I have been lurking in Art’s post below regarding Dr. Lillback’s essay, and caught a comment that I think is worthy of a new thread. GLW had this to say:
I am most uncomfortable with the recent developement of what goes by the moniker ‘trajectory hermeneutics’ and even more so when that concept is applied to the arguement that Enns’ is on a trajectory that was set by Warfield- never mind that BBW during his career opposed similar concepts that were being advanced by C.A. Briggs . It is much the same with the advocates of trajectory hermeneutics-they dispense with the Biblical texts on homosexuality and the role of women in the Church-never mind what Paul actually saying- we have to interpret those texts with this trajectory in mind at all times-one word captures this-waxnose. (The highlighting is mine.)
This is a topic of serious interest to me. If I’m understanding GLW correctly, he’s saying that those who employ trajectory hermeneutics “dispense with the Biblical texts on . . . the role of women in the Church.” I think that’s worth discussing, especially in light of the upcoming PCA GA debate about the ordination of women deacons.
It’s no secret that I am an advocate for opening all leadership positions in the church to called and equipped women. It’s been a pleasure on those opportunities I’ve had to sit under the preaching of a close friend and classmate as she proclaims the gospel in her PCUSA church while preparing for ordination. The parishioners of her church are blessed by her teaching, and the gospel is going forth powerfully. But am I dispensing with the biblical texts in my support for her and others?
I would argue not, and here are a few reasons why:
- Judges 4-5, the Deborah narrative, refers to Deborah in 4:4 as “Deborah, a woman, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth . . . “ She speaks the words of Yahweh to Barak, and he recognizes her authority. She is later referred to as a judge (4:4-5) and a mother in Israel (5:7).The formula of her biblical introduction is echoed in 6:8, describing the prophet to the people of Israel who delivers an indictment against them for their faithlessness which led to the Midianite oppression.
- 2 Kings 22:14, Huldah is a prophetess, who delivered the word of Yahweh to Hilkiah the priest and four others in service to Josiah.
- Acts 16:40 describes Lydia as householder with a church in her home, and Acts 18 portrays Priscilla as Paul’s colaborer and teacher.
- In Romans 16:7, Paul names Junia as “outstanding (or of note or prominent or highly respected) among the apostles.” (NIV; NASB; KJV; Young’s Literal; NLT; NRSV). The ESV alone takes ἐπίσημοι ἐν τοῖς ἀποστόλοις and translates it “well known to the apostles,” something of a stretch as far as I’m concerned.
- I note that in 1 Cor 1:11, Paul indicates that his letter is at least partially in response to the report from “Chloe’s people.”
- Nympha oversees a house church in Col 4:15.
- Euodia and Syntyche were Paul’s colaborers in Philippi along with Clement, (Phil 4:2-3), and reasonably part of the leadership group referred to in Phil 1:1 – overseers and deacons.
And so on.
There is a wealth of texts in both the OT and NT that point to substantial leadership roles on the part of women. There are texts that say something different, with 1 Tim 2:11-12 as the strongest among these, but there are quite reasonable exegetical approaches that tame the force of the the plain reading. These, I might add, are not particularly tied to a trajectory hermeneutic, but rely primarily on the overall context of the book, and Paul’s concern about the power of the false teachers over young widows (1 Tim 5:11-15, and esp. v. 13).
I’d like to know what you, our readers, are thinking about on this subject, both in agreement and disagreement. I would welcome discussion particular to the PCA debate, and of course, in general.
TM
May 23, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Carlos, it’s important to establish that Scripture supports women’s ordination (a phrase I prefer because we all know exactly what it means, and it’s usually the line of demarcation) because the arguments against it are typically couched in Scripture. An appeal to Scripture in the minds of most evangelicals – one way or the other – typcially trumps every other argument. I’ve heard it in my own church that we don’t ordain women because “that’s what the Bible teaches.” It’s a real conversation killer if one is not equipped to respond with the extensive arguments to the contrary. Establishing what Scripture says on the subject, or perhaps better, what Scripture permits, is crucial if there is to be change.
May 23, 2008 at 12:05 pm
TM and Justin:
For my part I am not trying to link egalitarianism to liberalism. I am only relating how “outsiders” tend to say that evangelical egalitarianism is a product of social progressiveness and other practical considerations. Why all the fuss about having the Bible support it too?
May 23, 2008 at 11:57 am
TheologicalMom’s points in comment #17 are right-on. Grudem and many other complementarians are VERY quick to link “a hermeneutic which allows for women’s ordination” with “support for the whole liberal agenda” (Grudem especially accuses egalitarians of opening wide the door to homosexuality). But as TM points out, there are many ways that denominations can arrive at women’s ordination, and not all of them involve “liberal” hermeneutics.
To state just a few more examples, none of which are mentioned in Grudem’s recent “Evangelical Feminism: A new path to liberalism?”:
1. the Nazarenes have been ordaining women to all church offices since the 1890s, yet their refusal to affirm homosexuality hasn’t changed. Neither have their other articles of faith.
2. The African Methodist Episcopal church has been ordaining women to preach since 1884, and to full pastoral status since 1948, and recently had a female bishop, and yet their doctrine (as expressed in the Apostles’ Creed and the Twenty-Five Articles) hasn’t changed. They, too, arrived at their decision without “abandoning Scripture.”
3. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion church has had female deacons since 1894 and female elders since 1898. Their ethical and other doctrines remain very traditional.
4. The Assemblies of God have had female evangelists, pastors, and missionaries since their early days, and have been ordaining them since 1935.
For some perspective, we should note that EACH ONE of these denominations contains well over 1 million members (the Nazarene church alone is five times the size of the PCA). Yet, strangely, we don’t hear much about them when critics of women’s ordination are seeking to link that practice with liberal hermeneutics.
May 23, 2008 at 11:56 am
Yes, I know, GLW. But I do believe that there is a limit to what scripture can decide for us. That boundary is vague, I cannot delineate it. But there’s a point where scripture ceases to be a good arbiter for disputes. I think the women’s issue is one of issues, precisely because of the competing hermeneutical trajectories you mentioned earlier.
May 23, 2008 at 11:51 am
TM:
“I prefer a Christotelic redemptive historical hermeneutic.”
I think you illustrate well GLW’s trajectory-complaint. Scripture’s can be shaped to say many politically correct things as long as one opts for an appropriate interpretive trajectory. What you call “hermeneutic” is a very important component of what I am calling “tradition.” You are validating a major point that I make in my book: it’s not ultimately one’s scripture that is authoritative but one’s tradition. I am not saying that that’s a bad thing, but I have not seen many conservative discussions that are openly conducted under these terms. At least I was never taught about having intra-Christian discussions with this kind of pre-understanding.
May 23, 2008 at 11:43 am
Carlos
What about the differences between Calvinists and Arminians? Is it simply a matter of interpretative angles? You have opened a can of worms if all you can say is personal preferences enable people to adopt views simply because they like them.Very post modern of you.
May 23, 2008 at 11:41 am
“2 Tim” should be “1 Tim 2″
May 23, 2008 at 11:34 am
Kent:
I’ve always been taught to turn to scripture for answers, not input. Scripture is no help with regard to providing a definitive answer on the issue of ordaining women. Don’t get me wrong, Scripture’s input is helpful, but it does nothing for an authoritative answer and that’s a main reason I poured over the Bible as much as I did in my earlier years as a believer: to find answers.
Consulting scripture for input is a very different attitude from what I’ve always been taught and one that will need some getting used to. I’ve come to realize that that’s how the Bible has always been used, even if under the pretenses of THE authoritative “Word of God.”
GLW:
If scripture is silent on a topic, then scripture will have little to say on that topic. That doesn’t mean that we can’t argue substantively for one position or another based on other sources of knowledge. FYI, the Bible CLEARLY says to me that women should not be ordained. But as I say in my book, what’s clear to one person is not clear to others and arguing from the Bible has not gotten me anywhere when trying to convince egalitarians of that view. The Bible has decided the issue of ordaining women for me personally but it has totally failed as an arbiter between persons of opposing viewpoints. That leads to me believe that I have probably come to my decision based on other factors, just as the egalitarians have reached theirs by virtue of other factors. For my part I’d say that my position was prompted by 2 Tim and church tradition, which happened to be supported by the culture I was raised in, and for the egalitarians, their position was prompted by egalitarian concerns that caused them to question 2 Tim and church tradition to the effect that they found other scriptures that lend support to their view. But they can easily reverse the orders, even if I disagree.
Scripture does not decide the matter between complementarians and egalitarians. So I agree with those denominations who say that churches should be able to make up their own minds.
May 23, 2008 at 11:27 am
Taking it from the top . . .
GLW Johnson. First, apologies for truncating your name. I was working quickly. As for your reading recommendations, I have and have read Webb, and am more than familiar with Grudem. I did a quick search for the Loughlin online, and got enough to catch the gist. My point, however, it’s not necessary to employ so-called trajectory hermeneutics to make the case for women’s ordination. There is abundant Scriptural material to support it without going there.
Webb’s system is quite complex, and I think it’s got some inherent weaknesses. I prefer a Christotelic redemptive historical hermeneutic, which does recognize movement in that it allows for a second reading textual reinterpretation in light of Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension, and – here agreeing with Webb – the notion of an ultimate ethic towards which history is driving which we won’t experience until the eschaton. I think a redemptive historical hermeneutic leads to the full participation of women in all aspects of ministry, but I also don’t think you need it to get there. My point in the post is that careful review of the texts in context and on their own merit can give that answer.
On the subject of diversity in Scripture, I’m in Kent’s camp. Fully agree. This is an area where Scripture’s instruction on wisdom and the work of the Holy Spirit in applying it is essential. In keeping with the theme of the post, women are shown to be in positions of high leadership throughout Scripture. At the same time, there are situations where women have caused harm to the church (the point in 1 Timothy). It becomes a matter of wisdom and the leading of the Holy Spirit as to when women are fit and called to lead. Priscilla – yes. The young, gossiping widows in Ephesus – no.
Carlos, as to your point that egalitarianism is a mark of the liberal church, and possibly unsupported by Scripture . . . I would argue that it’s a logical fallacy. Indeed, liberal churches were early adopters of women’s ordination, and in some cases for the wrong reasons. But, for example, in the case of the PCUS – a main predecessor denomination of the PCUSA and PCA – careful Scriptural arguments on behalf of women’s ordination were presented in the 1957 GA, but rejected (although not rebutted). By the time the denomination did approve women’s ordination (1963), it was done primarily out of a response to cultural momentum in the wake of liberalism than because of exegesis, but the exegesis still existed. By 1963, the liberal/conservative makeup of the denomination had shifted liberal, and those who had long been convinced that women could preach no longer needed to argue persuasively to the other side because they had the numbers.
This is one example, but it demonstrates the problem. The conservatives were upset, and took the 1963 snapshot as determinative; in other words, liberalism and women’s ordination are inextricably joined. In truth, however, they are really independent variables with high levels of correlation. However, correlation is not causation. One might be able to say that all liberal churches ordain women, but one cannot say that all churches which ordain women are liberal.
Carlos, on your further point that the Scriptures aren’t helpful regarding women – well, we’re going to have to disagree. I think they’re not only helpful, but clear, for all the reasons I’ve already set forth.
Craig, I think Kent’s answer is good on the subject of diversity. I’d only add that the price of oil is also a function of increased systemic demand worldwide. (Sorry; couldn’t help myself!)
Finally, Kent, on the matter of worrying about getting it wrong. I’m not, for exactly the reasons you suggest. It’s incredulous to me that there are those who think a called, equipped, and gifted woman preacher who proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ is damaging either the kingdom or the saints. There is simply no downside here – except, perhaps for the inept male pastor she might replace. In reality, such women have been proclaimers on the mission field for decades. When women go where men don’t want to, it’s remarkable how little flak is raised.
May 23, 2008 at 10:43 am
Carlos
Tell me, since you don’t think the Scriptures are up to the task of addressing the issue of the role of women in the church- does that also apply to the issue of same-sex marriages? We are constantly told that Jesus never once mentioned the subject of homosexuality.How about abortion? Or even cannibalism? Jesus was silent on those as well.
May 23, 2008 at 9:35 am
Craig:
Yes, that’s right. There is a way of having diversity that doesn’t involve contradiction. In theory, if I say that the price of oil is rising because of demand, and you say that the price is rising because of a falling dollar, that’s diversity … but we’re both right.
The trick is this: when human beings make claims like this, we’re not very good at seeing the margins that separate our claims from reality. Most people who say, “Oil prices are rising because of demand,” are actually meaning that “Oil prices are rising [only] because of demand.” This means that their claim is partly wrong because the weight they are placing on the role of demand in pricing is wrong. In sum, their ideas about oil pricing are partly right and partly wrong. In my view (and in the views of postmodern realism), this “mixed” view of reality inheres in all [or just about all] human understandings of reality; theologically speaking, ALL of our perceptions are effected by our finiteness and fallenness.
Practially speaking, this epistemic situation is not a problem because the part we’re right about is what usually matters in day to day life.
Carlos:
You said: “Women’s issue seems undecidable. Scripture is no help here.”
Even if Scripture is diverse and contradictory on the issue, i don’t think that means it’s of no help. When I’m doing research of any kind, I’m assisted by reading diverse viewpoints and sources. The same applies here, I think.
And on TM’s topic:
There’s another matter to consider: Why should the question of women in ministry be weighted down so much with worries about getting that theological judgement wrong? There’s alot more in the Bible about eschatology than about women in ministry, but evangelicals allow for great diversity of viewpoint on the matter. Why not relax in a similar way on the question of women in ministry? Even if we assume (for the sake of discussion) that women shouldn’t be pastors, how much damage is done if a very effective female pastor preaches instead of an innept male pastor?
May 22, 2008 at 9:38 pm
One thought on Junia/Junias. Iunia is an obvious Latin woman’s name; the Gk is a transliteration. It’s amazing to me that anything else was ever seriously considered.
May 22, 2008 at 8:27 pm
“Hodge writes, “Protestants hold that the Bible, being addressed to the people, is sufficiently perspicuous to be understood by them, under the guidance of he Holy Spirit; and that they are entitled and bound to search the Scripture, and to judge for themselves what is its true meaning.” His son and successor at Princeton Seminary affirmed, “[T]he Scriptures are in such a sense perspicuous that all that is necessary for man to know, in order to his salvation or for his practical guidance in
duty, may be learned therefrom, and that they are designed for the personal use and
are adapted to the instruction of the unlearned as well as the learned.”” (L. Pettegrew, “The Perspicuity of Scripture,” TMSJ 15 [2004]: 211, http://www.tms.edu/tmsj/tmsj15i.pdf)
Women’s issue seems undecidable. Scripture is no help here. One’s stance will come down to other factors. It seems to me that a host of Protestant ecclesial practices are like this, finding their support in the various church traditions ironically enough.
I find it doubly ironic that scripture is paraded as if it were clear about “those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation” when there is not a little disagreement over what these things are in the first place.
May 22, 2008 at 5:50 pm
c bovell
By the perspicuity of Scripture most don’t mean that everything in Scripture is clear or that Scripture gives us clear answers to every question we might ask. The WCF(I7), for example, delimits the doctrine to “those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation”. As to the egalitarians you mention I would ask them where they get their egalitarianism. Though the answer to that question won’t be simple, it will, if honest, include some reference to our Judaeo Christian heritage (i.e. the Bible). By the way, Amazon finally came through with your book. I’m enjoying reading it.
Kent Sparks
We agree then that the issue isn’t simply about theological diversity. It seems to me we have at least two issues. 1. Are there conflicting theologies in the Scriptures? Even this is probably too vague since ‘conflicting’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘contradicting’. 2. Assuming we can identify trajectories in the diverse teachings of Scripture, to what extent can those trajectories be driven by our own culture? I suspect 2 is the real issue and 1 is simply a side issue.
May 22, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Hi Craig:
The concept of progressive revelation has some merit, but it leaves many dangling questions. Two of these questions are: (1) Why is revelation progressive? [i.e., Why doesn't God simply write his book and be done with it all at once?] (2) Do the new concepts and ideas progressivly revealed only give us more about what we has already been revealed, or do these new ideas and concepts actually contrast or contradict with earlier ideas?
It is the second question that is really important here (the first merely helps us explain the “why” of the answer). My answer to the second question is that the new revelation sometimes contradicts and conflicts with “earlier” revelation. This differs from the older evangelical approaches, which want the earlier revelation to be partial but still perfectly inerrant. That’s wrong in my opinion, both because it’s philosophically impossible and because the contradictions are so obvious that I don’t think one needs the insights of postmodern philosophy (or premodern theology) to notice them.
There’s also the matter that “progressive revelation” may not be chronologically progressive. In the case of the female leadership issue raised by TM, one of the most egalitarian texts in the Bible is Deborah’s divinely-chosen role as Israel’s judge. By all accounts this is very old text, yet it strikes me as more egalitarian than the pastorals.
Ultimately, I think that theological trajectories are the result of following God’s lead as he speaks to us through the created order, Scripture, tradition, experience, and the Spirit. In most cases there are no simple formulas, excepting when we have an obvious OT vs. NT trajectory that explicitly given by Scripture.
I believe that just about everyone (including GLW) admits there is diversity in the Bible and that progressive revelation is a valid concept related to this diversity. If that’s true, then the real dissagrement is the nature of the diversity.
May 22, 2008 at 2:47 pm
“In the March 2003 issue, a Midwestern evangelical furiously complains that an article on Third-world Christianity by religion scholar Philip Jenkins is off the mark. Specifically, the correspondent complains that Jenkins “sees the ordination of women as marking ‘liberal’ theology.” This is a distortion, the writer argues, since “conservative theologians in my own church body have come to see the restriction of ordination to men as fundamentally a misinterpretation of Scripture (which, to be honest, we might not have bothered to verify until more-secular forces aroused us!).” …
The response from the Atlantic writer is instructive. Jenkins is not an evangelical partisan arguing against theological liberalism, but a marginally Catholic expert on world religions. As such, Jenkins calls on the evangelical correspondent to honestly question whether or not the Bible teaches gender egalitarianism. Jenkins therefore notes that he differs with the letter writer on “the definition of contemporary ecclesiastical liberalism”-not that there is anything wrong with that.
“Some New Testament passages seem, prima facie, to veto a leadership role for women in the Church, and Church traditions offer powerful support for that stance,” Jenkins responds. “For various reasons, many churches have decided that these scriptural and traditional authorities no longer apply. In other words, they are arguing for a substantial revision of the bases of Christian authority-one that most would, I think, view as liberal on the political and religious spectrum. If these ideas are not strictly ‘theological,’ there is certainly a very high degree of correlation between those holding liberal theological views and those urging such modernizing reforms in Church life.”
The Atlantic is representative here of a larger phenomenon. More and more “mainstream” egalitarians seem to be saying to evangelical feminists: “We agree with your feminism, but why pretend that the Bible supports it?” ”
http://www.cbmw.org/Journal/Vol-8-No-1/Cultural-Commentary-Steinem-I-Know-and-Smeal-I-Know-But-Who-Are-You
I proposed in my book that scripture is not a sufficient arbiter for answering the question regarding women’s ordination. Something else has to (or maybe someone else). What does this mean for perpescuity?
May 22, 2008 at 2:00 pm
I’m not sure theological diversity vs. non diversity is the most helpful way to frame the issue. Following some form of progressive revelation (like Vos’s Biblical Theology) all might rightfully claim diversity. The real question, it seems to me, is what drives the diversity (or what defines the trajectory)? Is it something we derive from the Scriptures or does our culture play a major role?
May 22, 2008 at 9:47 am
Kent
We ‘ve gone around this bush a couple times already. You still appear to be using the word ‘diverse’ as a synonym for ‘contradiction’. We have very distinct and different doctrines of Scripture. You celebrate , like most postmoderns, the notion of incoherence as part of the ‘humanity’ of Scripture. I do not see that as inherent in the Scriptures, in fact it is a denial of God’s sovereign supervision( WFC ,ch.1,II,III,IX)But since you are not a Presbyterian I doubt if you put much stock in such things.
May 22, 2008 at 8:37 am
TM et al:
At its heart, trajectory theology is a response to diversity within the biblical corpus. In the case of women in ministry, for instance, the argument to support the ordination of women would be that the Bible presents diverse viewpoints about the roles that women can play in God’s economy.
THE difference that now animates evangelical discussions of Bible and theology is whether there is genuine diversity in Scripture, so that Scripture actually gives different (sometimes very different) theological judgments on the same subjects. I take it that GLW (for instance) does not believe that this diversity actually exists in Scripture, whereas I believe that Scripture’s diversity is obvious.
In nuce, it seems to me that this is the situation.
May 21, 2008 at 6:14 pm
One issue that, at least to my mind, is worth rethinking is to what extent words like apostolos, diakonos, episkopos, epitropos, etc. had any solidified technical ecclesiastical meaning by the time Paul wrote Romans, or whoever wrote 2 Timothy and Titus. I have real reservations that they did.
I think a good case can be made that apostolos was not yet loaded in the significance that we tend to think of it: e.g. as a person who has a very specific personal commission by Christ, etc. In other words, that the term was used in a way that was much more akin to how the word was actually used in antiquity: as a personal messenger communicating the interests of a sender, but not with any special authority. That’s not to say Paul, etc. didn’t think they had special divinely-given authority, but that the term apostolos didn’t assume it and rather expressed his commission to go out as Christ’s emissary. It seems to me this is probably what Rom 16 means.
We need to keep in mind that there is a timeline in the creation of these documents. We shouldn’t expect the ecclesiastical governmental structure to be set shortly after Christ died. It would’ve taken time to develop.
May 21, 2008 at 7:23 am
To properly engage the issues , you will need to read William Webb’s seminal work, ‘Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals:Exploring the hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis’ along with the chapter entitled “Postmodern Scripture” by Gerard Loughlin in ‘Christian Theologies of Scripture: A Comparative Introduction’, ed. Justin Holcomb as well as Wayne Grudem’s critique, ” Should We move Beyond the New testament to a Better Ethic?” JETS(2004):299-346.
May 20, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Thanks, barlow, for joining in. I appreciate your point, but I’d like to caution you about trying to read post-Reformation ecclesiology back into the early NT church. We can surely take what they did in the first century, and look for ways to apply it to our own cultural time and place, but it doesn’t work the other way.
The Lady Huntingdon example isn’t really pertinent in this context. Carolyn Osiek and Margaret MacDonald have done some extensive work on house churches in early Christianity, and they didn’t look much like what most conservative Presbyterians do today on Sunday morning, or for that matter, what the 18th c. Methodists did.
They say this about female patrons, a couple of whom I named in the post:
“The assumption can be made that they [female-headed Christian households and church gatherings] were conducted in the same way as any other patronage situation, with deference, respect, and submission owed to the patronal figure who expected to be the center of attention and honor, except at those times when founding apostles were present.” (A Woman’s Place, p. 214)
The atmosphere of the house church was not the solemn affair implied by ministry of word and sacrament. Rather, say Osiek and MacDonald, “we ended up with a picture of church life that challenges preconceived notions of solemnity in favor of the boisterous and somewhat chaotic exchanges of household life. House-church meetings took place in a setting where midwives were hired, babies were born, nursed, and nurtured, and children grew up. . . . it is safe to assume that conversations about nursing and rearing children were part of daily life and were intermingled with conversations about what we would normally consider as more typical church concerns, such as who would preside at the Lord’s supper or who should be sent out with news for a neighboring community.” (p. 247-8)
In other words, the house-church environment featured women at all levels, including those in charge. As a matter of cultural taste, we may want to keep the nursery and the Sunday lunches separate from our formal worship time, but we can’t take house church evidence and use it as the basis for excluding women from ministry of the word and sacrament.
May 20, 2008 at 6:23 pm
I don’t know about the house church passages – think of the Countess, Lady Huntingdon (18th c.). You could justly call her the mother of the Methodist movement, the mentor of the Wesleys, the mentor of the Calvinistic Methodists, their patroness, etc. You could talk about her house church and even her school. But we know she was not a minister of word and sacrament.
May 20, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Yes, Stephen, I agree: Belleville is right.
The translation history of Rom 16:7 is telling. Others apart from the twelve were known as apostles, and the sense of the Greek is that among them, Junia was extraordinary. The thought that Paul could not possibly be commending a woman apostle was enough to modify English translations from the 1940s to the 1970s away from the feminine “Junia,” which had been used throughout the patristics, to “Junias,” which is not found in any of the documents of the Greco-Roman period. (Belleville, p. 40-41 in “Two Views on Women in Ministry.”) Belleville observes in a footnote that the German, Dutch, and French translations from Luther forward were masculine, saying more about Luther than the Byzantine text type from which they were drawn, which had the correct feminine form.
She also argues persuasively against the presuppositionally-loaded ESV rendering I referenced in the post.
May 20, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Linda Belleville’s discussion of Junia in Rom 16.7 remains, in my mind, the most impressive (New Testament Studies 51 [2005]: 231-49).
She argued quite well that Junia is indeed a female name in this passage and that the correct understanding/translation of the Greek is something along the lines of Junia being “notable among” the apostles.