Junia: The First Woman Apostle

158 Pages·2005·6.56 MB·English

by  Eldon Jay Epp

JUNIA
THE FIRST WOMAN APOSTLE
ELDON JAY EPP
Foreword by Beverly Roberts Gaventa
FORTRESS PRESS
Minneapolis
JUNIA
The First Woman Apostle
Copyright © 2005 Augsburg Fortress. All rights reserved. Except for brief
quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be repro­
duced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher.
Write: Permissions, Augsburg Fortress, Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440-
1209.
Cover image: Empress Theodora and attendants. Mosaic from the south
wall of the apse, S. Vitale, Ravenna, Italy, c. 547 c.e. Photo copyright ©
Cameraphoto Arte, Venice/Art Resource, N.Y. Used by permission.
Cover design: Laurie Ingram
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Epp, Eldon Jay.
Junia : the first woman apostle / Eldon Jay Epp ; foreword by Beverly
Roberts Gaventa.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8006-3771-2 (alk. paper)
1. Junia (Biblical figure) 2. Bible. N.T. Romans XVI, 7-—Criticism, inter­
pretation, etc. I. Title.
BS2460.J88E66 2005
227'. 1092—dc22
2005020402
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z329.48-1984.
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
This book is dedicated, with affection, to my grandsons,
Nathaniel Gregory Merrell
and
Andrew James Merrell
May they live in a more egalitarian world.

CONTENTS
Foreword ix
Preface xv
Part I. Contemporary Textual Criticism
1. Textual Criticism and Exegesis 3
An Example from Jesus’ Sayings on Divorce
and Remarriage / 9
A Loss of innocence / 12
2. Variant Readings in Passages concerning Gender Issues 14
First Corinthians 14:34-35 as Interpolation / 15
Part II. Junia/Junias in Romans 16:7
3. The Lexical Form and Introductory Matters 23
4. Junia in Early Christian Writers—and Beyond 32
Excursus: Latin Masculine/Feminine Accusatives / 36
5. The Contracted-Name Theory 40
6. Junia/Junias in Current Greek New Testaments 45
7. Junia/Junias in Past Editions of Nestle,
Nestle-Aland, and UBS 49
8. The Accentuation of Ίουηιαν in Reference
Works—and the Attendant Cultural Bias 53
9. Junia/Junias in Greek New Testaments and
Their Influence on Exegesis 60
Table 1: Ίουνιαν (Romans 16:7) in Greek
New Testaments up to the Nestle Editions / 62
Table 2: Totmctv (Romans 16:7) in Greek
New Testaments from Nestle to the Present / 63
10. Junia/Junias in English Translations 65
Table 3: Junia/Junias (Romans 16:7) in English
New Testaments from Tyndale to the Present / 66
11VIII CONTENTS
11. Andronicus and Junia as “Outstanding
among the Apostles” 69
Conclusion: There Was an Apostle Junia 79
Abbreviations 82
Notes 84
Bibliography 110
Indices
Index of Passages 123
Index of Names 126
Index of Greek and Latin Words 133
Index of New Testament Manuscripts, Versions,
Editions, and Modern Translations 134
Index of Subjects 137
FOREWORD
The greetings of Romans 16 are easy to skip. With a few
exceptions, the names themselves are unfamiliar to us. Although
we know people named James, John, and Mary, we do not rou­
tinely encounter children named for Ampliatus, Tryphosa, or
Phlegon. Neither do the greetings themselves generate a lot of
interest, with their formulaic expressions such as “Greet Prisca
and Aquila,” and “my beloved Stachys.” Like the enumeration of
Esau’s descendants in Genesis 36 or the census lists of Numbers,
it seems a safe assertion that the greetings of Romans 16 are read
somewhat quickly, if at all. Impatience with Romans 16 mani­
fests itself in my Romans class as often as the assignment rolls
around. To be sure, it does not help that Romans 16 customarily
falls at the end of the semester, when everyone involved is due for
a rest from following the tortures of Paul’s reasoning.
For many years, scholarly work on Romans contributed to
the dispatch with which this passage was treated. The conven­
tional wisdom that Romans was a summary of Christian theol­
ogy caused attention to fall heavily on the doctrine unpacked
in the letter, with little attention left over for the people the let­
ter addressed. To make matters worse, many scholars regarded
Romans 16 as a fragment of another letter, one never intended
for believers at Rome. Taking these factors together with the
sheer difficulty of following Paul’s logic through the first fif­
teen chapters, it is easy to understand a certain indifference to
Romans 16.
The last several decades have witnessed a marked change in the
scholarly situation, however. To begin with, most scholars now
agree that Romans, in common with other early Christian texts,
was written in a specific context and to address a specific set of
issues or concerns. Lively debate persists over what situation(s)
IX
X FOREWORD
produced this particular letter, but considerable agreement has
developed that Romans is something other than a theological
compendium.' In addition, text-critical and literary studies have
produced a near consensus that Romans 16 is part of the original
letter Phoebe delivered to Rome.2 Perhaps most important, Peter
Lampe’s work on the first two centuries of Christianity at Rome
has invigorated interest in the information that can be gleaned
from the names of those mentioned in Romans 16.3
That combination of factors causes the eye to linger over
Romans 16. Feminist scholars have paid particular attention to
the names of women and what those names suggest about lead­
ership in early Christianity and Paul’s attitudes toward women
in leadership. To begin with, he commends the deacon and bene­
factor, Phoebe, presumably because she delivers the letter and
becomes its first interpreter as she reads it to believers gathered
in scattered house churches. The greetings proper open in v. 3
with the names of the married couple Prisca and Aquila, both
of whom are identified as Paul’s fellow-workers. Included in list
that follows are Mary, Tryphaena, Tryphosa, Persis, the mother
of Rufus, Julia, and the sister of Nereus. Most important, several
of these women are singled out for their labor on behalf of the
gospel.
Paul also greets another woman, Junia, whose case Eldon
Epp treats in this slender and important volume. Several stud­
ies have attended to Junia before,4 but no one has addressed as
many facets of the problem as Epp does. There are several issues
that run through Epp’s account, but two dominate. The first and
most important issue concerns the name Junia and its presence
during the two millennia since Phoebe first delivered the letter
to Rome. Stated much too simply, the problem is as follows: in
Romans 16:7, Paul greets a pair of people he identifies as “prom­
inent among the apostles.” The first is named Andronicus, a
male name. And the second is named either Junia (feminine) or
Junias/Junianus (masculine). The difference in Greek is a matter
solely of the accentuation: one form of accent would indicate a
feminine name and the other a masculine name.
The points Epp brings forward and develops are quite clear:
For the first seven centuries of the church’s life Greek manu-