I recently re-upped my StumbleUpon membership and noticed this site which states:
How did the others die? Was it especially dangerous following around after Jesus? Was Jesus just a callous fellow who was often endangering his buddies?
Considering that Jesus died before any of his apostles did, I’d say not.
St. Peter was crucified upside down, I believe.
I think Wikipedia could probably be of assistance in answering your General Question, unless you wanted to expand it to more of a debate.
None of them died until after Jesus (with the exception of Judas); remember they had to be alive to write the gospels and none of them were written until decades after it happened.
As far as the rest, according to wikipedia:
- six were crucified (Peter crucified upside-down - and he requested it, because he felt he wasn’t worthy of dying the same way as Jesus),
- one was beheaded
- one was flayed and beheaded
- two were stabbed
- one was stoned, crucified, and then beaten to death (a little overkill?)
- one was stoned and beheaded
(Paul was beheaded, but doesn’t count as one of the twelve).
And, yes, it was dangerous to follow Jesus. It was a new, and rather confrontational, religion.
Oops, I forgot Judas.
nm
Oddly enough, my church covered just this subject in this month’s newsletter. I have it right here.
Matthew: killed by a sword in Ethiopia
Mark: Dragged to death by horses in Alexandria, Egypt
Luke: Hanged in Greece
John: Survived an execution attempt, then exiled, then freed. Later died of natural causes
Peter: crucified (upside down)
James the Lesser/Just: Thrown from the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem. Survived the fall, but was then beaten to death
James the son of Zebedee: beheaded in Jerusalem
Bartholomew: whipped to death in Armenia
Andrew: crucified in Greece
Thomas: stabbed in India
Jude: killed by arrows
Matthias (the one chosen to replace Judas): stoned and beheaded
Paul: beheaded in Rome
The gospels were not written by any of the twelve apostles. Mark is widely believed to be the first written around 70 A.D. and John the last around 100 A.D. All of the apostles were deceased by that time, and very probably would have been even if they hadn’t been killed.
There were apostles named Mark and Luke? The list I know includes a Phillip and a Simon (in addition to Simon known as Peter) rather than those two.
That was a collection of the Twelve (includng Matthias), the two non-Apostle Gospel writers, and Paul (called to be an apostle in Acts).
The only one spelled out in Scripture is James bar Zebedee:
The answers for the other are all from early tradition, and have been the subject of a truly amazing amount of pious glurge over the centuries.
Philip, from Wikipedia:
The Catholic Encyclopedia, whose article does not spell out cause of death suggests that the variant stories of wher and how he died result from confusion between Philip the Apostle and another Philip, one of the first seven deacons called in Acts.
Simon Zealotes, also from Wikipedia:
The more common tradition holds that Bartholomew (aka Nathanael) was flayed alive and beheaded in Armenia – hence medieval depictions of St. Bart carrying his own skin. He is often symbolized by three sharp knives, a reference to his being skinned.
Luke died of old age from many sources I see.
There’s a tradition that says that, when he was 84, he was hanged by pagan priests from an olive tree in Thebes.
Thanks for the answers. I wonder if getting crucified upside down was that much worse than right side up. I guess maybe the blood rushes to your head. It might hurt less with the stake through your tib fib, though.
Peter requested he be crucified upside-down because he did not consider himself worthy to die the same way as Jesus died. Paul, more educated than most of the original apostles, was a Roman citizen; therefore, he requested beheading by a sword.
(Most of this is Christian folklore, though.)
The difinitive source of stories about the early martyrs of the church, from the disciples up through the middle ages, is Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, published in 1563. Although most of the accounts come purely from Church tradition and folklore and may be historically suspect, the book is a fascinating litany of crucifixions, stabbings, hangings, dismemberments, beheadings, mutilations and immolations. I haven’t read it in a long time but most of the martyr traditions mentioned in this thread can be found in Foxe’s and there are numerous editions/translations available on Amazon.
How the hell did he manage that? Eagle’s wings?
Cecil has covered crucifixion. It seems that the suffocation theory would be affected by being upside down. I wonder if this is a question for a new thread?
Wouldn’t it be Angel’s wings? I don’t know, but survived doesn’t necessarily mean he walked away without a scratch…
Well, not in the case of John. Wiki "It is traditionally believed that John survived his contemporary apostles and lived to an extreme old age, dying at Ephesus in about A.D. 100.[8]"
The Gospel named after him was almost doubtless done by his followers at Ephesus, and most modern scholars think that John dictated much of it to those followers in his elder years. Of course, there appears to have been some editing, etc. "The resulting revolution in Johannine scholarship was termed the new look by John A. T. Robinson, who coined the phrase in 1957 at Oxford. According to Robinson, this new information rendered the question of authorship a relative one. He considered a group of disciples around the aging John the Apostle who wrote down his memories, mixing them with theological speculation, a model that had been proposed as far back as Renan’s Vie de Jésus (“Life of Jesus,” 1863). The work of such scholars brought the consensus back to a Palestinian origin for the text, rather than the Hellenistic origin favored by the critics of the previous decades."
Of course then, this brings up “who is the author of such a book?” even if John dictated much of it. However, attributing the authorship to John is not such a stretch, even if it’s clear not all the words or phrases are his. However, this has been much disputed over the centuries, and valid arguments can be made by either side. We simply do not know, even though Robinson may be the best modern scholarhsip done on the subject.
It’s also not impossible that some words of Matthew, originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic, formed some basis of the Gospel attributed to him.
"A study of the external evidence, shows that there existed among the Nazarene and Ebionite Communities, a gospel commonly referred to as the Gospel of the Hebrews. It was written in Aramaic and its authorship was attributed to St. Matthew. Indeed, the Fathers of the Church, while the Gospel of the Hebrews was still being circulated and read, always referred to it with respect. The Early Church Fathers (Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus Origen, Jerome etc) all made reference to this gospel of Matthew.
Some modern scholars believe that the Apostle Matthew wrote an eye witness account in Hebrew of the life of Jesus long before any of the Canonical Gospels and that this Gospel of the Hebrews was considered authentic, held in very high regard by Early Church leaders and was the basis for future gospels including the Gospel of Matthew found in the Bible."
Clearly, Matthew the Apostle did not write Matthew per se, however.
Niether Mark nor Luke was one of the 12 Apostles in any case. Of course, even their authorship is disputed.