The other day I came across an interesting thing in Luke’s gospel to which I hadn’t paid attention before: Jesus’ mission was funded in part by the household of Herod: According to Luke 8:3…
Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them [i.e. Jesus and the disciples] out of their own means.
Curious…
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Interesting. I’m sure that the Joanna’s funding of Jesus was kept secret, so Luke’s knowledge of it suggests that he had inside information. This would fit well with Bauckham’s theory that Joanna was Junia (Rom 16:7) and that Chuza may have been Andronicus. Perhaps Andronicus or Chuza was a pseudonym used to protect him from Herod.
Joanna = Junia?… I hadn’t heard about that possibility before – so “Joanna and Chuza” would be their Jewish names, and “Junia and Andronicus” would be their Latin names – that’s an interesting thought. Paul does mention that “they were in Christ before I was”. Why does Bauckham suggest the idea?
So you think ‘Herod’ was not aware of it? You also might ask which Herod are you talking about? Someone with the name Herod protected ‘John’ (Mk.6.20) One might think this Herod was Herod Antipas. But was it? Was ‘John’ in fact the Prophet? Was Herod in fact Herod Agrippa 1 and a supporter of the Prophet? Someone must have kept the prophet alive, otherwise he would have been dead much sooner, executed as a false prophet by the high priests.
And come on! That story about Herodias divorcing one very indeterminate Philip brother of the real Herod Philip and marrying Antipas has to be far fetched. Herodias always was married to Antipas until she left him to tell her brother Agrippa 1 that Antipas and Phillip were about to gang-up on him. She didn’t go to Machaerus, she went to Jerusalem to tell her brother about the plot, with the pretence of going to worship. So Herod Agrippa went to war against his two uncles.
See Bauckham’s “Gospel Women” p165-186. He points out the Junia, like Joanna, was a Jew, an early disciple, and prominent among the apostles. He suggests (correctly I think) that Palestinian Jews often took a Greek or Latin name when they traveled, and that this name often had a phonetic resemblance to the person’s other name. Thus Silas-Silvanus, Saul-Paul, Jesus called Justus, Jesus-Jason, Simeon-Simon. Other types of double naming also exhibit this phonetic similarity phenomenon. For example BarKosiba-BarKokhba, Amerius-Amelius, Perigrinus-Proteus, Titos-Timotheos.
Andronicus was a Greek name, as I’m sure you know.
Names can be invented.