re who says the apostles were tortured another article that fell between the cracks in article qiu innpq srvr engin umich edu ingles engin umich edu ray ingles writes as evidence for the resurrection it is often claimed that the disciples were tortured to death for their beliefs and still did not renounce their claim that jesus had come back from the dead now i skimmed acts and such and i found a reference to this happening to stephen but no others where does this apparently very widely held belief come from is there any evidence outside the bible is there any evidence in the bible i sure haven t found any briefly no there is widespread folklore but no good documentary evidence or even solid rumor concerning the deaths of the apostles further the usual context of such arguments as you observe is no martyrs for a lie i e the willingness of these people to die rather than recant is evidence for the truth of their belief this adds the quite stronger twist that the proposed martyrs must have been offered the chance of life by recanting since we don t even know how or where they died we certainly don t have this information by the way even in the case of stephen it is not at all clear that he could have saved himself by recanting 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 see kings for a biblical account of the martyrdom of priests of baal jim perry perry dsinc com decision support inc matthews nc these are my opinions for a nominal fee they can be yours
