies to his understanding of God’s reality per se. It then applies the suggested method to Pannenberg’s theology of the Trinity in {! Systematic Theology}, volume one, chapter five. From his trinitarian view in that chapter, this paper, third, argues that Pannenberg’s understanding of the Trinity belies any substantial similarity between his theology and the immanent logic of some trinitarian theologies that renders God’s essence as the function of his historical relationality. Understanding Pannenberg’s thinking about God from his last systematic analysis back to his earliest claims reveals his rejection of any collapse of God’s eternal being into God’s historical actions.

Summary: The „Bibel in gerechter Sprache” is a new translation of the Bible with the explicit aim of using inclusive language and applying the results of the Jewish-Christian dialogue to the translation of the bible in a way particularly accessible to readers without previous experience with the bible. At the same time it claims to be faithful to the original text. A detailed study of the hidden agenda of the translation, however, shows that it does not meet its stated aims. It does not do justice to readers without a background in the bible and the biblical texts are distorted through the insertion of traditions alien to the texts, while at the same time the Hellenistic Jewish heritage of the New Testament is suppressed.

Summary: Critical evaluation of “The Bible in Correct Language” can happen in respect to systematic-theological, ecumenical, and interreligious concerns. From the viewpoint of systematic-theology, one can criticize its obvious distance from Reformation theology alongside its problematic use of God’s name. With this standpoint, it is unable to bring the voice of Protestantism to the ecumenical discussion, although Orthodoxy as well as Roman Catholicism could obtain fruitful impulse from this Bible version. Its interreligious influence is limited. Jewish readers may feel addressed by the attempt to include Judaism in a scholarly manner, but they may also feel repulsed by the feminization of the names of God. Unfortunately, even though there already exists a feminine element in Asian religions, it can contribute little of significance to the emancipation of women there. In Islam, “The Bible in Correct Language” will be seen as a (further) step toward the self-destruction of Christianity but hopefully also as a fruitful provocation. Undoubtedly it attempts to motivate and to enable Bible study in a new way. In its commitment to the marginalized and women, it still corresponds to a central emphasis of Jesus, despite several individual weaknesses.