An Author Interview from Books At a Glance
Just what do we know about Jesus’ apostles and their ministry? The New Testament records something of their initial ministries, but what more is there to know about their life and work?
Hi, I’m Fred Zaspel, editor here at Books At a Glance, and that’s our topic for today. I’m talking to Dr. Brian Shelton, author of the new book, Quest for the Historical Apostles: Tracing Their Lives and Legacies.
Brian, great to talk to you, and congratulations on your new book.
Shelton:
Thank you, Fred. Thanks for having me on the show. Books At a Glance has become an important reviewer and profiler of Christian books.
Zaspel:
Thank you!
Tell us about your book – what is the contribution you hope to make?
Shelton:
Well, the lives of the apostles intrigue us. This work extends the stories of the individual apostles beyond the story that we know in the New Testament and it also advances the collective, first-generation efforts of the church, the New Covenant. I hope that the book will be able to fill the gap. It’s been some years since an author has tried to bridge the early church sources with comprehensive narrative about the apostles’ lives, so I hope the book provides an updated narrative for each one of the apostles, profiling their ministry efforts, their obstacles to ministry and even the power of God in taking the gospel in the first century. I think our faith can gain inspiration by the lives of these faithfully evangelists.
Zaspel:
I think what captures my attention here is that it’s a fascinating link between biblical studies, proper, and church history.
Shelton:
Indeed. One of the main challenges for writing, or even for a reader as they read a book like this is a believer is going to have great trust in the book of Acts or the narratives of the gospels in the New Testament. And then moving into extra biblical literature, one really gets challenged to have to discern what might be true or not true and so, in that sense, I suppose there’s an exercise of faith component that comes with this. But, nonetheless, the big picture is the story of the apostles and we want to know what happened to them because we get to know them in the New Testament.
Zaspel:
Your title echoes a famous work by Albert Schweitzer on The Quest for the Historical Jesus. How is your book like his, and how is it unlike his?
Shelton:
Schweitzer was a New Testament scholar, well-known, who sought to provide a historical picture of Jesus in response to a lot of textual activities, really a textual picture, that had been produced by higher biblical criticism from the Enlightenment. In fact, Schweitzer’s original subtitle was, A Critical Study from Reimarus to Wrede, which shows that he is writing in response and he’s bringing new historical method into the understanding of Jesus. This book is like Schweitzer’s in that historical methodology is applied to the stories of the apostles in an effort to reconstruct their lives.
My book is unlike his really into ways: one, the reconstruction is tentative once one gets outside of the New Testament, without fully defining an exact path of each apostle. Really, the book introduces possible ministry paths and possible encounters as opposed to reconstructing the entire picture with the level of confidence that Schweitzer tried to do with Jesus. And the book is unlike his, secondly, in that the New Testament is a trusted source, seen as inspired and as authoritative for evaluating the apostles’ lives. And so, admittedly, The Quest of the Historical Jesus is echoed here. Quest is a cool way to describe our chasing of the apostles. I admit this title strategically rides the coattails and the popularity Schweitzer’s nomenclature.
Zaspel:
Generally speaking, how much information about the apostles do we have available outside the Bible? And how reliable is that information?
Shelton:
Information on the apostles after the Bible is in high quantity, but in low quality. There are more acts and gospels mentioning the apostles, really, than we realize. But they seem dubious because the ministry and the teaching activity in these stories aren’t as consistent with the teaching of the New Testament as we would like. Extra biblical sources for the apostles include church histories, sermons, biblical commentaries, all by church fathers, but they also include apocryphal acts and apocryphal gospels. Writings from the second century, third century, even up into the fifth century, even some church histories, some apostles don’t appear in some of their stories until the Middle Ages. So it’s a wide range of extra biblical sources. This latter category, particularly though, Fred, apocryphal acts and gospels – these are tricky as they usually have Gnostic themes which are very different than the biblical worldview with which we are familiar. So, we might love a story of Philip walking into a new village – it sounds a lot like what the apostles might experience in Acts, but then the things that Philip might teach to the converts or the way that the Gospel is characterized in those stories really are quite suspicious. So the sources require filtering. But I like saying high quantity and low quality because there really is a lot of stories in early and medieval church history about the apostles.
Zaspel:
The information you have from medieval sources, are they depending on earlier sources that are no longer extant, or what?
Shelton:
Well, yes, there are a few episodes such as Bartholomew being martyred by being flayed, that is, his skin would be peeled off. Enough for Michelangelo to depict him that way in the Sistine Chapel in the great last judgment scene. Bartholomew is there by the throne of Christ holding his skin, like a snake that had been shed, it’s whole. That is a late source, and so for me to call it medieval, what I mean is that there is no prior source, no early church reference to that particular story. There is plenty of medieval support for early church stories, but there seems to be a reliance in those cases.
Zaspel:
Did you come across any significant surprises in your research?
Shelton:
Several. I was surprised at the variety of locations and deaths for some of the apostles, for individual apostles. For Bartholomew, for example, the Gnostic legend has him crucified. There is a Coptic story which has him put in a sack full of sand and dropped into the sea. The local Armenian saga has him beaten with clubs. And then there’s a fourth tradition which has him flayed, a tradition probably from Persia. And then there’s a fifth tradition that has him beheaded. So it was hard when there were competitive stories about a martyr’s death.
Zaspel:
How many times could a man die?
Shelton:
Exactly!
And, of course, for each apostle it seems like there’s at least one story in which there is an attempt at martyrdom, but the narrative testifies to the power of God and the eventual release of that apostle.
I was also surprised that many sources had the apostles dividing up regions for ministry by casting lots. There is the Epistle of the Apostles of the second century, the Acts of Andrew and Matthias. There is an early church author, Abdias’ Conflicts of the Holy Apostles among many others, which had an episode where the apostles in the early church are trying to gain definition for evangelism. It’s like they take a map and just like they did for Matthias, they cast lots, assuming divine providence on the situation and each apostle is assigned a different region for ministry. That introduced some apostles who did not want to go to those regions, which created a really interesting dynamic, maybe a suspicious dynamic, but it made me, in my mind, go back to the question of Matthias and the casting of lots and how unique that is.
Zaspel:
How credible is that notion that they cast lots to determine the regions?
Shelton:
I would say not credible, except there are so many independent sources which are drawing off of that episode as a basis for the apostles to go to their regions. There is an interesting verse in Paul in which he says he doesn’t want to build on the ministry of others. His apostleship sees him going, particularly to the Gentiles, to new peoples or at least not overlapping. Or at the very least, being careful with his relationship to the ministry of the other apostles. But in this case, there’s a strong division between them and maybe it’s in the spirit of Paul that they do that. In which case, some sources might be making up the story in the spirit of Paul, but these are very independent sources and that’s the basis for the diversity of geography that you see. So perhaps in terms of the attestation it might be more credible than, certainly, I was initially prone to believe.
A third example of a significant surprise that I had was that the apocryphal acts depicted the apostles with such a strong ascetic message. The book attributes the word encratic, which is an early church movement emphasizing no drinking, no eating certain foods, even no sexual relations with one’s spouse, all as a part of belief in the Gospel. This illustrates the difference between the New Testament accounts and these acts of the apostles, but there was more encratic and ascetic gospel messaging from the apostles in the stories than I really wanted to see. I suppose that might be the biggest significant surprise and arguably the easiest reason for scholars to dismiss these sources, is because of the inconsistency between the messaging with the New Testament.
Zaspel:
Explain for us the approach you take in each chapter as you take up the study of each next apostle.
Shelton:
Each chapter is a self-contained history of the apostle, and it has a particular chronology. Noteworthy is there’s a very long chapter 1, following the theme of the quest. Chapter 1 is called The Path and it identifies the path, the obstacles, the impetus that each apostle would have, a very long set of issues and methodology; but that allows each chapter on the apostles to have addressed the main issues. So each has a self-contained history with the following chronology: there is New Testament historical accounts to start, particularly episodes of that apostle in the Gospels and in Acts.
Secondly, any New Testament writings by the apostle are considered. And, of course, if there’s debate on whether or not that is the James who wrote the book of James, etc. then those issues are entertained; but there’s a ministry and writing section following the historical account of each in the New Testament.
Thirdly, ministry activity organized by geographical region, including evidence of preaching in that region that might be in early church history or in early church commentary or a sermon by Augustine or Chrysostom. So the third section is ministry activity organized by geographical sections and I tried to be in chronology of visiting those sections. From time to time, of course, it seems an apostle is moving back and forth into a region, such as Andrew in Greece early, and then again in Greece later. But generally there is chronology within the geographical regions.
Finally, and one of the most interesting things about the book and the way we view the apostles, is a section on the image of each apostle. Much of how we view them comes from legends, symbols, even art representing certain events. The image of the apostle is something we inherit; and I tried to synthesize that with the New Testament, to start, and then early church histories, secondly, and then even some of their teaching and writing episodes, thirdly.
Zaspel:
Explain for us just quickly the nicknames associated with each apostle. I found this interesting. Some are obvious enough – Simon the Zealot and even Peter the Rooster. But some are more obscure. Can you give us a run-down?
Shelton:
Sure. I tried to use names that were not too traditional because I felt like it might be a little cliché. But, at the same time, I didn’t want to be too creative. I suppose, really, one of the best test cases is Thomas. In the book he is called the Builder. I wanted to avoid reducing him, once again, to being the Doubter, forever labeled as the one who doubted because of one episode. But he’s called the Builder because of a legend in the second century, Abdias’ The Conflicts of the Holy Apostles. Thomas is resistant to go to India. Jesus appears on the docks and Jesus sells the apostle into indentured service as a builder. He sells them to the guardsman of an Indian king and when the king asks Thomas to build a palace for him, the apostle takes the funds and gives them to the poor. When the king calls him to account for the funding, Thomas says that he is building a heavenly palace by his deeds. You know, treasure in heaven. So I call Thomas the Builder and that’s maybe one of the more unique ones.
Philip is the Bread for the Gospel account of the distribution of food. Andrew is called the Saltire, because of the legend his crucifixion on an X-shaped cross, which gains the title Saltire. And it becomes the basis, also, for the Scottish flag and there is some legendary association between the country and Andrew. James is the Scallop Shell because of his association with the Spanish St. James Way. Pilgrims since the early Middle Ages would drink water from scallop shells while walking toward the supposed burial place of James and that image is iconic on that trail. Jude is the Exorcist, Fred, because of the many stories involving spiritual warfare, including a climactic Temple exorcism that leads to Jude’s execution. However, Bartholomew and even Simon the Zealot, could equally qualify for exorcist activities. So that’s a little of the rationale, and those are some of the examples.
Zaspel:
I think that was a great idea.
Describe for us the work & ministry of the apostles. What did they have in common?
Shelton:
A central tenet to understanding the lives of the apostles is to recognize that they had a common purpose. We see this in Acts 2, early on, where the church grows by sharing common goods. They break the same bread, the center of their lives, their community, on the common message of the Gospel. The apostles had in common the walking with Jesus, the witnessing of the resurrection; they were all empowered at Pentecost; they have a wealth of other shared experiences of transformation by living with Jesus.
You know, I am in Toccoa Georgia and we have this legendary World War II Band of Brothers, a training ground of these soldiers on D-Days. And that’s become a bit of a metaphor of men who experience together with profound effect. And I can’t help using the Shakespeare term, we band of brothers. The apostles had a pretty strong bond and if ever, after going into dispersion for ministry, they re-encounter one another, I can’t help but think that that would be a particularly powerful reunion.
So, the experiences with Jesus, particularly the common impetus of the witnessing of the resurrection and the transformative power of the Gospel that they share, and it becomes central to their work and their ministry.
Zaspel:
In your final chapter you provide a nice summary of the contribution of the apostles. Can you give us a brief summary of that summary?
Shelton:
Since I was afraid that the book would tickle scholars but, on the other hand, distance laypeople who simply want to know about the stories of the apostles after the New Testament, the last chapter provides a one paragraph summary of the book’s conclusion, which is, of course, my conclusion about the ministry path of each of the apostles. There is a section on each of the apostles summarizing where they ministered, how they died, and what particular image is inherited about the apostle to us. The collective sum of these ministries, in a sense, is that the work of the apostles is continued in the work of the church. We evangelize and make disciples. We preach and study the Word. We even continue to promote the original teachings of Jesus. We counsel and encourage fellow believers. The same Gospel, the same Resurrection, the same ministries characterize the church until Christ returns. The summary provides that final and concluding bolstering of the faith, I hope, when we realize that the apostles’ master is in fact our own master and that their message is our message.
Zaspel:
We who believe today, believe through their word, Jesus said.
Shelton:
Indeed. In fact, as I sign books, you know, authors often put a verse – I’ve chosen two references to cite: Ephesians 2:20, we’re built upon their foundation, the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the cornerstone. But, also, 1 Corinthians 4:9 is quite powerful, Fred. Paul says, for I think God has exhibited us apostles last of all, men condemned to death because we have become a spectacle to the world both to the angels and to men. That is an encapsulation of the Christian life, perpetuating the Gospel message, but also becoming a spectacle; sometimes a spectacle of suffering, and sometimes a spectacle of what feels like great victory.
Zaspel:
We’re talking to Dr. Brian Shelton, author of the new book, Quest for the Historical Apostles: Tracing Their Lives and Legacies. It’s a genuine contribution to the study of the apostles, providing an excellent link from biblical studies to church history. For any study of the life and work of the apostles and the earliest days of church history, you’ll want to have this handy.
Brian, great to talk to you again – thanks so much.
Shelton:
Fred, a pleasure; thank you.
