If the expectations of the early church concerning the return of Christ and the End of the World were disappointed, the magnitude of the disappointment and the form in which it was expressed do not seem to fit with the expectations of modern scholars. Vicky Balabanski argues that Matthew's Gospel shows a more imminent expectation than Mark's, and that there were fluctuations in eschatological expectation caused by factors within these early communities and those of the Didache. She traces these fluctuations and offers some new interpretative keys to Mark 13, Matthew 24 and 25 and Didache 16, as well as some vivid and original historical reconstructions.
