Part One. The Twofold Beginnings of a History of early Christian Literature: 1. The oral prehistory of early Christian literature with the historical Jesus; 2. The sayings source Q; 3. The gospel of Mark; 4. The historical conditions for Paul's letters; 5. The pre-Pauline oral tradition; 6. The Pauline letter as literary form; 7. The sequence and development of the Pauline letters; 8. The collection of Paul's letters
Part Two. The Fictive Self-Interpretation of Paul and Jesus: The Pseudepigraphic Phase: 9. Pseudepigraphy as a literary-historical phase in early Christianity; 10. Paul's fictive self-interpretation in the Deutero-Pauline writings; Excursus: The correction of Paul by the Catholic Epistles; 11. Jesus' fictive self-interpretation through the redaction of the Jesus traditions in the synoptic gospels; 12. Jesus' fictive self-interpretation through the transformation of the Jesus traditions in the gospels associated with gnosis; 13. Jesus' fictive self-interpretation through the continuation of the synoptic Jesus tradition in the Jewish-Christian gospels; 14. Jesus' fictive self-interpretation through the harmonizing of the Jesus tradition in other apocryphal gospels
Part Three. The Authority of the Independent Forms: The Functional Phase: 15. The independent differentiation of partial texts and tendencies; 16. The Acts of the Apostles; 17. The Revelation to John; 18. The letter to the Hebrews
Part Four. The New Testament on its Way to Becoming a Religious World Literature: The Canonical Phase: 19. Canon as a means to stability based on compromise and demarcation; 20. Extra-canonical literature provides flexibility.
