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The four canonical Gospels, the Acts and Paul's Epistles

Every one knows that the Evangeliums were written neither by Jesus nor his apostles, but long after their time by some unknown persons, who, judging well that they would hardly be believed when telling of things they had not seen themselves, headed their narratives with the names of the apostles or of disciples contemporaneous with the latter.
-- Fauste, Manichean, 3rd century
Link
"Inerrant" Bible in the hands of erring authors:
The man who wrote the Gospel of Matthew attributes to Jeremiah a passage which is in Zechariah; and the writer of the Gospel of Mark attributes to Isaiah a passage which is in Malachi.
-- A Short History of the Bible, by Bronson C. Keeler

All the Gospels derive their basic story of Jesus of Nazareth from a single source: whoever produced the first version of Mark.
That Matthew and Luke are reworkings of Mark with extra, mostly teaching, material added is now an almost universal scholarly conclusion, while many also consider that John has drawn his framework for Jesus’ ministry and death from a Synoptic source as well. We thus have a Christian movement spanning half the empire and a full century which nevertheless has managed to produce only one version of the events that are supposed to lie at its inception.

Acts, as an historical witness to Jesus and the beginnings of the Christian movement, cannot be relied upon, since it is a tendentious creation of the second century, dependent on the Gospels and designed to create a picture of Christian origins traceable to a unified body of apostles in Jerusalem who were followers of an historical Jesus. Many scholars now admit that much of Acts is sheer fabrication.
Link
The Gospels as (fictional) "Midrash"
Not only do the Gospels contain basic and irreconcilable differences in their accounts of Jesus, they have been put together according to a traditional Jewish practice known as "midrash", which involved reworking and enlarging on scripture. This could entail the retelling of older biblical stories in new settings. Thus, Mark’s Jesus of Nazareth was portrayed as a new Moses, with features that paralleled the stories of Moses. Many details were fashioned out of specific passages in scripture.
... Liberal scholars now regard the Gospels as "faith documents" and not accurate historical accounts.
Link
What is said of the Apocryphal Gospels which appeared in the early ages of the church?
"Several histories of his [Christ's] life and doctrines, full of pious frauds and fabulous wonders, were composed by persons whose intentions perhaps were not bad, but whose writings discovered the greatest superstition and ignorance. Nor was this all; productions appeared which were imposed upon the world by fraudulent men, as the writings of the holy Apostles."
-- Mosheim
Is the above less true of the books [canonical Gospels] we are reviewing? Are not these writings 'full of pious frauds and fabulous wonders"? Do not these writings display "the greatest superstition and ignorance"? Have not these writings been "imposed upon the world by fraudulent men, as the writings of the holy (?) Apostles"?

If some of these apocryphal Gospels had been accepted as canonical, and the canonical Gospels had been rejected as apocryphal, these canonical Gospels would appear as untruthful and foolish to Christians as the apocryphal Gospels do.
-- The Christ, John E. Remsberg

Late arrival of the 4 Gospels

First, except for a thing called "P52," a tiny mid-second century fragment maybe from John, there are no gospel manuscript fragments till about 200 AD (and no complete Gospels till the fifth century).

What's more, the Apostolic Fathers ...like Clement, Polycarp and Ignatius were Christians alive in the late first and early second century. ...they do not quote, or even mention, the gospels. In fact no Christian quotes or mentions our modern gospels until the middle of the second century AD.

In other words, there is no evidence our modern picked-by-Catholic-priests-in-the-fourth-century gospels existed before 150 AD. The books in our New Testament were chosen by Catholic officials in the fourth century AD—the modern list of twenty-seven books was first published in 367 AD.
From: Dating our gospels

Justin Martyr, A.D. 161, is the oldest Christian writer whose extant works may be confidently regarded as genuine. [Genuine does not mean reliable, it merely means that we can assume Justin Martyr authored the works attributed to him, instead of some later writer ascribing words or works to Justin. More on the reliability of St Justin Martyr]
He quotes from our Matthew, and may allude to our Luke and Mark -- but he certainly refers to other gospels which we do not possess; and he never refers to our John.
-- The Twelve Apostles, published by Thomas Scott, 1870
Though Justin referred to the contents of these three (out of the four) canonical Gospels, he did not know that they were called Matthew, Mark and Luke.

The Gospel manuscripts did not name the authors

The Gospel manuscripts are the earliest versions of the four canonical Gospels.
The notion that the four gospels ... were written by men named Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John does not go back to early Christian times. The titles "According to Matthew," etc., were not added until late in the second century. Thus, although Papias ca. 140 CE ('Common Era') knows all the gospels but has only heard of Matthew and Mark, Justin Martyr (ca. 150 CE) knows of none of the four supposed authors. It is only in 180 CE, with Irenæus of Lyons, that we learn who wrote the four "canonical" gospels and discover that there are exactly four of them because there are four quarters of the earth and four universal winds.
"There are four principle winds, four pillars that hold up the sky, and four corners of the universe; therefore, it is only right that there be four gospels."
-- Church father Irenaeus, late 2nd century
Link
Papias said that of the four gospelers, only Matthew knew Jesus — yet Matthew copies extensively from Mark, who never met Jesus. [Link]

About the supposed reference to Matthew and Mark by Bishop Papias (the first to ever mention any of the 4 Gospels):

It is said that Papias referred in some letters (since lost), written in the first half or middle of the second century, to St. Mark's "Memoirs of Jesus," which Papias stated were derived from St. Peter, and to some "Sayings of Jesus" written by St. Matthew in Aramaic, which Papias said that "each one of us has translated as best he could." Papias was Bishop of Hierapolis, and none of his writings survive except in the form of alleged quotations made by Eusebius about 150 years later.
It should be noted that, even if the testimony of Eusebius is accepted as accurate, these "Memoirs" and these "Sayings" are first heard of only when at least one hundred years have elapsed after the date assigned to Jesus, and that-assuming the latest possible dates for the deaths of the disciples-no eye-witness of the events related could have been alive at the time when the first mention of these books was made. It can hardly be claimed that a three-generation-old tradition is absolutely reliable.
-- Shaken Creeds - The Virgin Birth Doctrine, by Jocelyn Rhys
4th century Churchfather bishop Eusebius, by his own admission, was willing to lie for the purpose of the Christian faith. He thought of such as "pious lies". So anything he wrote that he eagerly promoted as validating Christianity ought to be taken with a large heap of salt.

Suppose Papias is referring to our present Gospel of Mark; what testimony have we to the authenticity of Jesus' words as contained in it? Just this: Eusebius says that Papias said that John the Presbyter said that Mark said that Peter said that Jesus said thus and so. That is the historical lineage of the authenticity of the Gospel of Mark. When the reader has that, he has it all. He knows as much of it as the best theologian does, and is just as competent to decide whether or not it is to be credited.
-- A Short History of the Bible, Being A Popular Account of the Formation and Development of the Canon, by Bronson C. Keeler
Eusebius lived around 260-341 CE. Papias is said to have lived circa 60-130 CE.
As for the reliability of Bishop Eusebius, regarded by the Church as father of Church history:
"The father of ecclesiastical history," as Eusebius of Caesarea is unhappily called ... He tells us also that his chief business as a writer is to "edify"; which means, to advertise the Church. So modern historians are discreetly reticent about the zealous and courtly bishop. I will, as usual, supply the word which they leave unspoken. Eusebius was a liar.
-- The Story of Religious Controversy, by Joseph McCabe, historian and former Franciscan monk

The Four Gospels: not eye-witness accounts

...we come to the conclusion that the gospels are of unknown origin and authorship, and there is no good reason to suppose they are eye-witness accounts of a man named Jesus of Nazareth. At a minimum, this forces us to examine the gospels to see if their contents are even compatible with the notion that they were written by eye-witnesses. We cannot even assume that each of the gospels had but one author or redactor.
From: Did Jesus Exist

Matthew and Luke

It is clear that the gospels of Matthew and Luke could not possibly have been written by an eye-witness of the tales they tell. Both writers plagiarize (largely word-for-word) up to 90% of the gospel of Mark, to which they add sayings of Jesus and would-be historical details. ...Matthew and Luke contradict each other in such critical details as the genealogy of Jesus...
Link
Matthew and Luke clearly copy from Mark. Not just ideas and paraphrases, but idiosyncratic word for word phrasing that no two, or three, people could have come up with each on their own. These facts force even the most arch conservative believing scholars to admit this "literary dependence." And literary dependence shoots the hell out of the theory that the gospels are first hand histories.
Link

Mark

But what about the gospel of Mark, the oldest surviving gospel? Attaining essentially its final form probably as late as 90 CE but containing core material dating possibly as early as 70 CE, it omits, as we have seen, almost the entire traditional biography of Jesus, beginning the story with John the Baptist giving Jesus a bath, and ending - in the oldest manuscripts - with women running frightened from the empty tomb. (The alleged postresurrection appearances reported in the last twelve verses of Mark are not found in the earliest manuscripts, even though they are still printed in most modern bibles as though they were an "authentic" part of Mark's gospel.)

Mark was a non-Palestinian non-disciple, which would make his story mere hearsay:
  • ...First of all, Mark shows no first-hand understanding of the social situation in Palestine. He is clearly a foreigner, removed both in space and time from the events he alleges.
  • ...One further evidence of the inauthenticity of Mark is the fact that in chapter 7, where Jesus is arguing with the Pharisees, Jesus is made to quote the Greek Septuagint version of Isaiah in order to score his debate point. Unfortunately, the Hebrew version says something different from the Greek.
    [Author of The Historical Evidence for Jesus, G. A.] Wells, observes...
    "That a Palestinian Jesus should floor Orthodox Jews with an argument based on a mistranslation of their scriptures is very unlikely."
  • ...Mark displays a profound lack of familiarity with Palestinian geography. If he had actually lived in Palestine, he would not have made the blunders to be found in his gospel.
Link

John

  • ...there is evidence that the Gospel of John, like Matthew and Luke, also is a composite document, incorporating an earlier "Signs Gospel" of uncertain antiquity.
  • ...the very chapter that asserts the author of the book to have been "the disciple whom Jesus loved" [John 21:20] was a late addition to the gospel. Scholars have shown that the gospel originally ended at verses 30-31 of Chapter 20. Chapter 21 - in which verse 24 asserts that "This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true" - is not the work of an eye-witness. Like so many other things in the Bible, it is a fraud. The testimony is not true.
    • Link

    The missing ancestry for Jesus, and its invention

    For the sake of simplicity, we shall refer to "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John" as if they were real authors of the gospels which belatedly came to bear their names.
    ...
    The oldest of the gospels, the Gospel of Mark, knows almost nothing of the ancestry, birth, or childhood of Jesus. It knows nothing of any Joseph, the carpenter father of the would-be Messiah, and only once mentions that Jesus' mother was reported to be named Mary [Mark 6:3]. Neither does the latest of the gospels, John's, in which Jesus practically falls out of the sky fully formed, seem to know much about his human origins.
    ...
    The most critical need was for a genealogy proving that Jesus was of the lineage of David, since it was widely believed that the Messiah would be a descendent of the lascivious king. So the genealogies were the first additions to be forged and added to the Markan account. Although both Matthew and Luke had copies of Mark's gospel, they did not know of each other's efforts. Fortunately for those of us who value truth, they were unable to conspire with each other to invent a consistent genealogy, and the genealogies they forged contradict each other almost totally -- making it now obvious that both "authors" were liars.
    From: A Nativity Potpourri

    The Pauline Epistles

    These are the letters attributed to St. Saul, who later went by the name of Paul.
    Saint Saul And His Letters:
    Some of these epistles are by far the oldest parts of the NT, having been composed at least 30 years before the oldest gospel.

    St. Saul's testimony can be ignored quite safely, if what he tells us is true, namely, that he never met Jesus "in the flesh"
    Paul attributes what he knows of the matter to his visions.
    According to tradition, 13 of the letters in the NT are the work of St. Saul. Unfortunately, Bible scholars and computer experts have gone to work on these letters, and it turns out that only four can be shown to be substantially by the same author, putatively Saul.
    These are the letters known as Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Galatians. To these probably we may add the brief note to Philemon, a slave-owner, Philippians, and 1 Thessalonians. The rest of the so-called Pauline epistles can be shown to have been written by other and later authors, so we can throw them out right now
    Even the letters supposed to contain authentic writings of Saul/Paul have been shown by a number of scholars to be as composite as the gospels (e.g., L. Gordon Rylands, A Critical Analysis of the Four Chief Pauline Epistles: Romans, First and Second Corinthians, and Galatians, Watts & Co., London, 1929). According to such analyses, the core Pauline material in these letters is what might be termed a pre-Christian Gnostic product.
    ...the Greek text of these letters is heavy with terms such as Archon, Æon, etc. - jargon terms popular in the more astrologically conscious forms of Gnosticism. It would appear that the Christ of Paul is as astral a being as the Lamb of Revelation. Like the god of Revelation, the god of Paul communicates via visions, not physically, face-to-face.
    Link

    The Pauline Epistles do not know the life of Jesus described in the Gospels:

  • No mention of Jesus' parents, his virgin birth, or place of birth
  • No period given for when Jesus' lived on earth
  • No mention of John the Baptist or Judas
  • No mention of the miracles that Jesus is said to have performed

    • Link, which discusses these and more discrepancies.

    See more:
    A list of relevant books on the Gospels, Paul and the New Testament.

    See it in action in the present: Vatican scholars prepare to rewrite the Bible

    The Apostles

    The twelve disciples were a late addition to the Christ myth [Link]
    The Twelve Apostles and the Twelve Disciples are just as imaginary as their master Jesus. So why were they Invented? [Link]

    Fiction

    The Twelve: Further Fictions From The New Testament:

    The Fictive Twelve
    Among the many imaginary characters of the New Testament, perhaps the most blatantly obvious fictions are the Twelve Disciples. ...It is not surprising that most of the disciples are mere names – not always the same names from gospel to gospel – and only a few have any definable character. ...some evangelists had trouble coming up with enough names for all twelve ...the authors of the gospels of Mark and Luke were able, by combining three separate stories about disciples or apostles, to come up with thirteen names!

    Even though both Matthew and Luke are known to have copied the narrative framework of Mark’s gospel, it is interesting to note that their lists of disciples (or apostles) do not match Mark’s exactly. The simple Thaddæus of Mark is Lebbæus in Matthew. Attempts at harmonizing this discrepancy resulted in later manuscripts of Matthew listing Lebbæus-Thaddæus – a change that was transported back to later manuscripts of Mark as well. ...both Lebbæus and Thaddæus are missing in Luke, who instead has a mysterious Judas the brother of James. And of course Lebbæus, Thaddæus, Judas the brother of James, and James all four are missing in the gospel of John! To make up the defect, John gives Jesus a disciple named Nathanael, a guy unknown in the other gospels. (In fact, even the apocryphal gospels are devoid of Nathanaels until the sixth century CE).

    ...the gospel of John makes no mention of any disciple named John – even though a John helps make up the count of twelve or thirteen in the other three official gospels. But then, John’s gospel has no Bartholomew either — nor Matthew, James the son of Alphæus, nor Simon the Canaanite. Nor has he any Simon Zelotes, Levi the son of Alphæus, nor any Levi or Matthew the publican (tax gatherer). It is a bit startling to discover that the gospels that do have a Levi and a Matthew appear to have one too many disciples – thirteen.

    Apostles and the Zodiac

    Of course, if Jesus was a sun-god (and who else is born on the winter solstice and worshipped on Sunday?), he would have needed twelve zodiacal accomplices, one for every month of the year, or one for every sign of the zodiac through which the sun’s chariot journeys.
    ...
    ...the Twelve clearly serve a zodiacal function in the gospels, and the sun-god nature of Jesus becomes clear as crystal when one examines the early history of the Christian cult. (Excavations beneath the vatican have revealed a mosaic depiction of Christ as the sun-god Helios – with solar chariot, horses, and all!)
    The solarity of Jesus and the zodiacal nature of the Twelve is further underscored by the fact that the latter are related to the mythical Twelve Tribes of Israel:
    Matt. 19:28. Jesus replied, ‘I tell you this: in the world that is to be, when the Son of Man is seated on his throne in heavenly splendour [what is this, if not the sun?], you my followers will have thrones of your own [i.e. the twelve zodiacal houses], where you will sit as judges of the twelve tribes of Israel.
    It has long been known that the tribes are themselves zodiacal symbols, part of the solar development of the Yahweh cult that took place centuries before the turn of the era. The disciples both represent the twelve tribes and judge them.
    Same Link

    Why

    Why were the so-called Twelve Apostles (or Disciples) invented, if they never existed as real men?
    ...Early church politics. [Link]
      Each of the many early Churches (Christian sects) needed a way to substantiate the claim that theirs was the authentic representative of Jesus: that their teachings had been handed down to them from Jesus himself - via the Apostles. Some even went as far as claiming that their Church was established by Jesus' own relatives. Rival Churches then countered this by attributing statements to Jesus where he distanced himself from his family.
      The Twelve: Further Fictions From The New Testament explains this in more depth
    The orthodox Romans weren't the only early Christians to trace their saying and gospels right back to Jesus. All the early Christians, orthodox or heretic, justified their teachings with apostolic succession. What's more, they ran short of apostles, and ended up using the best ones over and over.

    ...as different Christian theologies developed and lots of mutually incompatible gospels were written in the second century, the various new Christianities each looked for ways to validate their own version of the faith. One standard technique was to invent a chain of authority back to the founders of the faith. To invent the myth of apostolic succession.
    From: The myth of apostolic succession

    Ignorant rolemodels invented for Christianity
    From The Christ, by John E. Remsberg:

    "Palestine was one of the most backward of countries; the Galileans were the most ignorant of the inhabitants of Palestine; and the disciples might be counted among the most simple people of Galilee."
    -- Renan, historian
    "His followers were 'unlearned and ignorant men,' chosen from the humblest of the people."
    -- [F.W.] Farrar, a Bible scholar
    "A dozen knaves, as ignorant as owls and as poor as church mice."
    -- Voltaire

    Fictional martyrdom stories for the fictional Twelve

    "In the time of Tertullian and Clemens of Alexandria [late 2nd - early 3rd centuries] the glory of martyrdom was confined to St Peter, St Paul and St James.
    It was gradually bestowed on the rest of the apostles by the more recent Greeks, who prudently selected for the theatre of their preaching and sufferings some remote country beyond the limits of the Roman empire."
    – Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
    Link

    the martyrdom of Peter is generally rejected, and is not claimed until about 170 [the year 170 CE]
    -- The Story of Religious Controversy, by Joseph McCabe

    Ridiculous, conflicting or multiple death scenarios invented for many of the apostles, including:

    The Fabricated Deaths of the Apostles
    Peter (aka Simon, Cephas)
    "Beheaded by Nero?" No, not really. This legend was dreamed up by the mid-2nd century pope Anicetus (156-166).
    3rd century invention gave him a 25-year pontificate – which made it a tad tricky for him to have died at the hands of Nero. 3rd century Church Father Origen dreamed up a colourful flourish: Peter, feeling himself unworthy to be crucified the same way as his Lord, chose option 'B' – crucifixion upside down!

    Bartholomew (Nathanael)
    What a traveller – India, Persia, Armenia, Ethiopia and southern Arabia! Miraculously he managed to get himself crucified in both India and Armenia.

    Matthew (Levi) [- not the Levi, son of Alphæus]
    Credited with 15 years in Jerusalem, then missions to Persia and Ethiopia and, of course, martyrdom in both places.

    Thomas Didymus (the Twin)
    Another grand traveller, seen everywhere from Parthia to Kerala in south India. 4th century invention, appropriately enough, gives this 'twin' 2 martyrdoms, one in Persia and one in India. He even gets a burial in Syria to boot! Yet another resting place, Mylapore, was claimed by the Portuguese in the 16th century.

    Jude/Thaddeus /Lebbaeus /Daddaeus
    Either a serious clubbing or crucifixion for this mixed up guy in the city of Edessa or Persia.

    Simon the Canaanite/ the Zealot
    Invention came late for this guy. When it did, it was a beauty – crucifixion in Persia and also crucifixion thousands of miles away in Britain. He also managed to preach in Africa. Quite an act to follow.

    Matthias
    Death by burning. Also death in Jerusalem by stoning – and beheading. Really just makes up the numbers, sometimes merging with Matthew and sometimes swapped out to let Paul into "the twelve."

    Luke
    "Hanged on an olive tree." Or, "lived to the age of 84 and died unmarried."
    Body parts claimed by both Padua and Constantinople.
    From: The "12 Apostles" – Fabricated followers of a fabricated Saviour has more, including the multiple deaths invented for the treacherous Judas Iscariot.

    12 or more tombs for one Apostle:

    There are six tombs for St. Thomas in South India. Two are in San Thome Cathedral at Mylapore, a third on an island southwest of Cochin, a fourth in a Syrian church at Tiruvancode in Travancore, a fifth in a Shiva temple at Malayattur in Travancore, and a sixth at Kalayamuthur west of Madurai near the Palani Hills. There are also six tombs for St. Thomas abroad. One is in Brazil, a second in Germany, a third in Japan, a fourth in Malacca, a fifth in Tibet, and a sixth in China.
    But this is not the end of the matter of tombs. ...
    ...
    The "martyred" St. Thomas has existed since the Acts of Thomas, ca. 210 C.E., in which he is executed by King Mazdai for social crimes and sorcery. The Portuguese added the Brahmin assassin after 1517.
    Link
    Marco Polo cannot be blamed for this story; his St. Thomas was accidently killed by a pariah hunting peacocks. [Link]

    In The Christ by John E. Remsberg, the then most popular death scenarios for the 12 most familiar Apostles are listed:

    What became of the Twelve Apostles?
    The New Testament, a portion of which is admitted to have been written as late as the latter part of the first century and nearly all of which was really written in the second century, is silent regarding them. Christian martyrology records their fates as follows:
    • St. Peter was crucified, at his own request head downward, and buried in the Vatican at Rome.
    • St. Andrew, after having been scourged seven times upon his naked body, was crucified by the proconsul of Achaia.
    • St. James was beheaded by Herod Antipas in Palestine.
    • St. John was "thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil" by Domitian, but God "delivered him."
    • St. Philip was scourged and crucified or hanged by the magistrates of Hierapolis.
    • St. Bartholomew was put to death by a Roman governor in Armenia.
    • St. Matthew suffered martyrdom at Naddabar in Ethiopia.
    • St. Thomas was shot to death with arrows by the Brahmans in India
    • St. James the Less was thrown from the pinnacle of the temple at Jerusalem and dispatched with a club where he fell.
    • St. Simon was "crucified and buried" in Britain.
    • St. Jude was "cruelly put to death" by the Magi of Persia.
    • St. Matthias, the successor of Judas Iscariot, if Christian tradition is to be credited, was put to death three times, crucified, stoned, and beheaded.
    Nothing can be more incredible than these so called traditions regarding the martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles, the most of them occurring in an empire where all religious sects enjoyed as perfect religious freedom as the different sects do in America today. Whatever opinion may be entertained respecting the existence of Jesus, the Twelve Apostles belong to the realm of mythology, and their alleged martyrdoms are pure inventions. Had these men really existed Christian history at least would contain some reliable notice of them, yet all the stories relating to them, like the story of Peter at Rome, and John at Ephesus, are self-evident fictions.
    In the significant words of the eminent Dutch theologians, Dr. Kuenen, Dr. Oort and Dr. Hooykaas,
    "All the Apostles disappear without a trace."
    Noteworthy is the fact that in many cases, the apostles were given stories of executions at the hands of secular or non-Christian religious authorities: the Roman governor of Armenia, Rome's Domitian, the proconsul of Achaia, priests of India and Persia. The execution scenarios were thus envisioned in countries not (yet completely) Christian, setting in place tales of martyrdom at the hands of non-Christian people for Christians to blame.
    Zoroastrianism and countries where this religion was followed, in particular Persia, were serious targets of Christianity in the early centuries. Many stories about various apostles martyred in Persia abound, in order to facilitate the conversion of Persia by rousing the ire of disloyal Christians within its empire. Such tales would also serve to create shame among later generations of Zoroastrians, who'd be led to believe that their religion was intolerant and caused the death of some holy men - when in fact the martyrdoms never happened and the apostles never even existed.

    1. The names of the Twelve Apostles are given with variations in our New Testament, and that of Peter is used anachronously.
    2. Josephus, and all extant contemporary historians and writers, never mention the Twelve Apostles.
    3. A suffering Christ has not any existence in genuine history, or in Jewish belief; consequently the very subject of the Twelve Apostles' preaching is unhistorical.
    4. John of the Apocalypse was ignorant of our four Gospels.
    5. So was St. Paul.
    6. So were the Apostolical Fathers.
    7. Consequently the "gospels" used by the writers mentioned in Nos. 4, 5, and 6, must have been gospels now considered apocryphal.
    8. Justin Martyr was ignorant of our fourth Gospel.
    9. It cannot be shown that our four Gospels were known before the time of Irenaeus.
    10. The text of our four Gospels is corrupt.
    11. That text contains four editions of Christianity.
    12. Our four Gospels do not contain a genuine and authentic history of the Twelve Apostles.
    13. The ecclesiastical history of the Twelve Apostles is inconsistent, spurious, and mythological.
    Therefore, the Twelve Apostles are only myths.
    -- The Twelve Apostles, published by Thomas Scott, 1870
    Church traditions (ecclesiastical history) on the fates of the Twelve Apostles:
    Ecclesiastical History of the Twelve Apostles
    Now, let us examine the story Ecclesiastical Tradition tells regarding the Twelve Apostles. Writing towards the end of the second century of our era, Irenaeus says that there existed then only four genuine graves of the Apostles, namely, those of Peter and Paul at Rome, that of John at Ephesus, and that of Thomas at Edessa in Mesopotamia. This is very strange. If the early Christians knew the graves of the Apostles, they would certainly have regarded those graves with profound respect and veneration. Moreover, according to ecclesiastical tradition, both the apostles James were killed at Jerusalem. One of these, James the Greater, was actually bishop of Jerusalem. Now if there ever had been such a man, and had he been put to death in the original seat of the primitive church, how is it conceivable that no Christian knew where he was buried?

    Ecclesiastical traditions are much at variance with each other regarding the places where the Twelve Apostles died, or were put to death. Thus these traditions variously represent Peter to have been put to death at Rome and at Edessa, --Philip at Athens and Scythia, --Bartholomew at Cyprus and at Milan, --Judas, the brother of James, in Phoenicia and in Persia, --Simon Zelotes in Egypt and in Mauritania, --Andrew in Scythia and at Patrae in Achaia, --Matthew in Ethiopia and in Persia, --Thomas in Edessa, Scythia, and India. According to Matthew (xxvii. 5) Judas Iscariot hanged himself, but according to the writer of the Acts (i. 6) Judas fell headlong, and his bowels gushed out.

    In reading these stories, any reader who knows that inversion of a story into its opposite is a characteristic of legendary history, must be struck by the numerous instances where the place where the death of one and the same apostle occurred is inverted north and south, east and west, V.C., Rome and Edessa --Scythia and India --Ethiopia and Persia!
    -- The Twelve Apostles, published by Thomas Scott, 1870

    See more:

  • The myth of apostolic succession
  • Die Petruslegende by Arthur Drews ("The Peter Legend") of the school of Radical Criticism. Summarised and translated as The Legend of Saint Peter: A Contribution to the Mythology of Christianity
    The 1910 version of Drews' book has been translated as "The Legend of Saint Peter" by Frank Zindler and is available from American Atheist Press
  • The Twelve: Further Fictions From The New Testament
  • The "12 Apostles" – Fabricated followers of a fabricated Saviour
  • The myth of St Thomas, online book, about the version of this myth set in India.
    The elaborate earlier Persian and Parthian versions about St Thomas, which had their Zoroastrian Shah (king) sentencing Thomas to death, is now in disuse. Zoroastrianism having today become extinct in former Parthia (region within Iran and Afghanistan) and a minority religion in Iran (formerly Persia), has made the Persian/Parthian martyrdom narratives no longer of use in those places.