Unfortunately, the Bible and church tradition often did not give women the proper recognition they deserved for the important roles that they played in the rise and expansion of the early network of Christian churches. Correspondences of the church movement’s great administrator, organizer and advisor, St. Paul, are fascinating in this regard. On the one hand, Paul could be quite rude and dismissive towards women, such as his infamous statement of, “Women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak but should be subordinate, as the law also says. If there is something they want to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church” (1 Corinthians 14.34-35). Yet, on the opposite end of the spectrum, Paul’s letters to new church communities all over the Roman Empire also openly acknowledged numerous competent and consequential women who were serving in roles such as missionaries, preachers, community leaders, and financial backers. One of these women, a certain Junia, was even honored by Paul with the coveted title of apostle.
First and foremost, it should be noted that Junia’s gender was at one point a subject of debate, as certain scholars tried to argue that the name was a corruption of the more masculine Junias. Now, however, the firm scholarly consensus is that no ‘s’ was left off the name and that Junia was, indeed, a woman. The Oxford Companion to the Bible stated the situation this way: “Although previous scholars interpreted the name Junia as masculine, church fathers, including Origen, John Chrysostom, and Jerome, identified her as a woman. Further, while the hypothetical male name Junias is unattested in ancient inscriptions, the female Latin name Junia occurs over 250 times in Greek and Latin inscriptions found in Rome alone. Therefore, scholars today generally interpret the name as feminine” (Oxford Companion entry for Junia, written by Bernadette J. Brooten, pg. 404). With the settled gender debate out of the way, the conversation can now move on to what is known about Junia’s life.
Junia, like Paul, was from ancient Israel. She probably lived near Jerusalem around the time when Jesus was alive, and had some kind of personal contact with him. It is also known that Junia converted to Christianity before Paul. Her qualifications for apostleship can be given some context from Paul’s self-analysis of his own apostolic criteria. He wrote, “Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord?” (1 Corinthians 9.1). Similarly, Junia was likely deemed an apostle in Paul’s eyes because she had seen Jesus—potentially as one of the women who claimed to see him resurrected—and she subsequently made it her life’s work to spread Jesus’ message and build up the church. Interestingly, Junia was eventually arrested for her missionary and apostolic activity. In fact, she was imprisoned alongside Paul. This shared stint in prison was mentioned by Paul in his letters to the Romans. He wrote, “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Israelites who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was” (Romans 16.7). Both Junia and Paul, as can be inferred from the letter, were eventually set free from their imprisonment.
Unfortunately, little else is known about the apostle, Junia. She made no more appearances in the Bible, and none of the known apocryphal books were written by her or featured her as an involved party. Nevertheless, due to her appearance in Paul’s letters to the Romans, it is known that she presumably relocated there from Israel and provided her apostolic services to the burgeoning Christian community in Rome.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
Picture Attribution: (cropped section of Saints Peter, Martha, Mary Magdalen, and Leonard, painted by Correggio (Antonio Allegri) around 1515, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and the MET).
Sources:
- The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version With The Apocrypha (Fifth Edition, Fully Revised), edited by Michael D. Coogan and associates. Oxford University Press, 2018.
- The Oxford Companion to the Bible, edited by Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan. Oxford University Press, 1993.
- https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%2016&version=NRSVUE
- https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%209&version=NRSVUE
