The Story of the First Female Apostle and How She was Erased from Scripture

In the Divinity program here at MHGS, the introductory courses on Biblical Greek and Hebrew are followed by two classes that take grammar and vocabulary to the level of exegesis and application by focusing specifically on an Old and New Testament text. Both “Ruth” and “Romans”, where we examined how translation effects interpretation, were two of my favorite courses of my four years here at MHGS. In the Romans class, I was introduced to a peculiar situation in Romans 16:7 where translations actually disagree about the gender of one of the apostles Paul addresses.  I had never heard of Junia, and was skeptical about this supposed woman apostle.  By the end of my research, however, I was shocked by what I found, and at how little attention its received from the church community.  While my paper was written for a Greek language course, I tried to make it accessible enough to introduce curious readers to this story—which was to me both upsetting and inspiring.

Download the Paper Here (PDF.)

Kj Swanson is currently in her 3rd year at Mars Hill Graduate School in the Masters of Divinity program. You can read more of Kj’s writings on theology, culture, and scarf-making on her personal blog.