Junia/Junias error at Romans 16:7

[Abram K-J]

I will report this via "Report a Correction," too, but it seemed a prominent enough error that it would be worth checking in with others.

 

For Junia in Romans 16:7 (which some take to be Junias), Accordance has Ἰουνιᾶν (presumably, Junias, with a circumflex). This is in GNT-T, GNT28-T, and NA28-T. BibleWorks's e-text for GNT has the same reading. Logos has Ἰουνίαν (Junia/feminine) in its NA27. (but Ἰουνιᾶν in its UBS4, oddly)

 

I only mention BibleWorks and Logos since that means either that GBS probably had a typo in their e-text that was corrected in Logos... or Logos is wrong and my print edition is somehow in error. But I suspect what's in print is right--namely, the NA27 print edition has Ἰουνίαν. (with the accent, rather than the circumflex)

 

Can anyone confirm a reading of Ἰουνίαν in the NA28 print edition, too?

 

Looks like a simple typo to me (I'm not a Junia conspiracy theorist... yet), but an odd one that would appear in so many places. It's always possible the NA27 print edition I have (RSV diglot) is off, but I doubt it.

[Julia Falling]

Abram — the NA28th has Ἰουνίαν.

[Abram K-J]

I've done some further investigation. I'm reading Eldon Jay Epp's Junia: The First Woman Apostle. He notes that it was early printings of both NA27 and UBS4 that have Ἰουνιᾶν. He has a fascinating discussion of this on p 45ff. of that book. He notes that in 1998 the fifth corrected printing of NA27 as well as the third printing of UBS4 changed the surface text to Ἰουνίαν. He also points out how odd it is that the new printing of NA27 drops its former Ἰουνιᾶν even from the apparatus! It just disappears. This is right, in his view, to correct the reading to Ἰουνίαν. But why the circumflex reading disappears now altogether from the apparatus (when it once was the text) is beyond him (and me).

 

At any rate, I'm guessing Accordance wants up-to-date, newest printings of texts, so I will go ahead and report this as an error through Accordance, as well.

 

 

ADDED: Thanks, Julie, for the confirmation.

Edited July 24, 2013 by Abram K-J

[Julia Falling]

Abram — I also checked my printed copies of the NA27th and UBS4th — both have the acute accent over the iota, not the circumflex over the alpha.

[Tim Clontz]

We need to keep in mind that punctuation and accent marking are as much an editorial decision as a textual-critical one. The NA and UBS editions do not have to agree on these in every case.

 

I'll review my printed copies of NA28, 27, and UBS4 to see what they have.

 

Thanks for the heads up. It affects our Comprehensive NT module as well, since we are tied to the NA27 and will be updated to NA28 on our next module patch.

 

Tim

[Julia Falling]

What we have in our e-texts should be the same as the latest print versions, however, whether the UBS4 and NA27th agree or not. In this case they do agree. Thanks for the report, Abram, and thanks for looking into this, Tim.

[Abram K-J]

Right (to Tim and Julie)!

 

I don't mean to engage the issue interpretively here. (Although I do enjoy doing that!) Just to say--I think the confusion in the e-texts is probably because of something that was changed in between print editions that didn't manage to get updated electronically. The NA27/28 and UBS4 do agree here in print--if they don't, that means someone is looking at an earlier printing, pre-1998. (If Epp is right, which I'm sure he is.)

 

To Julie's point, I hope an update before too long can be rolled out here. Having the circumflex accent in the e-texts over the last couple days actually threw me off significantly in engaging this issue. I think I'm all clear again now.

[Joe Weaks]

Great catch.

Frankly, I'm surprised that's not been noticed before.

[Matthew Burgess]

This is a great catch! I noticed the discrepancy earlier this year as I was preparing a lecture for a class, but I forgot to follow up on it.

 

I've done some further investigation. I'm reading Eldon Jay Epp's Junia: The First Woman Apostle. He notes that it was early printings of both NA27 and UBS4 that have Ἰουνιᾶν. He has a fascinating discussion of this on p 45ff. of that book. He notes that in 1998 the fifth corrected printing of NA27 as well as the third printing of UBS4 changed the surface text to Ἰουνίαν. He also points out how odd it is that the new printing of NA27 drops its former Ἰουνιᾶν even from the apparatus! It just disappears. This is right, in his view, to correct the reading to Ἰουνίαν. But why the circumflex reading disappears now altogether from the apparatus (when it once was the text) is beyond him (and me).

 

Although I don't have a copy of Epp's Junia: The First Woman Apostle, I do have a copy of his "The Junia/Junias Variation in Romans 16,7" (the lengthy article on which the book was based). According to the information presented in the article, I believe that the masculine form disappeared completely because its textual support is virtually nil. No surviving manuscript witnesses contain the accented masculine form. As he indicates, the only apparatus that offered support for the masculine form was the first printing of UBS4 in 1993, which listed a number of unaccented uncials; but because the question of accentuation is the crux of the variant, these cannot be taken as support for either reading. (NA27 listed the unaccented uncials as sine acc.) Once they were no longer considered as support for the masculine form, there was little to nothing that could be included in the apparatus.

 

A number of silent changes were made to the text in the "jubilee edition" of NA27 that appeared in 1998. This was the first edition that was edited chiefly by Barbara Aland, as Kurt Aland died in 1994. One of my professors at YDS suggested that these changes represented variants that Barbara Aland and the other editors preferred, but that Kurt Aland had resisted.

[Abram K-J]

Although I don't have a copy of Epp's Junia: The First Woman Apostle, I do have a copy of his "The Junia/Junias Variation in Romans 16,7" (the lengthy article on which the book was based). According to the information presented in the article, I believe that the masculine form disappeared completely because its textual support is virtually nil. No surviving manuscript witnesses contain the accented masculine form. As he indicates, the only apparatus that offered support for the masculine form was the first printing of UBS4 in 1993, which listed a number of unaccented uncials; but because the question of accentuation is the crux of the variant, these cannot be taken as support for either reading. (NA27 listed the unaccented uncials as sine acc.) Once they were no longer considered as support for the masculine form, there was little to nothing that could be included in the apparatus.

 

Yes! Exactly.

[Matthew Burgess]

This is why I think the "conspiracy theory" is not about Junia; it's the other way around.

[Abram K-J]

Right! Yes, that's what I meant. A conspiracy to *erase* Junia from Paul's letter....

[Abram K-J]

The 17th century had its "Wicked Bible"; we have (for now) our "Junias Bible." Looking forward to the update, though I don't know how many corrections like this it takes to update the NA28-T/GNT28-T, etc.

[Abram K-J]

Maybe more corrections are required for Accordance to justify a text update, but I note that the NA28-T (1.1) and GNT28-T (1.2) remain uncorrected in this regard. NA28-T has not been updated since I reported the error (1.1), but GNT28-T has (I reported it in 1.1, but 1.2 shows no change). GNT-T needs the change, too, as would (I suspect, though I don't own it to verify) NA27-T.

 

I only bring this up again because it's an exegetically significant error in the text, as it stands now.

 

If I'm missing something, please feel free to point it out.

[Rick Bennett]

IIRC, it's been corrected we just don't always push a release out for a single correction. And, with the tagged texts we typically release correction updates just before SBL.

[Abram K-J]

Thanks for the update, Rick.

[Abram K-J]

Really happy to see this corrected today in NA28-T and GNT28-T! I am assuming the GNT-T correction is not far behind, too. (I don't have UBS in Accordance to check.)

 

Thanks for putting Junia back into the text, where she belongs.