Junia and Romans 16:7
This verse reads: “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me” (ESV). The NIV translates as: “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.” These two different translations show some of the dimensions of the difficulties in translating this verse.
Literally, the Greek reads (English translation): “Greet Andronicus and Junia/the kinsmen of me and fellow-captives of me who are notable among/in/by the apostles who also before me have been in Christ.”
The controversy surrounds the gender of Junia, relating to the phrase, “among the apostles.” If Junia is feminine and she is among the apostles, this makes her a female apostle.
This is a brief examination of these 3 points.
a. The gender of Junia.
The Greek form, Jounian (from Junias), depending on the Greek accent given to it, could be either masculine or feminine. So the person could be a man, Junianus, or a woman, Junia. “Interpreters from the thirteenth to the middle of the twentieth century generally favored the masculine identification, but it appears that commentators before the thirteenth century were unanimous in favor of the feminine identification; and scholars have recently again inclined decisively to this same view. And for probably good reason.... The Latin ‘Junia’ was a very common name. Probably, then, ‘Junia’ was the wife of Andronicus (note the other husband and wife pairs in this list, Prisca and Aquila [v. 3] and [probably], Philologus and Julia [v. 15]”.
[1]
b. Is Junia a female apostle
The phrase “esteemed/notable by the apostles” is a possible Greek construction as in the ESV.
[2] But it is more natural to translate as “esteemed/notable among the apostles,” as with the NIV.
Why is it more natural? See this footnote.
[3]
Andronicus and Junia were possibly a husband and wife team of apostles.
[4]
c. Junia is therefore a female apostle.
This means that Junia was a female apostle, not one of the Twelve, but one of the ministry gifts of Christ to the church (See Eph. 4:11) – an apostle who was a woman.
Notes
[1] Douglas G. Moo,
The Epistle to the Romans (The New International Commentary on the New Testament). Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996, pp. 921-922.
[2] This is using the preposition,
ev, in its instrumental sense.
[3] With a plural object [apostles],
ev often means ‘among’; and if Paul had wanted to say that Andronicus and Junia were esteemed ‘by’ the apostles, we would have expected him to use a simple dative [case] or [the preposition]
hupo with the genitive [case]. The word
epistemoi (‘splendid,’ ‘prominent,’ ‘outstanding’; only here in the NT in this sense [cf. also Matt. 27:16]) also favors this rendering” (Moo,
The Epistle to the Romans, p. 923, n. 39,).
[4] Gordon Fee says that that Rom. 16:7 refers to “probably Andronicus and his wife [Junia]” (
I Corinthians, 1987, Eerdmans, p. 729, n. 80).
I'm not holding my breath waiting for positive feedback from those supporting a traditionalist interpretation.
Regards,
Oz
