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  • From: "Jeff Tiona" <jtiona AT comcast.net>
  • To: "Corpus-Paul" <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] Gaius Titius Justus a.k.a. Stephanas
  • Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2004 16:04:35 -0600

When one looks at the names of the disciples, it is interesting that some
have Hebrew names and some have Roman names depending on: where they were
from; the demographics of their region; their involvement with the Jewish
community and so on. Is it possible that the different names used reflect
more to whom the letters were written rather than just about whom they were
written? Is it possible that a writer would even bounce back and forth
between two different names to fully convey someone's character?


----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen C. Carlson" <scarlson AT mindspring.com>
To: "Corpus-Paul" <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2004 6:52 AM
Subject: RE: [Corpus-Paul] Gaius Titius Justus a.k.a. Stephanas


> At 03:50 PM 8/3/2004 +0100, Doug Chaplin wrote:
> >In short, it may be possible that Paul gave new names to a handful of
> >people, but the case is hardly persuasive to a sceptic like me. Since
> >nothing of significance seems to me to hang on it, I just think we can
all
> >afford to be reserved in our judgement about it.
>
> It may seem that the kind of prosopography Richard is doing is just
> a dry parlor game, but I think that if his conclusion about the number
> of rich people in Corinth is correct, then his work will have profound
> implications about the church in Corinth, Paul's letter to that group,
> and Paul's relationship with Christians in Jerusalem, particularly
> with regard to the collection for the saints that seemed to have
> consumed Paul's attention during the time the chief epistles of the
> Pauline corpus were composed.
>
> Some of the identifications Richard Fellows proposes or supports
> I accept and others I am still not quite convinced of, but I do
> believe that a lot renaming and use of multiple names were
> going on and taken for granted with little attempt to explain
> it to outsiders.
>
> I do wish we had a better grasp of the background on the onomastics
> in the first century, both in the Roman Empire at large and with
> Christian groups in particular. Nevertheless, we have considerable
> evidence many early Christian possessed, and used, different names
> (Simon - Cephas - Peter; James & John - Boanerges; Joseph - Barsabbas -
> Justus; Joseph - Barnabas ["to whom the apostles gave the name to"] -
> Judas Barsabbas; John - Mark; Saul - Paul; Tabitha - Dorcas; Jesus
> who is called Justus; Ignatius - Theophorus; etc.). There is also
> evidence that some early Christians were interested in and played
> with the meanings of names: Paul on the name Onesimus in Phlm 11;
> Matt 1:21 on the name Jesus; Matt 16:18 on the name Peter.
>
> Early Christians were by no means unique in this regard. The use of
> different names, often with some similarity in sound or meaning, or
> the different parts of a multiple Roman name in different contexts
> is well attested. Furthermore, many of the meaningful names among
> early Christians are probably slave names selected by their masters,
> e.g. Onesimus ("useful"), Polycarp ("fruitful"), etc.
>
> Romans also changed their names at the time of adoption, which
> was more frequent than in our own society and happened to adults.
> The Gallio mentioned in Acts 18:12, for example, was originally
> L. Annaeus Novatus and later took that name when he was adopted
> his teacher L. Junius Gallio. When when see Paul in Rom 8:15,
> Gal 4:5 analogizing acquiring a Christian identity with adoption
> at least in some respects (a connection that certainly continued
> among his followers, cf. Eph 1:5ff.), we have to be on guard for
> the possibility that other aspects of adoption, including change
> of name, were also operative.
>
> My frustration, especially from reading Acts, is that the names
> that are used for individuals change back and forth, often with
> little warning to outsiders. Hence, we have a "John, whose other
> name is Mark" (Acts 12:12, 25), then "John" (13:13), back to
> "John called Mark" (15:37), and then finally "Mark" (v39). Some
> of these require background knowledge in addition to context to
> figure out, for instance to equate the "Symeon" of Acts 15:14
> with the Simon who is called Peter. In these cases, we happen
> to have enough information, derived from the context, other
> contemporary texts, and our state of the background knowledge, to
> recognize these identifications as fairly obvious, but what about
> those cases in which the evidence is quite so salient?
>
> It is a question of evidence, and, yes, one is justified in
> insisting on a certain level of evidence before we go ahead and
> identify two different names with the same person. On the other
> hand, I would also insist that we should be wary of presuming
> that two different names refer to two different people without
> good reason too. It may well be the case that the evidence Richard
> presented is, in the end, insufficient to persuade us that there
> were so few rich households associated with the Corinthian church.
> I would also argue that the lack of evidence here (if it should
> come to that) does not mean that there were actually more such
> households than those few, however. (E.g. "not guilty" does not
> mean "innocent.") At best, we have a range of possibilities, and
> our understanding of the Corinthian congregation needs to have the
> flexibility to accommodate a greater range of possibilities in
> this regard than previously thought.
>
> Stephen Carlson
> --
> Stephen C. Carlson mailto:scarlson AT mindspring.com
> Weblog: http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/hypotyposeis/blogger.html
> "Poetry speaks of aspirations, and songs chant the words." Shujing 2.35
>
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