Board index ‹ The Apostles – Jesus's Disciples

[J Lord]

"How do you explain the fact that the apostles went their death rather than renounce their faith? People do not die for beliefs that they know are false so if the apostles knowingly went to their deaths they must have believed that Jesus was really resurrected. And it is unlikely they would all believe this unless they actually witnessed the risen Jesus. This provides good evidence for the resurrection because no other possibility adequately explains the apostles' faith and willingness to die for their beliefs."

The above statement represents a common apologetic argument in favor of the resurrection. I think anyone who uses this type of argument is either misinformed or is being deliberately deceptive. This is because the stories about the apostles' faith and their willingness to die for their faith are not facts that can be confirmed independent of the Jesus legend. The stories about the apostles are part of the same legend.

So Christians are citing one part of the legend as though it were a fact and then using this "fact" to prove that another part of the legend is true. It is the equivalent of arguing "We know that Hercules killed the Nemean Lion because he was seen wearing the pelt of the Nemean Lion, and how else would he have got that pelt unless he killed the lion?" A person making this type of argument is either misinformed or dishonest.

It's even worse in the case of Christianity because the evidence of the apostles' faith and martyrdom doesn't even come from the texts that Christians consider to be trustworthy. The only apostle whose death is recorded in the bible is James. According to the book of Acts, James was killed by Herod with a sword because Herod wanted to kill a Christian in order to please the Jews. There is no indication that James chose to die rather than renounce his faith and no indication that he would have even been given a chance to renounce his faith. For all of the other apostles (except John who is not believed to have been martyred), the accounts of their martyrdom come from sources that are even less trustworthy than the book of Acts. They are sources written much later (50 to 100 years after the canonical texts) and that contain wildly implausible miracle claims. These sources are dismissed by most Christians are fabrications, but they still want to maintain the belief that the apostles were willing martyrs. So rather than cite these discredited sources, Christians will simply cite "tradition."

If you ask Google how the apostles died you will get numerous Christian websites that tell you what happened to all the apostles, but none of them cite any sources. They will either just assert what happened without a source, or will cite tradition as the source. By this they mean that either some early church father made a martyrdom claim, or that the non-canonical texts are embellished accounts of widely held beliefs among early Christians.

So the sources that tell us the resurrection story are actually earlier closer in time to the event than the sources we have about the apostles' deaths. There is no good reason for someone to accept the martyrdom claims being real unless they already accept the resurrection claims. This means using the apologetic argument above with someone who doesn't already believe in the resurrection is either dishonest or misleading.

This could be disproven by citing some reasonable evidence for the apostles martyrdom and I invite you to do so if possible.

[jimwalton]

I guess it depends what you mean by "the Jesus Legend." If by that you mean people who declared themselves as believers, then that is the case, but then the burden of proof lies on you to evidence that they are false accounts.

James was killed by Herod Agrippa (Acts 12.2). The implication is that his death related to his faith, because the text says he arrested some who belonged to the church. Herod then proceeds to arrest Peter. The logical connection between the two arrests is their Christian faith. James' death is also mentioned by Clement of Rome.

Peter's martyrdom is reported by Clement of Rome (in his letter to Corinthians, chapter 5), Ignatius, Dionysius of Corinth, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Eusebius, and more.

Andrew is thought (supposedly by the Acts of Andrew, a document that is no longer extant, but is referred to in the 3rd c. and in the 6th c.) to have been martyred by crucifixion at the city of Patras in Achaea, on the northern coast of the Peloponnese. We have no earlier information about his death.

We just have traditions about Philip. Stories of his death come from "The Acts of Philip," a 4th c. work. According to one tradition, he was crucified upside-down; in another he was martyred by beheading.

Bartholomew (Nathanael): One tradition says he was flayed alive and crucified upside-down, while another says he was beheaded. These accounts are sparse and their reliability is unknown.

Thomas: The earliest record of his death comes from Ephram the Syrian in the 4th c. According to tradition, he was killed in AD 72 in India.

Matthew (Levi): As far as I know, nothing is known of his death.

James, the son of Alphaeus: Very late tradition says he was crucified in Egypt.

Thaddeus (Judas, not Iscariot): Late tradition says he was martyred in Lebanon (Roman Syria).

Judas: suicided.

Simon the Zealot: Traditions vary from dying peacefully to being martyred by being sawn in two.

John, son of Zebedee: Little or nothing is known about his death.

As for the Apostle Paul, Ignatius of Antioch, in about 110, writes that he was martyred (Letter to the Ephesians, chapter 12). That's the earliest account. Dionysius of Corinth (in about 170) also says that Paul was martyred.

You are right that little is known about the reliability of these accounts, and yet they are the only accounts we have. There is no evidence to the contrary, but that doesn't make these traditions true. Nor does it make them false. The truth is, this is all we know, and it's precious little.

> There is no good reason for someone to accept the martyrdom claims being real unless they already accept the resurrection claims.

This isn't necessarily true. The two really don't have anything to do with each other.

[J Lord]

> If by that you mean people who declared themselves as believers, then that is the case, but then the burden of proof lies on you to evidence that they are false accounts.

No, there is no burden to prove anything false because I have not declared anything to be false. The "legend" could be true or false. I am pointing out that the sources of information we have for the disciples' deaths does not provide a reasonable basis for believing that they likely died for their belief in Jesus. The information we have about the martyrdom of the apostles is in the same category as the rest of the information we have about Jesus. Stories written long after the fact by devout Jesus followers that cannot be independently verified.

It is not reasonable to believe that something is true on the basis that is hasn't been proven false. So pointing out that we have a lot of poor sources for martyrdom claims that haven't been proven false does not provide a reasonable basis for belief.

> This isn't necessarily true. The two really don't have anything to do with each other.

I agree it's not necessarily true. People can have weird reasons for believing things. But they are related in the sense that to believe either you would have to be willing to take some seemingly legendary stories at face value without any reasonable evidence. And you would have to be willing to accept certain stories written by early Christians as being true even though we know similar stories written by early Christians were fabrications. So I find it unlikely that anyone would be willing to believe something on such bad evidence in one case and not the other when they both happen to support Christian beliefs. And the only people who claim to believe any of these martyrdom claims are committed Christians. So I think there is a strong correlation.

[jimwalton]

> No, there is no burden to prove anything false because I have not declared anything to be false.

First of all, this is disingenuous. What you said is, "The above statement represents a common apologetic argument in favor of the resurrection. I think anyone who uses this type of argument is either misinformed or is being deliberately deceptive. This is because the stories about the apostles' faith and their willingness to die for their faith are not facts that can be confirmed independent of the Jesus legend. The stories about the apostles are part of the same legend."

So you've used the words "misinformed," "deliberately deceptive," "not facts that can be confirmed," and "legend". The combination of those words adds up to "false."

Secondly, in a historically neutral environment (not assuming "true until proved false" or "false until proved true", both of which are positions of bias), the burden of proof lies on both parties to substantiate your claims.

> I am pointing out that the sources of information we have for the disciples' deaths does not provide a reasonable basis for believing that they likely died for their belief in Jesus.

I agree with you in the sense that we only have probably "reasonable" accounts of the death of James and Peter. Andrew's and Philip's are sketchy, but more possible. The rest are quite obscure.

> The information we have about the martyrdom of the apostles is in the same category as the rest of the information we have about Jesus.

This isn't true at all. The records we have of Jesus written in the 1st century are far more reliable than an obscure reference to a death of an apostle in the 6th c. or even the 13th. The two are not in the same class of historiography.

> But they are related in the sense that to believe either you would have to be willing to take some seemingly legendary stories at face value without any reasonable evidence.

Yet you are arriving at a classification of "legendary" without any reasonable evidence, either.

[Freddy John]

> Judas: suicided.

Was Judas Iscariot a real person or simply a literary device for the purpose of the story?

[jimwalton]

Every indicator in the biblical text points to Judas as a historical person. He is treated on the same plane as the 11 others and as the events described. He appears not just once in the text, but multiple times throughout. While he fills a role of betrayer (which can be both a literal capacity as well as a literary device [and remember that the Bible is rich in historical events as literary devices]), the story of the Passion in particular doesn't make much sense if Judas isn't real. If you consider him to be a literary device, on what evidence do you base such a judgment?

Our lives are full of real people and real events that we perceive as literary devices also, but it doesn't detract from their reality. In one case we'll consider someone a scapegoat, the betrayer, the warrior, or the herald, with the midas touch, the kiss of death, the green thumb. We do this all the time (http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-tur ... ary-device). Being a literary device doesn't preclude historicity, unless you have some evidence that Judas was not historical. I'd be pleased to hear it and discuss this further.

[Freddy John]

> Every indicator in the biblical text points to Judas as a historical person.

Yes, but are the biblical texts historically accurate? My contention is that, being written decades after the death of Jesus, there may be very little that is actually true and this is in alignment with quite a few biblical scholars. Given this, and the rather predictable hero-myth format of the gospel stories, the onus should really be on you to provide something other than the gospel stories for why Judas Iscariot should be treated as a real person historically.

[jimwalton]

First of all, "decades" is nothing. We are decades away from when Ronald Reagan was President, but reliable information is still easily available, along with eye-witness reports. We are decades away from the Beatles, the Vietnam War, the falling of the Berlin Wall, the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Reliable information is EASILY available.

Are the biblical texts historically accurate? The weight of evidence is largely in their favor. Of everything that can be confirmed, more than 95% can be confirmed as accurate. A few things are disputed, but only a few. Of what can be confirmed, the biblical text comes out as reliable.

> the rather predictable hero-myth format of the gospel stories

You're betraying your bias already.

> to provide something other than the gospel stories

Here's another bias. Why something other than the gospel stories? For example, democratic uprising occurred in the Middle East in 2011. Suppose I said to you, "Give me evidence of what happened there, but you're not allowed to use any eye-witnesses, people who had first-hand information, or any account that shows bias. I'll only accept for evidence people who weren't there and who didn't see any of it." Of course, that's ludicrous, but that's what you're asking for in the case of Judas. And you know that no such thing exists. The only accounts we have are the Gospel accounts, but they have been shown to be accurate time and again in records of culture, language, geography, religious environment, people, and historical events. The only reason you choose to doubt Judas is your own bias. Jerusalem was a city of about 80,000 at the time; we don't know anything about most of them, but that doesn't mean they didn't exist.

There are 40 mentions of Judas in the Bible.

Matthew 10.2-5 (and parallels). Judas is mentioned with other individuals whom we know to be literally historical (Peter, in particular). This would give evidence that the writer intends us to perceive Judas as historical also.

In Matthew 26 (and parallels), Judas is identified as one of the twelve actual followers of Jesus, a literal person engaging in real actions. There is nothing in any Gospel account to hint or allude to that Judas is a metaphor or a mere literary device. The Gospel accounts are written as if the author is intending to portray literal events in history.

The fact is we do have some limited historiography about Judas. It's in the Gospels, which have a lot in them that are historically corroborated. You choose to say, without evidence, that the story of Judas is fictitious. While we both know that we don't have a lot of evidence, what we do have is in the favor of historicity. To prove otherwise, you must prove otherwise.

So, as Debater #1, I have presented my thesis and the evidence we have (we all wish there were more). Now it is your turn to rebut with contrary evidence or to give evidence that the evidence I have presented is false. It's not good enough to say, "Because I don't think it is."

I’m just curious. What if archaeologists today found an anonymous document in Israel containing many of the same stories of Jesus we have in the Gospels? What would that do, in your mind, to the credibility of the Gospels? Negative (give the Gospels even less credibility), positive (give them more), or neutral (no effect)?

Or (hypothetical situation #2), suppose they found the same kind of document, but with a name attached? What would that do, in your mind, to the credibility of the Gospels? Negative, positive, or neutral? I'm really curious to know.

[J Lord]

> So you've used the words "misinformed," "deliberately deceptive," "not facts that can be confirmed," and "legend". The combination of those words adds up to "false."

No, you can see from what you have quoted that I am criticizing a particular argument, not making a claim about what happened to the apostles. I have made it clear that I think there is no reliable information about what happened to the apostles.

> Secondly, in a historically neutral environment (not assuming "true until proved false" or "false until proved true", both of which are positions of bias), the burden of proof lies on both parties to substantiate your claims.

Yes, and my claim is not that the apostles were never martyred, it is that there is no reasonable evidence they were. And therefore trying to prove the resurrection by making reference to the faith of apostles is using one part of the Jesus legend to prove another part. This is the position I have taken and I have tried to demonstrate why I believe this to be true.

> This isn't true at all. The records we have of Jesus written in the 1st century are far more reliable

Yes, I could have added that if anything the canonical stories about Jesus could be seen as being more reliable. This only further illustrates how ridiculous it would be to try to prove the resurrection by making reference to the faith of the apostles. It would be using a far less reliable text (in your view) to prove the events described in a more reliable text.

> Yet you are arriving at a classification of "legendary" without any reasonable evidence, either.

I just mean legendary as in stories that include implausible, fantastical elements that cannot be confirmed through historical methods. Any other implication you might have drawn from the word legendary is not actually implied.

[jimwalton]

OK, I buy all of this. Thanks for your explanation.