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]].
The Judas Testament (novel)
The scroll is not the Gospel of Judas but an autobiography of the historical Jesus in his own hand. It is a "Judas Testament" in that its contents betrays the conventional image of Jesus as Christ and instead reveals him to have been a Judean religious figure known as the Teacher of Righteousness. Easterman's ideas in this respect are taken directly from contemptorary scholarship in the quest for the historical Jesus and the debate about whether or not there is a relationship between Jesus and the Judean sect known as the Essenes.