From: Edward Hobbs (EHOBBS@wellesley.edu)
Date: Fri Dec 01 1995 - 12:26:59 EST
I was glad that Carl Conrad reprinted the message from Tim Mize to him and
to me, for I never received the message. Carl has answered exceedingly well,
and I won't repeat his points. But I WILL make the point that "Junias"
as a Greek name is non-existent (a "phantom form," I think Stephen Carlson
called it!), and to treat Iounian as a possible accusative of that
paseudo-name is not a serious position if one is honest with the facts.
The name DOES NOT EXIST IN ANY GREEK LITERATURE! To speak of
"the" literatue sounds as though the NT, or Christian, literature is meant.
But consider: All of Latin literature fits on one CD-ROM. All of Hebrew
and Aramaic literature fits on one CD-ROM. Greek literature already fills
FIVE CD-ROMs, and still counting. This is a vast literature. And yet,
for the first time,in the 20th century no less, after 19 centuries of no
one dreaming that such a name existed, someone decides that IF there WERE
such a name, it could be accented as no MS. in existence accents it, and
we would miraculously have eliminated the possibility of a female apostle!
The formation is wrong, as Carl Conrad pointed out. And strong
as my admiration for A. T. Robertson is (some will recall a strong eulogy
of him which I wrote and posted a few months ago), I strongly suspect that
Carl Conrad's acquaintance with non-Biblical Greek is far beyond anything
Robertson possessed. Carl's knowledge of Greek literature is simply
phenomenal, in my view -- and I was trained in Classics, not NT Greek,
and have been in close contact for years with such stellar classicists
at Harvard as Albert Henrichs and the late Zeph Stewart--so I'm not
so easily impressed.
The comments on the absence of references to other female apostles
are beside the point. Our only "history" of the first generation is by
Luke, who built the theory that the term apostle should apply to none but
the Twelve (hence Judas's betrayal required replacement of #12), which
is why he withholds the title from everyone but the Twelve, even Paul and
Barnabas, with the sole exception of Acts 14:14 (usually explained as a
slip in Luke's editing his source). Not even Silas is an apostle. Since
Paul battles for his right to the term, and refers to other apostles, not
always clearly meaning "the Twelve," we know that the term was applied to more
missionaries than just the Twelve. When we leave Acts, what do we find (i.e.,
in second century literature)? The term apostle is restricted to the first
generation, so of course there are no more of them, male or female.
Finally, may I publicly thank Stephen Carlson for doing what I should
have done--checked the apparatus in GNT4. AlthoughI own three copies of
it, I do not use it unless I have to, since I hate the typeface (and can
barely read it); and so I missed the preposterous apparatus to Junia(s)!
If anyone but Bruce Metzger had done it, we would have called it
fraudulent scholarship. Since I know and respect Bruce, I can only note
that even the best among us can "doctor" the evidence when it is in a
"good" cause.
Edward Hobbs
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