Do you believe women can be preachers/pastors?

I’ll have to go back and find it. It’s been a while since I listened to it. I’m thinking it was one of the ones about the development of the Bible. But unfortunately I don’t recall the exact one. I’ve heard every episode they have and some multiple times.

In the interview Jim had with Tim he brought up why they void controversial topics for the most part. But somewhere this was brought up about these verses.

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Wow! … thanks, Marshall and Mi. A treasure trove of links here to follow up. If you don’t hear from me for a while now, blame Marshall. :grin:

-Merv

Preacher? Yes, tons of female preachers and apostles mentioned in Paul’s letters. A third of the apostles named in Romans 16 are women. The first one, Phoebe, is even termed a deacon.

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Not a single one of those woman are called apostles right there. Not even Junias. If you read further back up you’ll see that I’ve already discussed the differences between the various offices also. There is a lot of confusion in here over the offices within the body that all have different requirements.

When you say preacher what do you mean?

A evangelist traveling from city to city preaching the gospel to congregations? Do you mean simply a disciple who is carrying out the great commission? Do you mean a sister in Christ who owns a house that hosts the elders and disciples of that city? Do you mean a woman who is a leader and held responsible over the congregation like a pastor/elder/overseer?

Which one do you mean and why do you draw the conclusion thats what the specific woman in question is?

In Paul’s letters, an apostle is a Christian individual who takes the Christian message and spreads it. That’s what Paul himself was doing the whole time. Rodney Stark has documented in his The Rise of Christianity (Princeton 1996), which is the standard reference work on the spread of Christianity to become the religion of the Roman Empire, how women made up a large fragment of the members of the early church (in fact, nearly the entire pre-Constatinian period, women outnumbered men in the church by a 2:1 ratio) and were an absolutely crucial force when it came to the expansion of the message into families, communities, and so forth. Without the apostolic mission taken up by Christian women, Christianity might as well have died in its cradle.

Not a single one of those woman are called apostles right there.

I’m afraid that is absurd. I don’t know if you even read the passage in question.

Romans 16:7: Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.

So Junia is explicitly called an “apostle” and Paul says she ended up in prison with him as a result of the mission. I’m sure you’ll entertain me with mental gymnastics to get around this, though.

Romans 16:3: Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus.

So this women Priscilla is a “co-worker” with Paul in his mission.

Romans 16:12: Greet Tryphena and Tryphosa, those women who work hard in the Lord.

I wonder what kind of work this is referring, in a chapter that is wholly about sending greetings to members of the church spreading the apostolic message. And Paul just goes on and on and on. At the very beginning, he describes Phoebe, a women he calls a “deacon”.

EDIT: I scrolled up and found that you’ve been mislead with your reading of 1 Cor. 14:34-35. That section of Paul’s letters is an interpolation and contradicts his letters elsewhere. Scholars widely see it as an interpolation. For a recent study that found even more manuscript documentation of that, for example, see Philip Payne, “Vaticanus Distigme-obelos Symbols Marking Added Text, Including 1 Corinthians 14.34–5”, NTS (2017). On top of the clear manuscript evidence that this passage is not original to Paul’s hand just like we would say for Mark 16:9-20, it simply contradicts Paul’s beliefs. How is it possible for women to say that Paul can’t say a word in a Christian gathering, when in 1 Cor. 11:5 he describes them praying and prophesying? So the manuscript evidence makes the passage hopeless and it isn’t even consistent with the rest of Paul’s letters. Not only is it an interpolation, it wasn’t a very good one.

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I never once said women can’t speak in church. I said the opposite. So none of that even made sense. What I said is that the context there shows that a better translation of women is wife, since only wives has husbands, and therefore he’s speaking about a specific issue with specific wives at at that one congregation.

And you’ve still not proven anything. It never says Junias is an apostle. It says she was well known among the apostles. The apostles knew of her and thought she was great.

Paul saying someone is a coworker in the faith also is something applicable to any Christian. It does not mean they are elders , or apostles.

All of this fits perfectly with the the qualifications for elders, apostles with the power, and verses like 1 Timothy 2:12-13 which hyperlinks back to genesis 3:16.

I never once said women can’t speak in church. I said the opposite. So none of that even made sense. What I said is that the context there shows that a better translation of women is wife, since only wives has husbands, and therefore he’s speaking about a specific issue with specific wives at at that one congregation.

You can’t speak about what is and isn’t a better translation because you can’t read Greek, and you sure as hell aren’t a scholar of koine Greek - the only people whose opinion on translations matter. In any case, you clearly were unaware that 1 Cor. 14:34-35 was added later and was never written by Paul.

And you’ve still not proven anything. It never says Junias is an apostle. It says she was well known among the apostles. The apostles knew of her and thought she was great.

And there comes the mental gymnastics.

Romans 16:7: Greet Andronicus and Junia , my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles , and they were in Christ before I was.

So Paul mentions Andronicus and Junia, says that they’ve been preaching with him and ended up in prison with him because of what they’ve been all doing together, and then says that, among other apostles, they are considered outstanding. Your attempt to manipulate the grammar is clear and ridiculous. Paul is saying that in the wider group of apostles, Andronicus and Junia in particular have been highlighted as exceptional individuals, and that this is indicated by what they’ve done for the mission that landed them in jail with Paul. If that’s not what it means, which is blatantly what it is in fact saying, then please tell me how else they could have ended up in jail if it wasn’t for spreading the apostolic message, which is exactly what Paul repeatedly describes as landing him in jail throughout his letters.

You’re also going to have to explain why all the Church Fathers were completely unanimous in interpreting Junia as an apostle. If you want to hold to some sort of idea that women should be shut out of positions of power, you need to explain why one of the judges in the Book of Judges was … a women. Deborah. All of Israel was literally ruled by a women at one point. A women can rule a peoples but can’t be an apostle? Explain that.

Paul saying someone is a coworker in the faith also is something applicable to any Christian. It does not mean they are elders , or apostles.

You’re manipulating what Paul says again. He never said “coworker in the faith”. He said “coworker”. They were coworkers, all working together. And what were they doing with Paul? Well, what was Paul doing? He was going city to city, preaching, and so forth. That’s what an apostle is. Someone who goes around, preaches, and spreads the apostolic message. And these women are coworkers with him on that project.

All of this fits perfectly with the the qualifications for elders, apostles with the power, and verses like 1 Timothy 2:12-13 which hyperlinks back to genesis 3:16.

It doesn’t have anything to do with that, actually, so the way you describe it as “fitting in” is very weird.

You also, in the end, blatantly sidestepped the fact that Phoebe is outright called a “deacon” in Romans 16:1 and that women played a major role in the spread of early Christianity.

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A few typical issues.

  1. It’s not based solely off of reading greek and there are definitely scholars who speak Greek who agree with my position which is why this whole thing is a question to begin with. It’s not exactly rocket science to work on a language. Especially with the tools we have now. It takes even less thinking to see that the word is clearly wife, and not women, because in order to have a husband to go home to you must be a wife. It takes way less contextual gymnastics to see that than try to forgive out of and where quotations go.

  2. Again, look at all the translations. More than a few line out that Junias was well known to the apostles. There is no reason to believe it’s saying she’s an apostle. Zero. I’m guessing you’re not a expert at that either, or anything relative so far to the discussion so does that mean you don’t have an opinion worth listening to? You must not be aware that plenty of theologians disagree with Junias being considered a apostle.

Also, you said you read everything earlier. Maybe there was too much there or maybe you’re too upset to remember it. But I did cover that scripture refers to two sets of apostles. Those sent out in accordance with the gospel and those sent out personally by Jesus and given power. Did. Whole little chapter lining it out. Something not a single person has even attempted to deal with.

Also prove it was added later. Prove it was not something Paul said.

Out of curiosity what is making you get so emotional and reactive over someone disagreeing with you?

Again, I can’t quite figure out why some of you can’t figure out the offices mention.

Where did I say anything about Phone and being a deaconess? Do you know that deacon/deaconess is different from being a elder/pastor/bishop/overseer and those are different from being an apostle chosen directly by Christ and that’s different from being a preacher/evangelist and that’s all different from be a prophet.

Usually different words with different qualifications with different roles imply quite clearly that they are different things.

If you’re feeling well enough and up to it perhaps you could enlighten me with your definition of what each of those offices are and how they are different? Maybe with scripture supporting it. Regardless of how little or much info is there.

Lastly, when have I said anything about women not having an active role in being disciples carrying out the great commission, of women being prophets or speaking in tongues in church, or women or anything other than the same two points I’ve made repeatedly.

The qualifications for being a elder ( an elder my friends not mentioning another office but again elders) is listed in Timothy and Titus. They disqualify all women, all non Christians, all single men, all men with multiple wives, and all men whose been divorced , all men whose been remarried with the exception potentially of being a remarried widower, and all men who don’t have 2+ kids and several other things. It’s not just women, but several groups of men as well. In addition to those very laid out and clear qualifications we see the issue of consequences that Paul brings up because of Eve, and Elders are the leaders over then congregation. We also don’t see a single woman ever throughout the entries new testament by Jesus or any apostle ever called pastor/elder/bishop/or overseer. We also don’t see it implied.

Now if you disagree show me a verse that backs it up. Don’t show me a verse about prophets, deacons, disciples, coworkers which can be associated as any type of disciple and definitely don’t be such a reactive person as to put words in my mouth pretending that I once have said women had nothing to do with spreading the gospel.

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It’s not exactly rocket science to work on a language. Especially with the tools we have now.

Is this guy serious? Dude, you straight up can’t read the language. If you really think glancing over free online tools can help you decipher koine Greek, a language whose meaning is still being extensively studied today by professional scholars who have been researching it to insane degrees of detail for decades, then you’re out of your mind. Please tell that to a professor who teaches Greek and watch them laugh you out of the building.

Again, look at all the translations. More than a few line out that Junias was well known to the apostles.

Paul says “Junia”, i.e. a feminine female name, not “Junias”, which is the masculine for a male name. Somehow, despite your supposed vast capabilities in being able to read koine Greek with your free online websites, you didn’t know that. Every Bible in history read “Junia” until some sexist medieval scribes, flabbergasted that a female could be described as an apostle, masculinized it to “Junias”. But I’m sure this is just another thing you’re not aware of, and yet you speak with such confidence on the topic.

There is no reason to believe it’s saying she’s an apostle. Zero.

Literally every one of the Fathers of the Church read it that way, and they were the native Greek speakers of that time. Richard Bauckham writes that “writers such as Origen and John Chrysostom were educated native speakers of Greek. They had no reason for thinking Andronicus and Junia to be apostles other than supposing this to be the meaning of Paul’s Greek” (Bauckham, Gospel Women, 179). But please start telling me all about how you, with your free 200 year old concordances that you use from google, have unlocked the secrets of ancient Greek that the incompetent speakers of ancient Greek and experts of the Greek language themselves were too simple to realize. I’m sure everyone will be amazed by your brilliance.

Those sent out in accordance with the gospel and those sent out personally by Jesus and given power.

That’s a pretty imaginative distinction of the word “apostle”.

Also prove it was added later. Prove it was not something Paul said.

I already did. Did you blatantly ignore the whole paragraph I wrote out on that topic in a previous response? Seriously?

Do you know that deacon/deaconess is different from being a elder/pastor/bishop/overseer

For one, your conflation of ‘pastor’ and possibly ‘elder’ with the rest of those offices is actually totally mistaken. Secondly, of course I know that - they’re different words. But lo’ and behold, a women can be a deacon/minister.

Again a few things.

This will probably be my last response to you. You seem quite childish and immature. You don’t know how to carry on a discussion. You think that someone has to be an expert in order to have a opinion on a subject. That’s such a ridiculous mindset. You keep acting as “ free software for language study is something crappy” lol.

How do you know what that person’s name was? Are you a Greek scholar? How do you know a scribe changed their name? Which scribe changed the name? Do you have a masters in history with a focus on biblical translations? If not, according to your own words that means you don’t have an actual opinion on it. And if you don’t have a degree in biology, or especially evolutionary biology you can’t have an opinion on the science involved either. Did you study the Hebrew language and get a degree? If not don’t try to talk about genesis… see how silly that argument sounds.

If you want to have a conversation, get control of your emotions and have a conversation. Otherwise I have no time to talk with you. It’s also hypocritical for you to say your unqualified opinion is better than my unqualified opinion. That’s your paradigm by way.

I’m completely comfortable being able to use bublehub and commentaries out together by professionals in order to bring attention to clues in the original language. That’s a fairly common practice among people who seek to know what the Bible says, verses what they feel it should say.

By the way, it was not done scribe several centuries ago that called her a man. It was in the second century. ( this will actually be very amusing for me once you realize who the scribe was verses wrote you stated…)

Can you show a list of early church fathers in the first century that referred to her as someone with the power? I don’t think you even know the significance of that yet. I’ve explained so many times I may as well put on a purple suit.

Also can you show me once, where I referred to her as a man? Have I’ve not been referring to her as a her the whole time… right?

So let’s try this also.

You are saying that a pastor, a elder, an overseer, and a bishop are not all scripturally the same thing? What do you believe the office of eldership is?
What do you believe the office of overseers are?
What’s the difference between a bishop and a pastor again based on the new testament?

Since you must have gotten a degree in church offices and assemblies…

And nothing you said proved anything about something being added later. You just said it was, I’m guessing you must have a degree in how the Bible was put together, and expected me to just accept it lol.

So far you’ve not backed up your claims. You don’t have degrees or are a expert in any of these things either yet you hypocritically claim since I don’t somehow it means I can’t grasp it.

I’ll give you an example, using a free concordance I googled.

The verses in question are: 1 Corinthians 14:34-35

34 Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. 35 If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.

In almost any translation you read there is a mark by women. It’s denotes that the Greek word, gynaikes/guné located in concordances as G1135 can be interpreted as women or wife depending on the context. So the next step is to look at the context. Is there anything in the context that can lead someone with at least half a brain to determine if it means women or wife?

Maybe something like the very next sentence it says that they need to ask their husbands? A simple thought process may help you.

If a woman has a husband that means she’s a… wife.

So that means that a better translation ( regardless of your qualifications) is that the verses read “ 34 wives should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. 35 If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.

So why is that a better translation outside of the fact of the whole having a husband remark.

Well this is very again, contextual analysis and biblical hermeneutics come in to develop systematic theology.

When we look at the verses leading up to that we see these verses.

1 Corinthians 14:26-33
New American Standard Bible
26 What is the outcome then, brothers and sisters? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. All things are to be done for edification. 27 If anyone speaks in a tongue, it must be by two or at the most three, and each one in turn, and one is to interpret; 28 but if there is no interpreter, he is to keep silent in church; and have him speak to himself and to God. 29 Have two or three prophets speak, and have the others pass judgment. 30 But if a revelation is made to another who is seated, then the first one is to keep silent. 31 For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all may be exhorted; 32 and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets; 33 for God is not a God of confusion, but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints,

So right before those verses in the same chapter we see Paul mentioning brothers and sisters ( each one) having a message, a song, a prophecy, a tongue and so on). That implies women can speak in church.

So if women can speak in church, then that adds more clues as to why later on he’s talking about wives.

However, you would have a hard time pushing that paul is ok only with single women speaking. So that means he must be ok with single snd married women speaking. If he’s ok with them speaking then that means when he says “wives ask your husbands questions at home” he must , and only can be, referring to specific wives in the congregation that was causing confusion by asking their husbands questions during assembly.

So explain to my why that requires a degree or being an expert in?

Again, that’s not rocket science. It’s not rocket science to use the possible translations of words by scholars overlapped with contextual analysis.

So by all means if you understand this so well let me have it lol.

You say you know they mean different things but yet you keep confusing them.

We were talking about women can’t be elders and you say yeah they can this one was a deacon. What is the relationship there? You think deacons and elders are the same things? You’re also a Greek expert enough to know the issue with servant verses office of deacon too.

So you can just regurgitate snark, or you can try to actually argue your point. For me, I’ve been snarky enough in my last comment or two in hopes you see how pointless it is. Especially the hypocrisy. It’s not my thing. I prefer rational discussions where points are argued. If you’re not interested in that I am not interested in continuing.

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Hi Nathan,
While it seems you have “passion” about this topic, the way you present it seems to me both unrealistic and polarizing. Somehow you appear to blame “men” as a blanket accusation, which “really stinks” to your sense of “perception”.

First, you display confusion. Never has it not been part of Christian teaching that “there is a place for them in the kingdom as well”. What you suggest by saying that is neither part of Scripture or the Tradition.

“any discomfort to not have a woman present during these talks.”

It sounds like you may lack comfort. Otherwise, why did you raise “discomfort”?

How specifically are women being “excluded” here at BioLogos, or in this thread, and by whom? The President? What gender is the current President of BioLogos? Are you talking about “exclusion” supposedly being “perpetrated” by men against women in this thread? If so, please spell it out more clearly than you have thus far.

This will probably be my last response to you. You seem quite childish and immature.

Given the fact that I’m dealing with someone who thinks they can learn an ancient language from a 200 year old concordance, I’d say I’m taking it quite easy on you. You couldn’t even tell that “Junias” is a male name and used it, at one point, in place of “Junia”.

How do you know what that person’s name was? Are you a Greek scholar?

Greek scholars said what the name was. Why is that so hard to understand?

How do you know a scribe changed their name?

Because the name appears as “Junia” in every manuscript of the Bible that has ever existed and then suddenly the “Junias” begins appearing in the second half of the Middle Ages, which is, coincidentally, not so coincidentally, the male version of “Junia”.

It’s also hypocritical for you to say your unqualified opinion is better than my unqualified opinion

Comical, but I’m telling you that qualified opinion is better than your unqualified opinion. If you bothered checking, you’d have realized I’ve been citing aplenty the scholarly literature in our conversation, whereas you’ve cited nothing but your unqualified opinion.

By the way, it was not done scribe several centuries ago that called her a man. It was in the second century.

Another uncited claim. Good job. Now prove it.

[EDIT: For all readers reading, I have tracked down SkovandOfMitaze’s source and I have found that he is blatantly misrepresenting it. First of all, his source is just Wikipedia. Second of all, the individual he is referring to is Origen of Alexandria, who, though he was born in the very late 2nd century, actually wrote all his works in the mid 3rd century. So there is no reference, as Skovand claims, from the 2nd century. However, most egregiously, there actually is no reference at all and Skovand has omitted extremely crucial detail. Skovand’s source, Wikipedia says;

The consensus among most modern New Testament scholars is that Junia was a woman.[1] The first reference to Junia as a male comes from Origen (late 2nd early 3rd century). This is also the earliest comment on Junia’s gender in general. However, this version only appears in a relatively late Medieval copy of Origen’s work, which appears to originally speak of Junia as a female.

As you can see, Origen is known to have originally spoken of Junia as a female, and it is only a medieval alteration of Origen’s work which contains the reference to her as a male. Skovand appears to have shamelessly misrepresented this source to come up with this claim. I have since updated this Wikipedia page such that the same mistake/misrepresentation cannot be made, although the previous version that Skozand is relying on to make this claim can be seen here.]

Can you show a list of early church fathers in the first century that referred to her as someone with the power?

There were no Church Fathers from the first century. Another thing you don’t seem to know. However, every single native speaker of ancient Greek interpreted Junia as being an apostle. That means that the passage, in the original Greek, straight forwardly means that Junia was an apostle. There’s no dispute beyond this fact. To deny it at this point would actually require that the ancient Greeks can’t read ancient Greek but you can. I’m sure you’ll be able to tell, once this conversation is over and you’re on your own, why this is silly.

Also can you show me once, where I referred to her as a man? Have I’ve not been referring to her as a her the whole time… right?

You called her “Junias”, which is the male version of the name in Greek. Why didn’t your outdated concordance tell you that?

So let’s try this also.

All of your questions after this statement are irrelevant. Not a single answer for any of those questions exists in the New Testament.

And nothing you said proved anything about something being added later. You just said it was

I don’t know if you’re deliberately lying at this point. I cited a study by Philip Payne in Cambridge’s prominent New Testament Studies journal from 2017 that demonstrated that the earliest manuscripts considered the passage an interpolation. But I guess the painstaking detailed work by an expert like Payne, like that of Bauckham, means nothing to you.

Well this is very again, contextual analysis and biblical hermeneutics come in to develop systematic theology.

I can’t be sure if you know what those words mean.

1 Corinthians 14:26-33

Great job, you just demonstrated that the interpolated 1 Cor. 13:34-35, as is well known, contradicts the immediate preceding verses. As I said, it was a horribly done interpolation.

We were talking about women can’t be elders and you say yeah they can this one was a deacon.

Unsurprisingly, you’re wrong again. Please don’t assume I was responding to you. I was responding to OP’s question.

I stopped reading after a few sentences.

I was not unaware of the name. I’ve used both names throughout my entire response. I’ve been aware of the name issue and different thoughts on it for over a decade.

I never said learning a new language is easy. I said it’s easy to use what experts have already translated, read commentaries on it, and read what’s in the context.

You think your pulling stuff over my head, when i don’t see any reason to believe you have a grasp on this. You’ve routinely confused the offices, you have not shown to understand , or have you answered any of it. If you did in this last response you wrote, I don’t even care because you’re responses are just nonsense as I’ve shown in each statement. Instead like most people who don’t know what they are talking about you instead say things like if you’re not a expert on this topic you can’t have an educated response ( though clearly neither are you), you latch onto something you think I’m not aware of like the debate on the name when I’ve used both names repeatedly and was already aware of the fact it was Origen’s various uses of the word that resulted in the debate to begin with ( despite the fact that he was clearly writing about her and not a him), and with all your writing you’ve not answered a single question related to the differences in the offices, to demonstrate the difference between “Apostle and apostle” as the simplified way of separating the two groups of people bearing the name, and everything else, and so on. You bring up you think you’re taking it easy on me? It’s not an issue of intelligent responses but the exhaustion over the things I mentioned that is the issue. You’ve not responded to the arguments I brought up about the issues directly related to the post. Also even if Junias was a man, it would not change anything on the fact that what I was clearly talking about is they are ones sent out, but not personally by Christ. It changes nothing that the entire chapter there is irrelevant to being an elder and you’ve not given me one bit of reason to believe that pastor/elder/overseer are scripturally different positions within the body of Christ.

Also after skimming it bit. You did not prove me wrong with what Origen said. You backed up exactly what I was saying that the whole debate centers around what Origen wrote. Neither is the argument from my point relative of what he was writing, but that it’s an issue I’m already aware of.

Also after thinking about it I will go back and read through your entire response and I’ll focus on verse by verse and wait for you to answer it then move on and won’t worry about trying to respond to it relative things.

So can you show me scripturally, since this topic is over elders ( pastors) how eldership is different from pastors/overseers? Once we have the terminology that we are using for the offices we are talking about it will be easier to move on. Later on today, I’ll begin posting in here what those offices are from scripture to show they are one and the same.

The junia project is actually how I was aware of these issues. Not wikipedia.

Okay, fellows - it seems you’ve both got plenty of emotion to spare wrapped up in this. Probably time to give it a rest and cool your jets.

I don’t have anything at stake in this conversation because I’m a man and I don’t want to become a pastor. The “passion” I have for it is only in that I want women to have the same opportunities as I do. Most of the Christian women (and frankly, non-Christian women) in my life would make a better pastor than I ever could be. All I’ve been saying is that it would be a shame to exclude them from from those opportunities based on old ways of thinking that no longer apply to today’s culture.

Also, I was referring to the exclusion of women from pastor roles - not BioLogos.

Fair enough. I was obviously, and honestly, getting a bit irritated last night because I felt it was not an attempt at trying to actually discuss something as much as belittling snark. But I also did not try to do any better by that point and was doing it back. I’m still slightly aggravated but I also know what regardless of last night up until point I’ve always had good discussions with them. Maybe I was too tired and they were never trying to be snarky and I was wrongly interpreted it that way, but I’m not going to reread back through it. Personally, to keep the discussion from turning into something that feels like a dutiful burden, I’m going to try to keep my responses shorter, and more focused and not falling into every bait or side thing that pops up.

But since this discussion has already occurred, sometime in the future I’ll make a separate post about biblically defining the various offices snd how they overlap, and how they don’t.

I will attempt to be nicer to you.

Does Origen ever use the male name Junias to refer to the individual in Romans 16:7? No, he did not. A quick look at the scholarly literature will demonstrate that this was a later, medieval corruption.

Linda Belleville, in her analysis on (1) the female status of Junia and (2) her alleged apostolic status in Paul’s letter to the Romans touches on the issue presented by Origen. While it is a commonly repeated myth by those who discuss the subject that Origen ever referred to Junia as “Junias”, this is in fact a demonstrable later fabrication put into Origen’s mouth. Belleville writes;


Can you address this evidence? There’s also a medieval manuscript corruption in Epiphanius of Salamis that has been altered in a similar way. The altered passage in Epiphanius even mistakenly calls Prisca from Romans 16 a male. Belleville writes;


Keep in mind that this occur’s in Belleville’s wider study on the Greek of Romans 16:7, and Belleville concludes that in the Greek, Paul is in fact calling Junia an apostle. In fact, there is a lengthy scholarly discussion on the male form of the name Junias in Eldon Epp, Junia: The First Women Apostle, Fortress Press 2005. Epp shows, at length, that the first actual individual (rather than a scribal corruption) to ever use the male form Junias was Giles of Rome in the 13th century. How do you address this fact?

You certainly were unaware that Junias is the male form. Despite acknowledging Junia as a female, you continued to use the male form.

I never said learning a new language is easy. I said it’s easy to use what experts have already translated, read commentaries on it, and read what’s in the context.

Now you’re getting it - you have to completely rely on what experts say. If you think you can understand anything in Greek with a quick glance over BibleHub, which uses a concordance that is older than Henry Ford, then I can simply post some quick exercises in from ancient Greek learning textbooks and we’ll see if you can solve them. How does that sound?

You’ve routinely confused the offices, you have not shown to understand

In fact, I did not make a single mistake when it came to the offices. In fact, I refused to comment even once about the nature of these offices, because no one actually knows anything about it. The New Testament tells us nothing about whether they’re the same or different, although it uses different words suggesting they’re all different, and it never offers any description of what any of these offices do. Although it may be self-evident that elders are meant to give wise counsel.

So can you show me scripturally, since this topic is over elders ( pastors) how eldership is different from pastors/overseers?

There is nothing scriptural which describes the functions of any of these offices. The question is, therefore, unanswerable.

You’ve not responded to the arguments I brought up about the issues directly related to the post.

What arguments haven’t I addressed?

It remains the fact that every single reader of koine Greek in the first centuries of Christianity read Romans 16:7 as saying that Junia was an apostle. Here’s an example by John Chrysostom:

“Greet Andronicus and Junia . . . who are outstanding among the apostles”: To be an apostle is something great. But to be outstanding among the apostles— just think what a wonderful song of praise that is! They were outstanding on the basis of their works and virtuous actions. Indeed, how great the wisdom of this woman m ust have been that she was even deemed worthy of the title of apostle. (In Epistolanum ad Romanos 31.2; Patrologiae cursus completus, series Graeca [PG] 60.669-670)

Do you expect me to believe that every single ancient Greek misread Romans 16:7 as saying Junia was an apostle but you got it right? As noted earlier, Belleville offers an extensive grammatical analysis to show that the Greek clearly implies that Junia was a member of, rather than simply known to the apostles. You should take a look. I wont reproduce her whole argument here, but she does point to a number of illustrative examples in the New Testament where the same Greek constructions of “among you/them” imply that one is a member of the group rather than being related yet disparate to the group. Here they are;

Finally, let’s go back to 1 Corinthians 14:34-35.

It appears as if you did not address the study I cited demonstrating that 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 was considered an interpolation in the early manuscripts. However, I will now extensively cite the evidence in pp. 15-20 of Epp’s aforementioned book, he writes;






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Keep in mind that all this evidence was available back in 2005. The study I cited by Payne is even more recent, from 2017, adducing even more manuscript evidence for the same conclusion.

EDIT: Edited for niceness. I’m working on it.

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I’ll read and respond after hiking and sometime later. Maybe even tomorrow or next week.

To answer parts of it so that I’m not thinking solely about it while hiking.

I was aware that there was a debate centered around Junia. I did not think it’s was associated with her name though. I’ve seen the same wrote and pronounced as Junia, Junias, and Junius and it’s always been by people associating her as being a woman. I was not entirely sure why it was a debate on if she was a male or female. The only debates I’ve read, or been through about her was what is the meaning of apostleship with her and others like Barnabas. The whole debate over “ Apostle vs apostle “. I’ve been taught form elders, teachers, and preachers and from books that there is two meanings to apostles. One is a general reference to any disciple sent out into the world to preach the gospel. The other is a subset of those men, the ones chosen directly by Jesus , regardless if it was in person, through lots, or in a vision, and that these 13 men was set apart by the ability to lay on hands giving the Holy Spirit. It’s what resulted in Simon the “Witch” wanting to purchase it from Peter after the evangelist Philip taught him the gospel and baptized him. So for me using Junias or Junia was neutral since they at the same to me. Just translation of some disciple into completely different writing styles with completely different symbols to indicate the sound. It’s like Joshua, Yeshua, or Jesus to me. I mostly just try to type it the same for the sake of readers not thinking I’m referring to different people.

I was also mistaken on what I read two years ago concerning the debate of if they were male or female. All I remembered was that some article was talking bout the doctrines of Origen and how he believed Jesus was a trade to satan but he was tricked by God, that he believed infant baptism prevented babies from going to hell/purgatory, and that he believed something along the line that all souls have existed since the beginning and something like those near the light was born into humans and able to saved and those nearer the darkness was turned into demons. Somewhere a I g those articles is where I read that Origen used a form that could indicate that Junia was a man, but that it’s not what it meant and that he nonetheless was never calling her a man.

I have never for any part of my life thought Junia was a male. From everyone I know and read she’s always been taught as she, it was just the type use of apostle that was debated and that same debate was used for men as well like Barnabas.

The rest I’ll read and respond to in another post.

Um, demands are not how “gracious communication” works. Demands don’t sound “nicer”. :worried: