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In this article it is argued that in Rom 11.25–32 Paul starts from the situation of Israel that he has described in Rom 11.1–10: Israel is torn into two parts – a Christian minority and a non-Christian majority which has rejected the Gospel because it has been hardened. In these verses Paul develops an expectation according to which it is God himself who will take away the hardening of the non-Christian majority of Israel by leading them to faith in Christ. It is God himself whom Paul identifies as the ‘deliverer who comes from Zion’ (v. 26), although he does not expect a theophany but uses the quotations from Isa 59.20–1 and 27.9 as metaphorical circumscriptions for God's intervention in favour of the non-Christian part of his people. Although Paul is fully convinced that God will intervene in favour of the non-Christian Jews, he has no idea how this could happen. This discrepancy between Paul's assurance of the ‘that’ and his cluelessness regarding the ‘how’ is the reason why he presents his solution of the Israel problem in an apocalyptic mode as a revelation of a ‘mystery’ (v. 25). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines several issues pertaining to the theology of the Sayings Gospel Q, the biblical material common to Matthew and Luke which was not derived from Mark. Extent of Q; Discussion on the problematic methodological presuppositions on which the reconstructions of Q are usually based; Debate on the reconstruction of the theology of Q.