Junias Redivivus!

From: Edward Hobbs (EHOBBS@wellesley.edu)
Date: Thu Nov 30 1995 - 13:26:20 EST


Carl Conrad raises the question about the accentuation of Iounian in Rom.16:7
with a question about how far back these accents go.
        We went through all this a couple of years ago or so; we seem to
have to re-invent the wheel with regularity!
        The oldest uncials of course do not have accents. Was there a
(secret, never-revealed) quasi-Masoretic tradition among early Christian
copyists as to accentuation? To ask the question is to answer it.
        But the really more significant question is: What is the tradition
of accentuation of this name? And the fact is that the final circumflex is
VERY RECENT! (I.e., 20th century!). To my knowledge, NO MS. gives this accent!
Even Hort's 1881 text gives IouNIan, acute on penult, thus feminine. And
this accentuation is also found inserted by second corrector even in B and D.
        Wierdly enough, Metzger's note on this passage only discusses the
variant "Ioulian", saying not a word about changing a woman into a man and
moving+changing the accent from its universal form in the MS tradition!

        The feminine name "Iounia" is very common. The (imaginary, masculine)
name "Iounias" is non-existent. It was invented (clumsily, as Carl notes!)
to eliminate a female apostle. Bauer's largely-excellent Lexicon is marred
by this entry as one of his stupidest definitions (that it is the common
woman's name Iounia "is ruled out by the context"!). If Danker doesn't
change this is his latest revised translation, I will never drink Scotch
with him again. [Above: this IN his latest]

        Heaven knows, we have enough problems with male chauvinism, without
having to INSERT them into the text!

--Edward C. Hobbs



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:37:33 EDT