The Woman Was Right
By Sam Hodges,
Religion Reporter for the Dallas Morning News
Note: This Q & A article was first published in the November 2, 2006 Dallas Morning News and is reprinted by permission of the publisher.
Junia, we hardly knew ya.
But thanks to Rena Pederson`s new book The Lost Apostle: Searching for the Truth About Junia [San Francisco: Josey-Bass, 2006], amateur Bible students can catch up on the scholarly debate about whether an early church leader lauded in the Book of Romans was a woman.
A former Dallas Morning News editorial page editor, Ms. Pederson went at her research like an old pro, tracking down leading New Testament experts and going to Rome to understand better the early Christian community there.
She said she spent three years on the book, devoting nearly all her evenings and weekends.
Her recent day job was doing communications for a Dallas education company. But she just moved to Washington, D.C., to be a speechwriter for Karen Hughes, undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs.
Staff Writer Sam Hodges caught up with Ms. Pederson, a Methodist with Presbyterian roots, by phone. Here are excerpts.
What got you started on this book?
I was speaking to a women`s group, and the conversation turned to how stories of women in the Bible are not always spotlighted. One of the women said, "Yes, like Junia." We all looked at her and said, "Who?" She said Paul mentioned Junia, praised her as an apostle, but that people don`t know her name because her name was later changed to a man`s name.
My first reaction was skepticism. I had gone to church most of my life, and paid attention most of the time. But I`d never heard of her. I went home and started looking for the name Junia in the Bibles I had, and the commentaries, and on Internet.
Sure enough, the woman was right. Once you look for Junia, you find her.
Well, who was she?
In Romans 16:7, Paul sends greetings to the church in Rome, and salutes the leaders of that effort. He singles out, among other people, Junia and Andronicus. Andronicus is presumably her husband, because of the way their names are linked. He [Paul] says some very telling things about them. He says that they were kinspeople, which means they were probably Jewish.
He goes on to say that they were Christians before he was, which means that they were among the earliest group of believers. He then says that they were imprisoned with him, which means that they were prominent enough in the Jesus movement to have caught the attention of the authorities and to have been imprisoned for their efforts.
Paul goes on to say that they were noteworthy among the apostles. That is the source of a debate within a debate.
Explain that.
The first debate is whether Paul was really referring to a woman when he mentions Junia-whether it`s a male name or a female name. The second debate is whether they were noteworthy among the apostles or merely known to the apostles.
What I discovered as I interviewed scholars was that the consensus was that Paul was referring to a woman, and she was one of the apostles. Not one of the 12. Not apostle with a big A. But a leading missionary, and a respected leader in the early church.
How did she get turned into a man?
During the Middle Ages, at a time when women`s roles were becoming more restricted in the organized church, an archbishop who was the most eminent scholar of the time changed Junia`s name in his commentaries by adding an "s" and making it Junias, and referring to Junias and Andronicus as two old men.
But we now know, from philological studies, that there was no such male name as Junias in antiquity. There`s no other confirmed example of a religious or secular figure by that name. So it was a fabricated name.
But this archbishop`s work had an effect?
After that, that [male] definition prevailed in Bible translations and in commentaries, except for the King James Version. There are still some that have the man`s name. But increasingly, the trend is to restore Junia`s name.
Why does determining that she`s a woman, and re-establishing her as an apostle, matter?
It casts a little more light on the role of women in the early church to reinforce that women did teach, that women were respected as missionaries, that women helped found many of the early house churches.
Her story is important today because we`re still arguing about women`s role in the church in the 21st century.
Did you know you had a book project from the moment you first heard of Junia?
My curiosity was piqued. It brought out the Nancy Drew in me. I just had to go see if it was so. The more I discovered, the more I thought, People should know about this.
