42. Do you think marriage is old-fashioned and should be done away with? Y N
43. Can you easily get some life into a rather dull party? Y N
44. Are you a worrier? Y N
45. Do you tend to keep in the background on social occasions? Y N
46. Does it worry you if you know there are mistakes in your work? Y N
47. Have you ever cheated at a game? Y N
48. Do you suffer from “nerves”? Y N
49. Have you ever taken advantage of someone? Y N
50. Are you mostly quiet when you are with other people? Y N
51. Do you often feel lonely? Y N
52. Do you think it is better to follow society’s rules than go your own way? Y N
53. Do other people think of you as being very lively? Y N
54. Do you always practice what you preach? Y N
APPENDIX 3
1 CORINTHIANS 14:34–35
One solution that ends every problem for the silencing of women in 1 Corinthians 14:34–35 is to argue that Paul did not even write these words. If you look carefully at your Bible (and I’m using the NIV), you may observe a small footnote letter at the end of 1 Corinthians 14:35. At the bottom of this page in my Bible a footnote reads: “34, 35 In a few manuscripts these verses come after verse 40.” (The TNIV had “some” so the NIV 2011 has shrunk the number of witnesses to this reading.) In my copy of The Harper Collins Study Bible on the NRSV, verses 34 and 35 are enclosed in parentheses and a note similar to the NIV is found as a footnote. Most modern Bibles inform the reader that there is a problem about where these verses were originally located, and some experts conclude that they were not in Paul’s original letter at all.
Why do they conclude this? Three reasons:
1. All attentive readers will feel the seeming contradiction between Paul’s words here and what Paul said earlier in this very letter about women praying and prophesying in public. Something unusual is going on here.
2. Furthermore, verses 34 and 35 at face value overtly contradict the actual ministry conduct of women in the earliest churches. Women weren’t completely silent in churches.
3. Some early manuscripts put these verses in another location, probably because they did not seem to fit between verses 33 and 36. Gordon Fee is one of evangelicalism’s finest scholars. He is also a world-class expert on textual matters, and he is a leading scholar on 1 Corinthians itself. Fee, bringing all of his expertise to bear on these verses, came to the conclusion that Paul did not write these verses, that someone added them to a margin of an early manuscript, and that from there they found their way into 1 Corinthians in two different locations.1 Recently, P. B. Payne wrote a technical article showing that one of the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament uses marginal signs to indicate that these verses were not in some manuscripts.2 This article makes it probable that 1 Corinthians 14:34–35 were not written by the apostle Paul. If Fee and others like him are right, these verses, and not women, need to be silenced! Yet many are not so sure Fee is right.
4. The singular problem Gordon Fee faces is that there is no manuscript evidence that these verses were ever omitted from any of the copies we have of 1 Corinthians. The statement about silence always shows up, either after verse 33 or after verse 40. So the majority think these two verses should be included.3 For that reason, I chose to ignore this problem and explain the text as if it where authentic to Paul.
APPENDIX 4
PETRONIUS ON THE NEW ROMAN WOMAN
I want to quote a section from one of Rome’s famous contemporaries of the apostle Paul, a man named Petronius, who describes what many today are calling the new Roman woman.1 Who was Petronius? He was Emperor Nero’s adviser in luxury and extravagance! Petronius describes the new Roman woman by speaking of the woman Fortunata at a dinner banquet where she and another woman, Scintilla, fall into admiration of themselves.
Fortunata greets Scintilla:
At this [Fortunata] entered at last, her frock kilted up with a yellow girdle, so as to show a cherry-colored tunic underneath, and corded anklets and gold-embroidered slippers. Then wiping her hands on a handkerchief she wore at her neck, she placed herself on the same couch beside Habinnas’ wife, Scintilla, kissing her while the other claps her hands, and exclaiming, “Have I really the pleasure of seeing you?”
Fortunata displays gold jewelry:
Before long it came to Fortunata’s taking off the bracelets from her great fat arms to show them to her admiring companion. Finally she even undid her anklets and her hairnet, which she assured Scintilla was of the very finest gold.
Trimalchio speaks of the women’s extravagances:
Trimalchio, observing this, ordered all the things to be brought to him. “You see this woman’s fetters,” he cried; “that’s the way we poor devils are robbed! Six pound and a half, if it’s an ounce; and yet I’ve got one myself of ten pound weight, all made out of Mercury’s thousandths.” Eventually to prove he was not telling a lie, he ordered a pair of scales to be brought, and had the articles carried round and the weight tested by each in turn.
Scintilla shows a jewelry box:
And Scintilla was just as bad, for she drew from her bosom a little gold casket she called her Lucky Box. From it she produced a pair of ear-pendants and handed them one after the other to Fortunata to admire, saying, “Thanks to my husband’s goodness, no wife has finer.”
Tipsy women:
Meanwhile the two women, though a trifle piqued, laughed good humoredly together and interchanged some tipsy kisses, the one praising the thrifty management of the lady of the house, the other enlarging on the minions her husband kept and his unthrifty ways. While they were thus engaged in close confabulation, Habinnas got up stealthily and catching hold of Fortunata’s legs, upset her on the couch. “Ah! ah!” she screeched, as her tunic slipped up above her knees. Then falling on Scintilla’s bosom, she hid in her handkerchief a face all afire with blushes.
APPENDIX 5
JUVENAL ON FIRST-CENTURY WOMEN
To give an example of Roman women being educated, quite well in some cases, I want to quote from Juvenal,1 another first-century Roman contemporary of Paul, who writes satirically about women. What is so interesting about this text is what it reveals about what women could do when it came to public teaching and discourse. Also, this text shows that Paul’s strategy of educating women was in sharp contrast with some public opinions of women.
On women asserting authority:
But most intolerable of all is the woman who as soon as she has sat down to dinner commends Virgil, pardons the dying Dido, and pits the poets against each other, putting Virgil in the one scale and Homer in the other. The grammarians make way before her; the rhetoricians give in; the whole crowd is silenced: no lawyer, no auctioneer will get a word in, no, nor any other woman; so torrential is her speech that you would think that all the pots and bells were being clashed together. . . . She lays down definitions, and discourses on morals, like a philosopher; thirsting to be deemed both wise and eloquent, she ought to tuck up her skirts knee-high, sacrifice a pig to Silvanus, take a penny bath.
On limiting women’s education:
Let not the wife of your bosom possess a special style of her own; let her not hurl at you in whirling speech the crooked enthymeme! Let her not know all history; let there be some things in her reading which she does not understand. I hate a woman who is for ever consulting and poring over the “Grammar” of Palaemon, who observes all the rules and laws of language, who like an antiquary quotes verses that I never heard of, and corrects her unlettered female friends for slips of speech that no man need trouble about: let husbands at least be permitted to make slips in grammar!
APPENDIX 6
JUNIA IS NOT ALONE
In one of my classes of forty-five students, I asked if anyone had ever heard of Huldah, that famous prophet whom the young King Josiah sent a messenger to after the book of the Torah was found in the temple. None of my students had ever heard
of Huldah, so I asked them to Google her name. Then we found 2 Kings 22 and read it. Huldah was the singular prophet who helped provoke Israel’s greatest revival.
Why the silence?
Moving toward the middle of my third decade of teaching students in seminaries and a university, more than half of whom grew up in a church, of this I am certain: churches don’t talk about the women of the Bible. Of Mary, mother of Jesus, they have heard, and even then not all of what they have heard is accurate. But of the other women saints of the Bible, including Miriam, the prophetic national music director, or Esther, the dancing queen, or Phoebe, the benefactor of Paul’s missions, or Priscilla, the teacher, they’ve heard almost nothing.
Why the silence?
Why do we consider the mother/wife of Proverbs 31 an ideal female image but shush the language of the romantic Shulammite woman of the Song of Songs? Why are we so obsessed with studying the “subordination” of women to men but not a woman like Deborah, who subordinated men and enemies? Why do we believe that we are called to live out Pentecost’s vision of Spirit-shaped life but ignore what Peter predicted would happen? That “in the last days . . . your sons and daughters will prophesy . . .” and that “even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit.”
Why the silence?
When I told someone about the subject of this study, I was asked: “Who is Junia?” Maybe we should all open our Twitter or Facebook accounts and ask that very question: “Who is Junia?” Why doesn’t everyone already know?
Why is there so much silence in the church about the women in the Bible?
This appendix is dedicated to ending the church’s deafening silence on women in the Bible. It is dedicated to giving voice to women, and it comes with the prayer that we will become more faithful to the Bible’s Story, a Story that clearly involves women who were not silenced by the Bible or the earliest followers of God, but are being silenced by us.
In this appendix I will tell the story of Junia. Alongside her story, we will encounter others like her—women who had a wonderful voice, and then no voice, and who are experiencing a re-voicing.
Now to the story of Junia.
Junia
Junia, who had no idea she would someday be the subject of endless discussions, appears innocently enough in Romans 16:7 alongside her husband, Andronicus. Innocence has a way of ending—in some translations her name is changed to a male name (Junias), and in some translations her status as an apostle is called into question (suggesting she was well known to apostles).
One way to make this clear is to read a few translations of that verse. So I want to open a few different Bibles to Romans 16, a chapter that, along with 1 Chronicles 1–9, is among the least preached chapters in the Bible.
In some Bibles, like the New International Version 2011, Junia is a woman, but it is not entirely clear if the apostles like her or if she is actually an apostle:
Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was. [A footnote in the NIV reads “Or are esteemed by” in place of “are outstanding among.”]
But in other Bibles, like the English Standard Version, Junia may be a woman or may be a man. While she (or he) is not an apostle, the apostles liked her (or him). Furthermore, in the ESV, Junia, or Junias, may only be a “messenger” anyway:
Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me. [Two footnotes appear: One has “Or Junias” instead of “Junia,” while another note says “Or messengers” instead of “apostles.”]
And then in the Common English Bible, Junia is a woman and she is an apostle:
Say hello to Andronicus and Junia, my relatives and my fellow prisoners. They are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before me. [No notes are included.]
Other translations, like the New Revised Standard Version and the Holman Christian Standard Bible, mix the options.
NRSV: Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was. [A note reads: Or Junias; other ancient authorities read Julia.]
HCSB: Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow countrymen and fellow prisoners. They are noteworthy in the eyes of the apostles, and they were also in Christ before me. [A note reads: Either a feminine name or “Junias,” a masculine name.]
And who says translations are not political documents?
We don’t have time to dwell over each issue at length. Instead, the conclusions of Eldon J. Epp, in his outstanding little book Junia: The First Woman Apostle, will be sketched as my own because I agree with him.1 His conclusions are:
1. Junia was a woman.
2. There is no evidence that any man had the name “Junias.”
3. Junias is not a contracted name of Junianus.2
4. “Among the apostles” means Junia herself was an apostle and not simply that the apostles thought she was a good companion.
So we conclude that there was a first-century relative of the apostle Paul named Junia; she entered into Christ before Paul did; and this Junia was an apostle. Which means (because this is what apostles did) she was in essence a Christ-experiencing, Christ-representing, church-establishing, probably miracle-working, missionizing woman who preached the gospel and taught the church.3
What surprises some folks in the church today is that when Paul wrote those words about Junia the apostle in Romans 16:7, he was not snickering with a mischievous look in his eye because he had just pulled off the incredible act of calling a woman an apostle. He didn’t wonder, after he dictated those words, “OMG, what will they say about me next? That I’ll want the high priest to be a priestess? #apostlegonewild.” Paul didn’t give those words about Junia a moment’s afterthought.
Why? Because Junia was not alone. Paul knew that she fit comfortably into the Bible’s storied history about women.
Junia is with Rebekah, who had the chutzpah to make sure that her favorite son, Jacob, got the inheritance and that God went along with her plans.
Junia is with Ruth, whose persistence kept her in the family of Israel and who became an ancestor of King David—and Jesus.
Junia stands with Esther, who was the beauty queen in ancient Israel’s story and who saved the whole nation.
Junia is with the inspired prophet4 Miriam, whose words gave to Israel an interpretive stance on the Exodus when she taught the ransomed to sing.5
No, Junia is not alone.
She’s with Deborah, whose Schadenfreude exceeded that of Miriam as she exulted in the defeat of Israel’s enemies. Deborah was Ms. Everyone in those days: she was president, pope, and Rambo bundled in one female body.6
Alongside Junia also stands Huldah. Josiah passed over Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Nahum, and Habakkuk when he consulted Huldah. Why? Like Junia, we could say, she was “outstanding among the prophets.” When it came to prophets in Josiah’s day, Huldah may well have been ranked at the top.7
Junia was flanked in her own day by Mary, mother of Jesus, who had an enormous influence on Jesus and James and the early church.8
Alongside Mary stood Priscilla, who taught Apollos, and next to Priscilla and Mary was Phoebe, a “deacon,” which meant she was a church leader.9 Paul also calls her a “benefactor,” and this probably—it is disputed—means she financially provided funds and wisdom for Paul’s missionary trips.
But there’s more here: as Reta Finger has contended,10 Phoebe was probably the first person to read Romans aloud in public. If so, she was the first to utter Junia’s name from an apostolic letter in a church, and she was responsible (as the letter courier) to answer questions from the Romans who heard Paul’s letter. Thus, the first commentator on Romans, so Reta Finger argues, was a woman.
Which brings me to my next question: Why the silence of women commentators on Romans? Though Princeton seminary professor Bev Gaventa is w
riting a commentary on Romans these days, there haven’t been many commentaries on Romans by women.
The sad truth about Junia is that in the Bible and in the New Testament era, she was not the only woman who had a distinct Christian ministry.
But that story was about to change. And it changed dramatically.
Junia Gets a Sex Change
In the subsequent history of the church, a new kind of logic about women began to dominate. The logic was simple: the person in Romans 16:7 is an apostle, and apostles can’t be women, so Junia cannot have been a woman. Junia was a man named Junias. This was a sex-change operation by way of redaction.
It happened, or can be illustrated, in Greek by changing the accent in an originally unaccented text from Jun-I-an to JuniAn. This change in accent led to the male name, Junias, the Anglicized form. But as Epp and others have shown, Junias is a man who didn’t exist with a name that didn’t exist in the ancient world.
Here are some of the developments in the twisted history of silencing Junia by turning her into Junias.
First, all early translations of the New Testament into other languages listed Junia as a woman. Epp, a master of the history of our New Testament in all its various translations, says that Junia was a woman in the Old Latin, the Vulgate, and Sahidic and Bohairic Coptic and Syriac. What about English? It’s simple: from Tyndale to the last quarter of the nineteenth century in English translations, Junia was a woman. But Junia-the-woman wasn’t the only view known to the church: there lurked the unknown Junias in some people’s minds.
So, a second part of this twisted history: Martin Luther played a decisive role in turning Junia into a man. Clearly dependent on Jacobus Faber Stapulensis (or Jacques LeFèvre d’Étaples), Luther gave to the German name Juniam a masculine article (den Juniam [today, den Junias]). Then he said, “Andronicus and Junias were famous apostles” and were “men of note among the apostles.”11 Luther’s influence is inestimable, and some have suggested that he might be the one on whom to pin the blame for the sex change from Junia to Junias. We are aware, however, that prior to him by two centuries, back in the thirteenth or early fourteenth century, Aegidius or Giles of Rome called Junia a male. Luther didn’t invent the change, but his influence gave the nonexistent male Junias a new life.
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