Some Analysis of These Figures

What I find interesting in general is the change of numbers over the three periods under consideration. While they may, to an extent, reflect the editors' preferences, to a higher degree they indicate changing primary areas of interest among scholars. This is true of all three periods under consideration.

The First Period: 1908–1937

In the first period exactly half of all articles on the New Testament dealt with textual criticism. This was the period in which new discoveries of manuscripts of the New Testament, especially papyri, was central. Moreover, two leading scholars in this enterprise were members of the faculty of Harvard Divinity School: James Hardy Ropes and Kirsopp Lake. The former wrote “The Greek Catena to the Catholic Epistles” and “Three Papers on the Text of Acts.” The latter published “The Text of the Gospels and the Koredethi Codex,” “The Sinaitic and Vatican Manuscripts and the Copies Sent by Eusebius to Constantine,” and (together with his later wife Silva New) “The Caesarean Text of the Gospel of Mark.” There is also an essay on Koredethi Codex by the renowned Dutch scholar J. de Zwaan. Campbell Bonner wrote on the biblical papyri at the University of Michigan and also on papyri of the Shepherd of Hermas. B. H. Streeter published an article on the Caesarean text of the Gospels and on Codex Washingtonianus, H. A. Sanders published several articles on the Michigan papyrus collection and on an early papyrus fragment of the Gospel of Matthew, and R. V. G. Tasker wrote on the Chester Beatty Papyri. William H. P. Hatch appears as the author of two notes on the text of Luke and on an uncial fragment of the Gospels. A new interest in ancient versions of the New Testament is also visible: William H. P. Hatch wrote on Coptic fragments of Gospel texts and, together with James Hardy Ropes, an article entitled “The Vulgate, Peshitto, Sahidic, and Bohairic Versions of Acts and the Greek Manuscripts.” R. P. Blake contributed seven essays on the Georgian version of the New Testament and one on the Armenian version. R. P. Casey contributed a number of essays on the Armenian version; his other contributions to the journal concern Gnostic amulets and the Valentinians. J. A. Montgomery wrote on the Ethiopic text of the Acts of the Apostles. In this company can also be found one essay by E. C. Colwell (“Is there a Lectionary Text of the Gospels?”). Another area of interest pertaining to the New Testament text is indicated by an article by Jacob Geerling and Silva New (the later Silva Lake): “Chrysostom's Text of the Gospel of Mark.” All of the eleven articles on post-exilic Judaism are contributions by George Foot Moore. I found nothing on intertestamental literature or on Philo and Josephus.

Among the articles on the New Testament proper, fourteen come from the hand of B. W. Bacon on various topics ranging from Jesus and Gospel criticism to the book of the Acts of the Apostles and reflections on Paul. There are four articles by Henry J. Cadbury on the Gospels and Acts—but also one on the Norwegian Quakers. Another giant among scholars of his time, Maurice Goguel, wrote five essays for the journal on various topics. Several contributions come from Harvard's James Hardy Ropes, among them one entitled “The Reasonable Appeal of the Book of Revelation” and another essay on New Testament miracles. Among contributions from non-American scholars, two review articles on New Testament literature by the German scholar Hans Windisch stand out, as well as one article by the Dutch scholar J. de Zwaan on the Book of Acts.

Essays concerning the Greco-Roman world are few, but some are of great importance. The renowned Harvard professor of classical epigraphy Sterling Dow published in the last volume of this period his “The Egyptian Cults in Athens,” which has not lost its importance to this day. An unusual contribution is an article in French by the famous Franz Cumont on a fragment reporting rituals for initiation into a mystery.

The relatively few articles on ancient Christianity nevertheless come from the hands of great scholars, especially from Europe. There is one essay by Adolf von Harnack, one by Hans Lietzmann, one by Friedrich Loofs, and one by J. de Zwaan. Gustav Krüger, one of the great universal church historians of the early twentieth century, wrote six review articles on literature about church history from the years 1914 to 1920, the first two devoted to early Christianity and the ancient church. Leading with publications in this field is, of course, Harvard's Kirsopp Lake with wide-ranging contributions: “The Apostles' Creed,” “The Epistula Apostolorum,” “A Lost Manuscript of Eusebius' Demonstratio Evangelica,” articles on the texts of several writings of Athanasius, and last but not least, “On American, English, and Dutch Theological Education.” Next to Kirsopp Lake stands Harvard's George LaPiana with eight articles ranging from “Ancient and Modern Christian Apologetics” to “The Roman Church and Modern Italian Democracy.” Two essays on Ignatius of Antioch come from James Moffat.

The Second Period: 1937–1967

Fewer articles focusing on textual criticism appear during these second 30 years of the journal. William H. P. Hatch nonetheless contributed four essays which draw attention to newly discovered or hitherto neglected papyri. R. V. G. Tasker is present with an introduction to New Testament textual criticism. C. C. McCown writes on the use of the codex and the scroll for New Testament manuscripts. M. Jack Suggs reflects on the Gospel text of Eusebius, as does D. S. Wallace Hadrill. The name of a scholar who would contribute important essays in future decades appears for the first time in 1962: Jay Eldon Epp, with an article on anti-Judaic tendencies in the text of Codex Bezae. Essays on matters of detail in papyrus manuscripts are discussed by Robert W. Funk, Harold S. Murphy, and Harold J. Greenlee. But it is evident that this area is no longer at the forefront of scholarship related to the New Testament.

At the same time, the study of Judaism now moves into the foreground, led by a new generation of important scholars; George Foote Moore's name no longer appears. Lois Finkelstein opens the series of articles on rabbinic Judaism in 1938 with an article on the oldest midrash; two more essays follow. Rufus M. Jones follows with an important article on Jewish mysticism. Jacob J. Rabinowitz reflects on “Marriage Contracts in Ancient Egypt in the Light of Jewish Sources,” and on “The Sermon on the Mount and the School of Shammai”; from Zeev W. Falk comes an article entitled “On Talmudic Vows”; from Avraham Holtz, “The Concept of the Qiddush Hashem in the Jewish Prayer Book”; J. Liver writes on the half-shekel offering; and Hugo Mantel on the Great Synagogue and on ordination in the period of the Temple.

Jacob Neusner also enters the ranks of contributors to the field of Judaism with two contributions in the sixties. Carl Kraeling's essay on “The Episode of Roman Standards in Jerusalem” appears early in this period, as do two contributions by James A. Montgomery and an essay by Joseph Ward Swain on “Gamaliel's Speech and Caligula's Statue.” There are two contributions by Elias Bickerman: “On the Civic Prayer of Jerusalem” and “The Symbolism of the Dura Synagogue.” Harvard's eminent Judaic scholar Harry Austryn Wolfson, newly arrived at Harvard University, opens the discussion of Philo of Alexandria with two contributions that deal with Aristotle, Arabic Philosophy, Maimonides, and Philo; later he contributes an essay entitled, “The Philonic God of Revelation and His Latter-Day Deniers.” The British scholar W. D. Davies reflects on the relationship of the Scrolls to New Testament passages. Apocryphal and pseudepigraphic writings are discussed for the first time in the history of Harvard Theological Review: Moses Hadas on Aristeas and 3 Maccabees; later, Michael Stone on the Ascension of Adam and on Fourth Ezra; and V. Tcherikover on the Letter of Aristeas. In the fifties of the last century the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls begins to demand fresh attention. The first article on this subject is an essay by Joseph M. Baumgarten on the sectarians of the Dead Sea. Harvard's Frank Moore Cross writes his ground-breaking article on “The History of the Biblical Text in the Light of the Judean Desert,” as well as an essay on the Samaritans. Other essays dealing with the Dead Sea Scrolls are contributed by Bruno W. Dombrowski and Robert Polzin. James A. Sanders and John Strugnell, newly arrived at the Harvard Divinity Faculty, write essays on the Psalms Scroll, the latter also on Ezekiel the Tragedian. Even essays on medieval and later Judaism now appear in the journal: Jacob J. Rabinowitz on usury laws in the Middle Ages, and Louis Feldman on Hasidism.

While contributions to the field of New Testament textual criticism have dwindled to a small number, the number of essays on subjects relevant to New Testament studies is exactly the same as in the first thirty years of the Harvard Theological Review. Old topics, today peacefully laid to rest by most scholars, still garner some attention. Christopher Butler discusses “St. Luke's Debt to St. Matthew.” Henry C. Russel wonders whether Luke or Acts was written first. Wilfred Lawrence Knox is once more concerned with the ending of Mark's Gospel; and Sherman E. Williams with “Biblical Quotations in Matthew,” soon thereafter dealt with comprehensively by Krister Stendahl in his book, The School of Saint Matthew.Footnote ¹ G. A. Harrer still worries about “Saul Who Also Is Called Paul.” Still the grandmaster of early 20th century New Testament scholarship, Henry J. Cadbury contributes three essays to the journal, the last published in 1965. New perspectives come from Robert M. Grant, who is able to connect New Testament scholarship with the larger perspective of the history of ancient Christianity in several articles. H. J. Bell challenges gospel scholarship with an article on the newly discovered fragment of the Gospel of Papyrus Egerton 2. Arnold Erhardt treats proverbs in the Gospels in a broader context and investigates “Christianity before the Apostles' Creed.”

The discussion of the Pauline Corpus and its original form appears on the pages of the journal in articles by Jack Finegan, John Knox, and Charles P. Anderson. Questions of New Testament theology, long absent from the pages of Harvard Theological Review, assert themselves in essays by Donald Joseph Selby on eschatology, by Wilfred Knox on the divine-hero Christology, and by my reflections on Hebrews 13. A totally new light for the understanding of Paul is ignited by Krister Stendahl's challenging article, “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West.” There are also more contributions that relate New Testament questions to the newly discovered Dead Sea Scrolls. John A. T. Robinson considers the baptism of John in this context. James S. Ackerman investigates the Gospel of John in relation to the rabbinic understanding of Psalm 82. The German Old Testament scholar Klaus Baltzer contributes an important essay on the understanding of the Lukan version of the story of Jesus' entry into the Temple in the light of Old Testament parallels. Scotland's Robert McL. Wilson, in an article published in 1960, introduces for the first time the newly discovered Gospel of Thomas from the Nag Hammadi Library into the discussion of Gospel literature. There is without question a burgeoning of interest in understanding the New Testament in light of the Old Testament, Jewish sources, and Gnostic materials, especially in the last decade of this period, no doubt due to the discoveries and publications of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the texts from the Gnostic Nag Hammadi Library.

While new trajectories in the New Testament scholarship of Germany on form criticism, the new quest for the historical Jesus, and New Testament theology still cannot be observed in the pages of the Harvard Theological Review, there are signs of new perspectives prompted by comparative studies of contemporary ancient sources. With respect to studies in the history of ancient Christianity in the first years of this period, Campbell Bonner continues his work with several contributions to the journal on Melito's Passover Homily and articles on amulets and exorcism. An astonishing number of leading scholars publish essays in the area of Patristic studies: Johannes Quasten with two articles; Cyril Richardson on the Quartodecimans, Synoptic chronology, and Hippolytus; Henry Chadwick on Papyrus Egerton 2, Celsus and Origen, Ignatius of Antioch, and the Council of Nicea; Robert M. Grant with a variety of articles on Athenagoras, Tatian, Irenaeus, Theophilus, Pliny and the Christians, and an essay on studies in early Christian apologists. Ralph Marcus presents an essay on Origen, and Christine Mohrmann a discussion of sacramentum in early Christian writings (in French!). There are also five articles by Harry Austryn Wolfson on various aspects of Patristic philosophy. Harvard's George Huntston Williams appears for the first time as a contributor with an essay on a document ascribed to St. Ambrose.

Most remarkable is the greatly increased number of essays on the Greco-Roman world, evidently inspired by Arthur Darby Nock, who was the editor of the journal during most of this period. Nock, not a theologian but a scholar of the Classics, was evidently determined to bring the history of religions into Harvard Theological Review, and history of religions meant for him primarily Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman religion. This corresponded to the course on the history of religions that he offered regularly; in this course he taught Greek and Roman religion and then invited professors from Persian, Indian, and Islamic studies to give a few additional lectures. Typical articles published during this period were “The Mithraic Symbolism of Mercury Carrying the Infant Dionysus,” by Pray Phyllis Bober; “Aretalogia or Teratologia?,” “Theology and Mythology in Aeschylus,” and “Herakles and the Gospels” by Herbert Jennings Ross, who wrote a total of 16 essays for the journal; “Athens, Eleusis, and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter” by Francis R. Walton; and “On the Origin of the Rotas-Sator Square” by Duncan Fishwick. Renowned scholars were apparently invited to offer articles for the journal. Among them were Herbert Bloch (“The Last Pagan Revival in the West,” “A Monument of the Lares Augusti”); A. Cameron (“Inscriptions Relating to Manumission and Confession”); William Scott Ferguson (“The Attic Orgeones”); Herold Mattingly (“The Later Paganism” and “The Religious Background of the ‘Historia Augusta'”); and Werner Jaeger (“The Greek Ideas of Immortality”). The most famous scholar in the study of Greek religion of his time, Martin P. Nilsson, contributed nine essays during those decades (one published in German). Nock himself published seven essays on various subjects, among them “The Cult of Heroes,” “Orphism or Popular Philosophy,” “Gnosticism,” and a Memorial article about Nilsson. Charles Edson, to whom we owe the monumental edition of the inscriptions from Thessalonica, wrote an article on the “Cults of Thessalonica,” which is still very valuable after more than half a century. A. J. Festugière, whose publication of the Corpus Hermeticum (with a critical edition of the Greek and Latin texts by A. D. Nock) became authoritative, contributed an essay on the Isis Aretalogies (in French). With a total of 77 essays in this category, more than the number of essays in any other category, these decades of Harvard Theological Review became a valuable resource for important and lasting contributions on Greek and Roman religion.

The Third Period: 1968–2006

Arthur Darby Nock died in 1963, just before a special issue in his honor with contributions by his colleagues and friends, prepared under the leadership of Krister Stendahl, could be presented to him on a festive occasion. It was natural that Krister Stendahl should become Nock's successor as editor of HTR. Two New Testament scholars, myself and François Bovon, followed.

In these last 38 years the area of New Testament textual criticism has shrunk to a mere seven contributions. Most of them are significant articles by Eldon J. Epp, the most distinguished scholar in the field of New Testament textual criticism of those decades.

Contributions to the study of the New Testament have greatly increased, although it is difficult to draw a clear distinction between essays concentrating on New Testament issues on the one hand and those that investigate other Jewish or Christian materials in order to draw conclusions with respect to New Testament interpretation on the other hand. Special topics and particular passages treated often, most of them by former Harvard doctoral students, include Matthew 23:27–28 (Samuel Tobias Lachs), the Parable of the Regretful Son (J. Ramsey Michaels), the Lukan travel narrative (David Gill), Statistics on Q (Charles E. Carlston and Dennis Norlin), Eschatology in Q (John S. Kloppenborg), Paul's farewell speech in the Book of Acts (Thomas Budesheim), Romans 8:26–27 (George MacRae), Pneumatikos and Psychikos in 1 Corinthians (Richard Horsley), 2 Corinthians 10 (Arthur J. Dewey), the interpolation of 1 Thessalonians 2:13–18 (Birger Pearson), Paul's Letter to Philemon (Forrester Church), James 2:2–4 (Roy B. Ward), Hebrews 4:1–11 (Harold W. Attridge), and Hebrews 8–10 by the same author; there are also several articles by Adela Yarbro Collins entitled, “The Function of Excommunication in Paul,” “Vilifaction and Self-Definition in the Book of Revelation,” and “The Origin of the Designation of Jesus as the Son of Man.” Among the articles dealing with major topics are “Portraits of Jesus in Contemporary North American Scholarship,” by Marcus J. Borg; “Paul and the Jesus Tradition” by Stephen J. Patterson; “The Interest in Life of Jesus Theology as a Paradigm for the Social History of Biblical Criticism” by Dieter Georgi; and “The Sayings Gospel Q and the Quest of the Historical Jesus” by John S. Kloppenborg.

There are an increasing number of essays that relate specific questions of New Testament interpretation to contemporary materials: Acts 27–28 in the light of pagan beliefs (Gary B. Miles and Garry Trompf), Paul and Rabbinic Judaism (E. P. Sanders), 1 Corinthians 3:15 and the School of Shammai (John T. Townsend), Genre and Function of the Markan Passion Narrative (George W. E. Nickelsburg). From Morton Smith comes “Pauline Worship as seen by a Pagan”; from François Bovon, “The Synoptic Gospels and the Non-Canonical Acts of the Apostles”; from Steven J. Friesen, “Archaeology in the Interpretation of the Apocalypse.” Here I would also list my own contributions: “Apocryphal and Canonical Gospels,” “Mark 9:43–47 and Quintilian 8.3.75,” “The Divine Human Being,” and others.

Several distinguished scholars, some from Europe, appear: Jacob Jerwell, “On the Law in Luke-Acts”; Nils Alstrup Dahl, “Gentiles, Christians and Israelites in Ephesians”; David Daube, “Onesimus”; Johan S. Vos, “Paul's Argumentation in Galatians 1–2”; Michael Lattke, “The Call to Discipleship and Proselytizing.”

The area of “Judaism,” including post-exilic literature, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and rabbinic Judaism, has become most prominent in this third period of the journal. Among essays in this category are Morton Smith's discussion of Zealots and Sicarii; A. J. Baumgarten's discussion of the Pharisaic Paradosis; Bernadette Brooten's “Jewish Women's History in the Roman Period”; Ross Kraemer's “A New Inscription from Malta and the Question of Women Elders in Diaspora Jewish Communities”; eadem, “On the Meaning of the Term Jew in Greco-Roman Inscriptions”; eadem, “Jewish Tuna and Christian Fish: Identifying Religious Affiliation in Epigraphic Sources”; Doron Mendels, “Hellenistic Utopia and the Essenes”; Shaye Cohen, “Crossing the Boundary and Becoming Jew”; Tal Ilan, “The Attraction of Aristocratic Women to Phariseism During the Second Temple Period”; L. Michael White, “Synagogue and Society in Imperial Ostia: Archaeological and Epigraphic Evidence”; idem, “The Delos Synagogue Revisited: Recent Fieldwork in the Greco-Roman Diaspora.” The Greek and Jewish Inscriptions from the Synagogue of Sardis were published by David Mitten and Frank M. Cross. Christine Hayes, “Forced Circumcision and the Shifting Role of Gentiles in Hasmonean Ideology”; Albert J. Baumgarten, “Marcel Simon's Verus Israel as a Contribution to Jewish History”; Michael E. Stone, “A Reconsideration of Apocalyptic Visions.”

Many contributions deal with one or another piece of Apocryphal or Pseudepigraphic literature: The Epistle of Heraclitus (John Strugnell and Harry Attridge), the Testament of Moses (Adela Yarbro Collins), the Enochic Pentateuch (Jonas Greenfield and Michael Stone, respectively), Pseudo-Philo (Daniel Harrington), Ezechielus the Dramatist and Ezekiel the Prophet (Steven Bowman and Ben Zion Wacholder), Ben Sira (Saul M. Olyan), and the Testament of Levi (James Kugel).

The Dead Sea Scrolls are treated in several contributions by J. T. Milik, Jerome Murphy O'Connor, Patrick W. Skehan, Lawrence Wills and Andrew M. Wilson, and Tal Ilan. Philo is treated in a number of essays by J. Edgar Bruns, John R. Levison, Sharon Lea Mattla, Joan Taylor and Philip R. Davies, and Maren R. Niehoff. Josephus, rarely mentioned in earlier decades of the journal, becomes the subject of attention in essays by Shaye Cohen, Dennis C. Duling, Seth Schwartz, Louis H. Feldman, and John R. Levison; see also Shelly Matthews, “Ladies' Aid: Gentle Noblewomen as Benefactors in the Antiquities.” A number of essays deal with rabbinic Judaism: contributions come from Burton L. Visotzky, Edward M. Greshfield, Sheldon Isenberg, Samuel Tobias Lachs, Jacob Neusner, and others.

There are also contributions on later Judaism through the Middle Ages, e.g., Robert Chazan, “Confrontation in the Synagogue of Narbonne: A Christian Sermon and a Jewish Reply”; Lawrence Kaplan, “Maimonides on the Miraculous Elements in Prophecy”; Yosef Hayim Jerushalmi, “The Inquisition and the Jews of France in the Tome of Gui”; and Zev Warren Harvey, “A Third Approach to Maimonides' Cosmogony-Prophetology Puzzle.”

In addition, this period brings a greater number of contributions to the history of Ancient Christianity. These concern not only the traditional Apostolic Fathers and Church Fathers but also increasingly the New Testament Apocrypha and the newly discovered Gnostic texts from the Nag Hammadi Library. A number of essays contribute to general topics in this area: Paul Keresztes, “Marcus Aurelius a Persecutor?”; W. H. C. Frend, “Early Christianity and Society: A Jewish Legacy in the Pre-Constantinian Era”; Frank D. Gilliard, “Senatorial Bishops in the Fourth Century”; Elaine H. Pagels, “Christian Apologists and the ‘Fall of the Angels’: An Attack on Roman Imperial Power”; Robert L. Wilken, “Early Christian Chiliasm, Jewish Messianism, and the Idea of the Holy Land”; Paul Corby Finney, “Early Christian Architecture: The Beginnings”; and William Schoedel, “Apologetic Literature and Ambassadorial Activities.” Among the Apostolic Fathers, essays deal with the Didache (Stephen Gero, Bentley Layton), 2 Clement (Karl Paul Donfried), Ignatius of Antioch (William R. Schoedel, Robert Stoops), and the Martyrdom of Polycarp (Robert F. Allen and Robert Mathiesen).

Several articles deal with New Testament Apocrypha, including the Apocalypse of Peter (David Fiensy), Fifth Ezra (Robert A. Kraft), articles on the Church Fathers featuring Justin Martyr (Bishop Demetrius Trakatellis), Irenaeus (Robert M. Grant), Tertullian (F. Forrester Church), Cyprian (G. W. Clarke), Eusebius (D. S. Wallace-Hadrill), Gregory of Nyssa (Harry Austryn Wolfson), Augustine (John Heil, Archibald M. Young, David Chidester, John P. Langan, James Wetzel, and others), Ambrosiaster (David G. Hunter and Silke-Petra Bergjan), Cyprian (G. W. Clarke), Eusebius (D. S. Wallace-Hadrill), Basil of Caesarea (Vasiliki Limberis), Apollinarius (Kelly McCarthy Spoerl), and John Chrysostom (Blake Leyerle, Margaret M. Mitchell).

The Nag Hammadi Library makes its entry with an ambitious critical edition of the Coptic text and English translation of the Hypostasis of the Archons in three separate articles by Bentley Layton (with a calligraphy of the Coptic text by the author because there was not yet a Coptic font available at the time!). General topics of Gnosticism are discussed by Elaine H. Pagels in “Conflicting Versions of Valentinian Eschatology: Irenaeus' Treatise vs. the Excerpts from Theodotus” and “The Demiurge and His Archons—A Gnostic view of the Bishop and Presbyters?”; as well as by John Whittaker in “Basilides on the Ineffability of God”; Tito Orlandi in “A Catechesis Against Apocryphal Texts by Shenute and the Texts of Nag Hammadi”; Birger A. Pearson in “Gnostic Interpretation of the Old Testament in the Testament of Truth” and “Gnosticism as Platonism: With Special Reference to Marsanes”; and by Julian V. Hills in “Three ‘Matthean’ Aphorisms in the Dialogue of the Savior.”

The Greco-Roman world is represented by fewer contributions than in the second period of the journal. Several of these are important essays, however: Hans Dieter Betz, “The Delphic Maxim ΓNΩΘI ΣATON in Hermetic Interpretation”; Oscar Broneer, “Paul and the Pagan Cults of Isthmia”; David Gill, “Trapezomata: A Neglected Aspect of Greek Sacrifice”; Dennis Smith, “The Egyptian Cults at Corinth”; Dieter Georgi, “Who is the True Prophet?” (the essay discusses Vergil and Horace); Ross Kraemer, “Ecstasy and Possession: The Attraction of Women to the Cult of Dionysus”; Frederick W. Norris, “Isis, Sarapis and Demeter in Antioch of Syria”; Roy Bowen Ward, “Women in Roman Baths”; Marianne Palmer Bonz, “Differing Approaches to Religious Benefaction: The Late-Third Century Acquisition of the Sardis Synagogue”; and Rebecca Lesses, “Speaking with Angels: Jewish and Greco-Egyptian Revelatory Adjuration.” One remarkable feature of these contributions is the fact that many come from former Harvard students in the field of New Testament studies.

Some Reflections on These Findings

It is evident that a major factor in the shifts of emphasis from one period to another is general scholarly interest. New discoveries of manuscripts, particularly of New Testament papyri, brought new excitement to the scene of New Testament study, and American scholars, some educated in Europe, such as James Hardy Ropes, or coming from Europe, such as Kirsopp Lake, played an important role in this discussion. Later, the center for these investigations had moved to the text-critical institute in Münster, where it became streamlined without achieving any significant progress, as J. Eldon Epp has so aptly argued in several publications.

A period of new discoveries came in the middle of the last century with the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library, triggering a renewed interest in the study of both Judaism and Gnosticism. At the same time, fundamental political events had changed the face of scholarship. Germany had been a center for the scholarly study of Judaism before and after World War I. It was also the center for the study of languages pertaining to the investigation of relevant ancient sources. But that changed with the arrival of Hitler's government. Not only the Jewish elite was forced to emigrate, but also many leading scholars in other disciplines migrated to the United States, among them Werner Jaeger and Herbert Bloch, both coming to Harvard. Arthur Darby Nock, himself a scholar from Britain, would not have been able to recruit so many scholars of the Greco-Roman world, had not the weight of the study of the Classics and of Hellenistic religion shifted to Britain and to the United States.

The shift of the center of scholarship from Germany to the United States is most clearly visible in three fields: Ancient Judaism, New Testament, and Christian Coptic sources.

The reason for the shift in the study of Judaism is evident. In my first year at Harvard, in 1958, I was introduced to a circle of Jewish scholars at Brandeis University. That I was able to converse fluently in German meant for these Jewish colleagues that I was Jewish: speaking German was clear evidence of that! Harry Austryn Wolfson once told me that his dream as a student was to move to Berlin in order to study at the famous Jewish Institute there. Now, however, one had to go to America (or to Israel). Clearly, for the study of Judaism, and especially for the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the interested scholarly community was now located in America. The study of rabbinic Judaism as well no longer had a vital center in Europe.

The story concerning the study of New Testament Gnosticism since the middle of the last century is more complicated.

1) In Germany the educators for a new generation of scholars had disappeared. The greatest Coptic scholar of the twentieth century, Hans Jacob Polotski, was forced to leave Germany and moved to Jerusalem; the leading rabbinic scholar, Joseph Lieberman, and the most creative interpreter of Gnosticism, Hans Jonas, were in America. Moreover—and this is very important—some of those who had the necessary skills as educators had sold themselves to the Nazi government, such as Gerhard Kittel and Karl Georg Kuhn. Once Polotski had gone to Israel there was barely anyone left in Germany who knew Coptic (with the exception of Martin Krause in Münster and several scholars in East Germany).

2) Germany was very slow after World War II to rebuild its academic and scholarly community. A young scholar—such as myself—would only hear the advice to wait a long time for a permanent appointment or to become a minister and lead a church. In the field of New Testament studies, I came to Harvard from Heidelberg; from there Dieter Georgi followed me after a few years, and Hans Dieter Betz moved to Claremont and then to Chicago. Several others accepted permanent positions at theological schools in this country.

3) Then came the Dead Sea Scrolls. Scholars in that field can tell their own stories. The original team for the publication of the Scrolls consisted of one German and one French scholar; the others were Americans, among them Harvard's Frank M. Cross and John Strugnell. Quite a few of the articles in the third period of Harvard Theological Review were contributed by members of this original team and their students.

4) The Nag Hammadi Library: For more than a decade, French, British, and Dutch scholars had tried to lay hands on the manuscripts of the Nag Hammadi Library. The most they achieved was to steal one of the codices in an illegal export from Egypt. Mystery novels could have been written on that affair. Very little was published, and the British and French scholars were denied access to the remaining codices still in Egypt after the Suez War of 1956. At Harvard and at Claremont, James Robinson and I had nonetheless told our students early on to learn Coptic. We were lucky to have the resources (Tom Lambdin at Harvard), and those who were ready for advanced studies in Coptic, such as Bentley Layton, we sent to Jerusalem to study under Polotski. Thus James Robinson was able to assemble a team of about thirty scholars who could work on the translation and critical edition of the Nag Hammadi Library, most of them educated at Claremont or Harvard, only one of them a scholar from Germany (Alexander Böhlig). This and other factors put America in the leading international position in scholarship of the New Testament and the related areas of Judaism and Gnosticim.

Other factors that contributed to the shifts in emphasis in the various periods. But they are less significant than major shifts in the political world and the location of competent scholarly communities. Whether an editor of the journal is known as a leading scholar in a particular field of study plays some role. More important is the question of the commitment of students. Harvard students in the area of non-canonical literature, both Jewish and Christian, and in related fields sent their essays for publication. Strong doctoral programs continue to produce the best potential contributors to our scholarly journal, whose 100th anniversary we celebrate today.