contrast to Bauckham, Marguerat points to the contrast between the synoptic gospels and the Gospel of John as analogous to the relation of canonical Acts to Acts of Paul. For Marguerat, countering Bauckham, there is no evidence that Acts of Paul is a sequel to canonical Acts. Rather, Acts of Paul exhibits a rereading of canonical Acts occasioned by changes in the historical situation. Conflicts with Roman authorities created an occasion for elevating the status of Paul in keeping with developing hagiographic tradition, and the portrayal of Paul more closely to the divine figure of Christ in the narrative moved other characters, in particular Thecla, into the role of ideal disciple. Marguerat's analysis and interpretation moves beyond literary-cultural intertextuality into linguistic-cultural intertextuality. Here the reader encounters a much more robust concept of culture, one that emerges through a perception of linguistic activity throughout all of culture, rather than simply linguistic activity within the boundaries of literature in a culture.

Analysis of Acts of Thomas in the second and third parts of this volume takes the reader from literary-cultural intertextuality to cultural intertextuality in a late twentieth century mode. Harold Attridge's approach to intertextual analysis of the Acts of Thomas is literary-cultural, but the focus remains on oral-scribal intertextuality rather than moving to literary-cultural intertextuality like the studies of Rordorf or Hills. Attridge's literary analysis and interpretation explicitly exhibits the characteristics of literary interpretation as it has developed during the last thirty years in NT studies. Around 1970, interpreters like Dan O. Via, Robert Tannehill, R. Alan Culpepper, David Rhoads, and David Barr decided to move away from issues of historical dependence to issues of the internal literary nature of NT texts. Attridge adopts this orientation, describes the internal nature of the Acts of Thomas as story, and comprehensively displays every kind of oral-scribal intertexture he can discover in the text.³ Acts of Thomas explicitly cites sayings of Jesus known from the canonical gospels and Gospel of Thomas. The presence of a typological reference to the tree of life in the Garden of Eden in the Syriac version, in place of a series of dominical sayings in the Greek version of Acts of Thomas 36, leads Attridge to a conclusion that varying sacramental practices in the "Great Church" and the Syriac church may account for the variation. Overall, Attridge observes that Acts of Thomas is not greatly influenced by canonical Acts. Rather, the influence is primarily from early Christian gospels. Christoper Matthews applauds Attridge not only for the wide scope of his search and display but for his discovery of the differences between the Syriac and Greek recensions. Matthews uses the occasion to reflect on the need to search for broader intertextual milieus in intertextual studies.

In Part III of this volume, Richard Valantasis moves beyond literary-cultural analysis to a cultural-intertextual analysis and interpretation of Acts