Female Authority in Paul's Letter to Rome Placing Junia and Phoebe in Context

Date of Award

2005

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Marks, Susan

Keywords

Paul, Early Church, Bible

Area of Concentration

Religion

Abstract

This thesis investigates the Biblical text of Romans 16. Specifically, it focuses on the role of two women, Junia and Phoebe, who Paul, the author, mentions in the text. Paul referred to Junia as an Apostle and to Phoebe as a Deacon, both of which were positions of authority in the early church. This study builds a bridge between three different sources of information: feminist theology, textual analysis, and historical evidence. Feminist theologians did much of the groundbreaking work on these women, and their work provides a critical framework for understanding Junia and Phoebe. Within a feminist framework, this study uses the verifiable evidence provided by new textual and historical data. The study brings together the previously isolated textual analyses on Romans 16 to demonstrate that Junia and Phoebe were indeed women of authority, despite the impression given by past translations that assume women could not have held positions of authority. Historical evidence provides the last piece of the puzzle by demonstrating that some women could and did hold positions of authority in first century Roman society.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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