Junian Schmunian
Imagine you have something that needs saying, but it’s too long for an article and too short for a book. For decades writers in exactly this situation have either cut important information to fit typical article-length specs or padded cogent arguments with unnecessary filler.
Enter the Kindle Single. Whether writers are crafting novellas, essays, humor pieces, or journalistic investigations, they are now publishing singles—these “one-off pieces of non-fiction and journalism which are typically much shorter than a novel, but longer than a magazine article.” And these short pieces have more affordable price tags than books—from $1 to $5.
The accepted wisdom until recently was that people want “shorter.” But it turns out these longer, more in-depth stories are quite popular. Kindle singles typically run in the range of 5,000 to 30,000 words, a length perfectly suited to tablets and smartphones. And the one I bought this week cost me $2.99.
My friend Mary DeMuth pointed me to a Kindle Single by theologian Scot McKnight that I purchased. Dr. McKnight is someone I consider a good thinker who talks to a popular-market audience without ever resorting to words such as prolegomena or transubstantiation or pneumatology.
In the essay, "Junia is Not Alone," he tells about the female apostle mentioned in Romans 16, who experienced the world’s first sex change when scholars made her into a man. Why? Because “women can’t be apostles; therefore, Junia the apostle must not be a woman.” Huh?
As I’ve been reading documents from the first century, I’m encountering the name Junia as often as people today might encounter a name like “Julie.” But the un-Junia scholars made up a name I’ve never seen. And they did it so they could make Junia masculine. Like changing Julie to Julo. They created the name Junias.
McKnight tells the story of how many translations, including the Greek that underpins the English, got it wrong. And he goes on to talk about three women in Christian history—strong women, visionary women—who got forgotten and edited out of the story, just as Junia did. But he ends with a call to action that alone was worth more than the $2.99 I paid.