Only one female speaker at General Conference this weekend

[_Lemmie]

Here is my post on the subject for all who are interested:

The Apostle Junia

Someone on Facebook tried to argue this with me a couple of weeks ago, so I figured it's high time I put something together that I can just link to.

Thank you, MsJack, a great and educational read! You have a very entertaining style. I notice z-man did get in there, sort of:

[Section Heading:]“But—but—Origen said Junia was a man!”

[MsJack:]No, Origen did not.

In looking at one of your references, I noticed you also have a version of this posted at ldstalk.com, a blog described as: "a conversation between Evangelical Christians and Latter Day Saints." It looks like you have some nice work there also, congrats! Between your blog and that, I'm looking forward to some interesting reading.

[_zerinus]

You are putting the cart before the horse. There is nothing in the Bible to indicate that the seventy (though Origen says they were Seventy-Two) were men only. The word for "others" in Luke 10 is masculine plural, but that doesn't tell us much because the masculine plural in Greek is potentially gender-inclusive. Had there been 71 women and 1 man in the group, the text still would have used the masculine plural because that's how Greek works. Jesus had numerous prominent female disciples who traveled with him and would have been needed to access situations that men couldn't easily access, so there's no reason to assume that every member of the seventy-two was male.

You keep on saying that I'm denying something as clear as a sunny day; well, ask any first-year Latin student whether the name "Junia" is masculine or feminine. They would tell you that "Junia" is the form for women in the Roman gens "Junia" and that men in the family would have used "Junius," not "Junia." When the Origin manuscript refers to Iunia / Iuniam / Iunia (nominative / accusative / ablative), we can be sure that he's talking about a woman and not a man.

Basically, this woman's name sounded every bit as feminine to ancient readers as "Jennifer" or "Stephanie" would sound in our day and age, yet you insist it was a man (!).

You act like the chameleon, changing colors all the time. There are two issues here that need to be resolved: (1) Was Junia a man or woman; and (2) was he/she an Apostle? Of these two questions, the second is the primary one. The first question: whether he/she was a man or a woman, is of secondary importance. If we can establish that Junia was not an Apostle, whether he/she was a man or a woman becomes irrelevant. The question of gender only becomes relevant once we have established without a doubt that he/she was an Apostle. And you are a long way from establishing that. The closest that you have come to it so far is that Origen suggested​ that Junia might have been one of the Seventies; and thus “apostle” in that sense of the term (i.e. “sent”). That is largely a non-issue. On the other hand, all the evidence we have from the New Testament is that neither Jesus nor any of his Apostles ever appointed a woman to any ministerial office in the Church, including Apostle, Seventy, Elder, or Bishop. All the examples we have is that they were men. So your insistence that Junia, an obscure individual whose identity (and gender) is under an enormous cloud of confusion and doubt, was not only a woman but a female Apostle stretches credulity to the extreme.

In any case, you started this thread claiming that Jesus made no women apostles nor members of the seventy. I have provided you with a biblical example of a female apostle and a very early reference from a Church Father saying this same woman was a member of the seventy(-two). I can lead a horse to water, but I can't make him think.

You have done no such thing. All you have done is to pile up an awful lot of speculative guesswork and unlikely assumptions on top of each other to draw from them a totally unwarranted definitive conclusion.

[_Lemmie]

[I] pile up an awful lot of speculative guesswork and unlikely assumptions on top of each other to draw from them a totally unwarranted definitive conclusion.

bracketed word added by me, to help z with his self-projection.

You act like the chameleon, changing colors all the time.

hm... like when zerinus posted a trolling definition of atheism here, after previously posting and arguing for the exact opposite definition on MADD?

If he feels this strongly about it, it would be interesting to have zerinus post his own scholarly work on the subject. His "uh-uh," and "no, you didn't" approach is just not cutting it.

[_spotlight]

MsJack,

Thanks for bringing this subject up. It seems reasonable that if the interpretation of Junia as a female apostle were correct that there would be other examples of female involvement in leadership roles as well. Turns out there seems to be much to corroborate this in early Christianity. This is fascinating to me as an exmo. Just another avenue that shows the church is not what it claims to be as if we really needed another.

The early church considered Mary Magdalene an “apostle to the apostles,” and Luke relied heavily on the testimony of women as he wrote both Luke and Acts.

The involvement of women continued in the first few decades of the church, attested by both biblical and extra-biblical sources. A number of women served as leaders of the house churches that sprang up in the cities of the Roman Empire—the list includes Priscilla, Chloe, Lydia, Apphia, Nympha, the mother of John Mark, and possibly the “elect lady” of John’s second epistle.

In the 2nd century, Clement of Alexandria wrote that the apostles were accompanied on their missionary journeys by women who were not marriage partners, but colleagues, “that they might be their fellow-ministers in dealing with housewives. It was through them that the Lord’s teaching penetrated also the women’s quarters without any scandal being aroused. We also know the directions about women deacons which are given by the noble Paul in his letter to Timothy.”

Was that perhaps the role of Junia? She was mentioned by Paul in Romans 16 as “of note among the apostles.” Some have debated the meaning of this verse, but early tradition holds that Junia was a woman and was considered an apostle. John Chrysostom wrote: “Indeed, to be an apostle at all is a great thing; but to be even amongst those of note; just consider what a great encomium that is … Oh, how great is the devotion of this woman, that she should even be counted worthy of the appellation of apostle.”

Until the Middle Ages, the identity of Junia as a female apostle was unquestioned. Later translators attempted to change the gender by changing the name to the masculine Junias. But such a name is unknown in antiquity; and there is absolutely no literary, epigraphical or papyrological evidence for it.

Paul also mentions Phoebe in Romans 16, “a deacon of the church at Cenchreae.” He calls her a prostatis or overseer. This term in its masculine form, prostates, was used later by the Apostolic Fathers to designate the one presiding over the Eucharist. And Paul uses the same verb, the passive of ginomai (to be or become), as he uses in Colossians 1:23: “I was made a minister.” In the passive, the verb sometimes indicated ordination or appointment to an office. Thus one might legitimately translate Paul’s statement about Phoebe: “For she has been appointed, actually by my own action, an officer presiding over many.” The church in Rome is asked to welcome her and assist her in the church’s business.

The four daughters of Philip appear in Acts 21:9 as prophetesses. Eusebius viewed these daughters as “belonging to the first stage of apostolic succession.”

Another prophetess attested to by extra-biblical tradition is Ammia, who prophesied in Philadelphia during New Testament times, and was received with reverence throughout Asia Minor. The first preserved mention of her dates to about 160 A.D.

But Christians were not the only ones prompted to write about the female followers of Jesus. About 112 A.D., the Roman governor Pliny the Younger detailed his efforts to cope with the nascent church in Bithynia. He had found it necessary to interrogate the leaders, two slave women called ministrae, or deacons. These women apparently followed in the tradition of Phoebe.

“This text teaches with the authority of the Apostle that even women are instituted deacons in the Church. This is the function which was exercised in the church of Cenchreae by Phoebe, who was the object of high praise and recommendation by Paul… And thus this text teaches at the same time two things: that there are, as we have already said, women deacons in the Church, and that women, who by their good works deserve to be praised by the Apostle, ought to be accepted in the diaconate.”

Deaconesses also assisted in the baptism of women, anointing them with oil and giving them instruction in purity and holiness. They could give communion to women who were sick and unable to meet with the entire church. The Apostolic Constitutions even specified that both male and female deacons might be sent with messages outside the city limits. The ministry of the widow was largely that of prayer, fasting, and laying of hands on the sick, while the deaconess, usually a considerably younger woman, undertook the more physically arduous tasks.

Ancient documents show that deaconesses were ordained. The Council of Chalcedon set down requirements for the ordination of deaconesses, and the Apostolic Constitutions includes their ordination prayer.

There are even a few scattered references connecting women to the priesthood. Pseudo-Ignatius’s Letter to the Tarsians commands that those who continue in virginity be honored as priestesses of Christ. The eldresses of Titus 2:3 must be “hieroprepeis,” a term that inscriptional evidence suggests should be translated “like a priestess,” or “like those employed in sacred service.” The Cappadocian Gregory of Nazianzus wrote to Gregory of Nyssa about Theosebia, “the pride of the church, the ornament of Christ, the finest of our generation, the free speech of women, Theosebia, the most illustrious among the brethren, outstanding in beauty of soul. Theosebia, truly a priestly personage, the colleague of a priest, equally honored and worthy of the great sacraments.”

The walls of the Roman catacombs bear pictures showing women in authoritative stances, with their hands raised in the posture of a bishop.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/histor ... hurch.html

[_Choyo Chagas]

Iunia / Iuniam / Iunia (nominative / accusative / ablative)

this is chinese for only-english-speakers
their grammatical cases are imaginary...

English has largely lost its case system, although it still has 3 cases that are simplified forms of nominative case, accusative case and genitive case: subjective case (I, you, he, she, it, we, they, who, whoever), objective case (me, you, him, her, it, us, them, whom, whomever) and possessive case (your, yours, my, mine, his, hers, its, their, theirs, our, ours, whose, whose ever). Distinctions can be seen with the personal pronouns: forms such as I, he and we are used in the role of subject ("I kicked the ball"), whereas forms such as me, him and us are used in the role of object ("John kicked me").

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_case)

fyi:
"Romanian has preserved a part of the Latin declension, but whereas Latin had six cases, from a morphological viewpoint, Romanian has only five: the nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and marginally the vocative."
see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_grammar for more

Languages such as Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, Latin, Armenian, Hungarian, Tibetan, Turkish, Tamil, Russian, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Estonian, Finnish, Icelandic, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Basque, Esperanto and the majority of Caucasian languages have extensive case systems, with nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and determiners all inflecting (usually by means of different suffixes) to indicate their case. A language may have a number of different cases (German and Icelandic have four; Turkish, Latin and Russian each have at least six; Armenian, Polish, Serbian, Croatian, Ukrainian, and Lithuanian have seven; Sanskrit has eight; Estonian and Finnish have fifteen, Hungarian has eighteen and Tsez has sixty-four). Commonly encountered cases include nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_case)

[_MsJack]

(1) Was Junia a man or woman;

This is a non-issue. We have hundreds of examples of women in antiquity named "Junia." We have not even a single example of a man named "Junia." It is a woman's name. Nothing to establish.

was he/she an Apostle?

The text of Romans 16:7 says that Junia was "outstanding among the apostles." There is no evidence from antiquity of the passage being understood in any other sense.

There is an abundance of evidence from antiquity of women serving as deacons and moderate evidence for them as elders, bishops, priests, and other heads of church. For example, John Chrysostom on Euodia & Synteche from Philippians 4:3: "It appears to me that these women were the heads of the church at Philippi." (Homily 13) Women in the New Testament are directly called by every church title men are called by save for elder.

I quoted a 10th century bishop who summarized the evidence for ordained women in antiquity earlier in this thread here.

spotlight ~ I'm glad you're enjoying the topic! Yes, women were very active in leadership in the early church, and Christianity was wildly popular among women because of it. Celibacy offered women freedom from the tyranny of first-century marriage with its unending cycle of pregnancy, childbirth, and subjection to one's husband. And the much-maligned household code from Ephesians 5 was actually meant to soften the authority of the Roman paterfamilias code. But as the church became a more public institution, it adopted the patriarchal mores of the wider society, and women's leadership regressed mostly to leadership of other women.

We see similar patterns in other areas of the world where Christianity is a fledgling or persecuted movement. The majority of Christian pastors in China are women, even though men far outnumber women there. They don't bother with extended debates on whether or not women can be pastors, they just do the Lord's work. I always find it hilarious watching evangelicals who oppose women's ordination try to be happy and excited for Christianity's growth in China all the while grumbling about the high number of female pastors. Churches have to grow bloated and comfortable before they can afford the luxury of handicapping ~50% of the church.

If you like this subject, I recommend Eldon Jay Epp's book on Junia or Ordained Women in the Early Church: A Documentary History by Madigan and Osiek. It's a very different world from what the Mormon church teaches about the early church for sure.

[_MsJack]

this is chinese for only-english-speakers

Sorry about that. It really is hard to explain some of these issues for non-Latin & non-Greek speakers.

[_zerinus]

(1) Was Junia a man or woman;

This is a non-issue. We have hundreds of examples of women in antiquity named "Junia." We have not even a single example of a man named "Junia." It is a woman's name. Nothing to establish.

was he/she an Apostle?

The text of Romans 16:7 says that Junia was "outstanding among the apostles." There is no evidence from antiquity of the passage being understood in any other sense.

There is an abundance of evidence from antiquity of women serving as deacons and moderate evidence for them as elders, bishops, priests, and other heads of church. For example, John Chrysostom on Euodia & Synteche from Philippians 4:3: "It appears to me that these women were the heads of the church at Philippi." (Homily 13) Women in the New Testament are directly called by every church title men are called by save for elder.

I quoted a 10th century bishop who summarized the evidence for ordained women in antiquity earlier in this thread here.

I just did a quick search on the Internet, and found this well written and balanced article on the subject by someone who is an expert on New Testament Greek. I find myself in agreement with his analysis of the subject. He sums up his conclusion in these words:

"In sum, until further evidence is produced that counters the working hypothesis, we must conclude that Andronicus and Junia were not apostles, but were known to the apostles. To be sure, our conclusion is tentative. But it is always safer to stand on the side of some evidence than on the side of none at all."

That makes good sense to me. You want to stand on the side of no evidence. I prefer to be on the side of some evidence.

[_MsJack]

You want to stand on the side of no evidence. I prefer to be on the side of some evidence.

The article that you link to is by Daniel B. Wallace, and it appears to predate his 2001 paper on the subject. Upon the publication of his paper in 2001, three other scholars published thorough critiques of his work. As I said in my blog post on the subject (which you will now have no problem reading since it is the same length as the article by Wallace that you just linked to, I am sure): his thesis was found to be slipshod and based on sparse evidence. It's been 16 years and he has yet to release a subsequent paper defending his thesis.

Not only does "outstanding among the apostles" fit the sense of the Greek immensely better than "esteemed by the apostles," but quite literally, every church father who commented on the passage took it as such. If that's what you call "no evidence," I just don't think there's any hope for you to see reason.

[_zerinus]

You want to stand on the side of no evidence. I prefer to be on the side of some evidence.

The article that you link to is by Daniel B. Wallace, and it appears to predate his 2001 paper on the subject. Upon the publication of his paper in 2001, three other scholars published thorough critiques of his work. As I said in my blog post on the subject (which you will now have no problem reading since it is the same length as the article by Wallace that you just linked to, I am sure): his thesis was found to be slipshod and based on sparse evidence. It's been 16 years and he has yet to release a subsequent paper defending his thesis.

Not only does "outstanding among the apostles" fit the sense of the Greek immensely better than "esteemed by the apostles," but quite literally, every church father who commented on the passage took it as such. If that's what you call "no evidence," I just don't think there's any hope for you to see reason.

Well, I am not going to spend the rest of my life researching and debating you on this subject. I reckon I have enough basic knowledge of the scriptures to be satisfied that all the Apostles (in a technical sense, meaning the 12) that Jesus chose were males. We even have their names. Most of them had been fishermen, though some others had had other occupations. There is absolutely no reason to assume that the Seventies were anything other than males either. They were "sent out" to preach the gospel. It would not have been consistent with the culture of the time to send out women to preach the gospel. As far as the other church offices were concerned, we know that the bishops and deacons were males, because Paul writes and tells us so. Likewise Elders were by definition males. Here is how Paul describes the qualifications for these offices:

1 Timothy 3:

1 This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.
2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;
3 Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous;
4 One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity;
5 (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)
6 Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.
7 Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.
8 Likewise must the deacons be grave, not doubletongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre;
9 Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience.
10 And let these also first be proved; then let them use the office of a deacon, being found blameless.
11 Even so must their wives be grave, not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things.
12 Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well.
13 For they that have used the office of a deacon well purchase to themselves a good degree, and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.

So the 12 Apostles were males. The Seventies were males. The bishops were males. The Elders were males. The Deacons were males. What is there left to be females?