Theology in the Raw - How Did the Apostles Really Die? Dr. Sean McDowell

Episode Date: June 5, 2025

Dr. Sean McDowell is a professor of Apologetics at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. He has earned two Master's degrees in philosophy and theology and his Ph.D. in Apologetics and Worldview Studies. He is the author, editor, or co-author of more than 20 books including More Than A Carpenter, Chasing Love, End the Stalemate, and The Fate of the Apostles. He is the co-host of the Think Biblically podcast–one of the most popular podcasts on the intersection of faith and culture. At the end of this episode we also discuss our recent debate about whether Christians should use preferred pronouns. This “extra innings” portion of our conversation will be available for our patreon supporters. If you would like to become a member of the patreon community, then head over to patreon.com/theologyintheraw to get access to TITR “extra innings” and other premium content.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of theology. And around my guest today is my good friend, Dr. Sean McDowell, who is a professor of apologetics at Talbot school of theology and Biola university. He has two master's degrees in philosophy and theology, and his PhD is in apologetics and worldview studies. He is the author editor, co-author more than 20 books, including more than a car carpenter chasing love and the stalemate and his forthcoming second edition of The Fate of the Apostles. And that's the topic we're going to discuss. How did the apostles die? There's a lot of fact and fiction surrounding this question, and Sean helps sort all this

out. He's also the co-host of the Think Biblically podcast, one of the more popular podcasts on the intersection of faith and culture. I would highly recommend checking that out. At the end of this episode, Sean and I also discussed our recent debate about whether Christians should use preferred pronouns. This extra innings, we're calling it extra innings, this extra innings portion of our conversation will be available for our Patreon supporters. So if you'd like to become a member of the Patreon community, then head over to patreon.com forward slash the algebra to gain access to the algebra extra innings and other premium content. Okay. Let's welcome back to the show. The one and only Dr. Sean McDowell.

All right, Sean McDowell. Good to see you again, man. I feel like I'm seeing you a lot these days. I know, but good to be back. Thanks for turning your hat around. So, so if, if people aren't watching, I have a backwards hat on, which isn't, I don't typically wear a hat backwards. Although when I showed up at your house, I think my house was on backwards or that is a fact because you made a comment about it. Yep. Yep. That had no response. I was like, but I haven't, so I haven't worn it backwards for a while, but I'm not like a backwards hat person. I'm like, I'm not like a backwards hat person. I'm not like a backwards hat person. I'm not like a backwards hat person. I'm not like a backwards hat person. I'm not like a backwards hat person. I'm not like a backwards hat person. I'm not like a backwards hat person. I'm not like a backwards hat person. I'm not

like a backwards hat person. I'm not like a backwards hat person. I'm not like a backwards hat person. I'm not like a backwards hat person. I'm not like on backwards, and she goes, look at you, you look like a lesbian. I was like, I had no response. I was like, but I haven't, so I haven't worn it backwards for a while because I didn't want to look like a lesbian, but nothing against my dear lesbian friends, but I don't think I should be looking like a lesbian. Anyway, so I'm a little reluctant, but when I wear my hat straight,

the lighting kind of shades my face. So that's a long intro. Why are we even talking about this? Sean McDowell. I got nothing to say, man. I'm good. I'm doing well though. So we've had a lot of conversations about many things, often related to sexuality, but what people may not know is that you did your PhD dissertation work in the death of the apostles. I didn't even, I guess you told me that years ago, but I must have forgot about it. And you're revising the book you published on it, which will come out this year. What got you into that topic? Like why, have you always been interested in how the apostles died? So around 2010, I was starting my PhD.

And when you start a PhD, I had classes for a couple of years, but in the back of my mind was like, I need to find a topic that I can write on. And I started thinking about theistic evolution and it was like, wow, there's science, there's philosophy, there's Bible. This is above my pay grade and it's changing so quickly. I was teaching high school full-time at this point and we had taken a group of students to Berkeley. This is where we bring in atheists, LGBTQ advocates, Unitarian Universalist reverends,

and just speak to our students and teach them how to engage people with a different worldview, thoughtfully and graciously. We brought in this guy who is an outspoken atheist. He's an author. He's a mythicist, argues Jesus didn't even exist, which puts him in like a complete rarity and the smallest category possible, historically speaking. But fun guy, thoughtful guy, really enjoy him. And one of my students said, wait a minute, and this is kind of imagine like 35 high school students sitting around in the basement of a church with this atheist speaking to us.

And one of my students has some effect of, he said, if Jesus didn't exist, why would all the apostles die as martyrs? And he goes, what are you talking about? There's no good evidence that any of them died as martyrs. And a few of the students looked at me and I thought, you know what, I don't really have a good answer to that. I've heard that argument my whole life.

In fact, probably my dad and Chuck Colson are two of the Christians that have most popularized this argument. And I'll be honest with you, Preston, this is like a confession moment. I helped my dad update more than a carpenter in 2009. And we just did an update again in 2024 and I changed this. But he lists out according to basically Fox's Book

of Martyrs, the death of the apostles. And I remember seeing that, so I'm writing it about 08, two years before my doctoral work. Remember seeing it in the back of my mind was like, I wonder what's the evidence for that. And we put a footnote in there that is the world's worst footnote. And it said basically, if you want to know how the apostles died, see church history. See church, just church history.

Yeah. Like why did we even bother to footnote that? I mean, such a rookie mistake, But it planted a seed in my mind. So that night when we're in Berkeley, afterwards, J. Warner Wallace, former atheist, cold case detective, wrote Cold Case Christianity. He was there, his daughter was on the trip.

And I was like, Jim, I'm thinking about this for a dissertation topic. Do you think it's a good topic? He goes, not only is it a good topic, but because he's a detective, he goes, I bought two boxes of books and I was about to pour through it and assess this myself for a podcast and article. I'll just give you the books. And I thought this is a great topic. I'm going to do it. Now for a dissertation, those books are like a drop

in the bucket of the research I had to do. But you know, like you, I wanted something that interested me. I want to make a contribution to the church and I wanted to publish it. And all three of those, I think I found a pretty unique topic. All right. So what did you find? How did the apostles die? We, you know, there's a few that, you know, stand out. Peter crucified upside down is again, I'm, I don't even know if any of this is true anymore, which is why I have you on, but you know, John exiled the Patmos, I guess he died there. Paul, was he killed in Rome? I don't know. Like we have these things we believe, but we don't, I don't really know the reason for believing them.

So one of the things that now happens for me is like weekly on Twitter, somebody tags me with a post somebody's made about how the Apostles died and it's like, can you please get it right? Sean's written on this. I get dragged into these. Oh, in part because there's so many myths and bad ideas people keep saying and we're losing credibility because of it. I didn't know it was such a hot topic. That's crazy. Well, like in the world of apologetics and church history and, you know, it comes up pretty frequently. So basically, in writing my dissertation, I had to come up with a historical grid to

assess the apostles. And I picked the 12 apostles and then Paul and James, the brother of Jesus, because they've both written, they're prominent, you know, etc. They have an appearance of Jesus that's accounted written, they're prominent, you know, et cetera, they have an appearance of Jesus that's accounted in the New Testament. So I picked those 14 and I set up a historical grid from the least historical, least likely historical to the most likely historical to like 50%,

which is indeterminate. This is like a 10 point grid. And I went through each of the apostles and just assessed them as carefully as I could based on the quantity and the quality of the evidence. And I tried to favor what's called the living memory, which there's a scholar named Marcus Bachmuhl who's written one of the best books on Peter. And he says, kind of till the end of the second century, there's a living memory that can

be passed on from somebody that you would know as opposed to reading in a book. So my grandpa was born in 1898. And my dad can tell me stories about his grandpa. Like you think about how far that pushes us back. It's a kind of living memory. So roughly he dates it to about AD 200. Now that doesn't mean sources after that are worthless

and earlier sources are necessarily true, but that's kind of how I tried to favor and approach this. Now, when it's all said and done, I basically put the apostles into four categories. And if you wanna walk through this and talk about Peter upside down and all these things I'd be happy to, give my sense of it.

But one category is what I consider the highest possible, not necessarily the highest, I would say historically very probable that they died as martyrs. Like I would gladly bet my house on it, so to speak. And I think there's four that go in that category. The second is what I would say is at least more probable than not. So at least like 51%, but it's weaker evidence than those in the upper category. And then there's those that I think are just indeterminate. I don't think we can determine what's fiction and what's history.

It's just late sources, legend-filled, just not reliable tradition. So it's really indeterminate what happened, competing accounts. And then the final one are natural deaths. And I'll tell you, this is one of the biggest shifts from my first book 10 years ago. I just finished a 10-year update on this. It's with Rutledge, so it's kind of an expensive academic book. It's probably like 40 bucks, just so people know. I apologize, but I wanted it in a non-Christian, academic, respectable, you know, secular press.

That's why I chose that. I might do a popular book someday. But what I shifted on was how many apostles I think died naturally. I went into this, assuming that John died naturally and all the apostles were likely martyred. Now I think three apostles likely died naturally. I think three of them. Now we can walk through those categories if you want to. I intentionally didn't tell you which three just to build the suspense on your podcast,

Preston, but take it where you want to go, man. This ain't your first rodeo, man. I intentionally didn't tell you which three just to build the suspense on your podcast But take it where you want to go man, but this ain't your first rodeo, man I love I love dialogue with people that are podcasters themselves. It makes my job really easy. Yes. Yes Let's start. Let's just start with John because I kind of made a reference to him in passing He's one that died naturally you're? So the traditional narrative is John died naturally. I went into this assuming that was the case, and I still believe that. But what surprised me about John is there are some conservative scholars like Richard Bauckham

and Ben Witherington who think that John died as a martyr. Really? And they point towards both internal and external evidence. So the internal biblical evidence would be like Mark 10, where Jesus is with James and John and they say, we want to reign with you. And he says, can you drink the cup? Can you be baptized with my baptism? Well, drinking the cup is typically a reference to martyrdom. I

think it could be suffering, but there's an internal case that could be made that he's saying you're gonna die as a martyr. And that's James and John and we know James died as a martyr, Acts 12 too. That's internal. The other internal hint is that John is all over the beginning of Acts with Peter, and then he disappears and doesn't show up at the Jerusalem council. Why? Because he had been martyred. Wow.

Now, that's an argument from silence, but it's enough to give you a little bit of pause. And then you find these church calendars that show up about the fourth century that refer to James and John dying as a martyr together. But then the most interesting piece is there's this scholar from the, a church historian a century after Eusebius. So he's writing in the fifth century named Philip of Cede or Philip of Side. And he writes, he quotes Papias whose early second century

referring to the execution or martyrdom of James and John. So if Philip of Side quotes this accurately, we have an early second century source from Papias, but we don't have this in Papias. So, so many of these areas present, I'm not an expert, so I had to check with experts, and some of the experts on Philip of SIDA said that point itself is almost certainly added later and was not really written by Papias himself. So as I'm laying this out, you can see like, there's enough that gives you pause internally, externally,

you go, huh, I guess it's possible, but I just don't see a reason to believe. And the earlier sources, like even the Acts of John, middle, second century, have him dying naturally. So it'd make my case stronger if I could make him die as a martyr, but I'm just not convinced by it. One more thing, I'll throw one thing out to make this interesting for you.

So, Tertullian is the one who references, this is like the turn of the second to the third century, that John is thrown into a vat of boiling water, but survives. I found another case of John being poisoned and surviving. Now, I can't prove this, but I suspect maybe that they saw this prophecy in Mark 10 and said,

well, John didn't die as a martyr, but we've got to put him through martyrdom so Jesus isn't a false prophet. So we'll put him through poisoning, put him through boiling oil. So he's functionally a martyr, but he ends up surviving. I can't prove that, but it's an interesting piece that I suspect might be the case.

That's interesting. Now, everything you're saying, is this assuming that John the apostle is not the author of the book of Revelation? Because if he did die midway through Acts, then he authored, you know, the book of Revelation is authored way later, according to most scholars, right, the 90s. I mean, some put in the 60s, but does that factor in at all whether or not he authored Revelation? Yes. So if he dies early, either you got to date Revelation early, which some people do, or you've got to say it's a different John, because it says, I John in Revelation, of course, but it doesn't say which John.

Right. And so people like Baucam bring in this figure called John the Elder, who's another early John, who's distinct from John I of the Twelve, and he becomes an author of some of the books of John. And then the other angle that people take is there's what's called a Johannine school, where there were people around John potentially that took a lot of his writings and reported it

to him. And in that culture at that time could be considered a kind of authorship for John, even though he was not present. I can't, I don't even know if I can flush all these details out, but that's where some of these dialogues and debates go. But you're right. If he was martyred earlier, then that would shift how we view the authorship of some of the later books. Right, right. And if he did write the book of Revelation, then he was exiled to Patmos, most likely in the 90s or whatever.

And that would support natural death, right? Well, at least there's no, you know. It would be consistent with it because it doesn't describe his death in Revelation. He still could have been martyred in his 90s I mean polycarp is martyred. I think he's in his 80s. The story is like in the second century So it's not like they didn't martyr old people All right, so who are the other two that died that you now believe died most likely a natural death? Okay So this is perhaps the most interesting story

related to this. So in my dissertation and my 2015 academic book, I reported that Matthew was indeterminate, just couldn't tell. There are stories of him dying naturally and stories of him dying as a martyr. Well, after I published my book, I heard from a French scholar who wrote to me and he's

like, Sean, what version of the Antinousine Fathers, what version, I'm sorry, of Clement of Alexandria are you reading from? And I said, well, it's the English version of the Antinousine Fathers. Now, why does that matter? Because Clement of Alexandria is writing in the second century and he cites somebody named Heraklion who refers to four apostles and in the English translation it lacks a negation that is found in the earlier Greek manuscripts which quite literally changes the interpretation from affirming to denying their fates. So he reaches out to me and I'm thinking,

okay, what do I do with this? I don't know who this guy is. I don't know the backstory. If he's right, this changes everything. So I contacted a few scholars. I'm not an expert in ancient Greek manuscripts. So I found out who was, contacted them, and they said, yeah, I think this is probably

the likely interpretation that there should be a negation that didn't make it into the English translation. So I went back to this text and it talks about, now that I know the negation should be there, I read it differently and frankly, I think I should have seen it, Preston, because the context talks about how there's people who make a testimony and then die, and then there's people who make a testimony and die because of that testimony. And then there's four that are mentioned that don't seem to be indicated they die because that testimony and hence are martyrs.

And Matthew is one of them. So now we have a mid-second century source, the earliest one we have, not that far removed, citing a natural death for Matthew. In the third century, there's another natural death, what's called Hippolytus on the 12, and it's probably in the third century also has a natural death for Matthew.

I could not find a reference to Matthew being killed as a martyr until the fifth century. So we have two earlier natural death sources. Martyrdom shows up in the fifth century and really a lot of scholars that I read would say you have these early books called The Acts of Peter, The Acts of Paul, The Acts of Philip, and they're filled with certain fictional accounts, but they seem to be based around a historical core.

But you get to like the fourth century and they seem to become completely unhinged from history whatsoever. That seems to be the case. And so if I had to bet my house, I think Matthew likely died naturally. And in your dissertation 10 years ago, you argued the op or suggested the opposite and it was largely based on that mistranslation in Tertullian? Well, so I think my dissertation was the same as when I published the academic book.

I don't encourage people, don't go back and read the dissertation. I tweaked it so much for the academic book and I changed things and adapted it. Within that year, I got feedback from scholars. And then over the subsequent 10 years, I've been thinking about it and talking with scholars and researching, following up, and then even adapted a little bit more where I feel really confident about, you know, my conclusions now. But Matthew, I just said, was indeterminate because it seemed we had a one-third century source that seemed to imply he died naturally. Fifth century source he died

as a martyr. And then after that, there are some mixed traditions about Matthew. And Clement cites Heraklion, and I just didn't have a lot of confidence interpreting that, that it said he died as a martyr. I thought that's probably what it said, but there's some other, we don't have to go into the details. There's some other questions about Heraklion and Clement that make me wonder, like if he's mentioning people that died naturally, why doesn't he mention John? He doesn't mention John in that group.

And I could come up with the reasons why he doesn't, but he still doesn't. So there's all these enigmas that come up and you just have to do your best to piece them together. But if you said, Sean, you got to bet your house on Matthew, yay or nay, I'd say, well, if I had to bet, I think I'd say he probably died naturally. So John, Matthew probably naturally died naturally.

Who's the third one? The third would be Philip. And Philip is also mentioned by Heraklion, alongside Matthew and Levi. Initially, it mentions Thomas, which we could come back to. And I think Heraklion got Thomas wrong for other reasons. But Philip is mentioned there. You don't have a martyrdom for Philip, martyrdom account, until the Acts of Philip, which is about the fourth century. So I think I have more confidence that Matthew died naturally than Philip. But I still, again, if I had to bet my house, I would say Philip likely died naturally.

But I have like 51% confidence that that's the case. Did Philip, was he the one that went to India to preach the gospel according to legend? Let me point out, one thing that's hard about assessing the apostles is the early church fathers consistently confuse who they are. So they confuse the various James, Matthew and Matthias get confused, Philip gets confused with Philip the evangelist in the early chapters in Acts. And we start to look at this closely, it's like, oh, wait a minute, they're importing things from, you know, this Philip in Hierapolis with Philip the apostle and his daughters. So the story with, it's Thomas who the story went to India. I would put him

along with Andrew and at least more probable than not. Okay. So is that tradition pretty well established that Thomas did actually go to India? Like how confident would you be? Okay. So there's, I would say going to India. Yes dying as a martyr there. Yes, but a little less so Okay, so I took the Apostles and I said what's the likelihood that they go out and missionary work? What's the likelihood like Peter made it to Rome and Thomas made it to India? But then it's a subsequent question if they died as martyrs there. So the early consistent testimony in the second century is that Thomas made it to India. And I think I could only find one other account of him going somewhere else besides India. And it might even be reconcilable with the trip to India.

It's not like they just went to one place. So I think the all likelihood is that Thomas went to India. The really interesting thing with Thomas is there are a ton of Eastern scholars. I mean, there was a book released maybe three or four years ago, like an entire conference of scholars around the world talking about the scholarship on Thomas.

I saw the book, I was like, man, I kind of wish I was invited to just go sit in and engage these guys because they're outside a lot of the normal Western way that scholarship is done. And honestly, sometimes you kind of sense a little bit of ethnocentrism towards the way Eastern scholarship is done. It's just, it's interesting throughout history

to pick up on that because when it comes to Thomas, you have two primary sources. One is what's called the Axe of Thomas. Now this is probably 8200 to 220. So you're getting outside of that window of kind of the living memory, and it's filled with legendary stuff, but it talks about a King Gundopherus,

and they've actually found multiple coins that date of a King Gundapherous, and they've actually found multiple coins that date of a King Gundapherous to the time and place that Thomas would have been there. So there's certain historical overlap. That describes his martyrdom, but then you have the St. Thomas Christians who don't have early written accounts of this, and they live in Southern India,

but they have stories and poems and songs and traditions going way way back and even like the burial site of Thomas The question is how reliable are these oral traditions compared to written? History and that's where a lot of Western scholars just write it off. And I'm a little less likely to do that. So really the question for Thomas is, is the Acts of Thomas independent from the St. Thomas Christians? And some scholars argue that the St. Thomas Christians are dependent upon the Acts of Thomas, which means we have one source.

Other scholars argued that they're completely independent, which would have two sources, that he went to India, both that he died in a roughly similar fashion, then I think we'd be on more solid ground. So if anybody listening wants to do a dissertation, untangle that one for me and make the case, would help solve that riddle in my mind. This episode is brought to you by Mitapure by Timeline.

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I mean, India, that's a long way to travel in the first century. That's isn't it? I mean, I'm trying to think of a mental map. That's sorry to cut you off. Here's the crazy thing is there's a document. I can't even pronounce it. Some of these things you read, but I don't even know how to pronounce it. It's like the Erethraean or the Paraples Sea or something to that effect. And it's from basically all over the Roman Empire and it covers including the end of the first century, all the trade routes where you can get certain currents to go from different

parts of Rome to India, where you buy certain spices. In other words, it was totally doable within that time to get from where the apostles would have been in Jerusalem through a hike, through a camel back for a while, jumping on a ship and getting there. It was known across the Roman Empire that this is completely doable. I couldn't find any scholars that said Thomas could not have made it there. Now a century earlier would be a very, very different story. Prior to the Romans building all the roads and everything. But yeah, once they build the whole road system, I mean, that really made travel way more efficient.

Yeah, they have like maps of where up and down the Indian coast, people in Rome could go and get again, like spices and different unique things in India. They had it charted out. Here's how you could get into this current at a certain time of the year to make it there within a couple of weeks. I mean, it was very, very doable. And the interesting thing is, you know, again, I got to be careful reading stuff into it, but you ask which apostle would have the character to go all the way to India.

And Thomas is one of my favorite apostles. And I love the line in John where he's like, let's go with Jesus and die with him. Like there's something about Thomas that I just love. So maybe that doesn't prove a lot, but maybe he had the kind of character that would take this task on. We always know him as, you know, doubting Thomas, but that just, I mean, that's always seen negatively, but it could just mean he's, he's, he's, he's a skeptic. Like he's a really critical thinker, right? I mean, he's gonna, he's not just going to believe something at face value. He's gonna, he's

gonna want to need some more evidence, which could be good or bad, you know, but uh, honestly, I have a, I have a take on this press and I think we need to stop calling them doubting Thomas. Okay. Why? What does he do? He doesn't say to the other, you know, 10, ah, maybe Jesus is back. I'm not sure. Give me some evidence. I don't know. I'm open to it, but I doubt it.

He goes, I will not believe unless I can see with my eyes and touch with my hands. He wasn't doubting. He completely rejected it until he saw Jesus in the flesh. So we call somebody who completely rejects something a doubter, then in people's minds, it's like, oh, if I doubt, I'm akin to somebody who completely rejects this. And we end up making no space for doubt.

So I think we need to stop calling him doubting Thomas. I love Thomas because he's like, you know what? Give me proof, give me evidence. I'm not gonna believe. I love that about him. And I think skeptical is a better word, but I love that. I mean, that's the climax in the Gospel of John when he says, my Lord and my God, and he's not saying, oh my God. He looks at Jesus. He's like, my Lord and my God. He is God in human flesh. That's powerful. All right, Let's jump ahead to the,

is it four that you're very, or most confident are martyrs? Yeah, there's four, two within the 12 and two outside of the 12. So if you do the math of the 12, there's only two that I'm highly confident died as martyrs and then Paul and James, the brother of Jesus. So Peter, I think we have a ton of evidence Peter died as a martyr. We have roughly 10 sources, first century and second century. So in first century, you have John 21 where Jesus says you'll be taken where you do not want to go.

And even Bart Ehrman, I found a quote with him. He says, this is a, I forget the wording of it, but he says, this is a clear statement that John is going to be executed and will die as a martyr. So we have that source in John 21. You have 1st Clement 5 through 7 that refers to Peter, I think, dying pretty clearly as a martyr. And again, Bart Ehrman is like there was a known

tradition of the martyrdom of Peter by this time and that was written from Rome To Corinth so he would have been in Rome and would have been in a position to assess this So two first century sources and then roughly six to eight further sources in the second century up until like Tortullian when you're kind of at the close of the second century that consistently and unanimously cite that Peter died as a martyr. So even even a lot of skeptics will will not question Peter. The other one would be Paul. Real quick on Peter.

Yeah. The crucified upside down. Do we know the manner in which he was murdered? Okay. So this is so interesting, Preston. I'm not trying to quiz you, I'm just curious what you've heard because there's a reason that's often given as to why Peter was crucified upside down, which is that he says what? He's not worthy to die the same way that his Lord died.

Exactly. Right, isn't it? Something like that, yeah. Yeah, that's right. So here's my question. Do you think the Romans took suggestions about how you wanted to be crucified? Probably not.

I mean, probably not. Now, David Wood was interviewing me on this. He's like, I could see some sadistic people going, we're gonna crucify you, you know, give me your two cents. Like, maybe, but I your two cents, like maybe. But I think that was probably made up. The first church historian that references Peter being crucified upside down

is in Origen in the third century, like 80 to 30. Earlier, the first reference to the upside down crucifixion of Peter is in what's called the Acts of Peter, probably dated 8180 to 8190. But what's interesting about this is if you read the Acts of Peter, there's a number of scholars who say the point is that he's upside down because the world has been turned upside down and he can see the world as it is and his death like Jesus will help turn the world upside right. I actually think that makes more sense of the passage than taking it historically that he

was crucified upside down. Now there is some precedent if you read Martin Hengel's crucifixion and some of the other accounts there's precedent people being crucified upside down at times but I'm skeptical Peter was even crucified. Now I think he died as a martyr but not crucified. Why? Here's also where I shifted. In 2015, as best I could, I assessed that most scholars would say Peter was crucified. But then a book came out, the year of my dissertation, It was a compilation by Larry Hurtado.

And there's a chapter in there that pointed something out that now I ask myself, I'm like, how did I miss this? Here's one thing that we know about crucifixion is in the vast majority of cases, the person was stripped completely bare to utterly humiliate them. So the image of Jesus on a cross with a cloth was not how this went down.

And yet Peter is told by Jesus, you'll be taken where you do not want to go. You will be clothed by another. Now, wait a minute. If crucifixion is typically naked to humiliate and he'll be clothed, then he was probably martyred in a different fashion than crucifixion.

This scholar argued that in the time of Nero, they actually had this kind of flammable clothing that they would put people on, they would put them on a stake and they would burn them alive. So I went from believing he was crucified, not crucified upside down, to believing he's almost certainly not crucified upside down, probably not crucified, although it's possible, but still the highest probability he died as a martyr nonetheless. Did he die during the Neuronian persecutions, Neurons' persecutions, or is that not, we don't know. I would say likely yes. It's not stated explicitly that way. Like I think we can get Peter to Rome.

I think some of the early sources like the Ascension of Isaiah and the Apocalypse of Peter indicate that Nero was a kind of figure that was present where Peter is crucified. And sometimes he's used with like cryptic names. So you kind of got to piece this stuff together. It's not really till the acts of Peter that you have him clearly before Nero dying in that fashion.

So that's where I assess, did he make it to Rome? Did he die as a martyr? How did he die? Was it under Nero? Like each of these kind of have to be assessed because honestly, people weren't asking the questions that I'm asking in the early church. You don't really have a church history till Eusebius in the fourth century.

So I'm piecing together these incidental statements in documents about other stuff, trying to figure out what happened to him. But Peter Dyett is a martyr. I mean, it would make sense. I mean, if he was, most likely he was in Rome and Nero's persecution towards Christians, he would have been a Christian leader. So, I mean, there wasn't that many Christians at that time. So, I mean, most likely he would have died in the midst of that. But yeah, there's obviously some speculation there. All right. So, okay, you hinted at Paul and James. Who's the fourth one then? So, Peter, Paul, James, and who else was there?

So, it would be James the son of Zebedee, who's referenced in Acts 12.2. So, two different Jameses are brought before. Yes. So, we have two apostles for which their martyrdoms are explicitly mentioned in the Bible. Peter, John, 21. James, the brother of John's son, is Ebony, Acts 12.2. Now, some of that depends upon the reliability of Acts. If you can make a historical case, this is within it. But Keener writes in his commentary

that the way it's described that James is killed with a sword, there's no flowery details, there's no legend, it just reads like an ancient execution account. But also, what's fascinating is that this is something else I discovered with the update, is that Herod the Great was before Hitler, like the worst to the Jews, probably in the history of the world, he was just brutal. But in the passage in Acts 12,

it describes that Herod probably, I think the grandson, I think it's Herod Agrippa I, if I got that right, it says that he wanted to please the Jews. Herod the Great never wanted to please the Jews, but there's a passage in Josephus that describes Herod Agrippa I and his relationship with the Jews more akin

to trying to please them. So it's a kind of historical fact that gives credibility to that account. So yeah, of the 12, Peter and James' son is evidently solid, both biblical. What's interesting about James, a brother of Jesus, is we have an account of him seeing Jesus in 1 Corinthians 15. Paul specifically says, you know, the 500, the 12, James, Peter, and then appears to me. And we know that James, Peter went to Jerusalem and met with James specifically. So, I don't know if I just said Paul or Peter, we know Paul went there to visit with him. So, when he writes this in 1 Corinthians 15, he had already visited with James and could confirm this himself. James, what's fascinating, of the Jews, that all affirm

his martyrdom. All right. Let's talk about Paul then. Okay. So Paul, so I, here's one I shifted, just trying to be as careful as I could press in, in my first 2015 academic book, I put Paul as the highest possible probability. And I started really thinking about it. I was like, you know what?

The highest possible probability would be like the crucifixion of Jesus. I mean, I can't think of anything. Maybe that Jesus just lived, but the evidence is basically a nine plus on the crucifixion of Jesus. I'm not sure it's that high for Paul. But, so I just notched it down one level to very probably true. So I think it happened, it explains the evidence, he died as a martyr, but just trying to be faithful to the evidence. With Paul we have one clear first century reference, which is in 1st Clement 5, both Peter and

Paul are mentioned. And the best explanation is that it's mentioned that they died as martyrs. And then there's about eight total sources, once you get into the second century, that consistently affirm that Paul died as a martyr. Now he probably did die by the sword. That's how the Acts of Paul, which is the end of the second century, reports that I think that's probably accurate. And he also was a Roman citizen, so he likely would have been spared crucifixion.

So I think we're on solid ground and most people that I could read and find would accept Paul as a martyr. Like a head chopped off, you're saying when you say with the sword or? Yeah, probably. That's the way it would have gone down. So last time we see him, he's on kind of a house arrest in Rome. Do we know between that and his martyrdom, like what happened? Was he shortly after killed?

Was he released, run around, and then was martyred? That's hard to know for sure. I'm not sure we're given all the details about exactly when Acts ends and the exact date. I mean, it probably was in the mid-60s when we pieced things together along with Peter that he died. But some of those details are a little vague, so to speak. Some people argue that the way Acts is set up is that Paul is being compared with Jesus. So he's on trial and someone was aware of his martyrdom and they leave him there knowing that he's going to die as a martyr and they find all

these parallels in Paul's story with Jesus. That might be the case. I don't know that we can prove it, but that's where some of these arguments go when you start to look at the text more closely. Okay. So, uh, who do we meet with? There's a whole bunch of in between ones. Uh, um, yeah. Do you want to single out a few that are interesting? I don't know if we need to cover all.

What do we got? We are remaining. Well, only four more, right? Uh, yeah, the math, what do we do? So we've got, I'm doing this out loud. We've got four in the highest possible probability, right? And then we have- But two are not apostles, right?

Yeah, but of the 14- We're not part of the 12, yeah, yeah. Yeah, of the 14, we have four highest possible probability. I would put two in more probable than not. So that's six, we have eight left. Three, I think died naturally, John, Philip and Matthew. So there's five that I would put in the category of just indeterminate. And basically, this means the sources are late, they're clearly legendary, they're contradictory,

and I just could not for the life of me figure out where, you know, history ends and legend begins. Now, I'll give you a couple examples that are just interesting. So Bartholomew, the traditional death for Bartholomew, if you see a statue of Bartholomew in a church, you know it's him because he's standing there holding his skin. The tradition is that he was skinned alive. So if you're at like a church that has statues of the martyrs or a statue of the apostles up there and indicates their martyrdom,

you'll see sometimes Bartholomew actually holding his skin. Now, one of the morbid things about my research is I was like, okay, before I can assess if he was skinned, I got to figure out if people actually were skinned alive at that time. So I'm checking out these books on like torture and death. It was kind of morbid. I'm like, people spent so much time thinking of the worst ways to kill people.

And I like can't get it out of my mind, but skinning, gosh, it's been a while since I've read this. I think it goes back at least to the Assyrians maybe if I remember correctly, but they skin people and it was kind of a way of dehumanizing somebody to take your skin off. So it wasn't just torture. way of dehumanizing somebody to take your skin off. So it wasn't just torture. It was dehumanizing somebody. It was psychological warfare too. Oh, absolutely.

You go and conquer a city, skin people alive. Then the next city gets wind of that and they give up without a fight. Yeah, that's worse than putting somebody's head on a pole. It's like skinned alive. I'd rather be beheaded any day. But so the earliest source I could find for that is somewhere between 500 and 600 AD, probably closer to 600 AD. Doesn't

mean that it's false, but like how much confidence can you have in that? And then I started searching on Bartholomew and I found all these different competing traditions of him. Oh my goodness. I think one he's drowned. I think maybe he's burned. I my goodness, I think one, he's drowned. I think maybe he's burned. I think he's crucified. I think he's killed with swords. Maybe he's beheaded. Like either he had a really bad day.

You know, it's possible that one of those is true, but how do you know and decipher it? Plus you add to this, certain cities could have incentive in terms of just their power. If they could say, we were founded by the apostle Bartholomew, he came here and established our church, he was martyred here. I mean, these are the kinds of things that we at least know at times were made up.

So when I look at Bartholomew, I'm like, I just, I don't think anybody knows with any real historical confidence what his fate was. So that's when you get into these five, that's what happens. I'll tell you one more that's interesting is Simon the Zealot. Also very late traditions about this. And by the way, this is what surprised me. I assume zealot was this political revolutionary party. We always hear about Simon,

but Keener says you don't have evidence of that kind of revolutionary until decades after the time of Jesus. So he's likely just saying that he was zealous rather than this political revolutionary zealot, which I don't know if you can prove that, but that's interesting. It just shows the amount of assumptions we have

on some of these figures and characters. Well, again, late traditions about him, but one of the traditions is that he died, he was crucified, I think, in Britain. Well, between my first, which was a part of the broader Roman Empire at that time, between my 2015 book and the 2025 update, they found the remains of a crucified victim in Britain, part of the Roman Empire, roughly

around that time. Now I don't think it's Simon Zellot, but when they came across that it's like, oh that is a plausible means of death. That could be a historical account. I just don't know how we have any confidence that that's really happening. By the way, I didn't do this study to like rain on anybody's party. That was not my point. I've had some people reach out and they're like, we're from Armenia. Are you destroying the tradition about Bartholomew dying there? And I was like, I'm just trying to ask historically and apologetically.

I'm not saying it didn't happen. I'm just saying from a historical standpoint, what can we know? And so that's the interesting thing. Wait, so Bartholomew, so the tradition has him dying in Armenia? There's a range of different traditions of Bartholomew. One is that he made it to India, one is that he's in Armenia, and then a bunch of other places I can't remember off the top of my head. That's what made it hard.

The Armenian church, which was the first country to become a Christian country, I think second century. So they, the tradition according to the Armenian church is that the church was founded by Bartholomew? There is that tradition. How committed the Armenian church as a whole is to it, I don't totally know that, but there are some early Armenian scholars that have weighed in on this and written certain things in his defense, making the case for Bartholomew to be there.

But my point is I'm not trying to rain on anybody's party. I'm trying to assess historically what we can know. We gotta go ask Ruslan to see if he's done any work on this. There you go. My Armenian brother. I want to go, let's go back to the very beginning of our conversation. Why does this matter? Because you say you got drawn into this study, not just because you're fascinated with the

historical questions surrounding the death and martyrdom of the apostles, but because this is a really important and ongoing apologetic point. Take us back to that, just the practicality of why this matters. I'm glad you asked this. I would say two main things. Number one, truth matters. Truth matters. And we lose credibility when we get things wrong.

And so I hope this comes across right, but it just happened two days ago from this recording. I was having a dialogue at a university with an atheist and we were just going back and forth on miracles today. It was really fun. There's about 800 students out. They were asking questions live. It was fun. And afterwards he goes, he goes, you know, you're my favorite apologist. I was like, well, thanks. I'm feeling the love. Why?

He goes, because you've pushed back on your own people about overstating the evidence for the apostles. He goes, I just want you to know I really appreciate that. I was like, wow. You know, it just reminded me that when we overstate things with good intentions and we don't check our sources, and by the way, I'm as guilty as anybody of doing this. I'm not pointing fingers at others. I published a book that had Fox's Book of Martyrs in it, the 2009 Werther Carpenter update. So if anybody's guilty, it's me. But it just reminded me, wow, we got to get our facts right. We got to be careful. We don't need to overstate the evidence if it's really true. So that's one reason just truth matters. But one of the most interesting things

that I did personally during this is when I started, I have a whole chapter at the beginning asking, was there even persecution against Christians at this time? Because if there wasn't, it makes it harder to make the case. If there is, it creates the background milieu that maybe arguably makes it more likely on some level. And so I read through the entire New Testament twice, carefully, and every time it had an example

of a Christian suffering or being persecuted, tied to their faith, I wrote it down. And I couldn't believe how much I missed this. It is like a central theme in almost all of the New Testament, if I remember, except maybe not like second John or third John or something like that. Like you start thinking about books, Hebrews,

it's all over Hebrews. Just read chapter 11, James? James 1, you know, when it talks about, you know, trials that you undergo, Revelation, of course, the Gospels, it's everywhere. Paul talks about it all the time, suffering for the faith. 1 Peter is kind of written for people in the diaspora who are undergoing a kind of persecution, it's everywhere. And it really impressed me. I'm like, wow, how much have I been affected by kind of this American version of gospel and just missed that when Jesus says, pick up your cross, it's not like, you know what,

my boss is just overbearing. That's my cross to bear or, you know, my neighbors loud or whatever. No, he actually meant it. He meant pick up your cross and be prepared to die. It was transformative for me, Preston, to just read that and be like, I signed up for this movement in which John the Baptist, the one who leaps in the womb at the coming of Jesus, is beheaded. I sign up for the faith where my Lord and Savior was stripped naked, mocked, shamed, and crucified because of his belief.

I sign up for a faith where the first apostles are out proclaiming and they're threatened and they're beaten and they're thrown in prison and they're told just stop preaching Jesus. And one of my now favorite verses you see in Acts 4 and Acts 5, Peter's like, yeah, this is my translation. We're not going to do that. Why? Because we fear God more than we fear men. And that's a thought pressing that's been in my mind a lot. Even little things like online or whatever, like in my life, I'm like, am I living in fear of what people say? Or do I live in fear of being right before God?

That was just pretty transformative for me in studying the apostles. So I'd encourage your relationship. You can get the expensive academic book, I apologize ahead of time. I think it's cheaper on Amazon. You're welcome to, the data is there. But just read through the New Testament, maybe just the gospels and the letters of Paul

and ask yourself, how often am I told that I'm gonna suffer? Like 1 Peter 3, it could be God's will that you suffer for doing what is right. That's a transformative experience. So in studying the death of the apostles shows that that really pervasive theme in scripture was carried on by its earliest followers, right? I mean, so that's... I think that's right. You see that in the early church fathers like Ignatius, of course, almost over the top with Ignatius, like I'm looking forward to being martyred like Jesus, almost like in a morbid way.

But you see, in the early church, it cost them to believe in Jesus profoundly and dearly. And by the way, I do want to throw this out there. Oftentimes here's how the argument is made. The apostles all believe that Jesus had risen and all but John died as martyrs, therefore Jesus has risen from the grave and Christianity is true. Like, that's the quick way this argument is made. This doesn't prove that Christianity is true. I think what it shows is that the apostles really believe that Jesus rose from the grave and appeared to them.

They're not inventing a story to get themselves persecuted and martyred. They're not making this up. Now this doesn't disprove the hallucination hypothesis. We gotta look at that through a different angle. But I think it shows the apostles aren't liars. They're not making this up. It makes no sense to say, let's worship a crucified, humiliated savior, even though

you're going to persecute and throw me in prison and it's going to cost me possibly my life. That makes no sense. So it just gave me also a lot of confidence that the apostles really believe that this is true and are proclaiming with sincerity that they believe Jesus had risen from the grave. I mean, substantially, is it any different than other religions who have their own martyrs? That shows that it doesn't prove their religion to be true, but it does most likely show that they believe it's true, that they're not just lying,

they don't think like, you know, this religion is just made up, but I'm pretending to follow it, and therefore I'm gonna be martyred for it. That doesn't make sense. This is the big objection. Every time it comes up, I was staying while I was working on my dissertation

in a bed and breakfast, I think in Missouri, and I was having breakfast with a nun, and she was asking about this and started pressing me on this. I'm thinking, I'm having breakfast with a nun and she was asking about this and started pressing me on this. I'm thinking I'm having breakfast with a nun and she's pressing me on it. It just always comes to my mind, this random memory, but you're raising the best, most common objection. Candida Moss is a scholar.

She's written some wonderful content that really helped a book called Ancient Christian Martyrdom, but she also wrote a book called The Myth of Persecution and pushes back on this argument. She's a scholar of ancient early Christian history and she says that Christians like to claim that they're the only ones that have martyrs. Well there might be some Christians who claim this, but that is not the argument. Of course there's martyrs in other faiths. You have Muslims who are, by the way, I wouldn't really call a suicide bomber a martyr. I'd call them a murderer, but they're willing to lay down their life clearly for what they believe.

They're purposely dying for a cause. Yeah, purposely dying for a cause. But you also have Buddhist monks who lit themselves on fire. You have kamikaze pilots. You have, in fact, the Maccabean martyrs before the time of Christ, the brothers and second Maccabees are tortured brutally. So there's other martyrs, but the question is, what are they dying for? And the Maccabean martyrs were dying because they refused to compromise the law. Right. Buddhists lit themselves on fire a few months in protest against the violence.

The apostles, the earliest record we have is that this Christian faith is built on the belief that Jesus died, he was buried, rose on the third day, and appeared to the apostles. Their martyrdom is tied to the belief that Jesus had conquered the grave and appeared to them personally. That's why there's a qualitative difference here. But also, I mean, look, I was with David Wood not long ago and I said, I said, David, if we're sitting here and somebody walks in and says, you guys believe in Jesus and kills us. I said, by the way, that probably would more likely happen to you than it would to me. And he laughed and agreed. I said, that would prove nothing about Christianity.

It showed that we're sincere, but we are500 years removed from this. Our testimony is passed on second, third, fourth, fifth, tenth hand. The apostles were there with Jesus. They traveled with Jesus. They ministered with Jesus. They claimed to have seen him after his crucifixion. They were in a different epistemic position than you and I are. And frankly, the 15 Muslim terrorists who died on 9-11, they weren't eyewitnesses of anything that mattered whatsoever. So there's just a difference when we ask why they died and the position

that they were in that I think, or why they were willing to suffer and die that sets them apart from other martyrs. Pete So, it does strengthen specifically their eye witness account more than martyrs in other religions. Would that be fair to say? Jared Yeah, martyrs in other religions aren't based upon a testable public crucifixion and empty tomb and miracle like Jesus. So the eyewitness account of the Maccabees, what would they be an eyewitness of?

It's just their conviction that the Old Testament law should be followed and that they're Jews. Their eyewitness account doesn't mean anything. There's no eyewitness account of the Muslim terrorists on 9-11. They're at least what, seven, doing the math out loud, 1200 years or so removed from the time of Muhammad.

But the apostles were there personally. And you just read Acts and they're like, Jesus rose from the grave and we ourselves are witnesses of this. John says what we, in 1 John 1, 1, what we saw, what we touched, what we heard. So, their willingness to suffer and die is tied to their claim that they had seen the risen Jesus. And so, again, I don't think, just to kick a dead horse, because I just really want to understand the qualitative difference. So, like, a martyr in another religion, that will show their dedication to their faith, but it does nothing to validate the veracity of the faith itself. Somebody a thousand years after Muhammad

could truly, with all their heart, believe that Muhammad was a prophet of God. So, I could say, their martyr shows that they really believe that. But that martyrdom says nothing about the credibility of Muhammad himself, whereas in this case, it is qualitatively different because it doesn't just show the dedication of the apostle's faith. It actually does ascribe more validity to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus himself. It doesn't prove it 100%, but it is a piece of historical evidence that contributes to the veracity of that. Is that what you're saying? It gives credibility to their testimony that they had seen the risen Jesus.

Yes. Because people can claim that anything is true, but when it starts to cost you something, then you see the level of conviction that somebody has. And by the way, somebody could say, what about the early followers of Muhammad who went to battle with him and died for him? I'd say, well, first off, let me look at some of the evidence for that.

But second, the stories of Muhammad doing miracles are way later. He wasn't walking on water and healing the blind and claiming to be the Messiah like Jesus did and feeding 5,000 and rising from the grave. There's very difference dying for that and dying for a military cause. By the way, really quickly, J. Werner Wallace, again, former atheist, he's never lost a cold case. And he said in every cold case detective, in every case he's ever done, people lie for one of three reasons or commit crimes.

Basically power, sex, and money. Go figure. Power, sex, and money, right? You look at Joseph Smith, you find those elements. You look at Mohammed, you find those elements. You look at Mohammed, you find those elements. You look at the message of Jesus. He's like, actually, it's not about power. You're gonna have to lay down your life like I did.

It's not about sex or lust. I mean, Jesus would still pass the Me Too test today and neither Joseph Smith nor Mohammed would. That's for sure. And it's not about money over and over in the gospels. It's emphasizing an ax and make sure to remember the poor and care for the poor. So I think the motivation is unique and different there that they believe Jesus had risen from the grave really was the Messiah and you can be forgiven for your sins. Man, Sean, this is so fascinating, dude.

It's funny, we've known each other for a while, and I've never learned all this from you. You've had this wealth of knowledge at my fingertips that I didn't even tap into it. So thank you so much for sharing about the apostles. Tell us one more time the name of the book. It's just called The Fate of the Apostles. And if someone's interested in getting it, just make sure you get the second edition 10 year update. I think originally it was like $120, but I think now you can get a paperback closer to $40. It's with Rutledge Press. You can go to Rutledge or Amazon. In fact, it was, it was just on Amazon, the number two book of all Christian books. And I pull it down, I'm like, I think something's wrong with their metric.

There's no possible way this was the number two book. Like it was ahead of Bob Goff and Meir Christian. I'm like, something went wrong. But my brother-in-law sent it to me. I'm like, you know, there's no way it's selling that many as an academic book. But nonetheless, it's out there. And I have some selling that many as an academic book, but nonetheless, it's out there. And I have some other podcasts like this online and I have some articles online people can

read if they don't want to spend 40 bucks on a book. Yeah. And your YouTube channel, I think just Sean McDowell, right? If you go into YouTube. Yeah, if you search it, you'll find it on YouTube. Yeah. Absolutely outstanding. You have amazing guests on.

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