Academic Resources on the Apostles after the Resurrection
It's my understanding that there are many legends but little historical information about the work and lives of the apostles after the resurrection of Christ. But are there any resources that do a good job of addressing this topic from as academic/historical a view as is reasonably possible?
I'm not at all opposed to a presentation of the legends--in fact, I'd like to know about them--but my primary goal is to get a resource that provides as much generally accepted historical info as possible while distinguishing the historical from the legend.
I'd prefer a resource that avoids denominational bias, but will tolerate it if necessary to get what historical info is available. The absence of bias would just be frosting on the cake.
Comments
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RAusdahl said:
But are there any resources that do a good job of addressing this topic from as academic/historical a view as is reasonably possible?
I'm not sure what you are really looking for as the legends are the primary source of historical information. It appears as it you are assuming that "legend" has a negative connotation which it should not have in this context. I also know of no particular denominational differences on the history ...
Possibilities:
A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature. David Lyle Jeffrey, general editor. Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 1992.
Or a variety of Bible Dictionaries should have references leading you to academic sources.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Strange. I posted, but the post "disappeared". So I post again. The only book I know of is "The Search for the Twelve Apostles" by William Steuart McBirnie published somewhere in the 70's
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I believe there's an older thread about this somewhere, which had quite a bit of information.
Mac Pro (late 2013) OS 12.6.2
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I'm certain you are looking for a resource with more information, but Twelve Ordinary Men by John MacArthur discusses each of the 12 apostles, including Paul and Mathias. He does record what tradition says happened to them and in some cases cites his sources.
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I can recommend two resources.
On Illustrious Men by Jerome, in the Fathers of the Church Series, has write-ups (see contents below) on apostles (see also example of the start of James below). You can see it has a lot of footnotes, if appropriate they are scripture, otherwise they are other books that you might be able to investigate further:
There is also good historical information in the famous The Ecclesiastical History Vol 1 and 2 by Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea and called the “Father of Church History” (lived late 3rd/early 4th century, when there was 1 church). It goes well past the time frame you are interested in, it covers a lot of history:
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MJ. Smith said:
I'm not sure what you are really looking for as the legends are the primary source of historical information. It appears as it you are assuming that "legend" has a negative connotation which it should not have in this context. I also know of no particular denominational differences on the history ...
Possibilities:
A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature. David Lyle Jeffrey, general editor. Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 1992.
Or a variety of Bible Dictionaries should have references leading you to academic sources.
A major part of what I had in mind when distinguishing between legend and academic/historical information would be things like citations of sources and the use of sources that most scholars see as worthy of consideration. I was also hoping there might be historical references to the apostles that were documented by sources outside of the Christian community. I understand that legends can be true--I'm just hoping for a little academic/historical meat to separate the legends that scholars feel have more credence from those they feel have less or none at all.
My use of the phrase "denominational" bias was probably not the best--it was more of a concern of catholic or protestant bias. I had located a couple of resources and am considering them, but each has reviewers who feel the resource pushes the catholic faith and disrespects the protestant faith, or visa versa. I wanted to avoid that as much as possible.
I'll look into the type of materials you suggested for references. Thanks for your help!
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The two I cited have good academic references - Eusebius, Philo and others are good citations. Philo is a historian not a religious. You will probably ind others in the footnotes.
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Don Awalt said:
The two I cited have good academic references - Eusebius, Philo and others are good citations. Philo is a historian not a religious. You will probably ind others in the footnotes.
Don,
Thank you for the references--I think they're very much in line with the type of resource material I'm interested in.
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RAusdahl said:
It's my understanding that there are many legends but little historical information about the work and lives of the apostles after the resurrection of Christ. But are there any resources that do a good job of addressing this topic from as academic/historical a view as is reasonably possible?
It is difficult for the modern historian to say much about this. For this reason Jaroslav Pelikan started his monumental Church History at 100 AD...
Good overviews are in many bible dictionaries (I would use the Anchor myself for this) and their Bibliographies give you further places to look.
Richard Bauckham has written quite a bit about the relatives of Jesus - a summary can be found here.
And of course, Eusebius and Irenaeus are the sources for many of the "legends"...
The Gospel is not ... a "new law," on the contrary, ... a "new life." - William Julius Mann
L8 Anglican, Lutheran and Orthodox Silver, Reformed Starter, Academic Essentials
L7 Lutheran Gold, Anglican Bronze
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Thanks to all who have responded.
Before submitting my first post I had done searches here on Logos in both the forums and products as well as on Amazon and some general internet searches. A few searches returned almost nothing, while most searches returned hundreds/thousands of hits with most having nothing to do with the type of content I was searching for.
When first posting, my total list of resource possibilities consisted of the following.
Twelve Ordinary Men: ... John MacArthur
The Twelve: The Lives of the Apostles After Calvary C. Bernard Ruffin
The Search for the Twelve Apostles William S. McBirnie
12 Who Changed the World Morris Inch
MacArthur's book is fairly popular, but did not appear to be the best match for my purposes. A couple of the others seemed more promising but had reviews warning of either a catholic or protestant bias or of many lengthy quotes for which there were no references.
Based on my meager list, I figured it was time to ask for help, and as usual on the forums, that help is coming through. When starting my searches, I had a hunch there wouldn't be a lot of resource material available and that evaluating the credibility of resources might be difficult. So I very much appreciate all the suggestions, thoughts, and feedback.
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Here's a newly announced pre-pub you might be interested in:
https://vyrso.com/product/43819/after-acts-exploring-the-lives-and-legends-of-the-apostles
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I read this book by the author and really enjoyed it.
https://www.logos.com/product/6068/getting-to-know-the-church-fathers-an-evangelical-introduction
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Rosie and Ronald,
Thanks so much for the links! I found it interesting that both resources are by the same author. Rosie, the one you suggested appears to be exactly the sort of thing I'm after regarding the apostles. I put it on pre-order. Ronald, the one you suggested is also of great interest to me because good introductory resources on the church fathers is the next thing on my list after resources on the apostles, and your suggestion looks perfect for my purposes on that front.
[:)]
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RAusdahl said:
Rosie, the one you suggested appears to be exactly the sort of thing I'm after regarding the apostles. I put it on pre-order.
Great! How timely that it just got announced after you were asking about this sort of thing. One sometimes wonders whether the elves at Logos are lurking on our resource requests and putting things on pre-pub just to meet our needs. [:)] Happy Christmas! (Though when it will ship is another story.)
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