[B-Greek] Romans 16:7

Jim West jwest at highland.net
Tue Dec 21 08:59:24 EST 2004


At 07:27 AM 12/21/2004, you wrote:
>Dear B-Greek,
>   I wonder if someone might point me to a place in the archives where the 
> language in Romans 16:7 is discussed, primarily whether Junias is a man's 
> or woman's name and whether he/she is named as an apostle.  I know there 
> is dissention here, and I don't wish to stir up more--simply to see what 
> is available for review.  I also welcome new comments.  Thank you.
>                                          Karen Beaulieu
>---


It is a woman's name.  There simply is no question about this.  See, John 
Dominic Crossan's new book, In Search of Paul, p. 115.  I quote:  "Finally, 
there is Junia, a case that would be funny to ridiculous if it were not so 
tragic.  For the first twelve hundred years of Christianity, commentators 
had no trouble identifying her name as female.... In Greek, by the way, her 
name appears in the accusative case as Junian.  Then thename started to be 
identified as male - Junian was alleged to be the accusative case of the 
male name Junia(nu)s.  Unfortunately, however, there are over 250 known 
cases of a female Junia in antiquity and not a single one ever discovered 
for the male abbreviation of Junianus to Junias. ... The only reason for 
suggesting a masculine meaning is to avoid a major female apostle."

Crossan is 1000% correct.


Jim


++++++++++++++++++++
Jim West, ThD
Adjunct Professor of Biblical Studies
Quartz Hill School of Theology

http://web.infoave.net/~jwest Biblical Studies Resources
http://biblical-studies.blogspot.com Biblical Theology Weblog






More information about the B-Greek mailing list