Romans as a "bread-and-butter" letter redux

Three years ago, almost to the day, I was teaching the Epistle to the Romans as part of my Life and Letters of Paul class, and I blogged about a quotation from J. Paul Sampley (Is Romans a "bread and butter letter"?):

It is an apostolic response to ethnic problems in those churches, and it is a “bread-and-butter” letter written in advance of his arrival, seeking support for his mission to Spain.

I raised a couple of questions about it, first the appropriateness of the term "bread-and-butter letter" and second the matter of where the quotation is from. I had copied out the quotation some years ago but somehow managed to lose the citation. In yesterday's class on the Life and Letters of Paul, I returned to the Epistle to the Romans and again mentioned this quotation. Happily, Ken Olson managed to find it for me, and it looks like something had happened in my transcription of the quotation.  Here it is with a proper citation:

A crisis brought most Pauline letters into existence. Even Romans, written to a church that Paul’s preaching did not establish, is a “bread-and-butter” letter written in advance of his journey, seeking support for his mission to Spain (cf. 15:22-24). Ephesians, however, lacks clues concerning a concrete crisis or occasion.

J. Paul Sampley, “The Letter to the Ephesians”, in Gerhard Krodel (ed.), Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, The Pastoral Epistles (Proclamation Commentaries; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978):  9-39 (9)

Bibledex: Acts, Romans, Philippians and Facebook

Lots more from the University of Nottingham's Bibledex project.  Here are their latest videos, on Acts, Romans and Philppians:







And you can now become a fan of Bibledex on Facebook.

Andronicus and Junia prominent among "the apostles"

In my recent NT Pod 12, on Junia (Programme Notes), I mentioned briefly an element that I have not seen in the extensive discussions of this verse, Romans 16.7, though it is quite possible that I have missed it. Let us remind ourselves of the Greek:

ἀσπάσασθε Ἀνδρόνικον καὶ ᾿Ιουνίαν τοὺς συγγενεῖς μου καὶ συναιχμαλώτους μου, οἵτινές εἰσιν ἐπίσημοι ἐν τοῖς ἀποστόλοις, οἳ καὶ πρὸ ἐμοῦ γέγοναν ἐν Χριστῷ.

Attention has focused on two elements here, the identity of Junia, now universally taken to be a woman, and the translation "prominent among the apostles" (NRSV) vs. "well known to the apostles" (NET Bible). I am not persuaded by the latter translation for the reasons given by Eldon Jay Epp, Linda Belleville, and blogged in detail by Suzanne McCarthy (see Programme Notes), but there is a small element I would like to add to the discussion, Paul's use of the term "the apostles". I think it is one of those occasions where attention has been so focused on those other points of translation and interpretation that we may have missed something else in the passage.

The question I would like to pose is whether Paul is more likely to have used the term "the apostles" if he were saying "prominent among the apostles" (NRSV) or if he were saying "well known to the apostles" (NET). The former is, I think, far more likely. In that former translation (NRSV), "the apostles" works simply as a descriptor. It tells us about Andronicus and Junia's status as (prominent) apostles. It makes sense and is perfectly Pauline. In the NET translation, on the other hand, "the apostles" is used in a less obviously Pauline sense. Now he is appealing to the authority of an external group labelled as "the apostles". He does not say that Andronicus and Junia are esteemed by "us apostles" (cf. 1 Cor. 4.9) or by "all the apostles, including me", as we might have expected if this were the sense of the passage. He continually refers to himself in Romans 16, and three times in this verse, 16.7, "my relatives", "my fellow prisoners", "in Christ before me", yet on the NET translation, he appears to give authority to a group called "the apostles" that does not obviously include him.

It is difficult to imagine Paul using the term "the apostles" in the way necessitated by the NET translation, as a group external to Paul who confer their esteem. It's an Acts-style usage but not a Pauline one.

NT Pod 12: Junia: the First Woman Apostle? Programme Notes

I released the latest NT Pod last night, on the topic Junia: The First Woman Apostle?. I'd like to add a few programme notes here for those who would like to follow up on the discussion.

The two English translations I contrasted were the following:

Romans 16.7 (NRSV): Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.

Romans 16.7 (RSV): Greet Andronicus and Junias, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners; they are men of note among the apostles, and they were in Christ before me.

I might also have added reference to the NET Bible translation, which follows the Wallace / Burer view which I mentioned in the podcast:

Greet Andronicus and Junia, my compatriots and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me.

The Greek text (NA²⁷) is as follows:

ἀσπάσασθε Ἀνδρόνικον καὶ ᾿Ιουνίαν τοὺς συγγενεῖς μου καὶ συναιχμαλώτους μου, οἵτινές εἰσιν ἐπίσημοι ἐν τοῖς ἀποστόλοις, οἳ καὶ πρὸ ἐμοῦ γέγοναν ἐν Χριστῷ.

This NA²⁷ text accents Ιουνιαν such that it appears as a female name, thus ᾿Ιουνίαν rather than ᾿Ιουνιᾶν (the latter the accenting in NA²⁶).

The key recent bibliography is as follows:

Eldon Jay Epp, Junia: The First Woman Apostle (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005)

This is the major work arguing the case that Junia in Rom. 16.7 is a female apostle. It is short and readable.

Daniel Wallace and Michael Burer, "Was Junia Really an Apostle?: A Re-examination of Romans 16.7", Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 6/2 (Fall 2001), 4-11.

Online article arguing that the verse should be translated "esteemed by the apostles" and not "prominent among the apostles" (cf. NET Bible above).

Daniel Wallace and Michael Burer, "Was Junia Really an Apostle?: A Re-examination of Romans 16.7", New Testament Studies 47 (2001): 76-91

Academic version of previous article

Linda Belleville, "᾿Ιουνίαν . . . ἐπίσημοι ἐν τοῖς ἀποστόλοις, A Re-Examination of Romans 16:7 in Light of Primary Source Materials", New Testament Studies 51 (2005): 231-24.

Answers Wallace and Burer.

Suzanne McCarthy has commented on the issues extensively in her blog Suzanne's Bookshelf.

Also in the blogosphere: see Pat McCullough, Translation Mischief with Junia, the Female Apostle.

Is Romans a "bread and butter letter"?

When introducing the Epistle to the Romans in my class on the Life and Letters of Paul yesterday, I mentioned the following quotation from J. Paul Sampley, one that I once used in an examination question:

It is an apostolic response to ethnic problems in those churches, and it is a “bread-and-butter” letter written in advance of his arrival, seeking support for his mission to Spain.

I asked the class if they knew the expression "bread and butter letter" but none of them did. As I tried to explain it, I realized that I had always heard the expression used after a visit rather than ahead of one. I think of it as a thank you letter, written to your host, traditionally, the woman of the house. I looked up the expression in a variety of places, through the ease of Google, and it seems that the usage I am familiar with is indeed the standard. An article on The art of the thank-you note, for example, has the following:

A further subset of the thank-you note is the bread-and-butter note, a letter written after a stay at someone's house. While the specific origins of this expression are obscure — members of the Writing Center at Princeton University were at a loss — "The Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English" dates the term's appearance in American vocabulary to the turn of the century.

As might be expected, Ms. Post believes the bread-and-butter note is a must, unless the host or hostess is a family member or close friend with whom the guest stays frequently. And her final word on the matter is: "Never think, because you cannot write a letter easily, that it is better not to write at all. The most awkward note imaginable is better than none."

The "Ms. Post" here mentioned is the author of Emily Post's Etiquette: A Guide to Modern Manners. Her book, written in 1922, is all available online and is very enjoyable reading, the relevant section for this topic being Notes and Shorter Letters.

As far as I can tell, therefore, the twentieth century usage of "bread and butter letter" is not used to describe a letter of introduction like the Epistle to the Romans. But did the ancients write bread and butter letters? Mary Johnston says not:

The bread-and-butter letter, as we call it now, does not seem to have been required from appreciative guests after visits. Horace addressed an Epode (III) in complaint to Maecenas after the garlic at dinner had disagreed with him, and Catullus wrote to Licinius that he could not sleep after their poetic contest over the wine. Pliny's letter to his mother-in-law (I,4) was written after a visit to her villas in her absence. Whether Caesar wrote to thank Cicero for his hospitality at Puteoli I do not know . . . ("Hospites Venturi", The Classical Journal 28/3 (Dec. 1932): 197-206).

In short, it seems that the term "bread-and-butter letter" is not ideal for describing the Epistle to the Romans.

Note: I can't find my reference for the Sampley quotation above. If anyone happens to know its location, I would be very grateful.

Andrew Das, Solving the Romans Debate

Latest from Fortress:

Revealing the audience —and purpose —of Paul's most enigmatic letter

"Why did Paul address a long discussion of Jewish themes to a Gentile audience? Scholars have long debated the "double character" of Romans. Andrew Das promises to resolve the debate through a fresh understanding of the identity and attitudes of the Gentile Christians in Rome and of the expulsion of Jews from Rome under the emperor Claudius. Solving the Romans Debate offers new insight into Paul's concern for the Jewish roots of the Christ movement."

Andrew Das' Solving the Romans Debate powerfully and cogently argues a solution.... that makes perennial problems vanish and that produces a credible coherence that has been lacking in the Romans debate. All of those who are serious about that debate must read this book.

—Stanley Stowers, Professor of Religious Studies, Brown University