| Saint Joanna | |
|---|---|
| Myrrhbearer | |
| Honored in | Eastern Christianity Roman Catholicism Anglicanism Lutheranism |
| Canonized | pre-congregation |
| Feast | 3rd Sunday of Pascha (Orthodox and Eastern Catholic) May 24 (Roman Catholic) August 3 (Lutheran) |
Saint Joanna was one of the women associated with the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, often considered to be one of the disciples who later became an apostle (Rom 16:7). In the Bible, she is one of the women recorded in the Gospel of Luke as accompanying Jesus and the twelve: "Mary, called Magdalene, ... and Joanna the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources" (Luke 8:2-3). She was therefore closely associated with Herod Antipas and was likely at his birthday party attended by the leading people of Galilee where John the Baptist was beheaded (Mark 6:21). She may have been one of John's disciples who buried him (Mt 14:12) as she is later among the women who went to prepare Jesus' body in Luke's account of the Resurrection.
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There are 13 separate references to Herod in the Gospel of Luke, only four of which can also be found in the other gospels. This means that there are nine references to Herod in the Gospel of Luke for which Luke had to have a source independent of another gospel. Joanna could easily have informed Jesus and Luke of the splendid style in which Antipas and his court officials lived. Joanna must have been one of the eyewitnesses available to Luke as a source for his Herodian material.[1]
Joanna is among a group of women who are the first resurrection witnesses, along with Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and other women (Luke 24:1). These women went to the apostles who thought their testimony about the risen Lord was nonsense, though Peter and some others decided to look at the tomb for themselves (Luke 24:12, 24). Joanna is therefore to be included in the 'ones with them' that Jesus calls witnesses (martures) (Luke 24:48). She is also one of the apostles mentioned in Acts 1:2-3 that Jesus chose. These apostles complied with Jesus' charge to remain in Jerusalem until they received the Holy Spirit. Acts 1:8 repeats Luke 24:48 by calling this group 'my witnesses (matures)'.
Acts 1:13-14 gives the list of these apostles as the eleven (cf. Acts 2:32; 3;15), the women, and Mary mother of Jesus, with his brothers (Acts 5:32). When the time came to choose a replacement for Judas the same criterion of witness (martures) from the beginning is used (Acts 1:21-22). Joanna, like Matthias and Joseph called Barsabas, was an eyewitness and apostle from the beginning.
Joanna is a very important person in the Jesus movement. She may even be the granddaughter of most excellent Theophilus. Archeological evidence confirming the existence of Theophilus, as an ossuary has been discovered bearing the inscription, "Johanna granddaughter of Theophilus, the High Priest"[2]
Both Richard J. Bauckham and Ben Witherington III conclude that the disciple Joanna is the same woman as the Christian Junia mentioned by Paul in his Epistle to the Romans (Romans 16:7). Paul says that Junia was famous among the apostles and that she was in the Lord before him which must be prior to 34 CE. She is likely therefore, given the evidence presented above, to have been a witness of everything from the time of the baptism of John (Acts 1:22).
She is honoured as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church on the "Sunday of the Myrrhbearers", which is two Sundays after Pascha (Easter), and in the Roman Catholic Church on May 24. She is commemorated in the Calendar of Saints of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod on August 3 together with Mary, the Mother of James and Salome.
Derivatives are : St. Jessica, St. Jennifer. She is/was a very important person to many faiths and without her a lot would be unknown about religion.
Joanna was a secondary character in Margaret George’s 2002 novel Mary, Called Magdalene. In the novel, Joanna, cast from Herod’s household by Cuuza for being possessed, is healed by Jesus in Capernaum. She then joins the other disciples. She is the second woman, after Mary, and becomes her friend.
Joanna is the main character in Mary Rourke's 2006 novel Two Women of Galilee. In Rourke's telling, Joanna is the daughter of a family that had become Hellenized and ceased to practice Judaism as they obtained a privileged position in the court of Herod. Mary is Joanna's long-lost cousin from a branch of the family that was still observant. When they meet they become close friends. Joanna meets Jesus through her friendship with Mary and he heals her of tuberculosis. The story centers on the friendship of Joanna and Mary, retelling events from the Gospel from the women's point of view.