DID ALL THE APOSTLES DIE AS MARTYRS CERTIFYING THE TRUTH OF THE GOSPEL?
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Clearly, many of the Apostles did die as martyrs, without any historical evidence that any had ever reneged on their faith and their certitude about the Resurrection of their Master.
However, Sean McDowell has written that the historical record about the martyrdom of some the Apostles isn’t compelling. Why not? Some of the historical evidence doesn’t appear until hundreds of years after the fact.
Nevertheless, McDowell argues that their martyrdom isn’t absolutely critical to their testimony to the Resurrection. Why not? McDowell explains that their outspoken lives were always lived facing martyrdom and cites historian Michael Licona to this effect:
∑ “After Jesus’ death, the disciples endured persecution, and a number of them experienced martyrdom. The strength of their conviction indicates that they were not just claiming Jesus had appeared to them after rising from the dead. They really believed it. They willingly endangered themselves by publicly proclaiming the risen Christ.” (Christian Research Journal, Vol.39, No.2, 16)
According to McDowell, the entire Christian community had also been convinced of the Resurrection:
∑ From the Apostles forward, there is no evidence for an early Christian community that did not have belief in the Resurrection at its core. The centrality of the Resurrection can be seen by considering the earliest Christian creeds, the preaching in Acts, and the writings of the apostolic fathers. (14)
McDowell cites NT scholar James Dunn in support:
∑ “It is an undoubted fact that the conviction that God had raised Jesus from the dead and had exalted Jesus to his right hand transformed Jesus’ first disciples and their beliefs about Jesus.” (14)
Could they ALL have been deluded or just mistaken?
MONISM VS. DUALISM
One woman I meet on a college campus assured me:
∑ I am god but so is everyone else. We are all one without distinction. And because we are one, we can live in total love.
I responded that I respected her commitment to love and agreed that we need more of it. However, love depends upon the existence of more than one being. If we are all one, then by loving, I am merely loving myself, right?
Has God always been love? If God is not triune, then there would have been no object for His eternal love until He created us. To love Himself only would not have been love but narcissism. And if God is narcissistic, then perhaps we should also be narcissistic.
New York School of the Bible: http://www.nysb.nyc/
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