[B-Greek] Euripides : AFRODITH... EPISHMOS EN BROTOIS
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Tue May 19 05:45:21 EDT 2009
Steven (and Stephen):
For my part, I can't see any useful purpose in rehashing yet once more
the questions regarding Junia in Roman 16:7. As you have noted, much
water has gone under the bridge and much ink has been spilled on this
issue since 2000. I personally have felt that the little 2005 book by
Eldon Epp and Beverly Gaventa examined the issues and their history
pretty thoroughly and resolved them -- to my view -- judiciously.
You've mentioned The Burer-Wallace article and some other items.
Relatively recently (i.e., last month!) Suzanne McCarthy has discussed
these issues on her blog: see http://powerscourt.blogspot.com/search/label/Junia
I think there are few who will hold out nowadays for reading IOUNIAN
as a masculine name; on the other hand, I rather suspect that opinion
will continue to be divided over the right interpretation of the
phrase EPISHMOI EN TOIS APOSTOLOIS -- and very likely divided along
lines of the predispositions of the opiners.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
On May 18, 2009, at 7:38 PM, Steven Cox wrote:
>
> Hello b-greekers
> (1) Following on from the 1992 TLG search question about "man of one
> wife" and "wife of one husband" --- and resounding failure to find
> any trace of an idiom in TLG --- the question I now ask about Romans
> 16:7 is going to look as though I personally have an interest in the
> egalitarian debate. *I don't* - it's something I managed to avoid
> like the plague in the 90s on B-Greek... it's simply what I'm being
> asked :(
>
> (2) like every good schoolboy should I first went to LSJ to check
> use of EPISHMOS and easily found Euripides Hipp.106 : AFRODITH...
> EPISHMOS EN BROTOIS - "Aphrodite .. esteemed among mortals" which
> seems a too-good-to-be-true parallel of Andronikos and Junia
> EPISHMOS EN APOSTOLOIS.
>
> (3) also had a quick browse of some of the other texts for EPISHMOS
> on Perseus.
>
> (4) I then Googled [Junia "EN BROTOIS"] on B-Greek archives, and
> came up with several posts including the one from Stephen Carlson,
> and comments after by Carl, below showing two cases of EPISHEMOS +
> genitive:
> 3 Macc. 6:1 ELEAZAROS DE TIS ANHR EPISHMOS TWN APO THS CWRAS hEIRWN
> "And Eleazar, who was a prominent man of the priests from the country"
> and Mart. Poly. 14:1 KRIOS EPISHMOS EK MEGALOU POIMNIOU "a prominent
> ram from a great flock."
>
>
> (5) I then did some digging - and was amazed to find a whole
> wikipedia article on Romans 16:7 (which must win a prize, does
> anyone know of any other NT verse which has its own wikipedia page?) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junia
>
> (6) Get to the Questions! ..... has anyone sighted Belleville or
> Bauckham below and if so are there any shattering grammatical
> revelations?
>
> (7) Does anyone have any other sources outside Euripides Hippolytus
> 106, 3 Macc. 6:1 and Mart. Poly. 14:1 which would illustrate
> EPISHMOS EN+, or EPISHMOS EK+
>
> (8) For a bit of fun (since the above isn't much fun) I had a peek at
> http://multilingualbible.com/romans/16-7.htm and was amused at how
> many other languages can be either totally ambiguous or totally
> clear regarding whether the structure "A is X in/from group B."
> includes or excludes A from membership of the group. Just so I can
> impress/intimidate someone at church buffets, is there a clever
> grammatical term I should know for this distinction? :)
>
> Thanks
> Steven
>
>
> (5) WIKIPEDIA
> In 2001, Michael Burer and Daniel B. Wallace wrote a journal article
> entitled "Was Junia Really An Apostle? A Re-examination of Romans
> 16.7", NTS 47. In it Burer and Wallace, accepting that Junia was a
> woman, asserted that she was well known to the Apostles rather than
> prominent among the Apostles. The working hypothesis is that if Paul
> had meant to communicate that Junia was prominent among the Apostles,
> then he would have used episamoi with a genitive. That is the way
> inclusion within a group is indicated within Greek. He used episamoi
> with en and the dative, which according to their hypothesis means they
> are excluded from the group. There are no exceptions. This is
> articulated above by the comment that the Jews were not among the
> Gentiles.
>
> Recently, Linda Belleville, Richard Bauckham, and Eldon Epp have
> taken on the task of correcting some of the above findings pertaining
> to Junia. Belleville's article is in NTS and is titled
> "Iounian...episamoi en tois apostolois: A Re-examination of Romans
> 16.7
> in Light of Primary Source Materials" NTS 51 (2005). Bauckham's book
> "Gospel Women" devotes several pages to interacting, refuting, and
> correcting the Burer and Wallace article. Epp in his book "Junia: The
> First Woman Apostle" covers the whole gamut pertaining to Junia.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Stephen C. Carlson
> scarlson at mindspring.com
> Sun Apr 2 18:30:56 EDT 2000
>
> At 10:27 AM 3/31/00 -0600, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>> The text: ASPASASQE ANDRONIKON KAI IOUNIAN TOUS SUGGENEIS MOU KAI
>> SUNAICMALWTOUS MOU, hOITINES EISIN EPISHMOI EN TOIS APOSTOLOIS, hOI
>> KAI PRO
>> EMOU GEGONAN EN CRISTWi.
>>
>> For my part, I can only say that readers of this text who come to it
>> already convinced that a woman could not have been an APOSTOLOS
>> will find a
>> way to make EPISHMOI EN TOIS APOSTOLOIS function as the grammatical
>> equivalent of TIMHQEISAI hUPO TWN APOSTOLWN, while readers who are
>> open-minded to the possibility that a woman MAY have been an
>> APOSTOLOS will
>> find it most natural to understand the phrase EPISHMOI EN TOIS
>> APOSTOLOIS
>> as "distinguished among the apostles." I have more sympathy (just a
>> little
>> bit--not very much) for those who still want to believe that
>> IOUNIAN is
>> masculine than for those who want to understand EPISHMOS EN TOIS
>> APOSTOLOIS
>> to mean "CONSIDERED prominent BY the apostles."
>
> Well, I have the opposite opinion. The masculine IOUNIAN
> is untenable, but the view EPISHMOI EN TOIS APOSTOLOIS =
> "prominent among (= in the opinion of) the apostles" is
> quite defensible.
>
> First, other examples of the phrase EPISHMOI EN ... support
> this construction. For example, Euripides, Hippolytus 106,
> refers to Aphrodite as KAPISTHMOS EN BROTOIS "prominent among
> mortals." The goddess Aphrodite was not, of course, a mortal,
> but merely well thought of my mortals.
>
> Second, other examples of EN shows a primary locative, but
> secondary agentival, sense. For example, Rom 2:24 TO GAR
> ONOMA TOU QEOU DI hUMAS BLASFHMEITAI EN TOIS EQNESIN. "For
> the name of God because of us is blasphemed among (by)
> the Gentiles." Other examples include Luke 16:15 TO EN
> ANQRWPOIS hUYHLON "what is exalted among (by) people"
> and John 7:12 KAI GOGGUSMOS PERI AUTOU HN POLUS EN TOIS
> OCLOIS "and there was much murmuring about him among (by)
> the crowd."
>
> Finally, if Paul intended to mean that Andronicus and
> Junia were prominent apostles, he should have used a
> partitive construction as in: 3 Macc. 6:1 ELEAZAROS DE
> TIS ANHR EPISHMOS TWN APO THS CWRAS hEIRWN "And Eleazar,
> who was a prominent man of the priests from the country"
> and Mart. Poly. 14:1 KRIOS EPISHMOS EK MEGALOU POIMNIOU
> "a prominent ram from a great flock."
>
> For these reasons, I conclude that Rom 16:7 means that
> Andronicus and Junia were well thought of among (by)
> the apostles.
>
> Stephen Carlson
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