Why Is There No Gospel Of Junias?

[Neon Genesis]

In Romans chapter 16, Saint Paul lists Junia as being a prominent leader among the apostles.

Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.

Most bible scholars today believe Junias was a female name which was later censored by NT manuscript copyists who didn't like the idea of a prominent female leader being apart of the early church, so they made up a non-existent male version of her name to cover up her gender. But if Junias was so prominent a leader among the apostles, why don't we have any gospels about her? We have non-canonical gospels about other women leaders in early Christianity like the Gospel of Mary and the Acts of Paul and Thelca yet there is no Gospel of Junias to the best of my knowledge.

[PaulS]

Even further, Neon - why are there only books attributed to only a few of the very special and chosen disciples? Why don't we have gospels attributed to Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas (well, maybe we do), Simon the Zealot, and Judas (son of James not Iscariot)?

[GeorgeW]

According to the Anchor Bible Dictionary, she was almost certainly a woman, probably a freed slave and probably had Roman citizenship. Her name, Junia, was likely a that of a noble Roman family who had owned her.

 

It says, "Only later medieval copyists of Rom 16:7 could not imagine a woman being an apostle and wrote the masculine name “Junias.” They say that the name Junias did not exist in antiquity.

 

George

[NORM]

...why don't we have any gospels about her?

 

Under Pope Damascus, the construction of the Holy Scriptures was detailed in a document entitled, THE 'DECRETUM GELASIANUM DE LIBRIS RECIPIENDIS ET NON RECIPIENDIS' (the full list of condemned titles can be found here: http://www.tertullia...ecretum_eng.htm )

 

At the end of the list of "approved" gospels, the following list of Non Recipiendis (non-approved) gospel writers is detailed:

 

These and those similar ones, which Simon Magus, Nicolaus, Cerinthus, Marcion, Basilides, Ebion, Paul of Samosata, Photinus and Bonosus, who suffered from similar error, also Montanus with his obscene followers, Apollinaris, Valentinus the Manichaean, Faustus the African, Sabellius, Arius, Macedonius, Eunomius, Novatus, Sabbatius, Calistus, Donatus, Eustasius, Jovianus, Pelagius, Julian of Eclanum, Caelestius, Maximian, Priscillian from Spain, Nestorius of Constantinople, Maximus the Cynic, Lampetius, Dioscorus, Eutyches, Peter and the other Peter, of whom one disgraced Alexandria and the other Antioch, Acacius of Constantinople with his associates, and what also all disciples of heresy and of the heretics and schismatics, whose names we have scarcely preserved, have taught or compiled, we acknowledge is to be not merely rejected but eliminated from the whole Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church and with their authors and the followers of its authors to be damned in the inextricable shackles of anathema forever.

 

My guess is most were destroyed, and certainly were vilified.

 

I can imagine that works written by women (who still are kept at arms length from full participation in the faith) were summarily ignored.

 

NORM