How did Romans reach the people for whom it was intended? There is widespread agreement that Phoebe was the bearer of the letter (Rom. 16:1-2), but little investigation of or agreement about the exact nature of her responsibilities. By exploring the data available to us, especially tha found in Romans 16, this essay provides a reconstruction of the events surrounding the transport and delivery of the letter to the Roman Christians. In particular, it proposes the following: Phoebe conveyed the letter to Rome, probably by sea; the church in Rome at this time consisted of house-churches; Phoebe was to deliver the letter first to Prisca and Aquila and their house-church; Prisca and Aquila were to convene an assembly of the whole Christian community, the first for some time, at which Romans was to be received and read; Prisca and Aquila were to be asked to arrange for copies of Romans to be made; Phoebe was to deliver these copies to other house-churches; and Phoebe was to read Romans in the way that Paul had coached her at each of the gatherings to which she took it.
In agreement with recent argument that the earliest Christians affirmed the divine identity of Jesus, this essay argues that differences between Christology in the Synoptics and John are too seldom assessed with sufficient care. First, the implications of the differing narrative styles of the Gospels are analysed and considered, showing how failures in this area lead to such problems as treating differences that are complementary as divisions, or differences of degree as differences of kind—thus confusing a greater presentation of Christology with a presentation of a greater Christology. Secondly, it is argued that the major Christological difference between the Gospels lies not in their content but in the way they present it. It does so by showing how the same divine Christology that is explicit in John’s prologue is implicit in Mark’s introduction and Matthew’s conclusion.
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