StanJ
Lifelong student of God's Word.
McKnight kind of contradicts himself. The quote you show above and one out of his own book on Junia that states; "Junia is a woman, but it is not entirely clear if the apostles like her or if she is actually an apostle".Here is a very interesting article about Junia:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/01/27/when-the-bias-of-our-blinders-changes-the-bible/
The bulk of this article was written by Gary Wills, who is is Professor of History Emeritus at Northwestern. He is the author, most recently, of The Future of the Catholic Church with Pope Francis. (February 2016)
The article also mentions Scot McKnight. He is another scholar, who is currently Professor of New Testament at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lombard, Illinois.
It includes the words of a man named John Chrysostom, who was Archbishop of Canterbury during the late fourth and early fifth centuries:
For Junia to be included not only among the emissaries but among the outstanding (episemoi) ones was a high honor, as John Chrysostom recognized in his commentary on Romans: “How great this woman’s love ofwisdom (philosophia) must have been, to merit her inclusion among the apostles.”
Yes, Virginia, there were female apostles...
As Wallace, who is BTW, a preeminent Greek Scholar and not just a professor on Pauline history, shows that the context is not showing her as an apostle, I'll stick with Wallace. No disrespect to McKnight, but it sounds like he himself is not quite convinced of whether she was an apostle of not. Seems to me, that older English versions were biased in this regard, as McKnight confirms, and the new ones show only that she was well respected BY the apostle and not AS an apostle.
That is the ONLY issue I have with this.