Tom Wright on the Apostles Junia and Mary Magdalene

I am teaching Paul this term at Duke and we have reached the part of the course where we look at issues connected with women and gender.  I was hoping to find some Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza on Youtube to show the class, but the only piece of her that I can find is her Burke Lecture from 2007 on another topic, and it is a video of her simply reading a script.  But while searching, I came across a short piece of a rather casual Tom Wright chatting about Junia and Mary Magdalene

 



It's an enjoyable piece, and it is good to see him so strongly behind the Junia reading given that he earlier assumed the Junias reading (Climax of the Covenant: 48, "these two men . . .").

"Biblical Gynaecology"

I have been doing some more reading recently on Romans 16.7, the verse in which Paul greets Andronicus and Junia, "prominent among the apostles" (NRSV).  (Cf NT Pod 12: Junia: the First Woman Apostle?; Programme Notes and Andronicus and Junia prominent among "the apostles"). In revisiting the article by Burer and Wallace (Daniel Wallace and Michael Burer, "Was Junia Really an Apostle?: A Re-examination of Romans 16.7", New Testament Studies 47 (2001): 76-91), I was struck by their use of the phrase "biblical gynaecology" (76 and 78).  The term seems quite inappropriate to me.

Gynaecology is the branch of medicine that deals with functions and diseases peculiar to women (OED).  In so far as there is "biblical gynaecology", I suppose that the material that would come closest would be the mention of the womb and breasts in Luke's Gospel (Luke 1.41,44, John the Baptist jumping in Elizabeth's womb; Luke 11.27-28, "Blessed is the womb that bore you . . ." and Luke 23.29, ". . . Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore").  But this is not what Wallace and Burer are discussing in their article.  Rather, they are discussing the gender of the name Junia, and asking also whether she was indeed an apostle.  This is not gynaecology, Biblical or otherwise.

My surprise at seeing the expression in New Testament Studies sent me to the net to see if it is used elsewhere and it seems that one of the authors of the paper in question, Dan Wallace, has a piece called Biblical Gynaecology in which he comments:

The issue of the role of women in the church has become so central to how many Christians think that it even deserves its own theological label. Frankly, the best expression to use is “theological gynecology,” or “the doctrine of gynecology.” Too many associations with the medical profession will prevent some from seeing how appropriate this is at first. But ‘gynecology’ simply means ‘the study of women.’ And ‘theological gynecology’ means ‘the theological study of women,’ or ‘what the Bible says about the role of women.’ So I’ll use it sporadically throughout this paper.

But gynaecology does not "simply mean 'the study of women'", even if that is the etymology of the word.  It has a specific reference to the medical profession and to issues connected with female reproductive organs.  Rather than seeing "how appropriate this is", a moment's reflection confirms how problematic it is, especially if one is aiming at a discussion that does not unduly prejudice the interpreter before one has examined the texts. It is difficult to see how it can be helpful to use terminology that risks reverting to androcentric stereotypes in which a woman's identity and function is viewed solely in terms of reproduction.

I must admit that I don't even feel comfortable with this discussion being cast in terms of "the study of women" in Paul.  Rather, it's about the study of men and women in Paul.  That might sound like a fine distinction, but I think it is important.  Casting the debate in terms that focus specially on the status of "women" in Paul's letters tacitly assumes that maleness is the norm, the expected standard for authority and status that is challenged by apparent exceptions like Junia.  The same scholars do not speak with surprise about "andrology" every time a male authority figure appears in the text.  The very problematizing of the female figure of authority as if it is in some way abnormal or surprising already casts the debate in terms that prejudice the outcome.

Andronicus and Junia prominent among "the apostles"

In my recent NT Pod 12, on Junia (Programme Notes), I mentioned briefly an element that I have not seen in the extensive discussions of this verse, Romans 16.7, though it is quite possible that I have missed it. Let us remind ourselves of the Greek:

ἀσπάσασθε Ἀνδρόνικον καὶ ᾿Ιουνίαν τοὺς συγγενεῖς μου καὶ συναιχμαλώτους μου, οἵτινές εἰσιν ἐπίσημοι ἐν τοῖς ἀποστόλοις, οἳ καὶ πρὸ ἐμοῦ γέγοναν ἐν Χριστῷ.

Attention has focused on two elements here, the identity of Junia, now universally taken to be a woman, and the translation "prominent among the apostles" (NRSV) vs. "well known to the apostles" (NET Bible). I am not persuaded by the latter translation for the reasons given by Eldon Jay Epp, Linda Belleville, and blogged in detail by Suzanne McCarthy (see Programme Notes), but there is a small element I would like to add to the discussion, Paul's use of the term "the apostles". I think it is one of those occasions where attention has been so focused on those other points of translation and interpretation that we may have missed something else in the passage.

The question I would like to pose is whether Paul is more likely to have used the term "the apostles" if he were saying "prominent among the apostles" (NRSV) or if he were saying "well known to the apostles" (NET). The former is, I think, far more likely. In that former translation (NRSV), "the apostles" works simply as a descriptor. It tells us about Andronicus and Junia's status as (prominent) apostles. It makes sense and is perfectly Pauline. In the NET translation, on the other hand, "the apostles" is used in a less obviously Pauline sense. Now he is appealing to the authority of an external group labelled as "the apostles". He does not say that Andronicus and Junia are esteemed by "us apostles" (cf. 1 Cor. 4.9) or by "all the apostles, including me", as we might have expected if this were the sense of the passage. He continually refers to himself in Romans 16, and three times in this verse, 16.7, "my relatives", "my fellow prisoners", "in Christ before me", yet on the NET translation, he appears to give authority to a group called "the apostles" that does not obviously include him.

It is difficult to imagine Paul using the term "the apostles" in the way necessitated by the NET translation, as a group external to Paul who confer their esteem. It's an Acts-style usage but not a Pauline one.

NT Pod 12: Junia: the First Woman Apostle? Programme Notes

I released the latest NT Pod last night, on the topic Junia: The First Woman Apostle?. I'd like to add a few programme notes here for those who would like to follow up on the discussion.

The two English translations I contrasted were the following:

Romans 16.7 (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.

Romans 16.7 (RSV): Greet Andronicus and Junias, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners; they are men of note among the apostles, and they were in Christ before me.

I might also have added reference to the NET Bible translation, which follows the Wallace / Burer view which I mentioned in the podcast:

Greet Andronicus and Junia, my compatriots and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me.

The Greek text (NA²⁷) is as follows:

ἀσπάσασθε Ἀνδρόνικον καὶ ᾿Ιουνίαν τοὺς συγγενεῖς μου καὶ συναιχμαλώτους μου, οἵτινές εἰσιν ἐπίσημοι ἐν τοῖς ἀποστόλοις, οἳ καὶ πρὸ ἐμοῦ γέγοναν ἐν Χριστῷ.

This NA²⁷ text accents Ιουνιαν such that it appears as a female name, thus ᾿Ιουνίαν rather than ᾿Ιουνιᾶν (the latter the accenting in NA²⁶).

The key recent bibliography is as follows:

Eldon Jay Epp, Junia: The First Woman Apostle (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005)

This is the major work arguing the case that Junia in Rom. 16.7 is a female apostle. It is short and readable.

Daniel Wallace and Michael Burer, "Was Junia Really an Apostle?: A Re-examination of Romans 16.7", Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 6/2 (Fall 2001), 4-11.

Online article arguing that the verse should be translated "esteemed by the apostles" and not "prominent among the apostles" (cf. NET Bible above).

Daniel Wallace and Michael Burer, "Was Junia Really an Apostle?: A Re-examination of Romans 16.7", New Testament Studies 47 (2001): 76-91

Academic version of previous article

Linda Belleville, "᾿Ιουνίαν . . . ἐπίσημοι ἐν τοῖς ἀποστόλοις, A Re-Examination of Romans 16:7 in Light of Primary Source Materials", New Testament Studies 51 (2005): 231-24.

Answers Wallace and Burer.

Suzanne McCarthy has commented on the issues extensively in her blog Suzanne's Bookshelf.

Also in the blogosphere: see Pat McCullough, Translation Mischief with Junia, the Female Apostle.