RRK

Isn't it also mentioned in several other sources? Off the top of my head, the Acts of Peter, Origen (quoted by Eusebius) and Tertullian mentioned Peter's martyrdom.

jbernier

It very likely might be. I have never looked into this fully myself. I do think that 1st Clement is the first possible reference to his martyrdom, though. Either way, I do not think it really matters that much as all his martyrdom would establish is his willingness to die for his cause; however, as already noted, that does not in any way speak to the veracity of the truth claims made by his cause.

Chili

There must be room for an argument that the apostles were personifications of forces that are needed for humans to come to salvation only. If this than based on this they could never be martyred as human beings. In this sense Thomas was doubt and Peter was faith which made them twins and I think that each one had such a role to play. At one time, I think, they were shepherds and co-creators with Joseph the enterprising carpenter.

It is foolish to die as martyr or Jesus would have set the example of this. Instead he conveniently "slipped out of the crowd" and finally had his ego crucified.

It is true that the idea of martydom is useful as a tool to create a loyal flock but that does not make it a good idea for the martyr (I think).

Magdlyn

Kind of off topic but,

Thomas was gnosis/understanding acc to gnostic thought, Jesus' twin, not Peter's. He was made to a a doubter of unseen supernatural events in GJn, perhaps as Pagels says, as a reaction to GThomas believers.

Peter was a pretty lousy example of faith in the gospels. Pretty dense and crude. In Acts, he is puffed up and made into a super-apostle to correct the embarrassment.

Shepherds? Peter was written to be a fisherman. What do you mean by the 2nd statement?

And that is gnostic, in opposition to your views on Thomas above. Pick a side, dude! LOL

Quality

A few members of Koresh's cult who survived the seige STILL believe in his message and are waiting for him to come back to Earth and save them.

Magus55

In other words, they go against what Jesus teaches them, in order to show people what Jesus taught them? Why would the disciples need to make Jesus appear more authoritative then He already is? If Jesus didn't fullfill on His promises, He wasn't the Messiah - and they would have waited for another Messiah, and messiah's were common back then. There is no reason to make Jesus appear to be God, unless He convinced them He was. Why didn't the disciples do that for other previous so called Messiahs?

Magus55

They didn't die as heroes, they died as criminals for going against the Emperor. And no sorry, I certaintly would never be willing to be beheaded or crucified to endorse a lie, and I seriously doubt they would either.

Magus55

Well, I'm not sure why they would believe Jesus was true, if He actually wasn't. Its kinda coincidental that multiple disciples all had the same vision of a ressurected Jesus don't you think? And what about His alleged miracles? Either the disciples witnessed what they thought were miracles ( and considering the magnitude of them, I don't think they would be easy to mistake), or they made up the miracles, in which case we are back to them dying for a lie they made up.

Also, Osama Bin Laden and suicide bombers are a poor analogy for Jesus' disciples. The Quran says to participate in Jihad and kill the enemy. Its written in their holy book. The Bible wasn't written when the disciples dealt with Jesus. They weren't following the orders of an alleged divine holy book, they were following their own life experiences.

Chili

Oh well maybe we are thinking of two different persons with the same name. Mine is doubting Thomas and yours must be Thomas the gnostic.

I agree, there was not much faith left in the Gospels where it had to be brought to understanding. Thanks for that and was it not Peter wo was defrocked (no cloak of faith) when Thomas became convinced? Read about in GJn and you probably know exactly where to find it. Yes he was but he was also one of the shepherds herding sheep on the night that Jesus was born. The fisherman was a metaphor, and so was the shepherd, and so was the carpenter because the entire event took place in the mind of one man. The stable is where it took place and that is also where the left and right side of the boat was, for Peter to fish in, etc.I am not picking sides but just am what I am and write what I see.

sodium

I think we have to identify the real argument here. Obviously it is absurd to claim that people don't die for false beliefs. It happens all the time. What's more plausible, is that people don't die for beliefs that they know to be false. So, we wouldn't expect that people would die to be able to proclaim that they had seen Jesus resurrected, if they knew it was something they made up.

But Paul doesn't proclaim that kind of thing. He proclaims visions, and a spiritual system he appears to have loosely derived from Jewish scripture. He may or may not have heard the story of Jesus's resurrection from people who claim to have seen it, but he certainly hasn't seen it himself.

Paul would not know first-hand whether Jesus was resurrected. And even if he knew that he wasn't, it isn't clear that Paul would think that invalidated his whole religious system. Jesus would still have a spiritual resurrection, analogous to the spiritual resurrection that ordinary people could expect. So Paul was in a position where he might have considered physical resurrection a useful fiction in order to get people to accept the really important parts of his belief system.

Of course, it is somewhat doubtful that Paul actually alleged a physical resurrection for Jesus of the kind Christians now believe. You have to read that into what he's saying.

When it comes right down to it, it's hard to be certain about much of anything about early Christianity.