Yesterday I actually managed to do some of my research work!
I was going through the periodicals at Sheffield
and found an article by John Thornley in Novum Testamentum
38,1 1996 all about our dear friend Junia.
John comes to the following conclusions:
1. Earliest translations into Latin and Coptic occasionally
transcribe acc. of male names in -AS in a way that could
be either masc. or fem. Statistically rare.
Far more likely that it was taken quite universally as the
acc. of the common Roman female name "Junia".
2. Linguistic possibility of masc name ¢Iouni/aj or hypocoristic [!!!]
name ¢Iounia=j is doubtful in the extreme.
3. No manuscript evidence for perispomenon accentuation.
4. Context of Rom 16:7 in no way implies or requires IOUNIAN
to be masc.
5. Chrystostom says she's a woman - and none of the
patristic writers say anything contrary to this.
Quite convincing really. Thank you John Thorley. Just to round off,
I thought you might like to see what Chrysostom has to say:
BABAI, POSH THS GUNAIKOS TAUTHS H PHILOSOPHIA,
HWS KAI THS TWN APOSTOLWN AXIWQHNAI PROSHGORIAS
"Why, what a great love of learning this woman possessed! Great
enough indeed to be considered worthy of inclusion amongst the
apostles."
He didn't seem to have any problems with it, did he?
Pete Phillips,
Cliff College, Sheffield, England
p.m.phillips@cliff.shef.ac.uk
http://champness.shef.ac.uk/