The twelve apostles are the central human characters of the Gospel narrative. They are also the most puzzling. They were not scholars, not aristocrats, not men of standing. They were fishermen from a small province, most of them, with one tax collector and one revolutionary in the group. They failed constantly. They misunderstood repeatedly. And yet they became the men who changed the world. The question of how is the question of the resurrection.
The Twelve
The lists of the Twelve appear in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew 10:2–4; Mark 3:16–19; Luke 6:13–16) and in Acts 1:13. They agree on the names but differ slightly in order.
The Twelve
Their Failures
The Gospels are unsparing about the character of the Twelve. This is one of the strongest arguments for their historical honesty. No one invents a movement by recording that its leaders were cowards and traitors.
Peter was impulsive. He was the first to confess Jesus as Messiah (Matthew 16:16) and the first to rebuke him for talking about the cross (Matthew 16:22). He walked on water and sank (Matthew 14:29–30). He promised to die with Jesus and denied him three times before dawn (Matthew 26:69–75).
Thomas doubted. He said he would not believe unless he put his fingers into the nail marks (John 20:25).
James and John — the sons of Zebedee, whom Jesus nicknamed Boanerges, “sons of thunder” — wanted to call down fire on a Samaritan village that refused them hospitality (Luke 9:54). They also asked to sit at the right and left hand of Jesus in his kingdom (Mark 10:35–40).
Matthew was a tax collector, which in first-century Judea meant a collaborator with Rome. Simon was a Zealot, which meant he believed in armed resistance to Rome. Judas Iscariot kept the common purse and stole from it (John 12:6).
Why These Men?
Jesus did not choose the men the world would have chosen. He chose fishermen, a tax collector, a revolutionary, and a man who would betray him. He chose ordinary men, from a small province, with no training and no reputation. He gave them three years of teaching, and then he died.
The historian must ask: what could possibly have turned this group into the men who changed the world? The New Testament gives one answer. Whatever the reader makes of that answer, the transformation is a historical fact that requires explanation.
It is the evening of the last supper, in the upper room. The wine has been poured. The bread has been broken. Jesus has just washed their feet, which was the job of the lowest servant in the house. Peter objected. He always objected.
And then Jesus said that one of them would betray him. The room went silent. Each of them asked, quietly, Lord, is it I? No one pointed at Judas. They were not sure it was not themselves.
Why This Waypoint Matters
The Twelve are the human core of the Christian movement. If they were frauds, the movement is a fraud. If they were deluded, the movement is deluded. If they were transformed by something they actually saw, then the claim of the resurrection has the strongest kind of historical support: the transformation of men who had no reason to lie and nothing to gain by telling the truth.
