The erasure of Junia began in the form of replacement as church leaders and academics replaced Junia’s name with a male name. To learn when and why this occurred, we must return to the oldest sources available, locate the first uses of Junia or Junias then follow their uses toward modernity.
Every known Greek manuscript records the same name, Junia, with the exception of five that record the name Julia instead. Note that variant is still a woman’s name, however, with the overwhelming weight of the manuscripts recording Junia, the most reliable reading is most certainly Junia.[i]
Every non-Greek early translation of the New Testament transcribe Junia’s name as feminine.[ii]
The Greek and Latin commentators of the first millennia accepted Junia as an apostle without exception.[iii]
Most notably, Chrysostom unequivocally praised Junia, “Indeed, how great the wisdom of this woman must have been that she was even deemed worthy of the title of apostle;” praise reiterated in the next few centuries by Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrhus and John of Damascus and many others.[iv]
These ancient church fathers were unbearably misogynist – Chrysostom described women as “an inescapable punishment, a necessary evil for man.” These are unlikely men to celebrate a woman’s status among the other apostles.[v] The fact that they did despite their explicit sexism is a powerful witness.
Archaeological and historical study of ancient Rome reveal that Junia was an exceedingly common name both among the noble class and among freed slaves while the masculine Junias is nonexistent in the first several centuries after Christ.
Conversely, Andronicus was a common masculine name while the feminine form was rare.
Junia was the reading of the Greek New Testament from Erasmus in 1516 to Erwin Nestle’s 1927 edition with only unexplained one exception (Alford, 1857).[vi]
The masculine Junias was the reading of the Greek New Testaments from Nestle in 1927 until UBS in 1993 with only one exception (Hodges-Farstad in 1982).
Today, the only English translations that use the masculine form are those few translating from Nestle’s 1927 edition.
These include The Message, which is actually not a translation but a paraphrase, the 1971 Living Bible, the New Jerusalem Bible, and the Contemporary English version.
Even the English translations that read Junia in the primary text almost always still present Junias as a viable option in their footnotes.
Retracing our historical footsteps, we can see that Junia is certainly the most reliable reading. There is no variant in our oldest Greek manuscripts. We are arguing alternate readings inserted into Romans 16:7 much later.
With the earliest sources fully affirming of Junia, a woman apostle, how did we come to assume this apostle to be a male?
Again, we trace our steps back through history:
Giles of Colonna is the first known individual to change Junia to a masculine in the 13th century, naming the two apostles as “honorable men.”[vii]
The likely reason behind this action was Pope Boniface’s commission to Giles to use Scripture to justify the Pope’s immoral and violent actions.
While Giles wrote the first argument for a replacing Junia, he was largely unsuccessful at influencing his contemporary scholars.
In the 16th century, Martin Luther wrote and published his German Bible relying heavily upon the work of translator’s LeFevre’s work, who had changed Junia to a masculine form. Both works were widely influential in Europe and their change went unchallenged.
But it was Joseph Barber Lightfoot in the late 19th century who popularized the view that the name should be read as masculine.[viii] Lightfoot explicitly claimed that the name must be masculine for only men are apostles.
Bernadette Brooten wrote a brief article in 1977 that brought renewed attention to Junia and began the modern-day work to return her to her rightful place among the apostles.[ix]
In sum, it is not history nor Greek that called Junia’s apostleship into question, but assumption, sabotage, and lazy research.
Now that we have establish that Junia is most certainly the correct reading of Romans 16:7, we must ask what an “apostle” is and was Junia “an outstanding apostle” or “outstanding among/to the apostles?”
An apostle is someone who is sent – a messenger, whether a preacher, a missionary, or both. Apostleship included the disciples, but also existed outside the Twelve, such a Paul and Barnabas. It was a significant status not lightly claimed as we see the numerous times when Paul defends his own apostleship.[x] Epp summarizes apostleship as “involving the conscious acceptance and endurance of the labor and sufferings connected with missionary (or proclamation) work, and certified by the results of such labor, such as signs and wonder and mighty works.”[xi]
In other words, this is not a designation Paul uses lightly or often. It is one that involves the calling and gifting of God, the affirmation of the community of God, the wholehearted claim of the apostle themselves, and the evidence of their ministerial work.
Parsing out the schematics of the Greek in order to discuss whether the meaning of the Greek is “an outstanding/prominent apostle” or “outstanding/prominent to the apostles,” would be a lengthy, laborious, and likely boring read. I will instead direct you to Epp’s Junia: The First Woman Apostle, chapter 11 and summarize.
The Greek wording required to communicate an inclusive idea, “outstanding to the apostles,” is not used in Romans 16:7 and in fact is used almost nowhere in the Greek New Testament. Craig Keener, an excellent Greek and New Testament asserts that it is unnatural to read that Junia and Andronicus are only outstanding to the apostles.[xii]
The Greek translation that is more natural reads with the sense “an outstanding/prominent apostle.” I will also remind you that the earliest church commentators unanimously received Junia as an apostle rather than well known by the apostles.
The most obvious and likely reading is: “Andronicus and Junia, outstanding apostles.”
Today biblical scholars almost universally recognize Junia as a woman. As we have discussed, it is simply not good scholarship to assume otherwise. However, the erasure of Junia persists as her apostleship is debated.
I presented the full, albeit simplified and summarized history in order to argue that never has her name or vocation been the subject of debate except when academia and church hierarchy placed their own biased assumptions upon her. To quote Keener again, “those who favor the view that Junia was not a female apostle do so because of their prior assumption that women could not be apostles, not because of any evidence in the text.[xiii]
Consider this – if only Andronicus had been named, would he have been the subject of the same treatment as Junia? Would his name have been replaced with a feminine name? Would church leaders and academics advocate so fervently for a reading that rendered him simply outstanding “to” the apostles?
Certainly not.
If only Andronicus were mentioned, his name and vocation would have been accepted without a second thought. Lightfoot explained himself and all those before him, a woman cannot be an apostle therefore there must be something wrong with the text as it is. He joins the hordes of others who would rather alter the Scripture than accept a woman apostle.
Junia’s name ought to be preserved and honored simply because Paul named and honored her. Yet Junia’s treatment in the Church’s history and life is indicative of how women have been systemically excluded and silenced. Junia’s place alongside Paul, the Twelve, and Andronicus testifies that women belong in every office of the Church.
Those with prior assumptions about who women are and what we can do have attempted to do away with her. The silencing of Junia is not only the antithesis to Paul’s naming and praising his female co-laborers, but it walks hand in hand with the silencing of all women in the church throughout history.
Just as Junia’s erasure indicates a systemic erasure much larger than a single woman, when we name Junia we revolt against the idea that a woman in the church must be minimized to share in the name of Christ. We name her to correct poor scholarship, but also, and perhaps more importantly, to name how religious power (an antithetical statement in and of itself!) have oppressed perceived threats in history and today. However, the way of the Christ is the way of freedom. We ought not be bound by the wrestling for power and status. You are free to be walk fully into your identity as a child of God; you are free to trust God’s working in another person as well.
Junia is an apostle. You too can be whoever God has made you to be.
Next month I will continue the theme of rarely known women in the Bible as I write about Huldah - a woman with a fascinating story and place in history! Subscribe to get her story delivered to your inbox.
[i] Jay Eldon Epp, Junia: The First Woman Apostle, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005), 31.
[ii] Recall that the Latin Vulgate was used as Scripture before a Greek New Testament was written.
[iii] Ibid, 32.
[iv] Ibid.
[v] An essay for another time, but a simple Google search will reveal some reprehensible quotes.
[vi] Epp, Junia, 23.
While many sources on arguing for the existence of Junia the Apostle exist on the Internet and in print, I found Epp to be the most thorough therefore the source most closely followed for my research. There are many other succinct sources for further study. See, Rena Pederson’s The Lost Apostle: Searching for the Truth about Junia for historical summation. David William’s Junia: A Woman Apostle, for refutations of complementarian interpretations that diminish Junia’s apostleship. See also the website “The Junia Project,” which is a blog and platform dedicated to recover Junia’s identity as well as generally advocate for women in the Church. They have an excellent catalogue of online articles and blogs regarding Junia’s life and apostleship. See also Craig Keener’s Paul, Women, and Wives for further study of Paul’s treatment of women in general.
[vii] Eldon Jay Epp, Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism: Volume 2, (Leiden, The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV 2020), 43.
[viii] Ibid.
[ix] Ibid.
[x] See II Cor. 12:11-12
[xi] Epp, 70. See I Cor. 15:9-10; II Cor. 12:11-12
[xii] Craig Keener, Paul, Women, and Wives: Marriage and Women’s Ministry in the Letter of Paul, (Peabody: Hendrickson Press, 1992), 242
[xiii] Ibid.