Transcription
Hey everybody. In this video, I want to talk about a popular Christian apologetic that you often see on YouTube and Tik Tok that I think is just way overstated and is bad Christian apologetics. We don't want to oversell people on things that we can't actually back up.
The argument that I'm talking about is the argument from the resurrection, particularly with the martyrdom of the apostles. And so, you'll often hear Christian apologists say, "Well, all the apostles died for what they saw, the resurrected Jesus." And the atheist is simply going to ask us, "Hey, what's your source?" And when our sources are later legendary accounts, that's not very good. That's not very strong. We don't want to oversell the case.
And so, we need to make the argument a lot more modest. The argument shouldn't be we can prove exactly how every apostle died. Rather, the argument is the apostles acted like guys who sincerely believe their testimony. William Paley made this point really well in his book, A View of the Evidences for Christianity, which is open source. You can download it for free off of archive.org or Google Play books. But his point was that the apostles passed their lives in labors, dangers, sufferings because of the message that they preached. And their message wasn't like, "Hey, I got this amazing private revelation. You should believe me. Uh, an angel appeared to me in a cave." No, it was testimony. We saw the risen Jesus as a group and we heard this and this is what happened. And they reorganized their whole lives around this ent this one mission of preaching the gospel and the resurrected Jesus.
So the real force of the argument according to Paley is that very few hypocrites would persist in this kind of life for long. Why? Because if they knew it was false, Paley says the fatigue and restraint would become insupportable. In other words, you can fake the funk for a while, but you can't just go your whole life enduring hardship for something that you know is false. That's just psychologically implausible. So the argument doesn't need to prove every single martyrdom story of the apostles. We only need to show that they're sincere witnesses. Not merely that they died for their beliefs, but rather they lived for what they really believed.
So now you have to think that the apostles wouldn't know. Preaching that the crucified Jesus was the resurrected Lord of Life would be dangerous. Jesus was executed as a criminal under Roman authority. Tacitus confirms this in Annals 15.44. That famous passage where he says that Chrisus was executed under Pontius Pilate during Tiberius's reign and within a few decades the movement had spread from Judea to Rome, which is something we also see uh not just in Tacitus but also in the book of Acts. That alone makes danger likely. If the founder was crucified, his followers couldn't expect a safe mission. "What could the disciples of Christ expect for themselves when they saw their master put to death? Could they hope to escape the dangers which he perished?" So, no, that doesn't seem right. Right? If your rabbi gets crucified and you start blaming people for putting him to death and saying that no, he really is the Lord of life, they're going to come after you. They're not going to like you. You're not going to be popular.
The other evidence, and I think this is a really underrated argument here that I haven't seen a whole lot of people use. Shawn McDow does make mention of it in his second edition of his book on the martyrdom of the apostles where Jesus warned them that this would happen. Jesus told his apostles, his apostles, the 12, the guys that they would be hated, handed over, and even killed. This is in Matthew 24:9. Also in the same discourse in Mark's version, he says that they would face councils, synagogues, governors, kings. They'd be betrayed and hated. Luke gives us the same basic picture. Prison, trials, betrayal, persecution. John adds that they would be expelled out of the synagogues and they would even be killed by people who are saying that they're doing God a service. So all four gospels preserve the same general expectation. Following Jesus, it's going to cost you.
Paley says regarding these passages, "I'm not entitled to argue from these passages that Christ actually did foretell these events and that they did accordingly come to pass, because that would be at once to assume the truth of the religion. But I am entitled to contend that one side or the other of the following disjunction is true. Either that the evangelists have delivered what Christ really spoke and that the event corresponded with the prediction, or that they put the prediction into Christ's mouth because at the time of the writing of the history, the event turned out so to be." And so, in other words, whether these are later inventions, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense if they didn't match what actually happened, or Jesus really did predict these things. The other options would be that these predictions were made by Jesus and they never really happened, which seems kind of like a silly thing to include in the gospels if that's so, or that the gospel writers put these in Jesus's mouth and they didn't match up with reality, which again is goofy, right? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And so again, Jesus is speaking to his apostles here predicting these sufferings, and the best explanation is that it really did happen.
Now, Clement of Rome gives us some early testimony. He's writing near the end of the first century, close to the apostolic generation. He says that Peter endured many labors and suffered martyrdom, and that Paul was imprisoned, exiled, stoned, preached in the east and west, reached the extreme limit of the west. And Clement also finally says that Paul suffered martyrdom under the rulers. Irenaeus later says that Clement had seen and conversed with the apostles with their preaching still echoing in his ears. And so, Irenaeus says that Clement knew these guys. So, he'd be in an excellent position to know. And just from a timeline standpoint, of course, he would be in a good position at all.
Polycarp gives us more early church testimony. He says that Paul and the other apostles suffered with Christ and did not love this present world. That's in his letter to the Philippians. This isn't some random late tradition. Polycarp was close to the apostolic generation. Again, Irenaeus in his book against heresies says that Polycarp was instructed by the apostles, including John, and with he conversed with many who had seen Christ. Okay. And so this is very early testimony. Polycarp's writing in the early second century and he's connected with the apostles. So he would be in a good position to know. And what does he say? Paul suffered, but also all the apostles underwent the same kind of fate. And so this is pretty early. This is pretty strong stuff.
Paul also says on the apostles in 1 Corinthians 4:9-13 that God displayed the apostles as men sentenced to death. He says that they were hungry, thirsty, poorly dressed, beaten, homeless, reviled, persecuted, slandered, and treated as the scum of the earth. Who again is the reference here? The apostles, right? This is very early testimony around the mid-50s. Remember, Paul knew Peter, Paul knew James, Paul knew John, he met them. And the Corinthians knew Peter. It's mentioned in his letter several times to the Corinthians. And so they knew these guys. They would be in a position to say, "What are you talking about? Peter's just coasting, everything's fine for Peter." But no, he says, "You guys know this that we are treated like the scum of the earth."
Now, John does mention Peter's death in John 21. It says that Peter would one day be led to where he didn't want to go. And he explains by what kind of death uh he would glorify God with, right? He said that this would show that. So the text links Peter's future with his death. So whether this is treated as a prediction or later remembrance, the implication is really strong. By the time John's gospel was written and published, Peter's martyrdom was already part of early Christian memory. So we do have some good evidence that Peter was very, very sincere and even went down to his death.
Now, Josephus also mentions the death of James. And of course, Josephus is a Jewish historian. So this is coming from a hostile source where Josephus says that the high priest Ananus II brought James before a council and had him executed. And Ananus II, according to T.C. Schmidt, who has an excellent book on Josephus and the Testimonium that you could get for free. Just Google it. Tom Schmidt, and it is highly academic, super good book. Highly um recommend it. But anyways, he said that Ananus was Josephus's commander in the military at one point. Okay? And so he'd be in a good position to know. He identifies James as the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ. So this is not Christian legend trying to hype up a hero. It's a hostile source reporting the death of Jesus's brother. And think about Ananus II. He belonged to the same priestly dynasty that is connected to Jesus's trial. Josephus says Ananus acted during a power gap and executed James without proper authority from the Romans, and the reaction was so strong that Agrippa removed Ananus from the high priesthood. This makes best sense if James was targeted as a religious power move. Think about it. You have these guys who the old guard, the priesthood trying to hold on to power, and they don't like these guys saying that Jesus is the Christ. Okay, makes total sense.
Now, persecution shows up everywhere in the early Christian letters, and I think this is again a very underrated argument. So when you read the epistles, whether it's the Catholic epistles, whether it is Paul's letters, we see over and over this theme of persecution. Thessalonica, Paul talks about persecutions and afflictions. In Corinth, he talks about being persecuted and struck down, afflicted, and given over to death. Philippi, he says the believers were not only granted to believe in Christ, but to also suffer for them. Rome, he assumes Paul that suffering, persecution, and danger and sword were real threats. Hebrews talks about them being subject to public reproach and afflicted and imprisoned and even having their property plundered. And James talks about, "Hey, imitate Job who underwent suffering." And first Peter talks about Christians not being shocked about the fiery trial that they're going through. So let's just do the math here. These letters span from Macedonia, Achaia, Rome, Jewish Christian audiences, Asia Minor. This whole theme that persecution is broad, and this is early, right? This is something that they would all get, like, yes, we we know about this context of persecution.
Paley writes on what all these mean in the letters of um the the New Testament letters. "What could these texts mean if there was nothing in the circumstances of the times which required patience, which called for the exercise of constancy and resolution? Or will it be pretended that these exhortations, which let it be observed, come not from one author but from many, were put merely to induce a belief in after ages that the Christians were exposed to dangers which they were not exposed to, or underwent sufferings which they did not undergo?" That just doesn't make a whole lot of sense, right? Paul not um and and tied to this. Paul, when he's writing to these letters, let's think about it. Paul is saying, "Hey, I'm enduring hardship, but I'm expecting you guys to do the same." Remember what I said about the letter to the Philippians? They were granted not only to believe, but to also suffer for Christ. Thessalonica, he warns them ahead of time, hey, we're going to suffer affliction, right? Same with Romans. Over and over again, we see this in Paul's letters. Paul was not painting some flowery beds of ease, you know, crazy gospel that you see modern evangelists talk about on TV. No, he's saying, "Hey, following Jesus is going to come at a very high cost, right?" And so, a deceiver, what do they do? They make the pitch easier. But Paul made it brutally clear. Follow Christ and expect suffering.
So, what does this mean? Well, I think George Littleton in his book, Observations on the Conversion and Apostilhip of St. Paul, again a really cool old book that you could download for free that's public domain. He says, "Whoever professed the gospel under these circumstances without an entire conviction of it being a divine revelation must have been mad. And if he made others profess it by fraud and or deceit, he must have been worse than that. He must have been the most hardened wretch that ever breathed. Could any man who in his nature the least spark of humanity subject his fellow creatures to so many miseries? Or could one that had in his mind the least ray of reason expose himself to share them with those he deceived in order to advance a religion which he knew is false merely for the sake of its moral doctrines?" And so this whole idea that Paul is just this phony apostle, he's lying about this. He is not only undergoing suffering himself, but he's telling those who follow him, hey, you're going to have to pay this cost, too. Like that's not what a liar normally does. And so, sorry you Aaron Abkey followers who think that Paul was a uh an evil fake apostle or Muslims out there that he's just lying. Like, no, that doesn't add up at all.
So, another thing that we need to consider is that the persecution starts in Jerusalem. Now, this is from the book of Acts. And I know people are going to say, "Testify, come on, man. The book of Acts, it's made-up history. It's propaganda, yada yada yada." No. Um, first of all, anybody who's followed my channel for a long time, you know that I spend a lot of time defending the book of Acts. And I'm going to defend it a little bit here in specific reference to the persecution that the apostles endured uh recorded in the book of Acts. And so, weeks after the crucifixion, Peter publicly tells the Jerusalem leaders, "You guys crucified Jesus." Well, that's uh not a uh a move that somebody makes if they're trying to keep themselves safe. He says it again, "They denied the holy righteous one and killed the author of life." Well, there you go. Right there at the beginning, you have some very high Christology. And yeah, you also have Peter and John arrested in order to stop speaking in Jesus's name in Acts chapter 4. And then in Acts chapter 5, they're arrested again, threatened, beaten, and yet they still keep preaching. Stephen eventually is dragged before the high priestly leaders and is stoned. Well, think about it. I understand Stephen wasn't a direct witness and he only saw a vision or whatever, but the apostles were not claiming they only saw a vision, and they would have taken this as a warning shot, right? You you kill one of our guys, that's a that's a message to us that you're coming after us next. And a great persecution did break out against the Jerusalem church. And what did the apostles do? Did they tuck tail and run? No. They stuck in Jerusalem according to Acts 8:1 and 3. Saul then begins hunting Christians beyond Jerusalem, even seeking authority to arrest them in Damascus. And Herod Agrippa kills James the brother of John and arrests Peter because it pleased the Jewish leaders. And so here is this early context to persecution that we find in the book of Acts.
Then of course, we know from Acts 13 to the end of the book that it focuses on one guy, namely Paul. And Paul goes through a rough ride. And people could say, "Well, that's just Paul. Big whoop-dedoo." But Paley has a really good point here. He says, "Although our scripture history, referring to Acts, leaves the general account of the apostles in the early part of the narrative and proceeds with the separate account of one particular apostle, namely Paul, yet the information which it delivers so far extends to the rest, as it shows the nature of the service. When we see one apostle suffering persecution in the discharge of this commission, we shall not believe without evidence that the same office could at the same time be attended with ease and the safety to others." And think about it again. This leaves the Jerusalem apostles off with like one of them being arrested and the other one of them being killed, and this huge context like of a persecution going on in Jerusalem. Like why think that it changed, right? And then why think that Paul, who's undergoing all of this, like he's having it rough, but these guys are just having again, flowery beds of ease. No, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. We need evidence to know that things just died down and everything was okay. And we don't have that.
Now, here is where the historical reliability of the accounts comes in. And again, these are weaved into context of persecution passages. So, 1 Thessalonians 2:2, Paul says that he was treated outrageously in Philippi, as you know. Uh, okay. So, what happened in Philippi? We never find out just by reading 1 Thessalonians. He just assumes that they know it. Well, Acts 16 explains Paul and Silas are imprisoned in Philippi, but are freed by an earthquake. The jailer, fearing an escape, nearly unalivives himself, but Paul stops him. The jailer then believes and his uh whole household is baptized and saved. And when the magistrates try to free them, Paul objects. He says, "You have beaten us publicly uncondemned men who are Roman citizens." So he puts on his Karen wig, he's like, "I want to talk to the supervisor." Realizing their mistake, the officials apologize and ask them to leave the city. Well, where does Paul go next? According to the book of Acts, he goes to Thessalonica. Well, you could imagine Paul is still fuming. He's still hot. He would have had a lot to say. Okay, so the letter and the book of Acts, they fit together like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, but it doesn't look like one is copied from the other, right? This is what real history looks like.
Paul also talks about um when he's writing to the Corinthians that he plans to stay in Ephesus. Why? Because a wide door for effective work had opened and he says there are many adversaries. But Paul doesn't spell out any of the details. He just assumes the Corinthians know that Ephesus is a big opportunity. Well, what made Ephesus such a big deal? Well, Acts tells us that Paul stayed there for the course of a couple years. And it says that the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily in Ephesus. Demetrius says that Paul had persuaded many people that handmade gods are not gods. And he says that Paul's influence had spread through Ephesus to almost all of Asia. Demetrius was not happy. He was like, "You're putting me out of work. I'm making these idols and this is bad for business." So that explains why Paul saw a major open door and it also explains why the opposition exploded there.
Now we read in 2 Corinthians 9:1-5 that Paul is writing to them from Macedonia. He's preparing to come to Corinth and early in the letter he says some pretty down and sad sounding things. He says that they were suffering severe affliction in Asia. He says they were burdened beyond strength. They despaired of life itself. So he doesn't narrate the event in detail. So what what the heck happened? Well, again, if we turn over to Acts in Acts 20:1, Acts says that Paul left Ephesus after the riot and he went to Macedonia. Right before that, Acts describes the Ephesian riot. But Acts also tells us all about the public chaos. You know, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" And there's this this uproar and some of Paul's companions are are attacked and Paul tries to run into the group and it's it's a mess. You know, his his own followers are like, "Don't go in there, Paul." And so 2 Corinthians gives Paul's personal aftermath. The pieces fit together without looking like one is copying the other. And I don't think they are copying. And if you think about it, like second Corinthians mentions Titus, but he's never mentioned again in the book of Acts. And there's there's other markers like that. Again, see my big Acts stream where I go into detail about the historical reliability of the book of Acts. But this isn't from mere copying. This just looks like historical reportage that fits together because that's what historical reportage does.
And so now we see this not only just by looking at Acts and Paul's letters, but we also see this with history outside of the Bible. So in Acts 23, Paul appears before a Jewish council. He's, you know, uh, told that like he's preaching wrong doctrine and he's bringing Gentiles into the temple, and he is struck on the mouth at Ananus's command, who is the high priest. Paul rebukes him saying, "God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall." Paul is rebuked back. "Would you revile God's high priest?" What does Paul say? "I didn't know he was the high priest." So, okay, what like question. Why doesn't Paul, supposedly a student of Gamaliel, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, how does he not recognize the high priest when he's in front of him? Well, Josephus actually explains. And so the Jewish historian Josephus, he tells us in his Antiquities that Ananus, the son of Nebodus, this same guy was appointed high priest, but he was sent to Rome by the governor Quadratus to answer charges for basically acting like a thug. He basically had goons going around and collecting tithes from people like they were mob enforcers. And though he was acquitted, he was never restored to office. And so yeah, he was found innocent, but he was shady enough to where Rome was like, "Nah, you you don't get your job back. Sorry, you're unemployed."
Now, Jonathan uh replaced him as high priest during Felix's term, which again, this is all when the trial is happening in Acts, but Jonathan was murdered in the temple. So, the office was actually vacant. Again, this is according to Josephus. It was only until Ishmael the son of Phabi was appointed by Agrippa later that there was a high priest. Acts 23, as it turns out, occurs exactly during this vacancy. Ananus was acting as if he still held that office. Paul was probably just throwing shade here. That's what I think happened when he says, "Well, I didn't know he was the high priest." Is because everybody knew that he wasn't really the high priest. He was just basically still showing up to work uh wearing his work uniform even though technically he was fired. And that fits perfectly with what we know about Paul and his letters. First Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, he's just dripping with sarcasm. Or I mean, just think about Galatians chapter 5 where he's confronting the Judaizers and he's like, "Hey, you know, while you guys are snipping away with circumcision since you love it so much, why don't you just go all the way?" Paul was a super sarcastic guy, and all of this just fits. This is awesome.
We also see this again in Acts 24:24-26 where Paul speaks with Felix, the Roman procurator of Judea, and his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish. Now, of course, Josephus tells us who Felix is. I mean, he'd be a well-known ruler, but he also correctly names Drusilla and the fact that she was Jewish, which is a pretty rare and specific detail. You didn't get a lot of information about these guys' wives. But the reason why Josephus tells us about his wife is that Drusilla was Jewish. She was the daughter of Herod Agrippa I, and she was married to Azizus of Emesa. But he left him to marry Felix. And this is the shady and weird part here. Felix actually used a Jewish magician to persuade her to leave her husband. So like what is guy doing here? He's having wizards cast spells to make this all work for him. Like this is pretty crazy. And you could imagine if she's a Jewish lady, their marriage was considered adulterous. It was against Jewish law. This would be a huge scandal, right, in the times. And what does Paul preach when he's before Felix? He talks about the kingdom being about righteousness, self-control, and the coming judgment. And what does Felix say? "That's enough, Paul. You You go back to your cell now. I don't want to talk to you anymore." But think about it. Like, does the book of Acts ever explain any of this? No, it doesn't. But Josephus is the one who makes sense of Felix's discomfort and this fact of Drusilla, but none of it spelled out. But this is just again history just dovetailing with other history in a way that's just like makes a whole lot of sense. And so this fits.
Um, now finally, people who are insincere about what they claim they saw generally don't suffer shipwrecks and just keep on preaching. But that's exactly what happened with Paul. In Acts 27:14-16, Paul is journeying to Rome. He's appealed to speak to Caesar. And to Caesar, he is going right now. Him and his group, they get caught by a nor'easter. Paul says, "No, I don't think we should stay in this particular city. We should spend the winter here." And the ship people, they're like, "Hey, let us do the the ship stuff. Okay, Paul, you mind your business and we'll mind ours." And it doesn't work out. They get caught in this nor'easter and they find brief refuge in a tiny little island called Cauda. Now Colin R. Hemmer, a classical historian who wrote a book, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History, he tells us some really interesting information about Cauda. He says, "In the places where we can compare, Luke fares much better than the encyclopedic Pliny the Elder, who wrote Natural History, who would have been a good source for this kind of stuff, who might be regarded as the foremost first-century example of such a source. Heammer says Pliny places Cauda opposite Heracleion, some 90 miles too far east. Ptolemy offers a reckoning of latitude and longitude. And if you know about history, Ptolemy, he was the cartographer. He was the the maps guy. Okay, he says that he makes a serious dislocation to the northwest, putting Cauda too near the western end of Crete in a position that would not suit the unsteady narrative of our text." But what does Luke do? He just casually gets it right. The description in Acts fits its real location. He gets it perfect. I mean, look, I mean, look at this. This is a tiny little island. This isn't something that is easy to get, right? He didn't have Wikipedia. He didn't have Google. And even if he did, the sources didn't even know it, right? And so, they would have got it wrong. So, this is pretty amazing stuff. This shows that Luke is a reliable historian. And again, remember, he traveled with Paul. He was in Jerusalem in Acts 21 where James and all the elders were present. So, if he's getting information about the kind of persecution that the apostles are enduring, um, he's not just making this up. He's in a spot to get that testimony directly from them. Not to mention Paul's own testimony. So, this is really good stuff.
So, what can we prove? Saying that we know how all the apostles died, it's it's a big overstatement. Christians, stop making this argument. It's bad. Okay. Some martyrdom traditions are early and strong. We talked about a few of those. James, uh, the other James, uh, Peter, Paul. Um, but others are later and they're weaker. The more modest claim is much harder to deny that the apostles were definitely sincere. The Gospels, Acts, Paul's letters, Clement, Polycarp, Josephus, and early Christian tradition all point in the same direction. The apostles and earliest Christians lived under intense pressure, extreme danger. They were rejected. They were in some cases imprisoned. In some cases, they were beaten. In some cases, they died. And so this is a much more modest claim, but I think it gives us very strong evidence that the apostles were sincere.
Anyways, I hope you find this video helpful and thank you so much for watching.