Resurrection Witnesses

Perhaps this should go in GD since it deals with religion, but it is a GQ as well. I have seen people claim that alledged witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection chose death rather recant. Is there evidence to support this assertion?

What sort of evidence are you prepared to accept?

I’ll accept almost any sort of evidence. Whether I’ll consider it to be conlusive is another matter.

In general, all evidence relating to the martyrdom of the disciples is very weak and speculative. Since you’re simply looking for evidence that you can evaluate for yourself, I’ll point you to the Catholic Encyclopedia (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/), which in turn gives references to many key primary sources. Here is an excerpt of the article about Saint Matthew:

Keep in mind, this is one of the better known disciples, who even has a gospel attributed to him. For obscure disciples like Bartholomew and Thomas, the sources are even more unreliable and shrouded in myth.

One of the earliest written accounts of who witnessed Jesus after his Resurrection is what Paul wrote in I Corinthians 15. I’m unsure of the exact date but it’s within a decade of 55 AD, and there is very little dispute that this is authentic Paul.

Obviously a Biblical quote is not the be-all and end-all of proof, but in this context, a letter that even skeptical scholars concur in being the authentic work of a historical individual and written less than 35 years after the events described, strikes me as solid.

There is not, so far as I know, any certain evidence of the circumstances of the death of any of the Apostles or other witnesses to the Resurrection, unless you choose to accept as historical the two accounts in Acts: the martyrdom of Stephen and the short note about the martyrdom of James of Zebedee.