Junia – A Woman Lost in Translation: The Name IOYNIAN in Romans 16:7 and its History of Interpretation

Abstract

The name of the second person greeted in Romans 16:7 is given as IOYNIAN, a form whose grammatical gender could be either feminine or masculine which leads to the question: Is it Junia or Junias – a woman or a man – who is greeted alongside Andronicus as “outstanding among the apostles?” This article highlights early influential answers to this question in the history of interpretation (John Chrysostom’s commentary, the discipleship list of Pseudo-Epiphanius, Luther’s translation, and Calvin’s interpretation) showing that societal perceptions of women’s roles were a factor in how they interpreted IOYNIAN. The article then summarises the last 150 years of interpretation history which saw (a) the disappearance of Junia from the text and from scholarly discussion due to the impact of the short-from hypothesis in the nineteenth century, (b) the challenge to this male interpretation in connection with second wave feminism, and (c) the restoration of the female reading in the ensuing debate. Bringing together the main lines of the argument, it will be shown that there is only one reading supported by the evidence, the female reading which throughout the centuries was the more difficult reading in light of the church’s and society’s perception of women’s participation.

Keywords

• junia
• junias
• romans 16:7
• female apostle
• history of interpretation
• chrysostom
• pseudo-epiphanius
• luther
• calvin
• short-form hypothesis