Women of the Bible – Junia

If you read the NIV your might be wonder who Junia is because this name does not appear in your Bible. Instead, the NIV translation of Romans 16.7 reads:

Greet Andronicus and Junias, my relatives who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.

Yet the NRSV renders this passage:

Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me. They are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.

Junias is considered by most to be a masculine name while Junia is feminine. Two questions are begging to be asked at this point.

1. Which name is correct and why is there a discrepancy?
2. Why does it matter either way?

Let’s answer the second question first; it is much simpler. Eldon Jay Epp in “Junia: The First Woman Apostle” answers this question well:

So was this Junias a man who was a prominent apostle, or Junia, a woman? If a woman, Junia’s apostleship opens the door to the highest office in the early church and thus to women’s church leadership of any kind in any age.

Do I have your attention now? A lot is riding on one single name!

And indeed it is. In our discussion on Phoebe I mentioned that whether Phoebe was a deacon or not wasn’t super important in the discussion. Not so here. Consider the position of apostles in 1 Corinthians 12:28:

And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues.

Also consider apostles mentioned in Ephesians 2:19-21 or in Acts 15 and other places where the apostles and elders met to decide on major church theology. If Junia is an apostle she is a major source of authority and leadership in the apostolic, first-century church.

One “end-around” argument is that Junia is not “prominent among” the apostles but “prominent in the eyes of” the apostles. The Greek grammar allows for either translation so context must determine the correct translation. First of all, scholarship is on the side of the “prominent among” translation. Most translations and commentaries translate the phrase this way. Furthermore, since when does Paul commend someone by referencing how other people felt about the person? He knew these two well and spent time in prison with them. His own recommendation, like all the others recommendations he gives in this chapter, is quite enough.

So we are back then, to question #1: Which name is correct and why is there a discrepancy? Dianne D. McDonnell in “Junia, A Woman Apostle” says:

Without exception the church fathers in late antiquity identified Andronicus' partner in Romans 16:7 as a woman as did minuscule 33 in the 9th century which records Iounia (Greek for Junia) with an acute accent. Only later medieval copyists of Romans 17:7 could not imagine a woman being an apostle and wrote the masculine name Iounias (Junias) with an s. This later name Junias did not exist in antiquity; its explanation as a Greek abbreviation of the Latin name 'Junianus' is unlikely.

So the NIV rendering of “Junias” was a name that did not even exist in the first century. Wow. I think we could stop at this point and ask for a decision from the jury, but there is more. The female Latin name Junia occurs over 250 times among ancient Roman inscriptions. All the earliest manuscripts (with accents) have Junia. Junias is not even a properly formed Latin name, but would be an irregular form if it did exist. The first know masculine translation of this name did not occur until the 13^th century (Aegidus of Rome, 1245-1316). John Chrysostrom (337-497) said, “Oh! How great is the devotion of this woman, that she should be even counted worthy of the appellation of apostle! (Homily on the Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Romans XXXI).” Jerome (340-419), Hatto of Vercelli (924-961), Theophylack (1050-1108) and Peter Abelard (1079-1142) all wrote that Junia was a woman. The evidence is overwhelming.

Junia, a woman, was a prominent apostle. She and Andronicus (her husband or brother maybe?) were Christians longer than Paul was. They served jail time with Paul and were related to him (though this could be as distant as being from the same Tribe: Benjamin). Like Phoebe, we don’t have many details of what exactly Junia did, but Paul considers her an apostle. There is no higher authority other than Jesus in the first-century church.