The Resurrection of Jesus Fact #6: Jesus's Disciples Believed He Appeared to Them

 So far we've only looked at data in the Gospels. The only claims used were those which could be critically determined as historically true because they are things that Christian culture wouldn't like, wouldn't invent. Of course this is the way to go, because eyewitness Gospel authorship can't be assumed. Critical scholars like Ehrman deny it. 

But a piece of the resurrection case, which cannot be undervalued, is reported by Paul. His writings on the resurrection fit what Ehrman wished we had for a single source on the life of Jesus: a "contemporary" writing by someone "close to the time of the events," and someone impartial "toward the subject matter." (1)

The strong reason for him and other people to be unbiased will appear throughout the rest of the evidence in this blog project. As for the writings of Paul not all being a forgery, Ehrman reports that "almost all scholars are convinced that of the thirteen letters attributed to Paul in the New Testament, seven are indisputably his: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon." (2) He says this can be determined because, for one reason, scholars have things like high-tech intellectual resources which remember data for a thorough literary study. 

1 Corinthians was written sometime in AD 50(3). It was interesting that in my reading for this blog project, an atheist who isn't a scholar on the New Testament accepted this date but not other ones scholars give about His death and resurrection. It was Michael Martin, a philosopher who wrote The Case Against Christianity. I haven't read his book but borrow the material from another work co-authored by Gary Habermas. He said, "To be sure, Paul and other early epistle writers thought Jesus was crucified and resurrected. But there is no good evidence that they believed that these events occurred at the beginning of the first century." (4) But He really was crucified sometime around AD 30, no doubt. That's just common knowledge for people who want to know about Jesus!

I wish to make the point here that I have faith in critical scholars, critical consensus, when something that points to the resurrection is confirmed. It's like what I mentioned before: skeptics can disbelieve the Christians, but it's not fair to ignore Habermas's minimal facts approach! 

But still, I won't just make a case because some non-Christian who would know said so. I mean, that's obvious, because of the evidence in all my earlier argumentation! There are some things which I determine as qualifying as general knowledge so cross-citing isn't required (like one of the biggest Christian churches at its beginning being in Corinth, which I will use in the post on James), and others I can explain and top it off with critical report. Few vital things, like the definitely authentic epistles of Paul, do I take completely on Ehrman's word or the like.

(Although I can imagine an argument for Galatians being authentic because Paul had to rebuke Peter, whom God "was at work in as an apostle," chapter 2 verse 8. But later, verse 11, "When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face." But whatever.)

Habermas did have good responses to Martin, of course. He basically just pointed out proof that Paul knew people who were contemporary to the crucifixion, mentioned in this post and fact #8(5). Again, Jesus's crucifixion not taking place in B.C. (literally "before Christ") is clearly supported by evidence.

The early creed

1 Corinthians 15 contains what is of verifiable incredibly early tradition. I prefer the date of within two years of the crucifixion, although that's just because it's better for its credibility and I'm not a Bible scholar. But that's only relative to the other dating options: formulated by eight years is still pristine! 

So basically I read from Gary Habermas that it's very early material, so greatly supported by evidence that critical scholars date it that way(6). As Christian apologist J.P. Moreland put it, being well aware of Habermas's material: "Most scholars date it from three to eight years after Jesus' death." (7) Then, because if I was speaking to a skeptic and wished to present proof of that, I searched for information elsewhere. I came up with Bart Ehrman and Gerd Ludemann. (Good pieces of evidence for very early dating, especially within 5 years of the events, are below.) "Ludemann himself traces the various elements making up the tradition, including the element of Christ's burial, back to Jerusalem in 'the first two years immediately after the crucifixion of Jesus,' that is, 'between 30 and 33 C.E.'" (8) 

I was surprised in the debate between Bart Ehrman and William Lane Craig when Craig had to say: "But surely Dr. Ehrman knows that Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 is quoting an ancient Christian tradition which he himself received and which goes back to within five years after the crucifixion." (1) I was shocked because he talked about Paul writing about the burial 25 years afterward, not five years. See, elsewhere Bart Ehrman identified the "traditions he inherited" as dating "to just a couple of years or so after Jesus's death." (9) I guess he momentarily didn't think of it and just focused on the time of writing or something.

What was originally in it?

A further reason I can have confidence in the creed being earlier than just the date of 1 Corinthians is the structure and details in verses 3-5. It's actually loaded down with evidence. The material is very Jewish. I know this FOR SURE because it comes from Pinchas Lapide, an orthodox Jewish rabbi who came to believe in the resurrection of Jesus (albeit not Christianity) because of evidence. He was a New Testament scholar and expert in ancient Judaism (of course, as he was a rabbi). There are multiple heavily Semitic elements which are striking, such as usage of "and that" three times. But what I'm really going to focus on is: "Vocabulary, sentence structure, and diction are clearly un-Pauline." (10)

Ehrman says, "Scholars have devised a number of ways to detect these preliterary traditions. For one thing, they tend to be tightly constructed, with terse statements that contain words not otherwise attested by the author in question--in this case Paul-- and to use grammatical formulations that are otherwise foreign to the author." (11) But he also points out that verse 6 and 8 both contain Paul's specific details, which don't flow with the creed. 

I must say that when I read the entire section of chapter 15, I discovered that after "the Twelve," the subject matter stopped flowing so eloquently. I felt betrayed by Christian scholars, because there was given no specific evidence to believe the rest would have been as early as the first three verses. However, I have read that some scholars think that part of it was added later, and he did use the rabbinic "delivered" and "received" words for it. Not everyone I read on the subject bothered to point out the latter differences.

But Bart Ehrman actually thinks that it originally went like this: "Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and he was buried. Christ was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures and he appeared to Cephas." (12) That's it, only Peter, not the rest of the Disciples. This of course fits with his "tentative suggestion" that we can only know that Peter, Paul (in the next post), and Mary had visions of Jesus(13). 

Why does he think this? Because there was a lot of "effort that the author of this creed has taken to make every statement of the first section correspond to the parallel statement of the second section, and vice versa[.]" (14) Now you might recall, if you read part one of my post on Joseph of Arimathea, that he used this as evidence against the burial, because of course he would throw in who buried Jesus to balance the creed. But I responded with that I don't think we can demand that the formulator must have given such priority to include, say, un-important characters because the creed must be kept the most paralled at all costs! The point of creeds is to have easily memorizable information that just has the non-detailed facts. 

Ehrman himself acknowledges that "it is a powerful, consice, and cleverly constructed creedal statement." (15) And that's without who buried Jesus! (Here I find it suspicious that if one would practically have to make the creed perfect, why they didn't add anyone who buried Jesus at all. For one thing, if he actually was buried by Joseph as I see strong evidence for, this would just show that it didn't matter. For another, if it is right that crucified people wouldn't get buried, people would know that part of the creed was wrong, at least literally, because it is so early. So the inventor could easily have thrown something in. I mean, if Jesus was buried, someone would have had to bury Him, right? He could have just said something like "and that He was buried by the Jews." This seems very probable in light of when Paul said in Acts 13:29 identified all the Jews in Jerusalem as those who buried Jesus. I argue in my first post on the burial that this isn't to be interpreted so literally, one reason being how they all had condemned Him to death, in verse 27, and otherwise He wouldn't have died and so needed to be buried. So there's my point why the author could very well have included "the Jews.") 

So this helps put together the picture I desire. This "diction" fits along with "vocabulary" that supports an early dating. The usage of Cephas is not non-Pauline (it is used in Galatians 1:18), although it is of course a pre-Pauline term, since it is the Aramaic name for Peter. 

BUT, "the Twelve" is non-Pauline completely. Or at least that's what I read in multiple places including Ehrman(16). Furthermore, I see great reason to identify both Cephas and the rest of his group as having originated together. If someone heard the creed just ending with Peter, they might ask, what about the rest of the Disciples? Here it obviously could be pointed out that they weren't included because they didn't have visionary experiences. Alright, but then we get to the point that I have no good reason to think that verses 3-5 were edited by Paul at all. I just borrowed two literal translations of the Bible from my brother. I'm using Rotherham's Emphasized Bible from Kregel Publications in 1994 and Young's literal translation. And I see that it says "appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve, after that to the 500..." So the creed looks like it is distinguishing between time periods and specific groups. Peter's experience was around the time of the rest of the Disciples. It seems to be relatively simultaneous with Peter himself. For example, in the same day, like Luke reports in 24:34, 36. Not only is "the Twelve" early and non-Pauline, it especially flows in the creed. Honestly I don't think I have read anywhere else a place where the idea that all the Disciples weren't originally reported in the creed was taken seriously. 

Reginald Fuller said the Disciples faith in the resurrection is "one of the indisputable facts of history" and their experience is "a fact upon which both believer and unbeliever may agree." (17)

Highly critical scholar Rudolf Bultmann, who got his own school of critical thought, said, "All that historical criticism can establish is the fact that the first disciples came to believe in the resurrection." (18)

Hans Von Campenhausen, a prominent skeptical scholar who appeared in part 2 of the empty tomb argument, said "This account meets all the demands of historical reliability that could possibly be made of such a text." (19)

Gerd Ludemann observed, "It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus' death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ." (20)

Indeed, I believe Ehrman was being overly skeptical when claiming we can know Peter thought he saw Jesus, but if the others had their faith restored that way is a mystery. 

Where did Paul get this information?

Many critical scholars think that Paul received the creed from Peter and James, the brother of Jesus. This is reported in Galatians 1:18, and took place three years after Paul's conversion. If that really did happen then, there is no way for the creed to have originated later than 5 years after Jesus's death. Another theory said he got it in Damascus (Galatians 1:17), which would make it even earlier. 

But even if Paul didn't receive it then, he would still know. There still is all the primitive literary evidence which points to a primitive dating for the creed itself, but Paul did investigate. As a matter of fact, he describes his visit to Cephas and James (they were the only ones there) with the term historesai(21). This means "to gain a historical account." (22) Even without the usage of the word, the context, such as the mindset of Paul, of course makes this clear(23).

In verses 18-20 he says this: "Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas [meaning he learned from someone no one surpassed in knowing Jesus] and stayed with him fifteen days. I saw none of the other apostles -- only James, the Lord's brother. I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie." 

There is only every reason to trust what Paul is saying. Ehrman refers to verse 20 and says, "When Paul swears he is not lying, I generally believe him." (24) Paul probably bothered to explicitly mention that point because members of the church of Galatia was disbelieving the claim that believers did not have to obey Jewish law (see, for example, 2:16, 3:1). So Paul claimed this during the time of the eyewitnesses, where the church could easily get back to them (neither Peter or James had been martyred yet, and their culture allowed for such retrieval, as I shall point out in fact #8). But most importantly, if you had just been persecuting Christians because you were dedicated to and very knowledgeable of the Old Testament and then suddenly got converted, wouldn't you want to know the truth of the Gospel you very well might die for? (Paul will be explained next post.) 

So here I throw in a kind of arbitrary idea I find worth considering because it would create a way for the other Disciples to be reported as having seen, but not actually have. It's a possibility I have to consider.

Late apologist Ravi Zacharias proudly said that the apostle Thomas was a missionary to India, where he died. See, not all the Disciples in early church tradition stayed around Jerusalem. I don't really know any of the evidence but let's just imagine that by the time Paul came to Jerusalem, all the other Disciples (except for John, who appears 14 years later in Galatians 2:9) had left to places far away, relative to the walking-many-miles world where information traveled by word of mouth. They wouldn't be around to question. James and Peter say this is because they plan to stay wherever they went and start churches.

But imagine further that they really left because they hadn't seen Jesus, was convinced that He wasn't alive, and got scared by Peter and John's conversion. So, like when Jesus was crucified, they fled to a place where no one who would persecute Peter could also cause trouble for them too. 

Peter and James realize this looks real bad for them, and so they formulate the lie that Jesus also appeared to "the Twelve." The other former Disciples would of course deny it if they had to save their own skin, but they weren't around at all. 

But this theory is plagued with a couple of striking problems. For one thing, if Peter, James, and John were convinced that Jesus had risen from the dead despite the others not seeing Jesus, then why must they lie to convince Paul? These men were dedicated to the truth of the risen Christ (Disciples shown below and James in the post on him), and so it doesn't make sense at all that they would consider what Jesus did -- that is, what He didn't do -- embarrassing and in need of being covered up. 

Also, it wouldn't make any sense to tell Paul about the Twelve. As soon as they tell someone about it, the secret is out. So Paul learned about them super early, in Jerusalem, where people would know better. That's right, they would know better. It doesn't make sense that Peter, James, and John would tell the people who actually were around the time of the events (unlike Paul, who as has already been shown did not come from Jerusalem and we shall see later he came from the Jewish diaspora) that the other Disciples had claimed to see the risen Jesus. What, they saw Jesus and then immediately ran off without starting the home church in Jerusalem? Did the others get away so quickly they couldn't be questioned?

Finally, Paul himself said when delivering the creed to the Corinthian church that all those he mentioned preach the same Gospel as he. This is also when he mentions that some of the 500+ had died, but most are still alive (1 Cor. 15:6; this indicates they could be questioned), and that in verse 14, if this Gospel is false, "our preaching is useless and so is your faith." Even if it would be difficult to retrieve information on the other Disciples, this could be done by other people making the same journey. But I have a hard time believing this would be the case: there probably was a connection to their other churches throughout the Mediterranean world, or at least would be, so if there wasn't this would practically expose the lie itself. In the post about James I will show a specific example of word traveling around churches. 

So when Ehrman points out that "Paul seems to be giving an exhaustive account of the people to whom Jesus appeared," "giving the the fullest list" known to him, it is a no-duh statement to say that of course the twelve actually thought they saw Jesus after Peter, by himself, did as well(25).

How many of the Disciples saw Him?

Sometimes people think they see an error in the Bible when the creed says Jesus appeared to all twelve of the Disciples, but the Gospels attest that Judas had betrayed Jesus. This was an important factor in causing His death, and drove him to suicide, so it's blatantly obvious that Judas wasn't with the others to see the risen Christ. 

I responded to this claim I learned from Pinchas Lapide in my blog project on his book(26). He used it as evidence for the early creed, because it supposedly contradicts the later legend of Judas's betrayal. In my response I cited Ehrman, who supported my idea that "the Twelve" had just become a stereotypical name for the original Disciples. This fits his professional opinion because he argues Judas's betrayal is supported by multiple attestation and the criterion of dissimilarity(27).

So can anyone reasonably say with confidence the exact number of witnesses that had the experience in verse 5 of the creed? I believe so. To begin with, because Peter is mentioned by himself first, this indicates that Jesus appeared to them as a group, not on separate occasions(28). Furthermore, while it would not at all fit creed structure to continue naming the order of those who saw Him (imagine reading "first to Cephas, then to John, then to Bartholomew, then to Phillip, then to..."), it could have said "to some of the Twelve." This would be an honest report, which would avoid false indication. Everyone knew Judas fell away, but they wouldn't know about what really happened to the others. That is, that not all the Disciples saw Him together before others started to do the same. 

Or did only Judas completely betray Jesus? Perhaps really, other Disciples didn't see Him and never did trust Jesus, so everyone knew it wouldn't talk about them either. And maybe not even then did everyone left over have a resurrection experience: some just believed because of the others and so they will preach the same and might as well have seen Him. But there is no evidence for either belief, and I think the latter is demonstrably false. It says later He appeared "to all the apostles" (verse 7), which of course would include all the Disciples, and the 500+ from verse 6 might be at the same time of the Great Commission of Matthew 28:16, where the Disciples definitely were. The point is that they were reported as to have seen Him later. So this links together with the second piece of evidence against only some of the eleven Disciples seeing Jesus, which I mentioned in the above paragraph: it doesn't say "some of the Twelve." Really, it seems that since Judas is a special case of how he denied Jesus and when, grouping the eleven leftover would fracture when one more is added.

At the very least at least most of the Disciples would have thought to have seen Jesus with each other, because otherwise it would speak of too few people to actually get close to the number "Twelve," and the truth of the claim appear false. To cover this up and say later that only a small number saw Jesus could easily damage faith in the churches proclamation of the resurrection.

How do we know they were convinced?

Gary Habermas pointed out two things that are usually needed for legend to appear, which I have already dealt with: the claim being late and taken out of the hands of the actual eyewitnesses(29). But even if one wishes to suggest, say, that "the Twelve" was added into the creed the decade after it was first formulated and made the addition look the way I distinguished above (with "then" not "after that"), the information is still early. And it's obviously early because it's well within the lifetime of the eyewitnesses, who of course reported it first because otherwise they could disprove it.  

But this as proof of a claim being accurate is only generally true. I mean, it's obvious that they preached this, but did they actually believe Jesus had appeared to them? Or were they lying?

"And no one should be put off by the claim, 'No one would be willing to die for what he knew to be a lie.' We don't know what happened to most of the disciples in the end. We certainly have no evidence that they were all martyred for their faith. On the contrary, almost certainly most of them were not. So there is no need for talk about anyone dying for a lie." (30)

Is what Ehrman is saying true? I'm not aware of how he thinks he can know most of the disciples probably weren't martyred, but I could imagine it being so because they aren't so evidently attested as Peter and James the son of Zebedee. 

Here is where Evidence That Demands a Verdict, a major book of Christian apologetics, comes into play. The 2017 version says that only two Disciples (along with James and Paul) have a martyrdom evidence with "strong historical probability." (31) Thomas and Andrew are in the category of "moderate historical probability," and the remaining are inconclusive (excluding John, but his traditions are debatable) because they just are blatantly "late and filled with legendary accretion." (32)

The authors actually cited Ehrman's Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene for Peter, although it works better for me if I use a different quote. He wrote, "In any event, by the end of the first century and into the second it was widely known among Christians that Peter had suffered a martyr's death." (33) One strikingly early piece of evidence is that it's in the New Testament -- John 21:18-19. 1 Clement also indicates martyrdom, and was written about 95 AD, arguably around the time John was written.

Better still is the evidence for James, the son of Zebedee. It is in Acts 12:1-2, and clearly no legend had slipped into it, for there's no glorification of James's noble death at all. I haven't specifically read Ehrman on the subject but he does point out Acts is reasonably dated by many scholars to sometime roughly around AD 85(34). 

So one could argue that others probably weren't martyred because if they had been, the early church of course would have reported it earlier. I pretty much only know about what I just told you, but for another very strong reason I can confidently say it doesn't matter.

Remember, all the Disciples had fallen out of faith in Jesus. Why? He had 1. been crucified, an event which 2. had been schemed by the Jews and 3.  fulfilled by the Romans. As I cited Ehrman citing Paul in the post on the crucifixion, "we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to Gentiles" (1 Cor. 1:23). 

Elsewhere Ehrman wrote:

"Christianity had been a persecuted religion from virtually the beginning. The religion started, in fact, with the torture and execution of its founder, Jesus. And after his death a number of his followers met the same fate. Sometimes it was Jews who persecuted the early Christians, because in many Jews' view [including Paul as we shall see] the Christians were committing blasphemy against God by calling Jesus the messiah. But as time went on, persecutions were increasingly undertaken by the Roman pagans and their administrative officials." (35)

I highly value Ehrman naming Jesus as the first martyr of Christianity. As Sean McDowell, the son of Josh McDowell who famously wrote the first Evidence That Demands a Verdict, proves in this quote, "The fact that their founding leader was a crucified criminal of the Roman Empire also certainly plays a part of their collective consciousness." (36) This is where I first learned this response, which I have known and enjoyed for quite some time now. 

Jesus's Disciples had personally witnessed the terrible death of Jesus by anti-Christians. They knew what they were getting into. By just getting out their they were saying to the world, "Hey, here's a gun, hold it to my forehead if you like. Maybe you won't fire, but you also very well might. Whatever, I know I have the truth." 

Citations:

1. https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/debates/is-there-historical-evidence-for-the-resurrection-of-jesus-the-craig-ehrman 

2. Bart Ehrman, Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend (Oxford University Press: Oxford, NY. 2006), 93.

3. Gary R. Habermas and Micheal R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Kregel Publications: Grand Rapids, MI. 2004), 52; Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (HarperOne: 2014), 137-38.

5. Michael Martin, The Case Against Christianity (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), p. 85. Cited in Gary R. Habermas and J.P. Moreland, Beyond Death: Exploring the Evidence for Immortality (Wipf and Stock: Eugene, OR. 1998), 141.

5. Habermas and Moreland, Beyond Death, 141-42.

6. Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus (Zondervan: Grand Rapids, MI. 2016), 250-51; Habermas and Licona, Case for the Resurrection, 52-53; Gary Habermas and Antony G. N. Flew, Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? The Resurrection Debate, edited by Terry L. Miethe (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987), 23.

7. J.P. Moreland, Scaling the Secular City: A Defense of Christianity (Baker Book: Grand Rapids, MI. 1987), 150.

8. Robert H. Gundry, quoted in Paul Copan and Ronald K. Tacelli, Jesus' Resurrection: Fact or Figment? A Debate Between William Lane Craig and Gerd Ludemann (InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove, IL. 2000), 119. He cites Gerd Ludemann, The Resurrection of Jesus: History, Experience, and Theology trans. John Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), p. 38, also pp. 25-26.

9. Bart D. Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (HarperOne: 2012), 131.

10. Pinchas Lapide, The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish Perspective (Augsburg Fortress Publishing House, 1982), 98.

11. Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (HarperOne: 2014), 138-39.

12. Ibid., 139.

13. Ibid., 192.

14. Ibid., 141-42.

15. Ibid., 140.

16. Ibid., 139.

17. Reginald H. Fuller, The Formation of New Testament Christology (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1965), p. 143. Cited in Gary R. Habermas and Antony Flew, Resurrected? An Atheist and Theist in Dialogue, John F. Ankerberg edition (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, inc: 2005), 92.

18. Bultmann, "New Testament and Mythology," in Kerygma and Myth, ed. Hans Werner Bartsch, revised trans. Reginald Fuller (New York: Harper & Row, 1953), 81. Cited in Habermas and Flew, The Resurrection Debate, 114.

19. Hans Von Campenhausen, "The Events of Easter and the Empty Tomb," in Tradition and Life in the Church (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1968), 44. Cited in Cited in Habermas and Flew, The Resurrection Debate, 114-15.

20. Gerd Ludemann, What Really Happened to Jesus? A Historical Approach to the Resurrection, John Bowden, trans. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 80. Cited in Habermas and Licona, Case for the Resurrection, 60.

21. Habermas and Flew, Resurrected?, 4.

22. Habermas and Licona, Case for the Resurrection, 260.

23. Habermas and Flew, The Resurrection Debate, 128.

24. Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 120.

25. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 142.

26. https://onechristianthought.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-resurrection-of-jesus-jewish_27.html

27. Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 328. 

28. Habermas and Flew, The Resurrection Debate, 54.

29. Habermas and Flew, Resurrected?, 29.

30. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 165.

31.  Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Life-changing Truth for a Skeptical World (Thomas Nelson: Nashville, TN. 2017), 363-64. 

32. Ibid., 364-65.

33. Ehrman, Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene, 84.

34. Ibid., 96.

35. Bart Ehrman, Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code: A Historian Reveals What We Really Know About Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine (Oxford University Press: New York, NY. 2004), 7.

36. McDowell, Sean. The Fate of the Apostles: Examining the Martyrdom Accounts of the Closest Followers of Jesus Farnham, England: Ashgate, 2015, p. 8. Cited in McDowell and McDowell, Evidence, 367.