Was Junia a male or female?

From Robertson's Word Pictures , via e-sword :

"Among the apostles (en tois apostolois). Naturally this means that they are counted among the apostles in the general sense true of Barnabas, James, the brother of Christ, Silas, and others. But it can mean simply that they were famous in the circle of the apostles in the technical sense. "

Junia can be either a masculine or feminine name.

In Christ,
Trotter

 

Some Bible scholars think this was a relative of Paul's. However, I think it's a man because he mentions 'fellow countrymen' and 'fellow prisoner'.

 

7: Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellowprisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me.

It could as easily be read, "who are well known to the apostles", which would be more accurate as there are a fixed number of apostles.

A servant of Christ,
Drew

 

Junia cannot be a masculine name. There is no evidence anywhere in Greek or Latin of a male named Junia. However, Junia is found quite a few times as a woman's name. The earliest of church fathers also agreed.

 

i agree, that's exactly how i read it. in fact, i had to go back and read it again to get a hint of any other meaning.

 

The eastern Orthodox Church has celebrated the feast of St Junias and regarded her as being not only female but also an 'honorary apostle', from fairly early on in church history.
NB not that I am in any way saying that as Baptists we need to follow or be bound by the Orthodox; I merely refer to it as evidence of how Christians much closer in time to the NT interpreted this passage.

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Was Junia a male or female? Yes.

Ok, I don't know.

 

There were more than 12 apostles. Read I Corinthians 15:5-7. Apostles are separate from the disciples.

 

Interestingly enough, not a single church father, commentary or any other work of literature before 1400 calls Junia a male. That in and of itself should say something.

 

Oh, they weren't silent about it. Many of them mentioned that Junia was a woman, including Chrysostom, Jerome, Origen, Hatto, Theophylact, and Peter Abelard. Even the first recorded person to call Junia a man, Aegidius, admitted that he merely preferred that Junia be a man.

Let me also add that the date that the first recorded date of Junia being considered a woman wasn't 1400 as I said eariler - but between 1300 and 1316, the dates of Aegidus' writings. I wanted to clarify (I was one off on my centuries!)

 

Gunther, may I again quote my husband who says "You see what you WANT to see and you hear what you WANT to hear."

These so called 'baptists' want so badly to take away from God's word concerning a woman's place in HIS plan that they will fight, misuse and excuse in an effort to validate their agenda.

God said a woman was not to preach, teach, usurp a man and that's all I need to hear.

Diane

 

To get a good glimpse of what the church fathers believed, you must also take into account those who wrote in Latin.

Epiphanus was notorious for being anti-female. He wrote: "In very truth, women are a feeble race, untrustworthy and of mediocre intelligence. Panarion 79" Modern scholars have discounted Epiphanus as a reliable source concerning women.

Glad to see that he got it right!

Not at all. Just do a search on Epiphanus and women and you'll see his extreme bias against them.

Here's another quote:

"JUNIAS (PERSON) [Gk Iounia]. The only woman who is called an “apostle” in the NT (Rom 16:7). She was born a Jew, and is closely associated to Andronicus. Her name was the Lat name of the gens Junia. Women were often called by the name of their gens without cognomen (similar examples are Mary [Rom 16:6] and Julia [Rom 16:15]). Two groups carried the name of the gens Junia: the noble members of the famous gens, and the freed(wo)men of the gens with their descendants. The second group outnumbered the first. The chances therefore are that the Christian Junia was a freed slave of the gens. Either way, she probably had Roman citizenship: slave masters with famous gens names like “Junius/ia” possessed Roman citizenship and in most cases passed it on to their slaves on the occasion of their emancipation; the freed slaves bequeathed the gens name and the citizenship to their freeborn children...the Church Fathers in late antiquity identified Andronicus’ partner in Rom 16:7 as a woman, as did minuscule 33 in the 9th century which records iounia with an acute accent. Only later medieval copyists of Rom 16:7 could not imagine a woman being an apostle and wrote the masculine name “Junias.” This latter name did not exist in antiquity; its explanation as a Greek abbreviation of the Latin name “Junianus” is unlikely." Lampe - Anchor Bible Commentary

Also see: Lampe, “Roman Christians,” 223-224. Richard S. Cervin, “A Note Regarding the Name ‘Junia(s)’ in Romans 16:7,” New Testament Studies 40 (1994), 464-470, independently confirms this conclusion while explaining Roman customs concerning male and female names.

Aha! There is an error here, or at least some lazy reporting. The "of whom" was an emendation made by Migne in his reprint of the works. In the mss themselves, we have the feminine Junia.

There is one evidence that Junia was not a woman, and even this is from someone with a mighty big chip on his shoulder against women. The evidence is still there.

The text indeed says that. A person must do some surprising exegetical gymnastics otherwise.

The United Bible Societies Handbook Series, an acknowledged authority composed of a board of respected translators, first acknowledges that they are a male/female team, "Adronicus and Junias ... could easily have been husband and wife, or brother and sister." They acknowledge that some misunderstood the sentence, "to mean 'the apostles know them well,' but a far more acceptable interpretation would imply that these...were counted as apostles and were well known, for example, 'as apostles they are well known." United Bible Societies Handbook Series, (1961-1997) for Romans 16:7

 

All the Fathers said that Junia was a woman. The one in question did not. In order to understand the anomoly, it helps to examine why that person may disagree. I showed you his stance on women. Considering his disdain for them, such a dissention makes perfect sense.

Then do it. The evidence speaks for itself. Do you notice how I showed that your evidence about Origen was inadequate, due to the fact that Junia is indeed called a woman in Origen's manuscripts? Try to do that with the evidence that is presented.

En implies selection within a group. Had Paul wanted to use "by" he would have used para or pros. Interestingly the verse also has en elsewhere when talking about "in Christ." Are you saying that the verse should read:

"Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellowprisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were among Christ before me." That just doesn't make sense. The only way to make sense of "en" is to understand that Andronicus and Junia were, indeed, apostles.

I never disagreed with that. Here, though, he is clearly talking about a man and a woman.

What is obscure about it? The fact that all of the early church fathers (save one) until 1300 said that Junia was, indeed, an apostle? The fact that modern Bible scholars and commentaries say that she was an apostle? What is obscure?