re who says the apostles were tortured the willingness of true believers to die for their belief be it in jesus or jim jones is well documented so martyrdom in and of itself says little it does say something about the depth of their belief religion has both deluded believers and con men the difference is often how far they will follow their beliefs i have no first hand or even second hand knowledge of how the original apostles died if they began a myth in hopes of exploiting it for profit and followed that myth to the death that would be inconsistent real con men would bail out when it was obvious it would lead to discomfort pain and death the story in kings regarding the prophets of baal is of no help in this debate one can easily assume that they believed that no overwhelming vindication of elijah would be forthcoming he was simply a fool who would be shown to be so the fire from heaven was swift and their seizure and deaths were equally swift
