One of Apostles was a woman, Church is told

EVIDENCE that one of the Apostles of Jesus was a woman is being examined by leaders of the Church of England, who are debating whether women should be ordained bishops.

Joanna, who was close to Jesus during His ministry, changed her name to Junia and was recognised by St Paul as an Apostle, research to be published later this year found. Her role was ignored for centuries because medieval scholars altered the name to Junias to make it masculine.

Joanna, who was with Mary Magdalen when the empty tomb was discovered and taken as proof of the Resurrection, changed her Hebrew name to a Latin name to fit in with the Romanised culture of Tiberias, where she lived, Richard Bauckham, Professor of New Testament Studies at St Andrews University, says.

The defection of the powerful courtier to the new Christian movement was seen as even more scandalous because she was married to Chuza, one of Herod’s most influential stewards. Joanna converted her husband, changed the way she dressed and used her own money to support the mission.

Although it has been previously suggested in theological circles that the Apostle Junia was a female, she has never previously been linked to Joanna and the Herodian upper class of Tiberias.

The discovery suggests that not only was society far less patriarchal than previous research has shown, but that women such as Joanna may have used their wealth and standing in society to convert others to their cause. Joanna and Chuza were among the large numbers of disciples who gathered when Jesus appeared to rise from the dead. She witnessed the Crucifixion and Chuza later changed his name to Andronicus, Professor Bauckham says.

Professor Bauckham’s paper, Junia the Apostle, will be discussed during the meeting of the General Synod. Its presentation to a bishops’ working party on the theology of women in the episcopate will challenge the perception of the apostles that has dominated the Church since AD400.

Although Jerome, regarded as the most important religious scholar of that time, considered Junia to be a woman, subsequent translations in the Middle Ages and the King James Bible changed her name to the male Junias.

Robert Bartlett, Professor of Medieval History at St Andrews University, said: “If a name like Junia was a little ambiguous, the medieval scribes were quite likely to make mistakes. Certainly the medieval Church was male-dominated and wanted it to stay that way, but whether someone was cooking the books to make it appear that the Apostles were all men is not yet certain.” Medieval scribes were known for their inaccuracies, he said.

The assumption that the leading Apostles were all men has been one of the most unassailable arguments against the ordination of women bishops.

If the claim that Joanna and Junia were the same person, and that Junia was a woman and an Apostle is accepted, the argument for women bishops will have been all but won.

The “greatest surprise”, Professor Bauckham said, was that St Paul knew one of them “and considered her an outstanding Apostle”. Her high status would have conferred social legitimacy on the new religious movement.

After witnessing the Resurrection she left for Rome with her husband. Both were imprisoned for their beliefs and never heard of again.

As Junia, she was described by St Paul in a letter to the Romans as “prominent among the Apostles”. She was a wealthy woman from King Herod’s court who turned to Jesus after seeing Him heal a friend’s wife, he says.

There are several problems:

1. the story makes it appear that Paul said in Romans that Junia was a wealthy woman from Herod's court, etc., etc.. It doesn't. This is conjecture on the prof's part and probably bad writing on the part of the correspondent filing the story.

2. people nowadays assume "apostle" to be synonymous with "one of The Twelve". It wasn't. Paul was considered, though not by himself, to have been one of the greatest apostles, though he was not one of The Twelve. Furthermore, Paul said that both Andronicus and Junias were a. "outstanding among the apostles", b. had been in prison with him, and c. were his relatives. If, by the last, he was merely referring to "brothers and sisters in Christ", we could also ask why no amazement on the prof's part over what could have been a Gentile apostle. There's certainly more evidence in the text for this than for his assertion that Julias is really Joanna who underwent a nominal sex-change operation.

3. The transmutation of Joanna to Junias is something that took place in the prof's own mind in order that his thesis be established. True, Joanna, Susanna, and many other women helped to support the ministry of Jesus:

After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, 2. and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; 3. Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod's household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.
--Luke 8:1-3

But none of this is establishing her (or Susanna) as an apostle. The prof has to get creative here. What role of the women in the Gospels does show, though, is that in the Gospel accounts and the rest of the NT the women weren't described as meek, submissive workhorses for the men. While the remainder of The Twelve were hiding out in fear of getting arrested, the women were trudging down before dawn with a load of embalming spices to a site with a sealed tomb and Roman guards ordered to maintain an perimeter between the body and everyone else. The women were intent on getting in and doing what needed to be done. The women, not The Eleven, discovered that Jesus had been resurrected. So much for those who talk about the "male-dominated" early church. Women were described throughout the New Testament as being in prominent, important positions.

Bottom line: the prof, building his thesis from one reference to Junias in Romans and two references to Joanna in the book of Luke, is being somewhat less creative than those who claimed Jesus to have been a psychedelic mushroom, though not much.

The women, not The Eleven, discovered that Jesus had been resurrected. So much for those who talk about the "male-dominated" early church. Women were described throughout the New Testament as being in prominent, important positions.

Something which struck me as I read this . . . which has never entered my mind previously: The Apostles, who walked with Jesus, would not even have Him speak to a woman, much less a Samaritan woman. . . . and here we have, after His death, the apostles writing about and praising women.....a complete "change of heart" on the effectiveness, ability, understanding, and God's desire for women on spiritual things. And yet, I do not read in the Scriptures where God suggests it is desirable that women lead men .... unless there is a reason for it . . . and then must be done with sensitivity and humility because the man is the head of the woman, as Christ is the head of the church.

Thanks for the ping, mom.

My point is that if God was not working in how the Resurrection was transmitted, then that would seem to undermine its meaning, since the idea of returning from death was not new in either Hellinism or Judaism. This way in which the Resurrection is told however, does seem new given the ways in which women were denied leadership roles in virtually all societies of the period, including Judeo-Roman. Rather whereas, here is a woman now conveying the greatest news ever to be told to the men who had abandoned Christ, and who will not believe her now, even on that basis.

Not so much that I am arguing for women's apostleship, or their current admittance to any contemporary priesthood, yet that I do sense something profound in the way in which the divinely inspired Word carries the sense of the Resurrection forth. And which, as in commenting to your post, is not a rewrite - feminist or otherwise - of history, but at least according to the Gospels, the way it IS.

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