Bright the Vision

This collection of ten article, papers, essays, written over the last ten years, focuses, to a greater or lesser degree, on the theme of the eschaton or End Time. The first three articles deal with important New Testament categories of this kind - resurrection, the status of the Gentiles and the figure of the Son of Man - and examine them against the background found in the Pseudepigrapha or intertestamental Jewish literature. They are followed by a pair of articles challenging Jesse Rainbow's views on the relationship between the Song of Songs, the Testament of Solomon and the book of Revelation. Two short pieces discuss the possibility of an Aramaic source for Mark's Gospel and the exegesis of the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant in Matthew 18. They are followed by two substantial essays: one on the problem of evil/suffering in the New Testament, the other on the Evangelists' use of the Old Testament. The collection is rounded off with an historical study of the position of the four 'deacons' in the double order founded by St. Bridget of Sweden in the fourteenth century and brought to England by King Henry V. A postscript asks some questions about Professor Timothy Barnes's views on the Letter of St Ignatius of Antioch.