Roland

Is there any evidence outside the gospels and Acts that the apostles even existed, at least as portrayed in those works?

When Peter and the rest are mentioned in the epistles, are they ever shown as being men who actually "walked with Jesus"?

I think the very premise of this thread is potentially faulty since it assumes that the gospels were based on factual events.

rlogan

As far as extra-Biblical stuff goes, it is also nearly zero. All roads lead to Josephus and there's the lonely James reference in there. Such a tenuous anchor to secure anything. I started a thread on Peter once and another one on Paul - and the upshot was that we basically have no concrete external evidence.

Steven Carr

Why didn't they just explain to Nero that they did NOT set fire to Rome, and they would not have been martyred?

I wonder why all those people in 1930 Soviet show trials confessed to being guilty. Were they psychotic?



There are lots of reasons why somebody would volunteer for death in 1st century Judea, for a cause he knew to be untrue. If Jewish Christians thought Jerusalem would be destroyed by the Romans unless Jews repented or converted, they might well invent a white lie and then be prepared to die for it to try to save their country.

Steven Carr

Goalposts - to the left, quick march! Now sceptics have to produce evidence of the natural deaths of the apostles, when there is hardly any evidence that they existed.

Do you have any documentary evidence close to the said time of death of ,eg, the death of Thomas?

BTW, why would Muslims have volunteered to die in Muhammad's cause (eg at the Battle of the Trench in 627 AD), if they KNEW that Muhammad had not been visited by Gabriel?

Steven Carr

Why is that option absurd? I don't see it myself.

Why did Jim Jones kill himself, when he knew that all he had been preaching was false?

Jack the Bodiless

...Ah, but did he know that it was false?

The same applies to the Heaven's Gate cultists. There was no concrete evidence that a spacecraft was NOT hiding in the Hale-Bopp comet.

Many people who invent religions probably believe them to be true, because they "sense" this. However, this becomes increasingly unlikely as the number of miraculous events they claim to have witnessed increases.

Of course, this expands the number of "they believed it" possibilities. Did they believe it without evidence, or because they convinced themselves that they had witnessed one miracle, or two miracles, or three... or did they actually follow Jesus around and believe they had witnessed every miracle mentioned in the gospels?

Baidarka

In the same vein I would ask the question, Was David Koresh a martyr to his lies or a victim of a delusion?
He used his assertions of Godly appointment to rape his followers literally and mentally.
He ripped them off financially, he raped their children, stole their wives, dominated their minds and finally led them to their deaths.
Was he a martyr or just a monster?
Can we extrapolate what we learn from Koresh to help in our understanding of other apocalyptic cultists?

Dargo

The martyrdom of the apostles could simply be an example of making the story more exciting. Heros should die heroic deaths. Simon Peter was crucified upside down sounds a lot more heroic than Simon Peter got drunk, fell off the fishing boat, and drowned, or Simon Peter died of cholera.

Mageth

There is also strong indication from early Christian writings that martyrdom (thus emulating Christ's death) was seen by some early Christians as a quick and sure (perhaps the only sure) way into Heaven, and even as a way to "grow the church". Some early Gnostic Christians saw this tendency to accept martyrdom as, well, rather foolish and pointless.

See The Gnostic Gospels, by Elaine Pagels, for more information. You can read a good review of the book here.

Amaleq13

Ignatius certainly embraced the idea of his approaching martyrdom:

"For, on hearing that I came bound from Syria for the common name and hope, trusting through your prayers to be permitted to fight with beasts at Rome, that so by martyrdom I may indeed become the disciple of Him "who gave Himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God,"[ye hastened to see me]. (Letter to the Ephesians, 1, Kirby's CD/website)