| Question Title | Posted By | Question Date |
|---|---|---|
| Junia - The Lost (Female) Apostle | Eugene | Sunday, August 12, 2007 |
Question: The Toronto Star newspaper posted an article in the Living Section titled "Becoming Junia - Again". It states that she(he) is mentioned in the New Testament in Paul's letter to the Roman Christians, but doesn't state which paragraph. In short the article is about Junia's sex. The article goes on to state that Junia is a female Apostle that Church fathers and scholars recognized her as an apostle from the first to the twelveth centuries. It states that she as an apostle was erased from history because it was unthinkable that a women could have been an apostle. As a Catholic of the Eastern Rite Church, this is all news to me. There is reference to a Rena Pederson, a journalist who conducted a search of dozens of Bible Translations(the artcle states). She published a book of that search titled "The Lost Apostle:Searching for the Truth about Junia"(Jossy Bass). Is this another DiVinci Code argument? Can you shed some light on this topic. |
||
| Question Answered by Bro. Ignatius Mary, OLSM
Dear Eugene: I am very sorry that it has taken several months to answer your question. This forum has been closed since 2005. I am not sure how you and others found the submit page, but I will have to look into it. That is why I did not notice your question until now. I just discovered this today. . .
To your question: The first problem is identifying whether or not this person was male or female. Determining that is a matter of one little accent over the Greek letters. An "acute accent" would render a female name Junia; a circumflex accent renders the male name Junias. The reference is in Roman 16:7 which in KJV reads: "Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellow-prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me." Frankly regardless of whether or not the name of Junia is correctly rendered as female, this passage says nothing of the sort that either Andronicus or Junia are apostles. It says they are "of note among the apostles." All that means is that they were well-known among the bishops (the apostles were bishops), that is, the bishops knew about them and perhaps admired them. One does not have to be an apostle to be "of note" to the apostles. In any event, women were involved in ministry, but they were NOT ordained clergy (not priests or deacons). Whatever position they held was a lay position. Just as they are lay leaders in the Church today and many who are women, so too back then. Women did go out on missions. The word "Apostle" means a person "sent on a mission." But, this does not mean that the "apostle" is an ordained priest, it only means that they were "sent out." As for the Church suppressing this by "erasing from history" this is nonsense and a statement of outright bigotry and stupidity. This accusation cannot be supported with any actual facts. The Church has not "erased from history" anything, not even the worse warts in the Church. The Catholic Church is the only institution on the planet that tells the truth about its history, even the facts about corrupt popes. The only one who messes with history, like cowards, are the anti-Catholics who would rather lie about history than affirm the truth about the Church. God Bless,
|
||