James, the brother of Jesus, was killed in Jerusalem around A.D. 62 according to Josephus, our strongest external source for his death. Josephus says the high priest Ananus brought James…
The New Testament calls James “the Lord’s brother.” That sounds simple until the next question appears: if James was Jesus’ brother, did Mary have other children? For some Christians, the…
Saint Bartholomew is famously remembered as the apostle who was flayed alive for Christ. That image is horrifying. It has followed Bartholomew through centuries of Christian memory, sacred art, martyrdom…
Saint Philip’s martyrdom should not be understood first as a death scene. It should be understood as the later memory of an apostolic witness whose life pointed others to Jesus.…
Saint Thomas’s martyrdom is one of the most famous apostolic death traditions, but Thomas’s story does not begin with a spear in India. It begins with a disciple who met…
Saint Andrew’s Martyrdom: Did the Apostle Die on an X-Shaped Cross? Andrew was not the loudest apostle. He was not the most famous. But Scripture repeatedly shows him doing one…
John was not the apostle killed first. He was the apostle who remained. James was killed by the sword. Peter was remembered by early Christians as a martyr in Rome,…
