Junia and other women

After the recent General Synod of the Church of England voted by a two-thirds majority to remove the obstacles to women becoming bishops, I’ve seen more of the usual debate about whether women can lead a church. What always surprises me about this debate is that the two ends of the spectrum of church (the high and the very low) are the ones who object to women priests, for different reasons – tradition, a sense of rightness, an interpretation of the Bible.

However, both might do well to re-read their Bibles and to re-examine the traditions of the church. Women held leadership roles in the early church, and for quite a while thereafter. Indeed, we even have evidence that a woman was included among the apostles (not the 12, obviously, but the larger group that included Paul and that he included in his list of ministries) – Junia, mentioned in Romans 16:7, although her name is often mistranslated “Junias” or “Junius” in an attempt to make it seem more male. Still, my NIV Study Bible at least honestly mentions in the footnotes that it’s “a feminine name”, despite the absence of any indication in a normal NIV that the “Junias” given in this translation is feminine.

Kathryn Riss has lots of interesting information about Junia and other women in the New Testament acting as pastors, prophets, martyrs, evangelists and teachers.

pax et bonum

Article posted at 4:28pm on 13 July 2005
Category: Faith, Struggling

It says Junia in the KJV, the one claimed to be “sexist” by most.

Consider these names, John:

Chris
Jamie
Pat
Larry

What sex are these friends of mine? Basing a doctrine upon a single, questionable interpretation of a verse is not the way of the logical faithful. Paul is brutally clear on this one. We don’t need enemations fom penumbras to figure it out.

Hammertime () (URL)
11:22am on 15 July 2005

The point about “Junia” is that it is not like the examples you give – it’s unquestionably a female name. The insertion of “Junias” was done to disguise this. The question, then, isn’t about whether it’s a woman (which it clearly is). The question is, perhaps, what was meant by “apostle” or even “among the apostles”. We could claim that it meant “highly regarded by the apostles” (my NIV study bible suggests this as one possibility) but that seems unlikely given the wording. However, even if it was the meaning, that still leaves us with a woman of very high standing in the church. Added to the many other examples of female teachers, prophets and so forth, the issue of excluding women from leadership becomes much more murky than some would have us believe.

pax et bonum

[John] () (URL)
11:58am on 15 July 2005

“If a man seeks the office of bishop…he must be blameless, the husband of one wife…”

- 1 Timothy 3:1-2.

When woman is the husband of one wife, we can visit this idea. Until then, as before, pastor/priest/head minister is still unavailable. Prophetess, teacher, and evangelist are all available, and have been, in accordance with scripture.

Hammertime () (URL)
7:30pm on 18 July 2005

If you’re going to take that line then you might as well as have stopped at the first “he” – the comment about “wife” is clearly saying a single spouse; the gender is secondary in that sentence. Indeed, it starts “If a man...” and says nothing about what we should do when a woman seeks that office :-)

My point was that looking at the position of women in the early church shows that things were not nearly cut and dried as some people would like us to believe. There were clearly women in leadership roles – women prophets, women martyrs, women teachers and women evangelists. That being so, we must interpret the NT passages in the light of that practice. We cannot ignore the facts for the sake of a doctrine – we must make our doctrine in the light of the facts.

pax et bonum

[John] () (URL)
9:43pm on 18 July 2005