Why Did The Disciples Die If It Were Not True?

[Wittyusername]

I can understand early Christians being martyed - plenty of people are strongly convicted about all sorts of things even enough to die.

 

What I can't get my head around is the disciples. -- If one or two stole his body and started a story about how he was actually alive surely the others would want some sort of proof.

-They knew him well enough to recognise him and to know his brother e.g. (paid off to impersonate?) was not him.

 

Surely they would have slunk off back to where they had come from, a bit disillusioned a bit embarrassed - not gallop round with renewed Zeal.

 

Even Paul can be explained as an opportunist / some sort of psychotic break.

[Wittyusername]

As far as I understand, every last one of them apart from John, died for the gospel.

[Shinzon]

Depends on what they actually believed vs what the nt actually reports. If the view that I tend to see as most accurate has any value this is a easy question. The resurrection belief comes from both myth and extreme cognitive dissonance. They convinced themselves of there own illogical experiences of grief and a desire to avoid being wrong. The world didn't end as Jesus predicted and so Christianity as we know it is born.

[Shinzon]

As far as the body of Jesus goes It wouldn't really matter. The Christianity of the nt testament is a product of the specific decades and years written.

 

Oh and before anyone busts my balls about antisupernatural bias, the reason this is the explanation I hold to is that it explains what the text says better then Christianity.

[Guest Furball]

From all my research, I have found that there is no evidence for jesus disciples. It is possible that there is and I just have not come across it yet. But from everything I can tell, outside the bible, there is no evidence that jesus or his disciples existed. Even NT scholars have noted that the gospels found in the bible originally had no disciple authorship, they were just blank. 

 

Joseph smith, the founder of Mormonism, was proven a fraud, yet people have willingly died for their mormon beliefs and their loyalty (faith in) joseph smith.

 

Latter Day Saint martyrs - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[♦ ficino ♦]

Hi Wittyusername, I used to find the "wouldn't die for a lie" argument convincing. It's really not. The evidence for the martyrdoms of the apostles is as problematic, or more so, than the evidence for the historical Jesus. Candida Moss wrote a book on Christian persecution recently and debunked many of the stories.

 

Here's a link to a discussion with a sincere Christian, wololo, over a year ago, when this topic came up:

 

http://www.ex-christian.net/topic/65489-for-wololo-re-critical-thinking-about-christianity/?p=1006045

 

I did a lot of research into the supposed tomb of St. Peter below the Vatican basilica. There isn't any archeological evidence earlier than the 130s or so. All that we can conclude is that people in the mid 2nd century venerated the saint at that spot, and the city ground level gradually rose up above that 2nd century level so it's beneath the ground now.  The story of the martyrdom of Paul in Rome is similarly suspect. Classicist Otto Zwierlein has done a lot on this, though in German. If you'd like more info, i can send you the Word file of notes I took on the tomb of Peter and how it's not first century.

 

On the other hand... if the Resurrection actually occurred, it is part of the most STUPENDOUS, most important event in all human history. And if belief in it is necessary for our SALVATION --- why is it so badly witnessed, even in the gospels, which are full of contradictions about it?  If Donald Trump were God, there would be much better PR about the Resurrection, I'll tell you.  So massive FAIL on a huge scale if God is actually behind it. Why would God fuck with everyone in such a way as to leave the event up to the oral stories of a few peasants who didn't even write it down?

 

And ANOTHER thing: if Jesus really rose from the dead as the gospels say, why did he mostly keep hidden afterwards? Who was he hiding from? He was afraid the Romans would catch him and execute him again?  And if the disciples were going all over Jerusalem trumpeting the resurrection, as Acts claims, why no response from the Romans?  Hey, the revolutionary we thought we crucified - the dude is alive again? Oh, yawn, whatever, bring me a glass of wine, honey, will ya?  I don't think that would be Pilate.

 

The more closely you look at the story, the worse it stands up, really.

 

Cheers, ficino

[Wittyusername]

Thanks guys.

 

I've asked that one before about why he was on the down low and the answer to that has always been similar to the answers about why God does not speak or show himself.

 

That is so true about the Roman response though - I just hadn't thought that through ( or been allowed to).

 

A part of me feels the programming kicking in 'Don't let the World tempt you with their false knowledge - there is a way that seemeth right unto man etc.' Another part feels really sad that even the disciples were not as portrayed either.

 

I will give you an example. I used to like watching 'Lamb Chop', this hand puppet thing on tv. When I read about the death of the actress who controlled it, for a good few moments I thought 'well at least LambChop is OK' - then it sunk in- no puppet master=no puppets duh!

 

I am daily coming to new realisations and reavaluating situations rather than automatically looking for a bible verse which tells me what to think. What a mindfuck. Even swearing is a whole new area to explore and decide what *I* think.

[duderonomy]

Witty, it gets easier to think for yourself as you go along, honest. The day may come for you when these kind of things you wonder about seem silly. 

 

Think about this...once there was a prophet that received the word of God in a cave, delivered by the angel Gabriel. This prophet had a flying horse that carried him from what is now Saudi Arabia to the Temple Mount in what is now Jerusalem. The religion revealed to this prophet will one day take over the world, and any believer that dies furthering this truth is guaranteed a place in Paradise.

Does that sound sane or reasonable? No? But suicide bombers die so very often believing this. They die for their faith. Stupid, huh? Well, why should Islam, which is what I was just talking about be any different than Christianity?

 

At least that's one way of looking at it. The other way to look at it is that we don't really know, as others have said, if the disciples of Jesus were even real, or at least were really as they are reported to be in the Bible. It's not like we can know now, and all we have are books written many years after Jesus lived (if he was even real). If the disciples died for their faith, for example, at least a couple of them would have died before they would have had a chance to write their Gospels.

And which Gospels to include in the Bible among the many that existed?  A council of religious types, many years ago, decided for us which Gospels would be included in the Bible.  Isn't it amazing?  Those four Gospels in the Bible fit perfectly with the rest of the books in the Bible (that the council also selected).

Yes, it's amazing how the entirety of the books of the Bible fit together (even though they don't) just the way a puddle fits perfectly inside of a hole in the road, the dimensions of which have already been decided by the ones that provided the puddle. 

 

I've watched Lamb Chop too!  Wasn't it a bit on a show? I mean, I don't think Lamb Chop ever had his/their own show, did they? Ugh. Now I have to Google it.   

[♦ ficino ♦]

Witty, it gets easier to think for yourself as you go along, honest. The day may come for you when these kind of things you wonder about seem silly. 

 

Think about this...once there was a prophet that received the word of God in a cave, delivered by the angel Gabriel. This prophet had a flying horse that carried him from what is now Saudi Arabia to the Temple Mount in what is now Jerusalem. The religion revealed to this prophet will one day take over the world, and any believer that dies furthering this truth is guaranteed a place in Paradise.

Yeah, as you say, dude, the fuckers that believe this are doing major damage to everyone else, as well as to themselves. Scary.

 

Adam5 on another new thread just pointed out the absurdity of the beginning verses of Acts.

[Mythra]

ficino; that was a good link going to your post about a year ago.  I might even buy that book by Candida Moss.  I see it's $10.99 on kindle.

 

What you said is true.  The disciples martyrdom is stuff of legend.  Not history.  And it's not like we have a record of the disciples martyrdom within a few years of when it supposedly occurred.  The accounts come from the third or fourth centuries.

 

Back then, as now, people make shit up.  Storytelling is in our genes.

[Castiel233]

Most of the world shattering events described in the Bible are not confirmed by non biblical sources, making the whole lot very fishy 

[bleedblue22]

The only disciple who was originally one of the twelve that we seem to have it on reliable record was martyred was one of the James, from a passage in Josephus. The stories of the rest of the disciples martyrdoms come from unreliable church tradition and late, legendary apocryphal tales.

 

Come to think of it, does anyone know why any non-evangelical scholars would take seriously the idea of early authorship of Luke-Acts based on the fact it does not narrate the execution of Paul? It seems like the narratives of Paul's death are legendary, yet many scholars seem to agree he was martyred somewhere around 65 AD. How do we know he was martyred at all, let alone giving it a solid date that we should rest the date of authorship of the gospels on?

[bleedblue22]

Ah screw it, I'll ask Bart Ehrman on his blog. But I know the accounts of martyrdom are highly fictionalized and we can't say for sure that all of them, or even most of the original disciples were martyred or what they were killed for. There's no reason we should think they were even given a chance to recant and come clean if they didn't actually believe what they were preaching.

[mymistake]

As far as I understand, every last one of them apart from John, died for the gospel.

 

Lots of people die in stories.  It is very easy to create a fictional character and then give that character a heroic death.

 

 

Here is a fun riddle.  Jesus sent out his disciples ahead of him to preach the gospel.  How could the preach the gospel if they did not yet understand it?  Because once Jesus died they were puzzled and confused.  They did not know the gospel until after Jesus died.  Yet Jesus sent them teaching the gospel while he was alive back when they didn't know the gospel and didn't understand the gospel.

 

Fictional characters can work magic.

[Blood]

Kind of like asking, "If the angel Moroni didn't appear to Joseph Smith, why were Mormons willing to die at the Haun's Mill Massacre in 1838?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haun%27s_Mill_massacre

 

Religious people have been willing to die for mythological figures for millennia. 

[♦ ficino ♦]

 

As far as I understand, every last one of them apart from John, died for the gospel.

 

Here is a fun riddle.  Jesus sent out his disciples ahead of him to preach the gospel.  How could the preach the gospel if they did not yet understand it?  Because once Jesus died they were puzzled and confused.  They did not know the gospel until after Jesus died.  Yet Jesus sent them teaching the gospel while he was alive back when they didn't know the gospel and didn't understand the gospel.

 

The evangelical answer to this would be that they were preaching "the kingdom of Heaven/God." A gospel of the coming of the Son/King, w/ call to repentance. Not the "gospel" in Paul's sense of a story about the crucified and risen Jesus who died for our sins.

 

But I agree that there's still a problem why Jesus would send them out when the gospels, esp. Mark, keep emphasizing how stupid they were. In a cartoon, there would be scenes where Jesus would shout, "You fools, you have failed again!"

[martynq]

I'm in agreement with several people who have posted already in this thread.

 

The main question for me is where is the evidence for these supposed martyrs?

[Mythra]

Only one of the 12 disciples' martyrdom is described in the bible. And it was James. Which means that's the only one we can say for sure actually happened.  

 

There is actually two I guess.  One committed suicide.  In order for the story to have a good villain character.

[Mythra]

I'm in agreement with several people who have posted already in this thread.

 

The main question for me is where is the evidence for these supposed martyrs?

You want the christian answer, or would you prefer the truth? 

 

The historical accounts  oral traditions legends of the martyrdom of the apostles are first mentioned by Origen of Alexandria, a christian theologian who died in 254 c.e.   These were later recorded in the fourth century by Eusebius, in his Church History.

[Guest Furball]

This reminds me of acts chapter 5  where gamaliel stands up and tells everyone that if christianity really is of god, then it will endure, if not, then it will go away like other cults at that time. He even sites 2 examples. Christians use this to prove christianity is true because it still goes on today. Unfortunately so do all the other religions like buddhism and hinduism (which are older than christianity). Mormonism still goes on to this day etc. If the the statement that gamaliel makes in the bible is true, then there are countless religions today that are all of god. 

[florduh]

They died because somebody killed them, or they just fucking died. Or it's just part of a fable and you may feel free to rewrite the ending as you like.

[Wittyusername]

All this makes me feel so;

•angry at being lied to

• stupid not to see through such asinine fables

• angry at how much of my time, money and life I have wasted on this shit. If it had been pre internet days I would probably have gone to my grave believing it. I would never have picked up an atheist book to learn about this stuff.

 

Thank you all for sharing this information.

 

I am still really angry. The disciples thing was one of the last things that kept me clinging on.

 

Hulk smash. Or something slightly more eloquent.

[Mythra]

And, just in case a reader here thinks that we are just covering our ears and saying IT'S UNTRUE, IT'S UNTRUE -  saying it's just stories, just legend - because we're ex-believers -

 

If you spend any any time at all online, you'll find christians who were trying to hang their hat on the "who would die for a lie" crap that Josh McDowell and C.S. Lewis convinced them of.

 

And, when a christian who is not that well educated about the subject consults with a christian who has done their homework, the more educated christian tells them not to overstate it when debating, because it's unsupportable.  There's nothing there except, apparently, 150 years of rumors.  

[Mythra]

It's commonly believed among christians that Peter was crucified upside-down, because he didn't think himself worthy of dying in the same manner as Jesus.  

Do the apologists who spread this stuff around also tell us about the speech Peter gave while nailed upside down to a cross and breathing his last breaths?

 

From the Acts of Peter (verbatim) written probably between 150 and 200 c.e.

 

I beseech you the executioners, crucify me thus, with the head downward and not otherwise: and the reason wherefore, I will tell unto them that hear

XXXVIII. And when they had hanged him up after the manner he desired, he began again to say: Ye men unto whom it belongeth to hear, hearken to that which I shall declare unto you at this especial time as I hang here. Learn ye the mystery of all nature, and the beginning of all things, what it was. For the first man, whose race I bear in mine appearance (or, of the race of whom I bear the likeness), fell (was borne) head downwards, and showed forth a manner of birth such as was not heretofore: for it was dead, having no motion. He, then, being pulled down -who also cast his first state down upon the earth- established this whole disposition of all things, being hanged up an image of the creation (Gk. vocation) wherein he made the things of the right hand into left hand and the left hand into right hand, and changed about all the marks of their nature, so that he thought those things that were not fair to be fair, and those that were in truth evil, to be good. Concerning which the Lord saith in a mystery: Unless ye make the things of the right hand as those of the left, and those of the left as those of the right, and those that are above as those below, and those that are behind as those that are before, ye shall not have knowedge of the kingdom.

This thought, therefore, have I declared unto you; and the figure wherein ye now see me hanging is the representation of that man that first came unto birth. Ye therefore, my beloved, and ye that hear me and that shall hear, ought to cease from your former error and return back again. For it is right to mount upon the cross of Christ, who is the word stretched out, the one and only, of whom the spirit saith: For what else is Christ, but the word, the sound of God? So that the word is the upright beam whereon I am crucified. And the sound is that which crosseth it, the nature of man. And the nail which holdeth the cross-tree unto the upright in the midst thereof is the conversion and repentance of man.

XXXIX. Now whereas thou hast made known and revealed these things unto me, O word of life, called now by me wood (or, word called now by me the tree of life), I give thee thanks, not with these lips that are nailed unto the cross, nor with this tongue by which truth and falsehood issue forth, nor with this word which cometh forth by means of art whose nature is material, but with that voice do I give thee thanks, O King, which is perceived (understood) in silence, which is not heard openly, which proceedeth not forth by organs of the body, which goeth not into ears of flesh, which is not heard of corruptible substance, which existeth not in the world, neither is sent forth upon earth, nor written in books, which is owned by one and not by another: but with this, O Jesu Christ, do I give thee thanks, with the silence of a voice, wherewith the spirit that is in me loveth thee, speaketh unto thee, seeth thee, and beseecheth thee. Thou art perceived of the spirit only, thou art unto me father, thou my mother, thou my brother, thou my friend, thou my bondsman, thou my steward: thou art the All and the All is in thee: and thou Art, and there is nought else that is save thee only.

Unto him therefore do ye also, brethren, flee, and if ye learn that in him alone ye exist, ye shall obtain those things whereof he saith unto you: 'which neither eye hath seen nor ear heard, neither have they entered into the heart of man.' We ask, therefore, for that which thou hast promised to give unto us, O thou undefiled Jesu. We praise thee, we give thee thanks, and confess to thee, glorifying thee, even we men that are yet without strength, for thou art God alone, and none other: to whom be glory now and unto all ages. Amen.

XL. And when the multitude that stood by pronounced the Amen with a great sound, together with the Amen Peter gave up his spirit unto the Lord.

 

So, a couple of things here.  Peter was able to deliver this speech while dying, crucified upside down.  Someone recorded this speech somehow, word for word (perhaps he had an iphone).  And then someone else, maybe 100 years later wrote it down.

 

believable?

[Mythra]

So the real question becomes:  Who would tell a lie about who would die for a lie?

 

And the answer is:  christian apologists.