Ιουνιαν … επισημοι εν τοις αποστολοις: A Re-examination of Romans 16.7 in Light of Primary Source Materials

Abstract

Church tradition from the Old Latin and Vulgate versions and the early Greek and Latin fathers onwards affirms and lauds a female apostle. Yet modern scholarship has not been comfortable with the attribution, as the masculine circumflex of the Erwin Nestle and United Bible Societies' Greek editions from 1927 to 2001 and the masculine Junias in translations from the mid-1940s to the mid-1970s show. More recently, the New English Translation (NET) and the English Standard Version (ESV) concede a feminine but change the attribution from the time-honored ‘of note among’ to ‘well-known to the apostles’. However, an examination of primary usage in the computer databases of Hellenistic Greek literary works, papyri, inscriptions, and artifacts confirms the feminine Ιουνια and shows επισημοι εν plus the plural dative bears without exception the inclusive sense ‘notable among’.