Junia and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Demotion

We're allowed to read Scripture towards liberation.

Junia, the very legitimate apostle and her very legitimate coworker Andronicus. (St. Andronicus & St. Junia by Maria Paola Strini)

The Bible has our messy human fingerprints all over it.

We do not have an original copy of ~one single chapter of the Bible~. What we have instead is one book made up of translations of translations of translations of many different books. Before the printing press, scribes sometimes made small changes from version to version as they transcribed. Books were translated into Hebrew sometimes, Greek sometimes, and then eventually, after a long while, into the English version we read. And that means human beings all along that line have made choices about how to communicate the clearest, truest meaning of Scripture.

Sometimes those choices were made for good reasons – because otherwise, we wouldn’t really understand what was going on. 

For example, the phrase “hearts and minds” appears frequently in the English translation, like in Philipians 4:7:

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

The phrase “hearts and minds” is meant to illustrate the innermost being, the core, the essence of a person. The original Hebrew word is kilyah.

Trouble is, kilyah literally translates to “kidneys.”

But “and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your kidneys in Christ Jesus” doesn’t have quite the same ring.

So, for clarity, the people who translated it into English instead chose a phrase that felt and sounded a little more understandable to the audience they were translating for, while preserving the basic gist. 

The people who interpret the Bible make decisions all the time about how best to present the text so the clearest meaning shines through.

Sometimes these choices are made in good faith. Sometimes they’re not. Sometimes, these changes have huge implications about how we think about God and how we do church. 

Junia the apostle/not apostle is a great example.

We meet Junia at the very end of Paul’s letter to the Romans. At this point, the Jesus movement in Rome does not know Paul. In order to establish his own credibility, he writes this long list of names towards the end of the letter. He’s name dropping – I know your friend, oh her, she’s my friend too. Paul is attempting to establish credibility by mentioning a bunch of people who are well-known to the Jesus community in Rome.

And you know? Over a third of these people are women.

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae, 2 so that you may welcome her in the Lord, as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a benefactor of many and of myself as well.

3 Greet Prisca and Aquila, my coworkers in Christ Jesus, 4 who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks but also all the churches of the gentiles. 5 Greet also the church in their house. Greet my beloved Epaenetus, who was the first convert in Asia for Christ. 6 Greet Mary, who has worked very hard for you. 7 Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Israelites who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was. 8 Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord. 9 Greet Urbanus, our coworker in Christ, and my beloved Stachys. 10 Greet Apelles, who is approved in Christ. Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus. 11 Greet my fellow Israelite Herodion. Greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Narcissus. 12 Greet those workers in the Lord, Tryphaena and Tryphosa. Greet the beloved Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord. 13 Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and greet his mother—a mother to me also. 14 Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brothers and sisters who are with them. 15 Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints who are with them. 16 Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you.

Romans 16:1-16 (NRSVUE)

Right in the middle there we see the reasonably innocuous verse 7: “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Israelites who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.” So there were two people named Andronicus and Junia, and they were both apostles. Not only apostles, but ~very good~ apostles.

Apostles were leaders in the early Christian movement. Jesus appointed the first twelve apostles, then those twelve eventually appointed more apostles, who appointed more, and so on forever. These people served, they preached, they healed, they evangelized, they led the church.

Thing is — Junia is a female name. There are no references to a male Junia anywhere in ancient texts, while references to women named Junia are common.

The early church seemed to have no problem with Junia, the female apostle. Even John Chrysostom in the 4th century was like “cool, a lady apostle.”

But all of a sudden in the 18th and 19th centuries, new translations of this verse began to appear:

Junia becomes a boy! Some translations chose to exchange the name Junia for Junias, a traditionally male name: “Greet Andronicus and Junias, my fellow Israelites who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.”

Junia gets a demotion! Some translations chose to adjust the passage to make it sound like Junia wasn’t herself an apostle, but was friends with apostles: “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles…” (the evangelical translation ESV still holds fast to this version). 

(In the spirit of doubling down, the ESV also gives Phoebe a demotion a few verses earlier, from “deacon” to “servant.”)

WHY. How could something like this happen? 

If you have read Scripture for more than about five minutes, you know that it holds tension. You might read one passage that says one thing, and ten pages later you read a passage that says something entirely different. 

When translators and interpreters try to make the Bible as clear as possible, each translator chooses which passage(s) they hold as The Most True and Unchangeable, and which ones can get clarified (read: changed).

The translators working on the ESV probably read something like 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 (“Women are not allowed to speak in church…” “Women are subordinate to men”) and thought, that feels true to me. That’s in the Bible, so that’s Biblical. So women couldn’t have been authority figures in the early Jesus movement – let’s go ahead and adjust the bit about Junia and Phoebe.

They made a translation decision based on what they already believed to be true. They could *not handle* Junia being both a woman and an apostle, so they made all kinds of adjustments to make it make sense.

The Bible isn’t one book – it’s a library of books written by people across time, culture, and geography, trying to make sense of themselves, the world, and their experiences with the Divine. 

So whenever we make a decision about what is “Biblical,” we need to be very clear about which texts we are elevating as The Most True and why.

Some interpreters choose to hold tight to the passages about female subordination, but when we read the Bible, we can make other choices.

We are allowed to elevate texts that acknowledge that women have been trusted leaders in Judaism and Christianity for a long time.

We are allowed to elevate the Junias, the Phoebes, the Mary Magdelenes, the Priscas, the Typhaenas, and all the other women whose work wasn’t written down.

We are allowed to elevate a Jesus (and even a Paul) who honored women’s capacity and leadership.

We are allowed to celebrate Junia the apostle and all the women doing incredible work leading the work of justice and mercy all over the world.

We’re allowed to read towards liberation.