The Sean McDowell Show - The Real Story of How the Apostles Died

Episode Date: June 20, 2025

What is the truth about what history really reveals about how the apostles died? What did Foxes Book of Martyrs get right, and what did it get wrong? I published my Ph.D. dissertation on the deaths of the apostles in 2014, an academic book in 2015, and just completed a 1-year update (Routledge). In this video, David Wood asks me all the right questions about their fates. Enjoy...and please share! READ: The Fate of the Apostles, by Sean McDowell (https://amzn.to/3GaBOZI)*Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf)*USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM)*See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK)FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://x.com/Sean_McDowellTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sean_mcdowell?lang=enInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

Did the apostles actually die as martyrs? Many of you know I did my doctoral dissertation on this in 2014, published an academic book in 2015, just finished a 10-year update on this. And I have shifted my views, it might surprise you, based on what I think the evidence shows. Now for me, I think there's few issues for which there's so much confusion and bad ideas being propagated by well-meaning Christians that undermines what we can know. Well,

I've been on other people's channels to talk about this, but for the first time on my own, I want to tell you what I've concluded studying this for probably thousands of hours and I invited my friend David Wood on to kind of put me in the hot seat so to speak. Why? Well with the update more than Carpenter I thought Lee Strobel as a journalist could kind of pull the story out of it for me. Well David Wood number one this argument was important to him in his own conversion in prison interestingly enough. But also he's interacted a lot with Muslims, and this is an objection against the Christian faith that comes up.

So I thought he'd be the perfect person to put you on the hot seat. Let's go. Hi, everyone. I'm here with Dr. Sean McDowell, and definitely wanted to talk to him because there's an important topic that was very crucial in my becoming a Christian and yet certain elements have been called into question. So lots of you know that I grew up as an atheist and not just a normal atheist, an atheist with antisocial personality disorder and that is a good recipe for ending up in

jail. So I ended up in jail and while I was in jail I met a very interesting Christian. He was a guy who turned himself in for 21 felonies. We got into a series of conversations and up until then I had always thought that I had successfully explained the origin of Christianity. I knew that early Christians were going on preaching that Jesus rose from the dead. I thought I had an explanation for that. The obvious explanation to me was Jesus had followers, Jesus died, his followers wanted to keep the movement going, and so what better way to do that than

make up a story about your guy rising from the dead. So that made sense to me, but as I was having discussions with Randy, I don't even remember what led into this, but he started talking about how the apostles died, and he gave me a copy of Fox's Book of Martyrs, and going through the descriptions in Fox's Book of Martyrs, a kind of problem arose. So let me just give a couple quick quotations here. So, gives a list of the Apostles and other early Christians, and starts explaining how they died. So Philip, it says he was scourged, thrown in prison,

and afterwards crucified, AD 54. So pretty, pretty good information there, even gives a date. Matthew, the scene of his labors was Parthia and Ethiopia, in which latter country he suffered martyrdom, being slain in the city of Nabata in AD 60. We've got James, the son of Zebedee, James, the brother of Jesus. It says, at the age of 94, he was beaten, stoned by the Jews, and finally had his brains dashed out with a Fuller's Club. It keeps going, Matthias, Andrew, Mark, Peter, giving the details of how they died. And it's martyr, martyr, martyr, martyr, martyr up until you get to John. And then it says he was not martyred with the rest of them.

So these are the kinds of things that I was reading and I instantly saw the problem for my theory. My theory was that these guys in made up a story, but here they were being martyred for a story that if I was right, they made up. And I tried to think of anyone else in history who died for something that he knew he had made up, and I couldn't think of one person. And then I thought, well, even if there was one person, what are the odds that Jesus got all of the lunatics of history who are willing to die for something they made up? So it called into question my entire theory

and I realized what I was saying was not the best explanation of the evidence. I ordinarily would have had a commitment to naturalism, so I would have had to have gone with something like hallucinations. But I was also rustling at the same time with a kind of design argument and a moral argument. And it was enough to shake my confidence in naturalism

where I wasn't presupposing that anymore. And so I was just looking at all the evidence and thinking okay Jesus died, these guys were really convinced that he had appeared, what could have caused that level of confidence to where they were willing to endure torture and death and seemed like the best most obvious explanation was a man had risen from the dead. And so I became a Christian and went around sharing my reasoning. At first, I thought I invented that. I thought I invented that response to the disciples being liars.

Turns out other people had been thinking about that and realized that and arguing that long before me, among them Sean's dad. So I found out other people had come up with this before me, but was Sean's dad. So I found out other people had come up with this before me but was quite happy to share how I became a Christian and the role this played. It went by a long time but I started picking up over the years that some of the sources that this information was based on and these claims are based on is significantly less reliable than other other sources.

And so started modifying how I describe it over the years, but still, still, I had a lot of confidence in the core argument. And then, I guess nine or 10 years ago, I saw Sean give a presentation on this, and I understand that he's even modified his position a bit since then. But very recently but very recently very recently got

a challenge from a Muslim named Fareed and he saw this part of my testimony video and said this you guys know why David would as a Christian you guys ever wondered why because he used to be an atheist you know why is a Christian you guys ever wondered why because he used to be an atheist you know why is a Christian it's because of this roll the clip I found out how Jesus Apostles died most of them went to their bloody desk claiming that they had seen him risen from the dead. My explanation for the origin of Christianity had always been that the Apostles made up a story so that they could spread his message, but now my explanation wasn't making sense. If you're willing to die for something

you have to believe it. When a terrorist blows himself up he's obviously sincere. So the disciples, the Apost apostles, had to believe what they were dying for, but this means that they were convinced that they had seen Jesus risen from the dead. Now, usually when someone is willing to lay down their life for something, it's for an ideology that they got from someone else, and that ideology could be true or false. The disciples were dying for something that they saw. What could have convinced so many different people that they had all seen a resurrected man? I could explain one witness by saying he's crazy but all of them? Something was going on here and I had to figure it out, but I couldn't come up with any explanation

for why they had that level of confidence other than they actually saw him. David Woods put out over a thousand videos in the past few years, not a single video about the subject, not a single video about the disciples being put to death for preaching the resurrection. Why aren't you doing this David? If you put this out maybe we'll become kuffar. Don't you want that? So put this video out or tell your people, tell your fan base, why aren't you making a video about the subject? All right, so Fareed, our good Muslim friend,

wants to know why I haven't made a video about the deaths of the apostles. I talked about it in a lot of videos, but specifically on that topic. And I thought, well, there's someone who's much more knowledgeable about this than I am. So here I am with Dr. Sean McDowell, who literally wrote the book on the fate of the Apostles. So how you doing Sean? I'm doing great. We sat down probably ten years ago and talked about this. I've been looking forward to following up and having this conversation.

Yeah, and so the question on my mind is of all the topics you could get into, why did you want to focus on destroying everyone's confidence in Fox's Book of Martyrs when we were all perfectly happy with it? So we'll go back to 2010, and I had started a PhD program, doing my classes, but didn't yet have a topic,

so it's in the back of my mind. And I'm teaching high school full time before I'm at Biola and Talbot. And we were at Berkeley of all places, and we'd bring in some atheists and Unitarian reverends and LGBTQ activists to speak to our high school kids. We teach them how to defend their faith graciously. And we had a mythicist who denies that Jesus existed at all

making his claim. What's a mythicist for everyone? So a mythicist would be somebody who denies that Jesus existed at all making his claim. What's a mythicist for everyone? So a mythicist would be somebody who denies the existence of Jesus entirely. So he's presenting to our students and one of my students says something in effect of, if Jesus didn't exist, why would all the disciples die as martyrs? And this guy looks at us and he goes, die as martyrs. He goes, there's no good evidence that any of them did. And my students kind of looked at me and I'm thinking, huh, I've made this argument. I've never really looked into it. J. Warner Wallace, cold case detective, former atheist was there, his daughter was on the trip, and I'm like, Jim, you think this is a good topic? He goes, not only is it a good topic, but I just bought two boxes of books

and was going to dive into this myself. You can have the books, go for it. Now, two boxes of books is a drop in the bucket of what you need to do for a doctoral dissertation. But right away I was like, I'm really interested in this. I can make a contribution to the church. This is a good topic and I can probably publish this and help people. So it was just instant decision at that moment. And so obviously if you're doing a doctoral dissertation on the fate of the apostles, you can't walk in there

and say, here's what I read in my apologetics book. So you gotta go back to the sources. So how would a historical investigation of this issue look as far as what contrasted from what people are normally used to? Yeah, so there are scholars that would look at individual apostles, like Marcus Bachmuhl and Baucham Peter. There's others that look at John.

But nobody brought all of them together systematically with a carefully laid out grid of historical probability and said I'm going to assess the quantity and quality of the evidence for the Apostles. Number one, see if this argument actually works and if it does what's the strongest way to formulate it. So I didn't go into this trying to defend the deaths of the Apostles in this argument. You can't do that in the doctoral dissertation. I believed it, but I went into it saying, what is the evidence? How early is it? How many source do we have? How reliable are these? And my advisor made me do an entire chapter,

which was just months of research on how do we do historical methodology as postmodernism refuted the idea that we can have historical knowledge. And so I laid out a ten point probability scale from highest probability to least probability to kind of indeterminate in the middle and then just took each apostle one by one found every source I could have analyzed them as deeply as I could and try to come up with what I think is the best historical representation of the likelihood of the way that they died. So as far as a historical investigation, again lots of Christians would just you know read an apologetics book or something like that and see if you're doing a historical

investigation so you'd be looking for how early your sources are, do you have independent sources covering these kinds of things? Yeah, yeah, that's right. And by the way, it's kind of embarrassing to admit this, but I will. Is the book More Than a Carpenter? I helped my dad update in 2009. I started my PhD in 2010, and we list out the traditional deaths of the Apostles, and we put the world's most vague and worst footnote in the history of footnotes in the back of that book. It says something in effect of to see how they died, see church history. So you remember this. At that moment there was a seed of like, huh,

what is that? I'm sure somebody knows it was one of the seeds that intrigued me in this. So clearly we have not looked at this as carefully as we need to. And as I shifted from like apologist making that case to like historian, like you said, the number of sources, the reliability of the sources, the bias of the sources, the copying of these sources, you got to delve into all of that. And I did as best I could with each of the apostles

And little side note an old man gave me more than a carpenter in prison And that was the first apologetics book I read where I knew I was reading apologetics because I had seen the book in the apologetics category Of the Christian big book distributors catalog and I was like, oh, that's the book that's in the apologetics category But you know man came up to me and he said, my daughter sent me this. Looks like something you'd be interested in. I love it. And I read that and I was like, oh, this is exactly what I'm interested in. So and by the way, we updated that in a recent edition. And I think I nuanced in a way that's more reflective of the evidence.

Just for the record. All right. So if you're doing historical investigation, there are lots of first century sources, both Christian and non-Christian, second century lots of first century sources, both Christian and non-Christian, second century sources, third century sources, and so on. So you kind of have to narrow down your focus. So who did you focus on and why did you pick those guys? Well, I tried to look at... Marcus Bachmuhle has what he calls the living memory within the first two centuries.

So it's kind of like I can you know my grandpa was born in 1898 so my dad can tell me stories about his grandpa and there's still kind of a living memory tracing back that far. So within roughly to about 8200 I tried to favor those sources because they have a higher degree of reliability. That doesn't mean everything in that period is reliable and everything out of it is not, but I tried to favor the sources within that period. Now, obviously, I'm gonna take the 12 apostles, except Judas is replaced by Matthias, and then I decided to go with Paul because he writes 13 letters of the New Testament. Even critical scholars would admit seven, and he says he's seen the risen Jesus multiple times.

And then James, the brother of Jesus, we have an account of his appearance in 1 Corinthians 15, and we also know that he spent time with Paul when Paul comes to Jerusalem, quite presumably and obviously to confirm that his role in the early church, likely authorship of the book of James, felt like there was a weight with them. Could have studied Luke, could have added Mark, you got to limit your study somewhere. And my initial take was those seem clearly later and legendary. So bottom line, 12 disciples and then James the brother of Jesus and the Apostle Paul. And the this is kind of a side note, but it's closely connected. The issue of persecution in the early church,

because the main relevance as far as my thinking was, and the thinking of other people, is that the willingness of the apostles to endure martyrdom showed that they were sincere in their belief, and that they're not just simply making things up. They're at least taking it seriously. But persecution would kind of make the same argument. So even if they had all,

even if they all had lived completely full and satisfying lives or something like that, if they had endured persecution for their beliefs, then it would sort of serve the same role. So I'm just wondering as far as the sources go, the status of persecution in the early church, we've heard of the persecution from Emperor Nero and stuff like that, but is that also in question or? So if there was no persecution, it doesn't mean they didn't die as martyrs. People can be killed for their faith even if there's not a system-wide persecution.

But it creates a certain milieu and expectation and maybe as martyrs. People can be killed for their faith even if there's not a system-wide persecution. But it creates a certain milieu and expectation and maybe likelihood that supports individual cases of martyrdom. Now I think we make two mistakes. I think there's some Christians and that yesterday I was talking about who was like from the moment that Christians became believers there was this non-stop kind of you, empire-wide persecution against Christians. I'm like, that is overstated. But there's also been some people like Candida Moss who would argue has gone the other direction and undermined the evidence we have that at least it cost something for Christians, whether we call it persecution or not, to

proclaim the live in Jesus. And by the way, the issue was not that they said Jesus was God, it's that the Christians would not also sacrifice to the local deities, which was viewed as harming the Empire. That was the issue. Now if you start in the New Testament, it's kind of a, it's a remarkable experience for me, David. I'd encourage people watching this, is I just read through the entire New Testament at least two times, and I noted every single time it made an indication that a follower of Jesus it will cost them something for doing it and I was like taken back at how much I missed it it's like a golden thread through almost all of the New Testament of course it's in the Gospels it's in the letters of Paul

clearly like Philippians he's writing likely from jail course it's in the Gospels, it's in the letters of Paul clearly like Philippians, he's writing likely from jail. Hebrews, it's all over Hebrews, the Hall of Faith in Hebrews chapter 11, it's in the book of James, chapter 5 in particular, of course Revelation. So you have multiple attestation in number, but also multiple attestation in the kind like letter, apocryphal, gospel, and then you get outside and you of course you have in 115 Tacitus is writing and he reports that the Christians are kind of used as a scapegoat for the fire of Rome to get Nero clear of these charges. But we know this writing was not invented by Christians because the way Christians are depicted like is they're hated for clear of these charges. But we know this writing was not invented by Christians

because the way Christians are depicted, like as they're hated for these terrible things that they do, is not what Christians would make up. What's interesting about that is it's tied to the name of Jesus, the kind of persecution that they're experiencing. Now that was just in Rome, but if this takes place in Rome, you could say that there's precedent in the rest of the Empire for doing so, and we see that in other instances as well. So I don't want to overstate it, but clearly we have a reason to believe that it costs Christians to proclaim this faith from the text, but also outside in Nero, and then as you go

later in the writings of Pliny the Younger etc. All right and now as far as something like Fox's book of martyrs it's just stating these martyrdoms as facts but again some of the sources are significantly less reliable than others. So, and to be fair, it's always possible that a late source is correct. Maybe it was drawing on earlier material and we just don't have that anymore. But that means we kind of can't know. We can't know if we don't have something reliable

that that person was basing it on. So when you actually do historical investigation, take into account when the sources are from and how many sources you have and the quality of the sources and so on, you end up breaking things down into four categories based on how much confidence we can have in what's going on.

So the group that probably most people are interested in, you break them down, you break down the Apostles into four groups. The group that most people are probably most interested in is you have a group where the people on your list have a very high probability of having been martyred based on information. So clarify that category and tell us who's in it. Sure. So I would put four Apostles in that. Two of the 12, which would be Peter and James, the son of Zebedee, and then James, the brother of Jesus, and Paul. So of the 12, I think only two are in the highest level of

historical probability or close to it. So if we break this down, Peter, for example, there's two first- sources John 21 and first Clement 5 and Bart Ehrman writes that at least these are sources that the writer is aware of a tradition of the execution of Peter. Two first century sources and then depending on how you assess the sources there's probably between six and eight more sources in the second century, all within that living memory that unanimously and consistently portray that Peter died as a martyr. I find no good reason to doubt Peter. I put him in the highest level. I put Paul... One side note because it's in everyone's head. From Fox's Book of Martyrs,

Peter is supposed to have suffered martyrdom at Rome during the reign of the emperor Nero, being crucified with his head downward at his own request. So you mentioned that we have the sources on Peter and that you have a high degree of confidence that he was martyred. Is it in this specific way or okay? So Fox's book martyrs the last thing he said is at his own

request. Let me ask you a question. David. Do you think the Romans were in the business of taking requests about how you wanted to be crucified? Part of me says no, but I've known some sick prison guards who if I would say no, I don't want that punishment. They'd be like, oh you want something else? Oh, okay

So I can actually and I don't think I wouldn't say it's likely but I can imagine someone going Oh, you don't want to be crucified the same way. Let us come up with something creative for you So so fair enough. There are some examples of people being crucified upside down as a whole the Romans were not upside down. As a whole, the Romans were not invested in trying to kill you the way you wanted to die. It was to humiliate and punish you in the way they thought best made that example. Could there be a possible exception? Sure. But the first time we have Peter being crucified upside down is in the Acts of Peter, which is an apocryphal text written about 180 or 190 AD. Now, I think there's a historical core to this But you don't have the request and the sense of worthiness until appearing later in Church fathers that start picking this up in

the third and fourth century But if you read the first account Peter's upside down. I think a better understanding is he's upside down because the world is turned upside down I think a better understanding is he's upside down because the world is turned upside down and when he's upside down he can see the world as it is and Peter's death like the death of Jesus can help turn the world right side up There's a theological reason behind it as there is in a lot of the apocryphal acts rather than a historical one Now with that said One of the areas that I've shifted is I thought

Peter was crucified but not upside down. But then a book came out months after my 2015, the first account of the fate of the apostles, edited by Larry Hurtado. And there's a chapter in there and he described that one thing we know about crucifixion, again in the vast majority cases, although there might be some exceptions, is that somebody was stripped bare. The idea was to humiliate and shame them. Yet in John 21, what does Jesus tell Peter? You will be taken where you do not want to go. You will be clothed by another.

That's enough to give me pause and go, oh I think maybe he experienced in the death of Nero. People had these flammable kinds of clothes that were put on to be burned to death. I think that's probably more likely. Bottom line, whether he was crucified upside down or crucified at all, that doesn't undermine our confidence that Peter died as a martyr, which is the heart of my task. So martyrdom, yes, not nearly enough to go on to say something about dying crucified upside down. Yeah, I would say not even not enough to go on. I think the weight is against it, but fair enough.

Alright, so next you were going with Paul. Okay so Paul not one of the twelve but calls himself an apostle because he saw the risen Jesus. We have one reliable first-century source. Some would point towards Acts and they could indicate a way that it's indicating he was going to be martyred. He could point towards the passage in Timothy where he says I fought the you know good fight, finished the race. if that's not written actually by Paul Some people argue second Timothy they were aware that he was about to die as a martyr like we don't have to settle that one But I think the first century we have first Clement five one clear reliable first century source compared to pee that has to

Second century we probably have more like six to eight sources, so a little bit less than Paul, but it's early, it's unanimous, it's consistent. I find no good reason to doubt that Paul died as a martyr. Now, Peter I put highest possible probability, Paul I put very probably true, just to try to be careful on my scale, but we have high confidence Paul died as a martyr.

The other two James, I would put quickly, James the brother of Jesus. I'm sorry, let's go with James the son of Zebedee. We had this account in Acts 12. It's one of the only two accounts of their deaths we have in the scriptures. Peter, John 21, James, Acts 12, 2. Well, a lot of this relies upon the historicity of the book of Acts, which is beyond what we can go into now, but I think there's a strong case for it historically. We also have the reference Keener writes in his commentary when Herod Agrippa, the grandson

of Herod the Great, kills him. It reads like an execution account. It's not flowery, there's no legend in it. And it says that this Herod did it to please the Jews. You find confirmation that Herod Agrippa had that kind of posture towards the Jews, unlike Herod the Great in Josephus. So there's kind of this coincidence that incidentally supports it. And then all the later accounts that I could find line up with James dying to this fashion. So I had originally at highest possible

probability put him down one since we only have one source for it but again no good reason to doubt that. James the brother of Jesus what's interesting about this is he's the only Apostle for which we have Gnostic, Christian and Jewish sources. We have Josephus in the 90s. We have Christian sources like when you get into the second century, Dionysus of Corinth, and then you have like the first and second Apocalypse of James somewhere in the second, third century, possibly one of his even later, all pointing towards his martyrdom. I actually raised my confidence in James because I found

some scholarly journals pushing back on this. I spent time reading them and engaging with scholars and when it was done I thought their arguments so don't work. I'm more convinced he died as a martyr than before. People can read the book for the details but I think those four were in very solid ground saying they died as martyrs. And I think that the four men line up there is interesting in that you have two followers of Jesus and then you have Paul, who's a persecutor of the early church. And then James, at least according to the gospels,

is not terribly confident that his brother's the Messiah at first and then later on becomes a leader in the early church. And you try to figure out why Paul and James had such a radical shift, and you're stuck with the resurrection, because that's what the claim was back then. Just wanted to connect this once more to persecution.

You're talking about the Apostle Paul, but we have from his own hand some of the descriptions of what this was like. But here, let me pull it up, 2 Corinthians. 11. Yeah, he says, yeah, he says, verse 24 of chapter 11,

five times I received from the Jews the 40 lashes minus one, three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move, I've been in danger from river, danger from bandits, danger from my fellow Jews, danger from gentiles,

danger in the city, danger in the country, danger at sea, and danger from false believers. I've labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep.

I've known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food. I've been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my family. I've been in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews and have often gone without food, I have been cold and naked, besides everything else I face daily, the pressure of my concern for all the churches." And so Paul definitely went through a lot of persecution and he points out

that he's been persecuted more than most others, but also in 1 Corinthians he puts like the apostles in that category of being what he He calls like we're the scum of the earth and that's how we're treated And so it wasn't it wasn't an issue of becoming an apostle to great life So and in addition to that you're concluding that he was most likely Martyred so those are the guys you put in the sort of highest category probability wise. And for people who are thinking why are you talking about you

know probabilities and stuff like that that's how history that's how history works right. That's exactly right. Dealing with ancient sources you have to figure out the best explanation for the evidence. Okay so that's the highest category but the next category would be Apostles who kind of seem like they died as martyrs, but the evidence isn't as strong as it is for Peter, Paul, and the two Jameses. I would put two in this category. I'd put Thomas, and scholars are all over the map with Thomas,

from most confident to least confident. Eastern scholars tend to be very confident that Thomas died as a martyr. For Thomas Thomas the earliest source now is what's called the Acts of Thomas. Now you're at 200 to 220 AD so it's a book that has some legendary content in it although I think it maintains a historical core but it's also pushing that living memory boundary. If that's all we had I'd probably conclude that it's inconclusive. We also have the traditions of the St. Thomas Christians who don't have an early written record but they have poems and they have stories and

they have songs and traditions and arguably the burial spot going all the way back to the time that Thomas founded the church in India. It seems to me that those are independent. Somebody needs to do a doctoral dissertation comparing those two traditions and seeing if we can answer that definitively because if the St. Thomas Christians totally rely upon the Acts of Thomas we have one source. If it's separate we have two. I tend to think it's two, but we need a deep dive on that. Bottom line, for those first four, if somebody said, are you willing to bet your house that they died as martyrs? I'd be like, game on, let's bet it. These I only would do so if forced to bet my

house. I'd say, all right, I'm going to land on the side of Thomas, but with a lot less confidence than the others. Andrew, we have two sources, Acts of Andrew in probably in the second century and then we have a later writing maybe early third called Hippolytus on the 12. Both describe his crucifixion in very different ways that seem independent. So I put that as like more plausible than not. Maybe like 51% minimal confidence you could have. But if I had to bet my house to moderate illiteracy sources, no contradictory accounts, probably those two diet is martyrs and it's uh I've met some of the Christians

from the area uh Thomas there they they that's that's how they explain themselves. They got this. We got this from Thomas and uh it's part of their identity for sure and it goes back early. Now, you mentioned someone doing a doctoral dissertation on the topic would be cool. Would be cool for someone from that community to do that. I love it. Or somebody outside the community.

So you have these two categories. Then you have the third category, which is what, I don't know what you call it. I'll call it the, we don't have enough evidence to go on to make any conclusions category, but who'd be in this? Well, so you have these early acts, acts of Peter, acts of Paul, acts of John, that I think maintain a basic historical core.

When you get to like the fourth century, these acts seem to be completely unhinged from history. And so for like Bartholomew, Simon the Zealot, Matthias, Thaddeus, these figures, all we have are these writings way removed about their martyrs. You don't find anything, for example, in Eusebius about their deaths.

And some of them just seem so legend-filled like Bartholomew. If I remember, I think I found maybe five different ways according to these stories that he died. I mean he was flayed to death, he was crucified, he was killed with arrows, he was drowned to death, he was burned to death. Either they're all made up or one is true, but if one is true I don't know how to decipher them. If you look at an ancient picture of Bartholomew in a church or there's a statue who'll be standing there typically holding his skin. The story is he was skinned alive. The earliest source I could find I think was about 600 AD for that. Now that doesn't mean it's

false but how much historical confidence can be put in that? Now I study I had to get books and study like what did skinning entail? Did it exist at this time? And some of this was like morbid actually to read. I did not enjoy that. But skinning was practiced and it could have happened to him. I just don't think we have any good

or early evidence to conclude. So those, I think I put five in that category. I just don't think if we're looking at this historically, we know, and by the way, just last week, someone was from the Armenian church and they were talking about the stories of Bartholomew. There's some traditions that went there, Andrew. And they're like, Sean said none of these are true.

And I said, I'm not trying to reign on anybody's party and destroy traditions. I just want to know historically, what can we actually conclude about the stories of their deaths? That's an important point because if we're talking about what you to know historically, what can we actually conclude about the stories of their deaths? That's an important point because if you're talking about what you can confirm historically,

most things that have ever happened, you can't confirm historically. You have to have reliable sources telling you that these things happen and so on. So yeah, if someone has a tradition for their church or something like that, doesn't mean it didn't happen. You just, if you're approaching it as a historian saying, can I confirm this from the perspective of a historian? Exactly. All right, so

then there's the fourth category of people who died natural deaths, apostles who died natural deaths, and according to Fox's Book of Martyrs, there was just John. There was just John. What do you think? So I put three in this category now. When I started, a few things surprised me. I went into it assuming what Fox's Book of Martyrs said, that likely they died as martyrs and John didn't. My assumption was that was probably true but had to look at the evidence. I was surprised to find some scholars like Ben Witherington and Richard Baucom who make the case Biblically and extra biblically that John died as a martyr Since my first publication there's been another writing by Dean furlong

He makes this case that John died as a martyr part of me is like wow if I could get more that would make my case Stronger, but of course I've got to follow where I think the evidence leads. And they'll point to things like, I think it's in Mark chapter 10, where Jesus says, you know, disciples are walking with Jesus, James and John, can you drink the cup that I'm about to drink? Well, in many cases drinking the cup is martyrdom. We have James in Acts 12 dying as a martyr. That's kind of biblical evidence You have John all began of Acts and then disappearing and not shown up at the Jerusalem Council. Why? Because he was martyred is the argument that they make You have church calendars appearing. I think the earliest maybe the fourth century in the 300s

You have this quote by Philip of Cede in the fifth century, a church historian that refers to the martyrdom of John. I'm not convinced by that case as a whole. For example, when I talk to experts on Philip of Sede, that quote is probably not original to Philip of Sede. I don't think we can trust it. I don't think the cup necessarily has to be martyrdom, although I suspect that some people like Tertullian might have invented John going through the boiling oil and surviving to fulfill that as what he thought was a prophecy. Maybe I can't prove that, but I suspect it. So I still think John died naturally, and I'd love to be convinced, but I'm just not persuaded by it. Where I really shifted,

which I think is interesting, David, is on Matthew. So Matthew, I concluded, was indeterminate. We couldn't know, because I found traditions that were in favor of martyrdom and against it. Published this in my 2015 book. A French scholar reaches out to me and he goes, Sean, I don't know what translation of Clement of Alexander you're reading.

And I'm like the Antinousine Fathers, the typical English edition. He goes, if you go back to the original Greek, which is earlier, there's a negation that's not in the English. Now you and I know a no or a not literally flips the meaning of something and so I couldn't just take his word for it. I checked with a few other early scholars. I'm like which is early, which is reliable?

And I think he's right about this. So if you go to this passage in Clona of Alexandria in middle second century, he's quoting someone named Heraklion, who refers to four apostles who I thought was saying died as martyrs. I think what he's saying is he's making a distinction between those who confess the faith and die and those who confess the faith and die because they've confessed the faith. And I think the clear indication is once I read it with this negation in context was saying that these four actually died natural deaths. So I look at that there's a second early source for the natural

death of Matthew which is in Hippolytus on the 12th, I believe that is, and then you don't have an account of the martyr of Matthew until the fifth century. So the earliest accounts have him die naturally, and then you have later accounts of him some dying naturally, some dying as a martyr. So I flipped on Matthew and I think he probably died naturally. Philip, I'm really close on this one because Philip is also cited by Heraklion in Clement of Alexandria as dying naturally.

And then the early smartum for Philip is in the Acts of Philip when I think the Acts are unhinged from history in the fourth century. And then later traditions have both. So I don't know if I'd bet my house on Matthew or not. I'd have to think about that. I think he probably died naturally. If forced to, I would say that Philip did. But it's still... and here's why. That source in Clement, he mentions Thomas dying that way too. But I don't think Thomas died that way.

So I think he probably got Thomas wrong. He doesn't mention John die naturally. Well, why not mention John? So it raises some questions that we just, I don't know how to answer those questions. And this is the task of historian to say, okay, what source do we have? How reliable is it?

Where did this source gives information? Can we confirm it? In the case of Matthew, we have a few early sources he died naturally. So I think Matthew probably died naturally. So I put three in that category, David, and a number of other historians I looked into it actually assess it pretty similar to that as well, such as Brian Litvin in his book After Acts, which is a great popular book of the

fate of the Apostles. So you've got four categories based on what you can determine historically. The highest evidence we have for martyrdoms you would apply to Peter, Paul, James son of Zebedee, and James the brother of Jesus. Yep. Then you have, seems more probable than not, but not the same evidence that you have for those original four. And you put Thomas and Andrew in that category. And then you have a category just indeterminate, we don't know, natural death, martyrdom,

we don't have enough information to go on. And then you have three that you would say, evidence leans towards these guys just dying natural deaths. Yeah, to different degrees. I think John pretty high, Matthew moderately high, Philip minimally high. All right, so that would be your position in contrast with Fox's book of martyrs.

So we have to decide who we're gonna believe here. But we wanna cover a couple of martyrs. So we have to decide who are gonna believe here. But we wanna cover a couple of objections here. Cover a couple of objections. So this is kind of a strange one to me because when I thought about it, I understood this in like two seconds. Like I understood instantly as soon as I realized how these guys died that they are in a different category

from people who are willing to die for what they believe today. They're in a different category from most people who die for what they believe. People die for what they believe all the time. And so you say, okay, the apostles obviously believed what they were dying for, believed what they were being persecuted for, and so you would conclude, therefore they can't, it makes no sense to think that they're, that they're making something up deliberately. But just instantly, instantly people start saying,

well, what about, you know, what about the 9-11 attackers and stuff? Does this mean that Islam is true? What about this? Does that mean that's true? What about Buddhists who die for what they believe in? Does that mean it's true? What about Buddhists who die for what they believe in? Does that mean it's true? And so how about you clarify what you're actually saying for people?

I was in a bed and breakfast in I think Missouri and a nun I was having breakfast with a nun and she started grilling me on this while I was doing my research I always think of this when someone raises this question because it's a good one It's the natural objection that people raise. I'd say two things. There are martyrs in other faiths and belief systems. I would not call the 9-11 hijackers martyrs. I call them murderers because they are taking the life of

other people rather than willingly laying down their life at the hand or sword of another. But nonetheless, they died for what they believed and were willing to give their lives for it. We have Buddhist monks light themselves on fire, kamikaze pilots for the cause. So there's other martyrs. We actually have second Maccabees. We have the Maccabean martyrs willing to lay down their lives. The question we have to ask is why? So the Maccabean martyrs refused to compromise the law. The Buddhist monks do

this in Vietnam because they were protesting it. The Apostles were willing to suffer and die because they believed that Jesus had risen from the grave. I have a whole chapter on this where I had to get to the origin and the earliest beliefs that were proclaimed about Christianity because we hear about these Gnostic Gospels and there was diversity in the early church, whether it's in the creeds, the preaching in Acts, the early church fathers, there is no early Christianity apart from the claim that Jesus is God and he's demonstrated by raising from the grave. So they're willing to suffer and die because they believe Jesus had risen

from the grave and appeared to them. Now if somebody walks in here right now and asks the two of us, do you believe Jesus is the risen Savior and we die for the cause? By the way, if one of us is going to die for the cause, the way if one of us is gonna die for the cause I have a feeling it's gonna more likely be you but maybe these are famous last words for a separate issue But if they walk in here right now all that proves is well, Sean and David really believe this but there's nothing evidentially significant whatsoever for Christianity Tied to our beliefs because we are

2,000 years removed from it but the Apostles were there. They claim to have seen the risen Jesus. That puts them in a different epistemic position you might say and what we know about this relies upon their testimony. Now their willingness to suffer and die doesn't prove that Christianity is true. I don't think in principle it overturns the hallucination hypothesis. We can handle that on different grounds. But they're not making this up.

They minimally really believe that Jesus appeared to them and they're willing to suffer and die for it. So we know the early Christians are going around preaching Jesus is Lord and that he died on the cross and rose from the dead. And we're looking for the best explanation for why they're making that claim. One of the possible explanations of people going around saying a guy rose from the dead and appeared to us. One possible explanation would be that they're lying. Yep. And so this is meant to block that objection.

They do not seem like liars. They seem very sincere. And even when you look at other, that's what they would have in common with other people who are dying for what they believe. I do not question the sincerity of confidence in Islam of the 9-11 hijackers. I believe that they were completely sincere.

I don't believe they're like, hey, you know what I don't believe? Islam, let me go do this. I don't either I believe that they were completely sincere. I don't believe they're like Hey, you know what? I don't believe it's long. Let me go do this. I don't believe that So it's a it shows that someone is sincere and you can have other examples of this that have nothing to do with it If if someone walks in here and says I believe aliens exist and I say, okay Why do you believe that it's like well, look at the universe is big and so on I say, okay Then you know you're inferring that from the size of the universe and just probability or something like that. If someone tells me he saw an alien,

I would be wondering, are you making things up? If someone put a gun to his head and said, admit that you didn't see any aliens, and he said, I saw the aliens. I don't care what you do to me. I would think, OK, at the very least, he believes. He believes he has seen an alien. That wouldn't convince me that he has seen an alien. That wouldn't convince me that he has seen an alien,

but I would not believe that he's making that up if he's willing to die for it. Then the question would become, what gave this guy this level of confidence in this claim? What could have convinced this guy? And if it's one guy, he might be saying hallucinations, something like that. If you had all kinds of people,

then I have to start thinking, what's going on here? What's going on? If you had a bunch of people making the same kinds of claims, and so that's the situation we're in with the apostles. If it were just one guy saying Jesus had risen from the dead, maybe hallucinations, you have a bunch of guys and they're willing to endure persecution and death. It's kind of in a different category, as you pointed out, from me and you, me or you dying today. And that's right. by the way it's the 12 that we have, but we also have Paul and James outside of that group, and the vast majority of scholars, as Habermas points out, believe at least they report that they had seen the risen Jesus. And so any explanation has got to

count for all those. The disciples were lying, how do you get James and how do you get Paul on board? This is the other problems that emerge. Yeah, and yeah, that's kind of what it becomes. Again, if it's one guy, you could explain by hallucination. Two guys, it starts getting a little weird. The more people you have hallucinating, the more you're kind of stretching

how much work this theory's doing. Once you start factoring in people who weren't even part of the group, and then it's like, what are the odds that Jesus got all the hallucinators around him at that time, and that they're all hallucinating? Very strange stuff. So that's one objection that people often have.

There's another one that would come up here, and that would be, we're talking about the apostles dying for what they believed in, their belief that Jesus is Lord, and that He rose from the dead. But as you pointed out, some of the records of what happened to these guys are pretty shaky, so how would we know that Peter wasn't about to be crucified? He's like, okay, I take it all back, and they're like, too late, too late. You're locked in now. Okay, that's fair.

So this is actually in the back of the updated book, I added like six new objections, and this is one of the objections. And so I went to a church historian that I work with at Talbot and a few others. And I said, is there precedent to believe that if a Christian or an apostle said, oh wait, I recant they

would survive and he goes well let's get Pliny the Younger who was saying they were worshipping Jesus as if he was a God and if they recanted they were allowed to leave. In fact they were given multiple chances it seems like like please just recant this we don't want to kill you is almost the vibe that you get a little bit. In the third century it's the case that you see multiple cases of Christians if they're willing to say you know what I don't believe this they were able to go on to their lives and not be martyred. So I think there's doubt that they still would have been killed against their wills but I tend to think if that was the case or even any one of

the Apostles recanted, I think we would have record of this. Why? I think we would either from friend or from foe. So in the second century you have like Celsus showing up, this Greek philosopher just going after the resurrection in every conceivable angle. Later you have porphyry. And if there was even a story or a hint that any of the Apostles had recanted one of them would have said something I mean Celsius makes stuff up about the story of Mary getting impregnated by I think it's panthera Roman soldier he's willing to make stuff up no hint that there's even a story

that he would use none from porphyry, but believers also, interestingly enough, you have kind of the Donatist controversy that emerges about what about Christians who at the point of their faith is tested, they cave. Can they come back in the church? Can they ever be in church leadership again? Well, if there ever was a story about, well, you know, didn't you hear what happened to Andrew and he was brought back in. So yes, it's an argument of silence, but I think it's an argument of silence with some teeth that we would expect if there were even stories about it and there's not. And early Christians did respond to objections.

They worked it. They worked it into their argumentation, like into what they presented. So they respond to the idea that Jesus is performing. They make sure they include the response to the idea that Jesus is performing miracles by the power of demons on the idea that the disciples stole the body. Like you can tell this is an objection because they're actually responding to the objection.

So Christians are aware of information that people are using against them and they would respond to the arguments against their position. And so I guess it's just you have nothing from the critics of Christianity and you have nothing from the Christians that's responding to critics of Christianity. So doesn't look like it was just ever an issue that people are and you know canting their faith. Now that you mention it, you could take it even further. Like the Gospel of Peter, which is clearly not written

by Peter, end of the second century, exaggerated content in there like a cross that goes to the sky and floats, et cetera. But it's responding to objections against the resurrection. So the guard story is added in the second century. Well, again, no mention of any of the apostles seemingly, you know, abandoning their faith

or feeling a need to counter that. The best explanation is that wasn't even a story. Nobody was talking about it. Nobody was aware of such a thing because there's no need to try to counter it. One more possible objection, and this would actually be red flags if you're reading Fox's Book of Martyrs, because Fox's Book of Martyrs is listing dates, saying Philip

died in 54 and this and that. I don't know how they came up with that. But we read the Book of Acts. We read the Book of Acts. And basically, if people are being, we got the martyrdom of Stephen there, you got the martyrdom of James son of Zebedee, you have multiple persecutions,

but why wouldn't these martyrdoms appear in the book of Acts? Well, of course, a big piece of this is when Acts was actually written. And I didn't go into this, but some scholars argue that Acts is written in a way that it's strongly hinting and aware of the death of Paul, how it's compared to Jesus. So it's written after, but it expects you to know that this is going to take place.

Others would argue that it does include the death of Paul because it hadn't happened yet. So this places it in the early 60s, moves Luke back, moves Mark back. We don't have to settle those. I think what do we see in Acts? We see at the very beginning the apostles proclaiming that Jesus has risen from the grave as early as Acts chapter two.

Acts four and five, they are persecuted in the sense that they are threatened and they are beaten. We have Stephen in Acts seven, who is clearly put to death for his claim that Jesus is seated on the right hand of the father like the son of man. You have James in Acts 12. So this is at least, you know, in the early 40s.

I mean, I wrote down multiple chapters here that just kind of indicate in Acts all the precedent that we have is they go out and they keep proclaiming. Paul, interestingly enough, in 1 Corinthians 15, I did want to read this because I thought you might bring this up, explains that Jesus died for sin, was buried, raised, and the third day appears to Peter the 12th, the group of 500, James the brother of Jesus, finally to himself, although he considers himself the least of the Apostles. He considers himself alongside the other apostles as witnesses to the resurrected Christ. Then he writes, he said, whether then it was I or they, the other apostles, so we preach present tense and so you believed." In other words, when Paul writes this now in AD 55, probably 30 to 35 years after the death and the Apostles had left by this time, he says we still preach the risen Jesus. And then he gets the early

Church Fathers and they don't list all the apostles by name. But I think there's eight sources up until AD 200 that say the apostles to varying degrees believe they saw the risen Jesus, they're witness to this, and they go to the ends of the earth proclaiming it. So we don't have an account saying, you know, interviewing Matthias at the end of his life. Do you still believe this? Are you willing to suffer and die? No, we don't have that. That would be really nice.

But one reason we don't is people at that time were not asking the questions that you and I are asking. They're asking theological questions. They're trying to survive. You don't really have a church history until Eusebius who writes in the 300s. But the consistent testimony we have is from the beginning, believe they've seen the risen Jesus, they go out face persecution,

the death of at least two we have in Stephen in Acts 7, James in Acts 12, 13 years after that Paul's like, we are preaching this as witnesses. I think we're on pretty strong ground that they continue to proclaim themselves as witnesses to the end, if not really close to it. And so those would be the main objections that would pop up on this issue of what they're going out, preaching and so on. Interesting, because you have the mythicists

and they seem like they're basically completely out of touch with reality and scholarship, as Bart Ehrman was happy to tell them. But also people who think that belief in the core claims of Christianity arose later through legendary development. We know from the creed in First Corinthians that belief in Jesus' death for sins and resurrection goes back to the earliest church.

Exactly. Very early, but also belief in the deity of Christ goes back to the earliest church. I mean, when you have the martyrdom of Stephen and Paul is there and Paul goes around persecuting the church, Paul became a Christian a couple years after the death of Christ. So this persecution is happening within the first couple years of the church. And you look at what really sets off people against the Christians and what sets Paul off. You see the stoning of Stephen, he looks up and he's, I see God and I see the son of man standing at the right hand of God. That's what really sets off Paul.

And then even when you get to Ananias, he says, this guy is sent to arrest anyone who calls on this name, calls on the name of Jesus. And why would that have bothered them? You call on the name of the Lord. In the Old Testament, it's calling on the name of the Lord. That's prayer. And so they see these guys, they're calling on the name of Jesus. So they're treating Jesus like they're only supposed to treat

God. That was very upsetting. But what's it mean? It means that wasn't something that happened 50 or 100 years later. That's in the earliest Christian church, if that's why Paul is persecuting them. So we've got belief in Jesus' death, His resurrection and deity all going back to the first couple years. And in addition to all that, we have what the disciples were willing to endure to proclaim these kinds of things. What should people conclude from your research on this issue? This is a great final question. The way this is often phrased,

and sadly I phrased it myself somewhat this way in my early days, probably the first time we met in 2003 and I gave a talk on apologetics and you came to hear me at William Lane Craig's church. I might have framed it this way David. I'm not sure wish I had a recording of that actually now I would play it and embarrass myself Something the effect of the Apostles were all you know, they died as martyrs except for John they believe the resurrection happened

It's true. Therefore Christianity is true. That just simply is a non-sequitur. We cannot conclude that Christianity is true or the resurrection happened from this. The last paragraph or second to last paragraph in the book, I say distinctly all this really takes us back to is minimally the willingness of the apostles to suffer and die. Some of them die as martyrs. No evidence, any of them recanted. They really believe that Jesus appeared to them. Now how do we know the resurrection happened? Now we're gonna have to look at the evidence for the empty tomb. Now we're gonna have to look

at the evidence the other cases for the appearances. Now we're gonna have to consider naturalistic hypotheses. So this is one piece and I think an important piece that they're not liars I mean again J Warner Wallace says and he's a cold case detective because in every case that he's had people lie for one of three reasons power sex or money Jesus like, give up your power, the first shall be last. It wasn't about sex clearly, Jesus showed nothing but dignity and proper treatment of women. He was single, Paul was single, and it's not about money. They talk over and over again about giving to the poor. I think they really believe

they had seen the risen Jesus. And I do too. So as far as what people should conclude here, you're pointing out that this rules out a possible explanation. So we know what the early disciples were claiming. What are the main possible explanations, even if you're including naturalistic explanations? One possibility, they're lying about this.

Another possibility, it's legend, it develops over many decades or something like this and myths spreading and so on. Hallucinations, and so this would block one objection and then you'd have to deal with the other objections in other ways, you'd have to show really, all these people are hallucinating about this guy in the same way.

And then on the legend, you just have to show, no, this stuff goes back very early, belief in Jesus, death, resurrection, and deity is very early. So I guess a final question is, even though Fox's Book of Martyrs is using late material for a lot of these apostles, and that would all be in question,

and a more careful historical investigation would lead you to different conclusions. The evidence we have, should I have reached the exact same conclusion, namely my belief that these guys invented a story to keep the movement alive just makes no sense in light of the historical evidence. I think Fox's Book of Martyrs, he gets some things right right is sufficient to show that they're not inventing this story to put themselves in harm's way. So we correct the things that Fox's book of martyrs got mistaken and I don't know what

sources he had or why. I think the core of the argument that this isn't a conspiracy theory, they're not making this up, this is not for personal gain, they really believe they've seen the risen Jesus, which begs the question, if they didn't see the risen Jesus, you're gonna need to come up with a better explanation for this. I think the heart of that still stands. I think the heart of the argument my dad was making more than a carpenter still stands, but some of the examples were just not as substantiated in history as they need to be. So I have two goals in this. Number one, I want to say to Christians, the apostles really believe this.

They were sincere. They're willing to suffer. Are you willing to suffer in the same way? But also I want to say to Christians, like slow down. Let's get our facts right on this. Almost every week, somebody tags me on Twitter where somebody says, here's how the apostles died. And they'll get like hundreds of thousands of views.

And I have to kindly say, you know what? We really don't know this. And then all these Christians lose their mind and attack me. I'm like, I wrote the book on this. Let's get our facts right. We're losing credibility, but don't be afraid to get our facts right.

I still think we can trust their testimony. And what really fascinates me in all of this is that when I started looking into the resurrection, just to respond to this Christian, it was, I thought I was going to, it was just going to fall apart the moment you start examining it. And it's a similar situation with a bunch of these issues. You would think, especially if you believe this stuff is made up early on or later on, you're just gonna start looking at it and you're gonna find all this evidence just evaporate

and all these claims evaporate. And yet, the more you investigate, the more you realize, wow, this claim about Jesus dying and rising from the dead, this goes back to the earliest level. So it's not something that arose later, belief that he is Lord and that they're treating him as God, that goes back to the earliest level. So, it's not something that arose later. Belief that he is Lord and that they're treating him as God, that goes back to the earliest level.

And then here, why should we trust these guys? Even when you're applying the tools of the historian and being critical and skeptical, you still come up with the same conclusion. Not all the same details, but the exact same conclusion. There's no way these guys are lying. Amen. All right. Well, thank you, Sean Mcdowell, for clearing that up for everyone.

And guys, let's all try to base our arguments on the evidence we have available to us. And if you read that argument in the past, like I have, and you've been using it, that's fine. You went with what you had, but we have more accurate information to go on. So let's make sure we're we're all using the best information in our apologetics.