Tempering with Junia

From: Bart Ehrman (behrman@email.unc.edu)
Date: Fri Oct 13 1995 - 10:25:08 EDT


    I'm trying to track down some of the modifications of the NT text that
appear to reflect early Xn opposition to the active role of women in the
church. In a passage batted about on this list occasionally, Rom 16:7,
there is a variant that, to my knowledge, no one has made much or anything
of, the addition of an article prior to the word _sunaixmalwtous_ in P46
and B. The change could of course simply tie the word back more closely
to the _suggeneis_ preceding. But could it also allow for an alternative
reading of the text, so that it no longer says "Greet Andronikus and
Junias, my kin and fellow prisoners, who are preeminent among the
apostles" but instead, possibly, "Greet Andronikus and Junias, my kin.
And (also greet) my fellow prisoners who are preeminent among the
apostles"? If so, the English translators who have been so keen to
perform a sex change on Junia may have some (more) like-minded forebears.

   Reflections and reactions?

-- Bart D. Ehrman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill



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