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  • From: "Mark D. Nanos" <nanosmd AT comcast.net>
  • To: Corpus Paul <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] size of the Roman congregation
  • Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 13:55:32 -0600

Jeffrey,

In Romans, you hold in your hands the only primary evidence written at the
time that there were any Christ-believers in Rome, and any guesses as to how
many there were or how they met will come from how you interpret that
evidence. Everything else is guessing from even less reliable data because
it consists of later reports that also do not include estimates of size, and
events that are also later than Romans (such as information about Nero in
the 60's, yet written about much later than that by Tacitus).

P. Lampe's article in The Romans Debate is also useful for analyzing the
information in Rom 16, and R. Jewett has a useful article in BR 38 (1993)
22-43, for discussing the size of probable meetings based on space
parameters.

My (total) guess: more than 20, less than 100, and meeting in several
different synagogue subgroups, but written to as if sharing relatively
similar experiences.

Regards,
Mark
--
Mark D. Nanos, Ph.D.
Rockhurst University
Co-Moderator
http://home.comcast.net/~nanosmd/


on 3/23/04 11:55 AM, Jeffrey B. Gibson at jgibson000 AT comcast.net wrote:

> Has anyone done any work (comparable to what Murphy O'Connor has done on
> the size of the congregation of Christ believers in Corinth) on the
> number of Christ believers in Rome at the time Paul wrote Romans?
>
> Does anyone argue that those whom Paul sends greetings to in Rom 16
> (assuming that chapter to be an integral part of the letter) are **all**
> the Roman Christians that there were in Rome when Paul wrote?
>
> Yours,
>
> Jeffrey
> --
>
> Jeffrey B. Gibson, D.Phil. (Oxon.)
>
> 1500 W. Pratt Blvd. #1
> Chicago, IL 60626
>
> jgibson000 AT comcast.net
>
>
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> Corpus-Paul mailing list
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