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  • From: Richard Fellows <rfellows AT shaw.ca>
  • To: Corpus-Paul <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Corpus-Paul] Junia=Joanna and Andronicus=Manaem?
  • Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 21:43:20 -0700

Dear all,

Firstly, thankyou very much, Simon, for bringing our attention to Bauckham's
theory that Junia was Joanna. I would like here to consolidate this theory
by proposing that Manaen (Acts
13:1) is the very same person as Andronicus.

Paul writes:
"Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me; they
are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was".

Luke writes:
"Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers ... Manaen, a
SUNTROFOS (foster-brother?) of Herod the tetrarch".

We see immediately that both Manaen and Andronicus were Jews and were
important figures in the church. Secondly, we note that Manaen, like
Andronicus was probably 'in Christ' before Paul. He was, presumably, from
Palestine, and is likely to have come to Antioch at the time of the
persecution following the death of Stephen (see Acts 11:19), which was
before the Paul was 'in Christ'. Thirdly, both Manaen and Andronicus
probably lived in the same city as Paul for some time. This is significant.
It is probably only in Antioch that Paul spent an extended period of time
with people who were 'in Christ' before him. Manaen seems to fit the
requirements. There cannot have been many prominent Jewish Christians who
spent a lot to time with Paul and were 'in Christ' before him.

The suspicion that Andronicus was Manaen is further strengthened by the
Herod connection. Manaen was SUNTROFOS of Herod Antipas, and Andronicus is
associated with Joanna-Junia, who was married to Antipas's steward.

That one man should bear both names is not at all surprising. Manaen means
"comforter" or "leader" and is therefore just the sort of name that we might
expect the believing community to give to Andronicus. It was common practice
for the leaders of the early church to be given names to
reflect their roles in the believing community. e.g. Simon-Cephas-Peter,
Joseph-Barnabas, Titus-Timothy, and Crispus-Sosthenes. Indeed, "Barnabas"
may mean exactly the same thing as "Manaen", so it may repressent an exact
parallel.

I am undecided on the relationship between Manaen-Andronicus and
Joanna-Junia.

He may have been her son. This would fit with the writings of Papias, as
recorded by Philip of Side, "He also records other amazing things, in
particular one about Manaim's mother, who was raised from the dead." Now,
Joanna was one of those that Jesus had cured so it is certainly tempting to
identify Manaim (almost certainly Manaen) as Joanna's son. On the other
hand, this would require that there was a significant age gap between Manaen
and Antipas. It is unclear to me whether SUNTROFOS generally implies that
the two people were of similar age, though Bauckham cites a case where a man
was separated by at least 20 years from his SUNTROFOS (Gospel Women p138).

Alternatively, Manaen-Andronicus could have been Joanna's husband, Chuza.
Some commentators give the meaning of "Chuza" as "prophet" or "seer", which
would confirm the connection with Manaen. However, I do not know the
evidence for such a translation.

So, two questions:
Why do some scholars translate "Chuza" as "prophet"?
Could Manaen have been significantly younger than Antipas?

Richard Fellows.






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