Junia (New Testament person)
According to professor and pastor [[Gilbert Bilezikian]], the term "apostle" connotes the highest level of leadership and authority in the early church. Initially, only the original disciples (meaning "students", "learners") of Jesus were called "apostles" (meaning "those sent forth with a mission). After Jesus' resurrection, the designation was given to missionaries involved in establishing churches and who saw the resurrected Christ before his [[Ascension of Jesus|ascension]]. This included more than "five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time" and then Paul himself. After that, the appellation of apostle was extended to Christian disciples who had never seen Christ but who were pioneer missionaries, such as Apollos, Epaphroditus, Sylvanus and Timothy. The description of "apostles" as one of the three higher spiritual gifts that Christians should desire is evidence of continued accessibility to this ministry for qualified persons. They could aspire to become apostles, prophets, or teachers. Bilezikian writes that the term "apostle" was still used in this broad sense in the post-apostolic writing of the [[Didache]].
Islam and other religions
However, this incident does not imply that Jews in general rejected Muhammad's constitution. One Yemenite Jewish document, found in the Cairo Genizah, claims that many Jews had not only accepted Muhammad as a prophet, but even desecrated Sabbath in order to join Muhammad in his struggle; historians suggest that this document, called "Dhimmat an-nabi Muhammad" (Muhammad’s Writ of Protection), may have been fabricated by Yemenite Jews for the purpose of self-defence. Still, some Yemeni Jews considered Muhammad a true prophet, including Natan'el al-Fayyumi, a major 12th century rabbi who incorporated various Shia doctrines into his view of Judaism.