13.4

Phoebe, Prisca, Junia (Box 13.4)

The number and prominence of the women mentioned in Romans 16 is striking: ten are mentioned in verses 1, 3, 6, 7, 12, 13, 15. Three of these are especially noteworthy:

• Phoebe. Paul sends the letter with her and commends her to the congregation. He identifies her as a deacon in her home church and a benefactor of many (16:1–2).
• Prisca. She is singled out as one who, along with her husband, risked her life for Paul and earned the thanks of all churches of the gentiles (16:3). We hear of her elsewhere (Acts 18:2, 18, 26; 1 Cor. 16:19; 2 Tim. 4:19).
• Junia. She is said to be “prominent among the apostles” (16:7). Nineteenth-century scholars, perhaps unable to believe that Paul could have called a woman an apostle, treated the accusative Iounian in the Greek text as a form not of the female name "Junia" but of a male name "Junias"—a name for which there is no ancient evidence.