Greek word · G2458
Ἰουνιᾶς
iounias
Junias
Accusative of a personal name. Accented Ἰουνίαν, it is the feminine Latin name Junia, from the Roman family name Junius/Junia. This is one of the most common women's names in the empire. Slaves freed by Junian families often took it.
Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·
What it means
From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
- Range of meaning
Accusative of a personal name. Accented Ἰουνίαν, it is the feminine Latin name Junia, from the Roman family name Junius/Junia. This is one of the most common women's names in the empire. Slaves freed by Junian families often took it. Accented Ἰουνιᾶν, it would be a man's name 'Junias', supposedly a Greek short form of 'Junianus'.
- Against the English
KJV, Tyndale, Geneva, BSB, WEB, NIV 2011, ESV, NASB 2020 and NLT have 'Junia'. YLT, RSV, NIV 1984 and NASB 1995 have 'Junias'. The RSV even adds the word 'men' ('men of note'), which has no basis in the Greek.
- How it drifted
No one in antiquity is known to have borne the man's name 'Junias'. Early writers read 'Junia'. A masculine reading turns up in the medieval period, and Luther's German Bible printed it ('Junias'). From the 1920s to the 1990s the standard critical Greek text printed the masculine accent. That choice was driven largely by the assumption that a woman could not be described this way, not by manuscript evidence. NA27/UBS4 (1993) restored Junia.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Peter Lampe counted more than 250 examples of Junia in Roman inscriptions and none of Junias. Contracted Greek short names like 'Patrobas' (16:14) exist, but no example of 'Junias' from 'Junianus' has been found. Early church writers: Origen (in Rufinus's Latin), Ambrosiaster, Jerome and John Chrysostom read a woman. Chrysostom (Homily 31 on Romans) wonders at 'this woman' being thought worthy 'of the title of apostle'. A list attributed to Epiphanius has a male 'Junias, bishop of Apamea', but that list is late and unreliable. Papyrus 46 reads 'Julia', another woman's name.
Where it appears
Romans · 1
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Romans 16:7 Ἰουνίαν Junia
Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow countrymen and fellow prisoners. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.
Here: A very common Latin woman's name, often carried by freedwomen of the Junian family. Paired with Andronicus, she was most likely his wife, or possibly his sister. They were a missionary couple like Prisca and Aquila (16:3).
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.