Does martyrdom prove the resurrection?

[unknown soldier]

Do we know Jesus rose from the dead because his disciples were martyred for that claim? Many Christian apologists argue that yes, since people won't die for a lie, the martyred disciples knew that Jesus was risen. Unfortunately, apologists typically don't offer examples of disciples dying that way. So I'd like the apologists here to post an example of a disciple who fits the following description:

1. There should be good evidence that the disciple existed.
2. The disciple was in a position to know that Jesus was raised from the dead.
3. There were people who wanted the disciple to either recant the claim that Jesus was raised or choose to die.
4. These people abducted the disciple and were able to execute him.
5. The disciple was given the option to recant or die, and he opted to die rather than deny that Jesus was raised from the dead.
6. The disciple was then executed.

If there is no such disciple, then the apologetic fails.

[unknown soldier]

I agree it doesnt prove the resurrection happened it, but its not an element to be ignored or brushed aside as insignificant.

Then the martyr stories of all religions should not be ignored or brushed aside as insignificant. Do you fairly consider all those martyr stories as told by the Roman Catholic Church? There's plenty of them.

Or course I do.

Oh you do fairly consider the martyr stories of other religions? Which martyr stories have you scrutinized? I posted one such Roman Catholic martyr story on this thread; the appearance of the Virgin Mary in Fatima in 1917. Have you checked that one out? In any case, you evidently are not convinced by such stories that the claims of other religions are true. Why, then, are those kinds of stories so convincing to you when it comes to your own religion?

Why do you ask?

Obviously I want to see if you believe your own arguments are logically valid. If you reject those arguments when they are used to lend credibility to what you don't want to believe, then chances are you see the fallacies in those arguments as clearly as I do.

I wouldn't choose to die for anything whether it was true or false.

If this attitude your typical, then it supports the argument that martyres (including the early Christian martyrs) are exceptional.

I hope that martyrs are exceptional! What kind of a world would we live in if it was common for people to die for their religion?

Did anybody ever think of making up a religion that never results in death?

The only question then is why? Logically it was either because they had lost their minds or they had witnessed something to change their minds. In the absence of evidence that they were suffering from some kind of psychosis...

As far as I'm concerned, any person who chooses to die for her religion is crazy enough! Unfortunately, we have little evidence for the mental wellbeing of the first Christians, so we cannot rule out that they were mentally ill.

...your statement only goes to support the notion that the first century resurrection testimonies could indeed be based on a historical life changing event. An event so powerful that it overroad the completely natural desire for self preservation

You are referring to the resurrection, of course. Would Christ's rising from the dead cause the apostles to die for their knowledge of it? We simply have no evidence for people's reactions to resurrections, so your claim that the resurrection caused the disciples to die for it has no basis in fact. It is at best conjecture.

And by the way, if the resurrection of Christ profoundly changed the disciples, then why had they not been already zealous for Christ? According to the story, the disciples had already seen his miracles including his raising Lazarus from the dead. If a resurrection from the dead can make people zealous for a religion, then the disciples would have already been zealous.

Apologists don't seem to think of this problem.

If on the other hand your attitude is atypical (which I suspect it is) it only illustrates that the person that is willing to preserve his life at any cost, ultimately cannot be trusted with matters of import.

I wouldn't say that a person lying under extreme duress makes that person untrustworthy. Under normal circumstances, such a person can be said to be as honest as most people.

Having principles that one is willing, not just to live by but to die for is (again in the the absense of psychosis), the basis for convincing some one is sincere.

The disciples may very well have been sincere although I recognize that sincere people can be sincerely wrong. And again, we're falling short of coming up with examples of martyrs that fit the criteria I posted in the OP.

In short if early Christians were willing to die for their gospel it raises the calibre of their moral fibre above those that worship at the alter of the God of self preservation. We have better reason to trust the former than the latter.

I don't see how dying for a religion is moral. Besides, would you say that Lúcia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto jhad raised their moral caliber when they refused to recant their saying they saw the Virgin Mary?

You're strangely silent on the Fatima story, JW.

[Athetotheist]

Jim Jones, David Koresh, Marshall Applewhite....there are plenty of leaders whose followers will die for them.

Fictional leaders or real leaders?

At the very least this presents an argument that Jesus of Nazareth was not a fabrication dreamnt up in the mind of an amalgamation of first century novelists. I'm not suggesting you personally have proposer this notion but some have. Pointing to the power of drugs, propaganda , mind control or the FBI at least supports the conclusion that there was indeed a very powerful, or a series of powerful, lifechanging historical events that deeply effected a group of people. We are no closer (or further away) from establishing what said event was.

Anyone claiming the first century resurrection testimonies where the result of a mass hysteria induced by prolonged exposure to propaganda, drugs and/or trauma based mind control, will now have to offer evidence to support such a notion. Otherwise the reference to such events is superficial at best or at the worst irrelevant.

The difference being that in the cases of Jonestown, the Branch Davidians and Heaven's Gate, we saw things more or less as they unfolded. The gospels weren't written until several decades after the "fact". Given the human mind's talent for embellishment, a lot can happen to a story in that time. And one would certainly have to offer evidence for an extraordinary event like a resurrection, and that evidence would have to be more than just the fervent enthusiasm of those who wanted it to have happened----perhaps even to the point of preferring to die rather than accept that it didn't happen.

[Goose]

The early church’s willingness to endure persecution and risk the possibility of death while preaching the message (which entailed the resurrection) strongly argues for the sincerity of their belief and against the notion they made it all up since people aren’t typically willing to endure such things to protect a fabricated story.

There are other explanations for Christian claims of martyrdom you are not considering. The martyr stories might be myths for one thing.

Sure, they might be myths. They also might be all entirely historically accurate. So where is your supporting evidence that they are myths? At least the evidence I provided to support the argument that the early church maintained their faith and preached a message (which entailed a belief in the resurrection) despite being persecuted and facing the possibility of death is relatively early historical evidence coming down to us by way of contemporary sources such as Luke (via Acts) and Clement. Simply suggesting the accounts might be myths is a woefully weak counter if it can even be considered a counter at all.

Even if those stories are historical, then the martyrs may have been mentally ill or at least irrational enough to die when they didn't need to. So if the disciples were martyred when they could have chosen to live, then they were irrational, and irrational people are not credible.

Well sure there are any number of possible alternate explanations one could imagine. Maybe everything from ancient history is just a bunch of myths. Maybe mental illness in the ancient world was so prevalent that people routinely allowed themselves to be martyred for no good reason at all. But you’ve given no evidence to think these other explanations you’ve suggested ought to be seriously considered let alone are the case. Given the lack of supporting evidence so far there doesn’t seem to be any reason to consider them beyond a quick nod acknowledging they are not impossible.

I can't think of a disciple that fits every one one of your criteria but in response I will note, firstly, I don’t need such an example to make the argument work.

So you're saying that you need no evidence to back up the premises of the apologetic I presented in the OP.

No, I’m saying I don’t need a disciple that fits every one of your criteria to make my argument. Put another way, I don’t need to defend your strawman argument.

That apologetic assumes there are examples of disciples who fit the six criteria I listed in the OP. For that argument to be sound, its premises must be true.

But that argument is your argument which you’re trying to assign to apologists as though they are under some obligation to defend each and every premise. There’s no need for me to defend the premises of an argument that I’ve not made nor would make. Take for instance your fourth premise.

4. These people abducted the disciple and were able to execute him.

I've not argued nor assumed such a premise. So why must I defend it? Why must a disciple be abducted in order for me to make the argument the early church was willing to endure persecution and risk the possibility of death while maintaining their faith and preaching the message (which entailed the resurrection)?

...in the event you may be interested, we do have relatively early historical evidence that the church was persecuted and risked the possibility of death.

I know that the New Testament, Acts in particular, includes some martyr stories or stories about persecution of the church. Those stories offer no evidence for any Christians martyred in the manner that the apologetic assumes.

You mean in the manner your strawman assumes. The evidence from Acts supports the argument that early church maintained their faith and preached the message (which entailed a belief in the resurrection) despite being persecuted and facing the possibility of death. That implies a sincere belief.

Outside the New Testament near the end of the first century (c. 95 AD) Clement relays the martyrdom of Peter (and Paul).

”But not to dwell upon ancient examples, let us come to the most recent spiritual heroes. Let us take the noble examples furnished in our own generation. Through envy and jealousy, the greatest and most righteous pillars [of the Church] have been persecuted and put to death. Let us set before our eyes the illustrious apostles. Peter, through unrighteous envy, endured not one or two, but numerous labours and when he had at length suffered martyrdom, departed to the place of glory due to him.” - 1 Clement 5.

Again, this testimony does not provide us with the evidence needed to establish that the apologetic's premises are true.

Irrelevant. Those are your premises, not mine. The account from Clement is evidence that Peter was martyred.

It does provide evidence that the early church found martyr stories to be useful propaganda, a practice that is obviously with us to this day.

You’ve tacitly conceded the evidence from Clement is a martyr story for Peter. How then can you maintain there is no evidence at all for martyr claims when you’ve conceded this is a martyr story?

I'll need to end this post with reiterating that you have offered no evidence at all for the martyr claims that the apologetic makes.

You are blatantly hand waving aside evidence. You are welcome to say you don’t find the evidence personally convincing or give some argument as to why it is not good historical evidence or something along those lines. But what you are not able to do is argue by mere assertion that I’ve offered no evidence at all for the martyr claims. That would be patently false.

Without that evidence, the apologetic fails. We know of no disciples who died for belief in the resurrection.

I supplied the supporting evidence that Peter not only believed in the resurrection but preached it despite persecution and the threat of death. You know, all that evidence from Acts that was literally ignored. I supplied you with supporting evidence that Peter was eventually martyred. That was, likewise, waived aside without any argument whatsoever.

[Overcomer]

In reply to unknown soldier's reference to Candida Moss' book entitled The Myth of Persecution, I must say that there are several significant problems with it. For one thing, she claims that Christians are making it up when they say that there were 300 years of prolonged persecution of Christians by the Romans.

But Christians don't make that claim. I studied Christian history at seminary and we were not taught that. The textbooks we read did not say that. Rather, they said that there were periods of persecution during those first 300 years, but there were also periods of peace. Persecution was sporadic and localized, not constant or universal. I think the author is making up a strawman argument to justify the writing of her book.

Secondly, Moss says that Christians had -- and still have -- a "victim mentality". No, they didn't and, no, we don't. Jesus, by his crucifixion and resurrection, was victorious over sin and death. And he choose that path willingly (John 10:18: No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord). He was no victim.

And, for that reason, Christians don't have a victim mentality either. We are victorious over death and sin because Jesus was victorious over those things. For that reason, Christians down through the ages as well as today who are persecuted for their faith and lose their lives for their beliefs (and yes, that still happens, particularly in Asian and African countries where Islam is the dominant religion or atheism is the worldview), don't see themselves as victims.

Thirdly, she makes the claim that this victim mentality leads Christians to engage in revenge, saying that they are "committed to conflict and opposition in their interactions with others". Seriously? Given that Jesus taught that we are to love our enemies (Matt. 5:44), this goes against everything that Christ represented and everything that Christians aspire to as his followers.

Lastly, she takes a far more skeptical approach to the historical veracity of the accounts of persecution and martyrdom than your average historian and we have to keep that in mind when we read her work. Her bias against the supernatural is clear and it influences the way she reads the accounts of martyrdom.

If you want to read a response to one of her claims re: martyrdom, here is an excellent article dealing with that of Polycarp:

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/revi ... rsecution/

The article shows the flaws in her arguments.

Sean McDowell did his Ph.D on the martyrdom of the apostles. You can read an article in which he presents the historical evidence for them here:

https://www.josh.org/jesus-apostles-martyrs/

If you prefer to listen, there's this:

[unknown soldier]

There are other explanations for Christian claims of martyrdom you are not considering. The martyr stories might be myths for one thing.
Sure, they might be myths. They also might be all entirely historically accurate. So where is your supporting evidence that they are myths?

I see you are shifting the burden of proof by demanding I prove that the Christian martyr stories are myths. Even if those stories cannot be demonstrated to be myths, you have not met the burden that any disciple died for the resurrection.

But it is an interesting issue. The early Christians were notorious for destroying documents they didn't want anybody to believe and forging documents they wanted everybody to believe. It would not be beneath them to create martyrdom myths.

At least the evidence I provided to support the argument that the early church maintained their faith and preached a message (which entailed a belief in the resurrection) despite being persecuted and facing the possibility of death is relatively early historical evidence coming down to us by way of contemporary sources such as Luke (via Acts) and Clement.

I'm well aware that the early church said that some of them were martyred. Why should we believe them? But not any old martyrs will do; we need evidence that some of them who presumably could have known about the resurrection died for the resurrection.

But you’ve given no evidence to think these other explanations you’ve suggested ought to be seriously considered let alone are the case. Given the lack of supporting evidence so far there doesn’t seem to be any reason to consider them beyond a quick nod acknowledging they are not impossible.

Again, if you argue that martyrdom for belief in the resurrection is good evidence for the resurrection, then you have the burden of proof, not I. If I suggest an alternative explanation for martyr stories, then you need to demonstrate that your explanation is more likely to be true than mine.

I’m saying I don’t need a disciple that fits every one of your criteria to make my argument.

In that case you have no evidence for martyrs who died for the resurrection.

Put another way, I don’t need to defend your strawman argument.

I never posted a strawman argument. The apologetic I mentioned in the OP is used by apologists like William Lane Craig and Frank Turek to argue that the resurrection happened.

But what exactly do you dispute? Are you saying that we need not know if there were any disciples who actually died for the resurrection?

These people abducted the disciple and were able to execute him.

I've not argued nor assumed such a premise. So why must I defend it? Why must a disciple be abducted in order for me to make the argument the early church was willing to endure persecution and risk the possibility of death while maintaining their faith and preaching the message (which entailed the resurrection)?

LOL. You're saying that we need not know of any disciple who was actually taken into custody and faced execution? Goose, in case you don't understand, in order for any of the disciples to have been martyred, they would have needed to have been taken by force and threatened with actual execution. OK?

No threat of martyrdom and no ability to carry out an execution= no martyrdom.

The evidence from Acts supports the argument that early church maintained their faith and preached the message (which entailed a belief in the resurrection) despite being persecuted and facing the possibility of death. That implies a sincere belief.

Yes, the author of Acts tells us stories of martyrdom and persecution. Why should we believe those stories? It's important to understand that Acts has been declared to be completely unhistorical by historians like Richard Carrier and as a forgery by Bart Ehrman.

The account from Clement is evidence that Peter was martyred.

Maybe, but it's very weak evidence. Besides, we need to know if Peter died for his belief in the resurrection. Clement doesn't tell us that Peter died for that reason. If we're going to accept what the early Christians said about the martyrdom of the disciples, then we might as well just believe them when they tell us that Jesus was raised from the dead!

In other words, believe what the first Christians said because they said so.

You’ve tacitly conceded the evidence from Clement is a martyr story for Peter. How then can you maintain there is no evidence at all for martyr claims when you’ve conceded this is a martyr story?

Oh sure. We know that the first Christians told us that some of the disciples were martyred. That's the claim I'm scrutinizing.

So is that the evidence for martyrdom you are offering? The claim of martyrdom is evidence for the claim?

[JehovahsWitness]

. Even if those stories cannot be demonstrated to be myths, you have not met the burden that any disciple died for the resurrection.

The resurrection of Christ is one of the fundamental teaching of the Christian faith.

1 CORNINTHIANS 15: 17-19

...if Christ has not been raised up, your faith is useless; you remain in your sins.Then also those who have fallen asleep in death in union with Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are to be pitied more than anyone.

While it is unreasonable to demand personal affirmation of every Christian martyre as to his motives at the moment he faces his death, the belief in the resurrection of Christ was an establishesd part of the recognised body of beliefs of the movement at the time. It is reasonable to conclude that the documented accounts of early Christian martyres equates to demonstration of people who "died for the resurrection" ie people being willing to be executed rather than denounce or compromise their beliefs.

[JehovahsWitness]

The early Christians were notorious for destroying documents they didn't want anybody to believe and forging documents they wanted everybody to believe.

I think we would all be interested in seeing evidence to support this statement. (By "early Christians" I take it you are refering to first and early second century believers). Would you like to present support ?




JW

[unknown soldier]

In reply to unknown soldier's reference to Candida Moss' book entitled The Myth of Persecution...

I must admit that I have not yet read The Myth of Persecution, so I must rely for now on reviews. Have you read the book?

...she claims that Christians are making it up when they say that there were 300 years of prolonged persecution of Christians by the Romans.

But Christians don't make that claim. I studied Christian history at seminary and we were not taught that. The textbooks we read did not say that.

Why should we trust your schooling and textbooks over Moss's book? She is a professor of theology at Notre Dame, and Amazon describes her as "a leading expert on early Christianity." She obviously has the credentials to inform us about whether or not the early church was persecuted the way it claims.

What are your credentials, Overcomer?

... Moss says that Christians had -- and still have -- a "victim mentality". No, they didn't and, no, we don't.

Which Christians are you referring to? I've heard plenty of talk from Christians over their perception of being persecuted.

...Christians down through the ages as well as today who are persecuted for their faith and lose their lives for their beliefs (and yes, that still happens, particularly in Asian and African countries where Islam is the dominant religion or atheism is the worldview), don't see themselves as victims.

You just got done denying the persecution complex only to cite persecution.

Thirdly, she makes the claim that this victim mentality leads Christians to engage in revenge, saying that they are "committed to conflict and opposition in their interactions with others". Seriously?

Seriously. If you've ever read Revelation, it's essentially a hoped-for series of events in which the enemies of Christ and the church are severely and eternally punished. Many Christians like Jehovah's Witnesses and Evangelicals look forward to these events with glee. In Luke 21:22 Christ calls these future events "days of vengeance."

Given that Jesus taught that we are to love our enemies (Matt. 5:44), this goes against everything that Christ represented and everything that Christians aspire to as his followers.

The New Testament portrays Christ as hating his enemies and doing horrible things to them. I think he taught by example.

Her bias against the supernatural is clear and it influences the way she reads the accounts of martyrdom.

Should we distrust those who have a bias toward the supernatural, or is bias only a problem when it's directed against what we want to believe?

And do apologists admit that they cannot overcome bias?

Anyway, you've whetted my appetite to read The Myth of Persecution. It seems like the more we learn about Christianity, the phonier it gets.

[unknown soldier]

. Even if those stories cannot be demonstrated to be myths, you have not met the burden that any disciple died for the resurrection.

The resurrection of Christ is one of the fundamental teaching of the Christian faith.

I suppose it is, and as we've seen on this thread, the martyrdom apologetic for the resurrection in addition to other problems is not supported by evidence for the kind of martyrs it assumes. At best we have the word of some early Christians that some of them were martyred.

1 CORNINTHIANS 15: 17-19

...if Christ has not been raised up, your faith is useless; you remain in your sins.Then also those who have fallen asleep in death in union with Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are to be pitied more than anyone.

Paul's reasoning here is fallacious. If Christ didn't rise from the dead, then his not rising does not prove that other people cannot rise from the dead. Christians will die and be gone like everybody else, but they still have many other reasons for hope not the least of which is to live this one life the best way they can.

It is reasonable to conclude that the documented accounts of early Christian martyres equates to demonstration of people who "died for the resurrection" ie people being willing to be executed rather than denounce or compromise their beliefs.

Then let's see an example of such a martyr. You and the other apologists here have yet to come up with even one.

I think we would all be interested in seeing evidence to support this statement. (By "early Christians" I take it you are refering to first and early second century believers). Would you like to present support ?

No, JW. I don't play that game. I know well that you have no intention to accept any evidence that the early Christians forged and destroyed documents. You just want me to waste time and effort.

You did give me a good idea for a thread, though: Why do apologists demand evidence for claims that they have no intention of accepting?

[Goose]

Sure, they might be myths. They also might be all entirely historically accurate. So where is your supporting evidence that they are myths?

I see you are shifting the burden of proof by demanding I prove that the Christian martyr stories are myths.

You asserted they might be myths. It’s not shifting the burden to ask that you provide some evidence to support the assertion. If you are happy leaving it dangling as an unsupported assertion that’s of course up to you.

Even if those stories cannot be demonstrated to be myths, you have not met the burden that any disciple died for the resurrection.

Well, can you demonstrate they are myths or not? As for not meeting the burden, I think I have met the historical burden. They evidence I’ve given would pass any reasonable historical method. I may not have met your strawman burden, but I’m good with that since I’ve met an historical burden.

But it is an interesting issue. The early Christians were notorious for destroying documents they didn't want anybody to believe and forging documents they wanted everybody to believe. It would not be beneath them to create martyrdom myths.

If all that’s true then you should have no trouble demonstrating that they did create the martyr accounts out of thin air.

At least the evidence I provided to support the argument that the early church maintained their faith and preached a message (which entailed a belief in the resurrection) despite being persecuted and facing the possibility of death is relatively early historical evidence coming down to us by way of contemporary sources such as Luke (via Acts) and Clement.

I'm well aware that the early church said that some of them were martyred.

And yet you also hold the contradictory position that there is no evidence at all for martyr claims.

Why should we believe them?

Same kind of reasons we believe Suetonius when he says Caesar was assassinated in a senatorial plot.

But not any old martyrs will do; we need evidence that some of them who presumably could have known about the resurrection died for the resurrection.

We’ve got that in Peter.

But you’ve given no evidence to think these other explanations you’ve suggested ought to be seriously considered let alone are the case. Given the lack of supporting evidence so far there doesn’t seem to be any reason to consider them beyond a quick nod acknowledging they are not impossible.

Again, if you argue that martyrdom for belief in the resurrection is good evidence for the resurrection, then you have the burden of proof, not I.

I’ve met the historical burden. You know, all that relatively early historical evidence from Acts and Clement you swept under the rug.

If I suggest an alternative explanation for martyr stories, then you need to demonstrate that your explanation is more likely to be true than mine.

Talk about shifting the burden of proof.

I’m saying I don’t need a disciple that fits every one of your criteria to make my argument.

In that case you have no evidence for martyrs who died for the resurrection.

Other than all the evidence I presented which you swept under the rug.

Put another way, I don’t need to defend your strawman argument.

I never posted a strawman argument. The apologetic I mentioned in the OP is used by apologists like William Lane Craig and Frank Turek to argue that the resurrection happened.

Really? Provide a link to their work where they list your six criteria.

But what exactly do you dispute?

I dispute that I need a disciple that fits every one of your criteria to make my argument. I thought I made that clear.

Are you saying that we need not know if there were any disciples who actually died for the resurrection?

I’m saying we don’t need a disciple that meets all of your criteria to make an argument for sincere belief in the resurrection derived from willingness to endure persecution and the threat of death. You are the one saying they have to have actually died after being abducted.

These people abducted the disciple and were able to execute him.

I've not argued nor assumed such a premise. So why must I defend it? Why must a disciple be abducted in order for me to make the argument the early church was willing to endure persecution and risk the possibility of death while maintaining their faith and preaching the message (which entailed the resurrection)?

LOL. You're saying that we need not know of any disciple who was actually taken into custody and faced execution?

That’s exactly what I’m saying. You haven’t explained why they need to be abducted or otherwise taken into custody for it to be a case of martyrdom. It’s like you’ve set up this specific scenario in your head where the only way it can be a case martyrdom is if they are abducted.

Goose, in case you don't understand, in order for any of the disciples to have been martyred, they would have needed to have been taken by force and threatened with actual execution. OK?

Not okay. You haven’t explained why that’s the only way it can be a case of martyrdom. OK?

No threat of martyrdom and no ability to carry out an execution= no martyrdom.

But the evidence I provided supports the presence of a threat of death and the ability to carry out that death threat so by your own reasoning here that = martyrdom.

The evidence from Acts supports the argument that early church maintained their faith and preached the message (which entailed a belief in the resurrection) despite being persecuted and facing the possibility of death. That implies a sincere belief.

Yes, the author of Acts tells us stories of martyrdom and persecution. Why should we believe those stories? It's important to understand that Acts has been declared to be completely unhistorical by historians like Richard Carrier and as a forgery by Bart Ehrman.

Why is it important to understand Richard Carrier’s declarations? Carrier is on the fringe of scholarship looking in if he declares Acts to be “completely unhistorical.”

But since you’ve appealed to the critical scholar Bart Ehrman let’s see what he has to say on the book of Acts...

“The book of Acts is concerned with the historical development of the Christian church. Moreover, the narrative is set within a chronological framework that begins with the origin of the movement. In these respects the Acts of the Apostles is closely related to other histories produced in antiquity...The book of Acts is most like this final kind of history, one that traces the key events of a people from the point of their origin down to near the present time, to show how their character as a people was established. Scholars sometimes call this genre general history. One well-known example, produced at approximately the same time as Acts, was written by the Jewish historian Josephus [the Antiquities of the Jews].” – Bart Ehrman, The New Testament: An Historical Introduction To The Early Christian Writings, 1997, pg 115.

Although Ehrman does hold that Acts is not completely accurate and may have some fictional elements he rejects the view that it is an entirely fictionalized novel (pg 117).

The account from Clement is evidence that Peter was martyred.

Maybe, but it's very weak evidence.

But it’s still evidence so your claim that I’ve presented no evidence at all is false by your own admission here. And why is it very weak evidence? Clement was at least a contemporary of Peter and other apostles. Historically speaking that’s quite good evidence. Do you realize how little history from the ancient world has come down to us from contemporary sources?

Besides, we need to know if Peter died for his belief in the resurrection. Clement doesn't tell us that Peter died for that reason.

Clement doesn’t need to. It’s implied by being a martyr which in turn implies dying because of one’s religious beliefs. In the case of Peter a central religious belief being a belief in the resurrection. Let me lay out the argument formally.

1. Peter was martyred. (Premise)

2. If Peter was martyred, then Peter died because of his religious beliefs. (premise)

3. Peter died because of his religious beliefs. (from 1&2 via Modus Ponens)

4. If Peter died because of his religious beliefs, then Peter died because of his belief in the resurrection since the resurrection was one of his central religious beliefs. (premise)

5. Peter died because of his belief in the resurrection since the resurrection was one of his central religious beliefs. (from 3 &4 via Modus Ponens).

If we're going to accept what the early Christians said about the martyrdom of the disciples, then we might as well just believe them when they tell us that Jesus was raised from the dead!

The consequent doesn’t follow from the antecedent.

In other words, believe what the first Christians said because they said so.

If you say so.

You’ve tacitly conceded the evidence from Clement is a martyr story for Peter. How then can you maintain there is no evidence at all for martyr claims when you’ve conceded this is a martyr story?

Oh sure. We know that the first Christians told us that some of the disciples were martyred. That's the claim I'm scrutinizing.

Okay at least now you are conceding there is evidence from the first Christians that some of the disciples were martyred. That’s a start.

So is that the evidence for martyrdom you are offering? The claim of martyrdom is evidence for the claim?

If you could, for a moment, break away from wringing the neck of your strawman it might allow you to focus on addressing the argument I’ve actually made and the supporting evidence I gave in my first post. If you could do that, perhaps we could have a productive discussion.