Novum Testamentum Patristicum

The commentary work Novum Testamentum Patristicum (NTP) documents the reception of the entire New Testament in ancient Christian literature section by section and explains it from the respective contexts.

The NTP consists of 45 volumes (39 commentaries and six special volumes), which are published in German or English. The project was initiated in 1993 by Kurt Niederwimmer in co-operation with Gerhard May (d. 2007), Henning Paulsen (d. 1994) and Basil Studer (d. 2008). The first volume (M. Meiser, Galatians, NTP 9) was published in 2007 and on 17 August 2008 (together with another work) was awarded the "Pope Benedict XVI" science prize endowed with 15,000 euros by the Bavarian Minister President.

The series is published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen.

The NTP group comprises around thirty academics from different countries, disciplines and denominations. Contact details can be found in the list of staff members (external link, opens in a new window).

It regularly organises international conferences (external link, opens in a new window), the contributions of which are published in anthologies.

Projects

The interpretation of Mt 19-22 in ancient Christian literature

DFG project

Justina C. Metzdorf, Das Matthäusevangelium. Teilband 6: Kapitel 19–21 (Novum Testamentum Patristicum 1/6), Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2017. (external link, opens in a new window)

What does Jesus mean when he speaks of the eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven? Why, in the parable of the labourers in the vineyard, do they all receive the same wage, even though some have worked all day and others only one hour? What does the expulsion of the merchants from the temple say about the self-image of the man from Nazareth? Such questions were not only pondered by modern theologians, but also by the Christian authors of the first centuries. What they wrote about these questions and also about twelve other passages (pericopes) of the Gospel of Matthew is to be researched in the project.

The research project forms part of the more comprehensive Novum Testamentum Patristicum (NTP) project, which responds to a desideratum. After a long period of disinterest in early Christian exegesis, the demand for the interpretation of Scripture by the Church Fathers has been growing again in recent years. The emerging paradigm shift in biblical exegetics (under keywords such as biblical interpretation and reception aesthetics) has favoured the return of patristic exegesis to academic Biblical Theology. Anyone interested in how the Church Fathers interpreted a particular verse or story in the New Testament can at best find specialised literature or source texts with the help of complicated bibliographical aids. In most cases, however, they will not be able to find anything at all. The NTP will now present the interpretation of the individual New Testament writings in the first six centuries in a total of 45 volumes, verse by verse and in their various contexts.

The interpretation of the Gospel of Matthew is of particular importance. This Gospel appears in first place in the oldest canon lists of the New Testament, it is also the most frequently annotated and also provides most of the lectionary texts of the early church liturgy. The research project presented here is now focussing on the interpretation of chapters 19-22, in parallel and in addition to other projects that are opening up other parts of the Gospel of Matthew. The aim is to show the diversity of interpretation, the methods used and also their respective contextualisation. The planned commentary volume will thus offer a valuable resource that not only theologians, but also representatives of other cultural studies and the humanities can draw on.

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