Junia Is Not Alone

Short review: This is a very short book (really an article) on Junia and her history. We do not know much about Junia (mentioned only in Rom 16:7), but we do know that throughout much of the last 500 years of Christian history she has been referred to as a man or if acknowledges as a women was reduced from her role as an apostle.

I wish there was more here. It really does not even scratch the surface. McKnight has a blog and this would make a better long blog article than a short book. It is worth reading, but I am not sure it is worth paying $2.99 for.

I would suggest you read How I Changed My Mind About Women in Leadership first. It actually deals with scripture and the struggle of how people come to understand that women should be in church leadership.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/junia/

I wish this book was longer, but it serves as a nice, strong introduction to Junia and the topic of how women have been silenced so many times throughout history. And now I want to read pretty much everything he referenced or cited.

Here is what you need to know: “in Greek New Testament composite texts—from Erasmus in the Reformation era to the famous German scholar Erwin Nestle's edition of the Greek New Testament in 1927, Junia was a woman. Apart from one lesser known publication of the Greek New Testament, which had Junias in a footnote but not in the text, no Greek New Testament had anything but Junia, a woman's name, until Nestle's edition in 1927.”

“In changing her name and creating a new male name, Nestle buried Junia alive.”

“Let me be clear once more: The editors of Greek New Testaments killed Junia. They killed her by silencing her into non-existence. They murdered that innocent woman by erasing her from the footnotes.”