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So what can we actually know about the twelve apostles? We have a little material in scripture, but much of what can be known is from extra-biblical sources. Brian Shelton has mined these sources to present portraits of the apostles that are interesting and inspiring.
More to the Story with Dr. Andy Miller III is a new podcast exploring theology in the orthodox Wesleyan tradition. Hear engaging interviews and musings from Dr. Miller each week.
Welcome to more to story, Podcast. Look, I am so glad that you all have come along today. We have a great show. Something that I think has been interesting will be interesting to people because so many of people in my audience are interested in church history. But a lot of times we don't look at one of the most
Andy Miller III: obvious things about Church history. And what is it that happened to the Apostles after the New Testament? And so I think there'll be really interesting for us to hear about this subject today, but before we get there and remind you that this podcast is brought to you by Wesley Biblical Seminary, where we are developing trusted leaders for faithful churches, and that happens through a host of programs from bachelor's graduate to doctoral programs and lay initiatives like the Wesley Institute which takes people through every book of the Bible
Andy Miller III: in a year with seminary professors we would love for you to check this stuff out, and also we are working at the Global Methodist Church to be able to train their ministers coming here soon as that church is emerging. So we want to encourage you to look into that also. This podcast is brought to you by Keith Waters, and what um water wpo i'm going to start over Brian
Andy Miller III: i'm like if I have two or three mistakes like that. I'm going to hit it. Wpo. Development. Well, it's the first. It's the first impression, so I respect it, and plus. I'm just over here just warming up myself. So you take your time. Yeah, Yeah, yeah, we'll get it
Andy Miller III: three, two, one, and welcome to the more to story. Podcast. I'm: so glad you come along. Look, you're gonna find this interesting today as we look at the quest for the historical apostles with Brian Shelton, But that's coming in just a second.
Andy Miller III: This podcast is brought to you by Wesley Biblical summary, where we are developing trusted leaders for faithful churches, and that happens through a variety of programs, academic programs. We're training people for bachelors, masters in doctoral degree with doctoral degrees, And we also have the Wesley institute a program that takes people through every book of the Bible in a year. That's the Bible Track Seminary professors do this with every week. We have folks who do this for a nine month period,
Andy Miller III: and we've just started a theology track that take takes people through major subjects and theology, so you can join the Wesley Institute at Wbs, Dot Edu, and you can find out more about our academic programs as well. Also, this podcast is brought to you by Wpo development. Their Ceo Keith Water says if you don't know where you're going, any path will get you there.
Andy Miller III: Is that true? And so he is somebody who has led more than two hundred and fifty organizations across the country, through feasibility studies, capital campaigns, mission planning studies. I've worked with him in the past and appreciate his ministry. So I encourage you. If you're in a in a place where you're trying to figure out where your organization can go, He's worked with uh universities, hospitals, organizations, churches, nonprofits. I encourage you to check him out at Wpo Development, and you can find a link for him in my show notes. And
Andy Miller III: finally,
Andy Miller III: my little study of the Book of Jude is available. It's a six week. Video: based study of these twenty-five verses that come right before the Book of Revelation. So I would encourage you to check this out, as we are trying to help people be contenders for the face, once for all delivered to saints. And so this is a a small group study that comes with like kind of licenses or logins for a couple of different users that you can use in a small group, so you can find that at Andy Miller the third dot com that's Andy Miller I I
Andy Miller III: all right, so I am glad to welcome into the podcast Dr. Brian Shelton, who is the chair of the Christian Studies and Philosophy department as Barry University, my Alma Mater and his Alma Mater as well, Brian. I'm so glad to have you on.
Brian Shelton: Thanks, Andy. It's honored to be here. I love more to the story, and of course I appreciate the great work of Wesley Biblical Seminary
Andy Miller III: right well in You've just been at Asbury for a while, and some of my audience actually probably knows you from your past institution. Who I I have. I bumped into people who attended to Coa Fall. So you were there for a number of years. Isn't that right?
Brian Shelton: I was. I was there for maybe eighteen years, both as professor, but also as academic Dean.
Andy Miller III: Oh, a very celebrated role. Only the greatest people are able, or the the the what would you call people who'd say, Step into that spot? I don't know uh
Andy Miller III: Well, since then I've grown in wisdom and stature with God and I'm back in the classroom three quarter time. Okay, there you go. Well, i'm sure that's a great place, and it's how we we're. We're both coming to this from our offices, and you are coming from the celebrated basement of Hughes auditorium. I'm guessing is that right? Indeed? Where yours and other People's picture is hanging right outside my door. Oh, there, see, you can say hello to me every morning. Well, I was surprised. I didn't know about this book you you need.
Andy Miller III: You need to do a better job of self-promotion. I'm: just telling you Okay,
Andy Miller III: it was until I got the Baker academic catalog, and I'm looking through. And then I saw this picture. I Well, that looks like an interesting book. I'm holding it up here. The quest for the historical apostles, and then I saw W. Brian Shelton there. It was, so i'm. So excited to see this book. Now I know of your other book that's published with Francis Asbury Press on Provenia and Grace. But this is fascinated, and I knew that this was your area looking at the early church. But I'm. I'm curious. Tell tell us just in general about your discipline like is this where you've given most of your academic attention
Brian Shelton: of my training is in historical theology, particularly in the early church. So naturally this book since the dissertation uh fit perfectly, and it's the first real uh project that I've had in Patristics uh
Brian Shelton: on this a a major of a level and as a book size, if you will. A Pravini Grace was written because I really felt like Wesley and Armenians needed that understanding, and that is, you know, the their own comprehensive treatment, single volume of Proveny grace that's favorable towards it.
And so I was excited to get back into the early church.
Brian Shelton: Uh, for me particularly. There were three things kind of motivate me to write. This one was. I was taking students to room, and I was leading them on these tours, and it felt like every time I turned around. There was another place where an apostle would be buried, and suddenly I I
Brian Shelton: wondered if Luther's uh quip wasn't true that thirteen of the twelve apostles are buried in Europe. Type of effect I mean their influence was was represented everywhere.
Brian Shelton: Uh, but then, second of all, I was reading some books. In fact, it was a Sunday school class, a small piece on the Apostles, and how they can inspire us. And there was all of this made up stuff about the personality of the Apostles, and I thought, you know this has no historical basis whatsoever
Brian Shelton: of that James uh son of Alfie we don't know much about, so he must have been the quiet apostle, and everyone who shy in the kingdom can be encouraged.
Brian Shelton: It just wasn't a basis for some of those comments. But then the third was, I was interested, just as you and many of your listeners would be many Christians. What happened to them afterwards?
Brian Shelton: And so I would hit, you know. Go to the Internet, I would hit these sites, and there was all these different variations of death and martyrdom, and I just wanted to organize it, and that eventually led to this kind of comprehensive project that I I I really
Andy Miller III: I really loved it, and I really liked the product, and I think a lot of people have been enjoying and learning and growing from it. No, it's interesting. The title you have obviously is playing on a few other quests. But yeah, I I think, like the quest for the historical apostles. I what tell us about that? The title
Brian Shelton: I am shamelessly writing on the coattails of Albert Schweitzer. Let's face it of the quest for the historical Jesus is well known, and I wanted to do something like that. I wanted to do something historical, something critical,
Brian Shelton: and it particularly to discern between the sources which of these stories are true of the apostles.
Brian Shelton: It is unlike Schweitzer in that I do trust the Scripture, and see as authoritative, historically authoritative, included. I wasn't discerning at that level, but I had to discern critically the other sources.
Brian Shelton: I went to early church histories. I went to commentaries, because occasionally a church father might be writing a commentary on a gospel, and he just adds this historical detail that's not found anywhere else about the life of that
Brian Shelton: apostle, and then also went to sermons that were preached. And then the big source that really needed some filtering were Gnostic gospels, Gnostic acts. These are the apocryphal New Testament uh stories.
Andy Miller III: So I had to discern I had to separate. I had to weigh, and that was one of the challenges, but also one of the most interesting joys of the research.
Andy Miller III: Historical reality of the resurrection is well. The apostles were willing to die um for what they believed, and nobody would die for a lie. And so typically you'd say something like many or most or all, of the apostles
Andy Miller III: died for their faith. Is that true, Brian?
Brian Shelton: Well, it seems to be true. John becomes the most likely exception. Uh, perhaps a uh, an old age type of death there, but we realize that, of course, his life isn't characterized by ease and balance, if you will, but rather um.
Brian Shelton: History has him on the Isle of Pat Moss, exiled uh under de mission. So there's there's a good chance, of course, that's gonna wear on him in a way that even if he leaves Pat Mouse and returns, maybe, to the Ephesus area.
Brian Shelton: I still there's quite a bit of suffering there that it weighs on the end of the on the life of an old man, if you will. But indeed, that's the great evidentiary, historically, that one of the ways that Christianity seems to be reflecting a real reality, that
Brian Shelton: ah! From the Incarnation to the walking on the water to the resurrection of Pentecost. To some of the stories of miracles of the Apostles, is that there is this great momentum that enters the world stage one hundred and fifty.
Brian Shelton: That is kind of unparalleled in human fashion in a way that suggests, of course, that there's a divine hand that's at work in these. The apostles do go on beyond acts, and they they take the Gospel to the other most parts of the earth, and for them to have these lives
Brian Shelton: uh really reflects something profound and transformative on their lives. And so we do see them taking the belief in the resurrection and the work of Jesus, and fulfilling that great verse from the Last Supper of the things that I do, and greater things you will do is Jesus goes with the Father.
Andy Miller III: Yeah. So it's interesting to as you think about what we can know from Scripture. We can piece together some details, but we don't know
Andy Miller III: as my. And what is it that what are some of the basic points that we can discern from Scripture about the apostles like? I often like. For instance, i'm doing this. I have this study out on Jude, and many people are surprised to learn that Jesus had these half brothers right, but nevertheless it's. It seems like surprising people, because we have to draw in,
Andy Miller III: and I know we might jump around here with some of the apostles. But what can we discern from Scripture?
Brian Shelton: Not as much as one you might expect quantitatively right. We like the quality of Scripture. Of course, if you stop and think about the Apostles in the Book of Acts. Well, first of all, in the Gospels we get introduced to them,
Brian Shelton: and this was one of the big drives, of course, for the book is, we're intrigued by these figures. We want to know what happens to them, because we see their disciple making Sometimes it's victorious, and sometimes it's quite tumbling,
Brian Shelton: and we we relate to them, and we relate to the humbling part, and we get inspired by it. So we want to track with them. We want to follow, and we trend up with them when they trend up, and so also down. When you get to the Book of acts you really got. You got a list at the beginning. By the way, it's revisited. Judith is scary. It is
Brian Shelton: is as exited the list. Mathias, of course, uh enters by lots, and then Peter and John
Brian Shelton: Temple arrest, and then James and Peter
Brian Shelton: I. Arrested. James is martyred there by her to grip up, and then Peter gets free, and he goes to an unknown place, and Peter just falls off. He reappears at the Jerusalem Council, but you know not from when he comes or where he goes after that. And really the Book of Acts focuses on the ministry of Paul as the Gospel goes to the up to the uttermost
Brian Shelton: beyond those
Brian Shelton: folk I there's really nothing. You start to look at each of the individual apostles you almost overlook. Occasionally one of them will have a hit. They ask a profound question at the Last Supper, but that's really kind of it, and so you have to wonder. And immediately you encounter church history,
Brian Shelton: and you hear this phrase, church, tradition says, and you the average lay person especially has no idea where this this church tradition Corpus, is contained
Andy Miller III: some of the big pieces you said earlier, but just go through those again for me like what those big pieces of church tradition are, particularly for the first few centuries.
Brian Shelton: The big, the big P: Yeah, the big pieces, you know, the
Brian Shelton: the big pieces are directly proportional to the big disciples. On the whole,
Brian Shelton: You, you know you may almost may not realize it, but it's a historical importance, and identifying and understanding the apostles. Their relationship, even in their significance, and each of the three lists of the Apostles in the New Testament there's actually a bit of an order to them
Brian Shelton: three tiers and the top tier. Always Peter, Andrew, James, and John are listed,
Brian Shelton: and then seamlessly, There's a middle tier with Philip Bartholomew,
Brian Shelton: Thomas
Brian Shelton: Phillip Bartholomew Thomas,
Brian Shelton: and Matthew yes, and thank you. Uh, indeed! And then the the last four uh with uh, James, son of Alfie, is signed in the zealot. Jude and juice is scary always listed last. So the the higher they are, the more they get the deep, powerful episodes like the Transfiguration.
Brian Shelton: Well lower they are on that list in the third tier. You're lucky if you have, you know, one to two hits about to them in the entire a New Testament,
Brian Shelton: and so uh in those in those three. We've got more stories of the top tier. And so the the big episodes, for example, for Peter are that
Brian Shelton: after the New Testament, although important, the Jerusalem Council for him, and important, of course, to Cornelia, scenes where he is exposed to the Gentiles, who, you know, show the signs of believing in the Jewish Gentile um gradient there.
Brian Shelton: Peter, beyond the New Testament, does seem to have a Galilean ministry. Naturally so. And then eventually in Rome.
Brian Shelton: Church tradition has but really earlier Rome than you think. Acts of. Peter. Acts of Peter and Paul have a motive for Peter to go to Rome, and that is the Simon Magus has been over there the same Simon, of course, that he encounters wants to buy the miracles and the signs so like this in in acts as well keep going. Yeah,
Brian Shelton: he's over in Rome talking about how he's the true disciple of Jesus. He's the one that the church is being built on the foundation of. After all this Peter Guy denied Jesus three times. What kind of foundation is that? And so eventually I guess maybe there's a following in room, and
Brian Shelton: Peter feels like this. Just this just should not be so. So a showdown develops, and he goes to Rome and he challenges assignment. Nagas Simon won't even come out of the house. Peter Powers, the dog, with human speech, and the dog goes into the house, and trash talks to assignment, to come out and confront Peter, and eventually this leads to supposedly, by the way, we've supposedly should have been said a little bit earlier
Brian Shelton: uh leads to a showdown of miracles over the ancient forum in which Simon Magus claims that he can fly, and he's supposedly flies, and Peter praise that he would crash, and, in fact, sign his career ends just a few minutes. A few moments later,
Brian Shelton: as he falls and breaks his legs specifically in three places, but that eventually leads to the great two stories, one of Simon Peter being freed from prison, going out on the Appian Way, encountering Jesus coming in, carrying His cross,
Brian Shelton: and Peter says to him: Lord, what are you doing in Rome? I just escaped from prison. Where are you going? Quote Vadas, and the Lord responds, I'm. Going to Rome to be crucified, and Peter realizes he wasn't called to escape prison. This time he was called
Brian Shelton: to suffer and to die, so that episode, as well as the episode of Peter on the Vatican hill. Historians are are really sure whether the bones are the bone specifically is a little more challenging, but that he was crucified on the Vatican's, not a problem
Brian Shelton: that he wanted to be crucified upside down. Unlike his savior, although there's a Gnostic, maybe justification for that there there's a
Brian Shelton: There's an end to Peter's life that those represent the high points. Uh for Peter. You've got a couple of similar ones for John. You've got uh Andrew's life ending in Pat a Patmos Greece.
Brian Shelton: Uh in a way that that's not competed. His bones, maybe up in St. Andrew Scotland, but the bones actually may have been destroyed. Uh, during the the Reformation there of Puritans, particularly Aren't gonna value relics quite so much,
Andy Miller III: uh, And then as you move into the others. Uh, let me before I get to them. Let's um. I wanted to ask one question. I'm really glad to get into Peter piece, but before we go too far. The nature of what an apostle is. That's something that I think is helpful to understand, because we have people a couple around the corner for me. There's somebody who's indicated the title apostle, and I think there's some some good that comes with that. But the historical apostles you have a list that includes Paul as well.
Andy Miller III: But who in? And Paul includes himself in that? So in that Scripture we're gonna take that in. But tell me like, How? What is the rationale, or the the kind of the criterion for an apostle?
Brian Shelton: An apostle is one who is appointed really as someone who was a disciple particularly, who emerges, moves into this role of a church leader, one who has been appointed by Jesus
Brian Shelton: first and foremost primary apostle. We might even say, one who plays a significant role in the founding of the Church. Now, beyond that, it's fair that we can make a case for Barnabas, for example, in an apostolic role. Paul becomes the the of the apostles. We
Brian Shelton: we don't need to have Judas Iscariot as an apostle, although because Luke kind of names after the fact of the Apostles in his writing. You get the word attributed to each of them, including Judas Iscariot. That seems to be Luke writing later, Looking back, and realizing that the disciples are apostles, so it's a special office in the New Testament, and in the early Church. It particularly has a leadership and a pioneering dimension to it at a time when the Church needed to move
forward.
Brian Shelton: This, of course, uh raises the question of apostleship today, and there are two schools, some that this is reserved for the early church, and others would say that the office of a possible perpetuates into the present,
Brian Shelton: so that people like Randy Hirsch, for example, would have an expected apostle represented in every church along with four other offices,
Brian Shelton: and so that that office is for today, and some carry the title apostle. If that's the case, I hope that they would be working in a kind of pioneering context,
Andy Miller III: the church being apostolic, then taking on the app as somebody who has the apostolic leadership fits within that. That makes sense.
Andy Miller III: Now we think about the brothers of Jesus. So James and Jude, at least, who are authors in a New Testament? Um, I always think it's interesting in Jude Jude actually refers in third person to the Apostles, so he doesn't he doesn't identify himself as impossible is. But is James? You know James is called a pillar of the church, James, the brother of the Lord.
Andy Miller III: Is he ever listed as an apostle.
Brian Shelton: Yes, he is, and Luke's Gospel is going to be called Apostle. Um,
Brian Shelton: you know what's difficult. Here
Brian Shelton: is James is the most conflated, and actually I should qualify. He's listed as an apostle if this is the same figure.
Brian Shelton: But if we're going to have James as the son of Joseph, particularly even by right, a former marriage, for maybe someone who might be a Catholic listener in particular. In that case, um, he he is not called Apostle in the New Testament. Here's the problem with James. Here's why I gave the quick answer, and I shouldn't give you a quick answer.
Brian Shelton: There's a phenomenon called Conflation, and it made this project messy. I'm messing especially to start till I figured out there was a conflation um mystery. It goes something like this.
Brian Shelton: If you looked at some of these authors and combined them, you could have
Brian Shelton: something like seventy-five of all the apostles related to one another within first cousinship, like all of them like every time the apostles work together, listening, sitting at the feet of the master. It was also a family reunion. By the time you have
Brian Shelton: Jude James as brothers of Jesus,
Brian Shelton: and also Simon. The zeal is sometimes conflated. He attributed his brothership, if you will, there and then, with Alphaus James, son of Alfie, you actually have this figure at the cross with Mary. He's going to bring in um another figure that suddenly it. By the way the idea that,
Brian Shelton: uh Matthew is a brother
Brian Shelton: as a brother to Simon the Zealot. And now you've got this zealous Israelite, and you've got this uh trader, you know this. Sell out to Rome collecting taxes,
Brian Shelton: I you just suddenly, and then you connect them over through the figure at the cross with Mary. Uh, just because of the root of Alpha and another name. The result is, you know, Matthew is actually now the the brother brother, And what is my cousin. So it really I had to separate these, and I had to qualify the traditions, especially in the lower tier of the Apostles, where there's fewer stories, fewer historical details, and what we do have is some generalization
of regions of their ministry.
Andy Miller III: Yeah. Interesting. Oh, I'm: So glad you've taken time to do this for us, Brian. Now the also to that gets into a little bit of debate about who the when you're talking about? Who's at the cross? Who the beloved disciple is as well. That's not, and I, I I find, been withering his argument that Lazarus is the beloved disciple to be pretty convincing myself that's another story, but I am also. Here's my My dad would definitely want me to ask this question, because i'm Andy
Andy Miller III: the third I have, Andy Miller the fourth at home, and we're always looking. What is the deal like, Andrew in Scripture where my name comes from? So tell me, what do we know about the historical possible. Andrew
Brian Shelton: Historical Apostle. Andrew, has a a very interesting feature within the New Testament. It's easy to overlook.
Brian Shelton: Uh It's kind of twofold. One is he's regularly with Philip consistently,
Brian Shelton: and that's interesting, particularly because right you've got some Greek nomenclature here going on.
Brian Shelton: Uh they are the ones who are associated with Gentiles a little bit more within the stories of the for example, right the Greeks come. They want to talk to Jesus, and it's Philip and it's Andrew, and they're often listed together outside of the New Testament. There's there's some coupling that happens in the uh historical
Brian Shelton: in the church histories, and those are one beyond the Book of Acts.
Brian Shelton: You've got ministry across Turkey, Anatolita, Ancient Anatolia. You've got ministry uh stories of Andrew in Macedonia, and then Ministry stories in Greece uh, particularly his death in Patrols, Greece. There's a huge cathedral there. It's been there for seemingly forever, and patrols. It's a coastal city,
Brian Shelton: and there supposedly he his life ended martyrdom, and also he was buried. And so the churches was built over a burial site and martyrdom site also
Brian Shelton: for Andrew. There's two things I like, uh, in terms of his death in terms of his death. I love, I love the narrative, and Andrew, facing the cross, so He is crucified supposedly on a salt tire right, which is an X-shaped cross,
Brian Shelton: which is why, by the way, the the Flag of Scotland with the St. Andrews, the patron Saint of Scotland has this X-shaped cross on it? That's Andrew's crucified saltire
Brian Shelton: he has this. There's this recorded narrative in which he faces the cross and it's hail. Oh, cross like! There you are! Here I am I! I have waited for this. Oh, cross of the you know the platform of the death of my Savior and Lord. Oh, cross that I've inevitably been spiraling towards in my ministry and my recent trial a well done cross type of thing. It's powerful because he's confronted
Brian Shelton: hunting quite comfortably, even inspirationally, the reality of his martyrdom. What's hard historically is we actually have this long discourse of him facing the cross in. In fact, you also have
Brian Shelton: um for Andrew You You have supposedly this is stated historically that the the magistrate, I think, wanted him crucified in a way that he could, his life could be maintained
Brian Shelton: uh, so that he would stay alive longer and suffer longer, and that the dogs would come and lick his swords during the night when the people have gone away. So there's a deep suffering um, and a great joy for Andrew's Crucifixion.
Brian Shelton: Uh! But the other fascinating story is that supposedly Mathias is captured by cannibals up north of the Black Sea,
Brian Shelton: and they pluck out his eyes because that's how they would keep their victims from running away, so that when the next feast came they would have a storehouse for their banquets. And so Mathias is blinded in prison and praying, and Andrew is over in Macedonia or Greece. God calls Andrew to get on a boat to come over and to help to rescue with ais,
Brian Shelton: and so he does. Uh, by the time Andrew arrives. Actually, Mathias has been healed a blindness. So you you almost wonder if he wasn't as mad as Jonah. We need to overp it a little bit. Uh. But still there's thousands of people who are affected by this, and there's mass resurrections,
Brian Shelton: and eventually Andrews taken into heaven. Interestingly enough, your namesake, Um, our actually, or Mathias One of them I certainly forget or taken into heaven, and the other meanders on of a both continue their ministry.
Andy Miller III: Any story it's in the acts of Andrew and Mathias that they are couple together now in those in the acts of Andrew Mathias are. There Are there elements that are Gnostic in those uh those those accounts that make it so that
Andy Miller III: we it's hard to ask, what is historical and What is I? I obviously like. I I love this story, and this is like
Andy Miller III: It's very powerful encouraging to me, but at the same time i'm just curious what we can take, I mean. Obviously it's not canon. If the Church has it validated. This is Canon Help me sort through some of those difficulties that i'm kind of tipped going around. Well, sure this was a big deal.
Brian Shelton: Almost every apostle acts feel apocryphal acts of the Apostles is at risk of having gnostic elements in it. Sometimes they're subtle. Sometimes they're they're obvious and grand, uh, particularly uh, there's a term called um incratic. There's a incraticism movement in the early church,
Brian Shelton: which is highly ascetic. It's looking for dietary restrictions like you'd expect from a Levitical. A disciple, a follower of of the law, um abstaining from sexual intercourse was one of the most important ones,
Brian Shelton: because the apostles would come to town. They would convert, say the magistrate's wife, and part of the gospel in these stories is linked to dietary fasting, not eating certain foods, keeping certain festivals
Brian Shelton: uh wearing certain clothes, and no longer having any sexual intercourse with your spouse,
Brian Shelton: and so she comes home, you know, after hearing the the Apostle Peter in the marketplace, and she's like honey, I found a new religion. I'm going to love and honor you for the rest of my life. Uh, let me tell you about Jesus, and later on tonight we're going to close in prayer, and that's how we're going to be ending our day every day from now on, and this leads to some persecution, even um at the local level, for some of these apostles, because they're doing cross-cultural ministry. Now they're encountering things that
Brian Shelton: that they don't fully understand, surely. And so what do we do with this because the Gospel message has what feels like works elements to it.
Brian Shelton: Uh, those have to be discerned. Shawn Mcdowell's work on the fate of the Apostles. I think it's called essentially is an apologetic for
Brian Shelton: um the red, the the the resurrection of Christ through the deep commitment of the apostles to go to martyrdom, and he captures that inspiration by telling some of their stories. He inspired me Shawn Mcgow, and writing this book, and I helped to use it, and he's become um an acquaintance, a friend. Since then I really appreciate
Brian Shelton: his work. But here he was the first to really capture. How New Testament historians are realizing that there can be
Brian Shelton: a historical core. To these stories the Apostles are going to these regions. Uh, in Syria there's a strong Bartholomew influence that there's liturgy in the Middle Ages about Bartholomew the Syrian. So he was probably there
Brian Shelton: doing ministry in a way that influenced the Church. Thomas in India. There's a
Brian Shelton: indeed, Thomas Christians, uh people in the church will call themselves even still. And so from the early church through the ages there's actually some traditions. They come. And so the the apostles doing some ministries, the same apostles of the New Testament, the God of miracles.
Andy Miller III: Some of these stories surely are true. Discerning will ultimately be impossible. But we try.
Andy Miller III: Okay, We have this many facts where we can just turn the historical core, and this th these ones fall a little bit away, but yet we still have a good confidence in. But I I love the way that you're able to tell the stories. I think they're just so inspired. So let's get. I want to get to that that top tier through the top tier, and then I want to ask of about a couple more. We don't Bill get to all of them. You'll have to buy the book folks again. We're talking about the quest for the historical possible um from Brian Shelton. So let's then talk about James,
Andy Miller III: and you have this subtitled the scallop. Shell help me understand that
Brian Shelton: for sure.
Brian Shelton: By the way, it gave a nickname to each of the Apostles, and I didn't want it to be traditional.
Brian Shelton: Uh I've tried to go to something a little beyond the the mainstream quality. I just to create some curiosity, and also for people to realize there's not always competing traditions, although there are, uh, but really that there's variations. And there's other interesting possibilities for James. Uh, you, of course, have the beheading. You have the martyrdom in Acts Chapter twelve.
Brian Shelton: What happens is that James gets conflated with the other. James gets conflated with James, the brother of Jesus, who, the latter seems to maybe be the head of the church in Jerusalem, right? But still There's quite a bit of mixing going on there in in early church histories. Hypothesis, for example, might have something
Brian Shelton: quite different in his story than Eusebius would have, and even drone would have. He doesn't always follow a Eusebius for James. Supposedly there's a tradition that he went to Spain.
Brian Shelton: This is hard, because he is
Brian Shelton: killed really pretty quickly in the Book of Acts. So we don't necessarily have to have James go himself to Spain, but that his bones were taken to Spain later. There is a story in a tradition of that, and they were deposited on the end essentially of right. The way of St. James,
Brian Shelton: that the hikers will take. Pilgrims took in the Middle Ages, so the idea that there are some of his bones buried there has historical potential. I think it's too much to squeeze James
Brian Shelton: uh to go in a life, but it's possible it wasn't that hard, particularly from room for Paul later in his ministry to go to Spain, it would not have been hard. There was a route. There were Jewish connections. Paul does have time for an experience like that, but in the case of James it's pretty short lived. The only thing really left is to keep him from being mixed up with the other James's.
Andy Miller III: So why the scallop shell.
Brian Shelton: Oh, i'm so sorry, because pilgrims on the
Brian Shelton: on the way of St. James in the Middle Ages, as they were walking to this pilgrimage site, they was along the coast, so shells were readily available. But water water was not so. They would take scallop shells, and they would use it to scoop water. Essentially, it's a bowl,
Brian Shelton: or you can leave your scallow shell outside of your tent at night, and in in the morning it's going to be filled up with rain water. So it was a symbol of sustenance.
Andy Miller III: Okay, interesting. Okay. Now in the top tier as well amongst the the of the Apostles, you have John, and you call this chapter the Eagle,
Brian Shelton: because of the association with his Gospel, so his gospel is sometimes symbolized as an eagle. You know each of the four that eagle. This comes from the loftiness of the Christology, particularly in John's Gospel. The Gospel is higher,
Brian Shelton: I I think Historically we can say John's living a little bit longer, John, on a human level, is able to process an understanding of Jesus, not inventing a Christ of faith separate from a Jesus,
Brian Shelton: I historically, but rather his understanding, and even you know his illumination, if you will, as he walks with God.
Andy Miller III: As a result, you have a more advanced gospel that does have a sense of elevation loftiness, particularly to it. Yeah, interesting. Okay. I want to also talk a little bit more about Thomas just because I know that this, this often in those who are
Andy Miller III: from India um just really are connected to this story of what happened in Thomas's life, and him bringing the Gospel to India. So tell us about Thomas
Brian Shelton: and Thomas. Uh is, of course, forever the doubter. And I just think that's not fair. It's one thing if Judas is forever the betrayer. Uh. But in this case all Thomas is is frankly average, if you will.
Brian Shelton: Uh, he just happened to have his, his doubting captured, you know, on video for all time for everyone to see. In fact, Thomas is no longer a doubter. We could call him the non doubter long term, because I mean he it. Yeah, he's able to declare my Lord and my God in a way we don't even have recorded among the other disciples when they see G. Although we we don't necessarily doubt that.
Brian Shelton: Yeah. For Thomas, you have a complex history historically.
Brian Shelton: Think of it this way.
Brian Shelton: Assuming he went to India. Would he have gone to India by boat on a southern route, or did he go by land? There's an interesting influence of Thomas in Syria, and then in modern Iran,
Brian Shelton: in Parthia. And then, by the way, India almost becomes that place beyond the end of the Empire right? And it is just like a vastness you like. There's no sign that said welcome to India in the ancient world. It was just beyond the civilization zone. So India is such a large mass that there's actually a Northern and a southern
Brian Shelton: set of legends for Thomas, and I think, more historically or less historically, one or the other, but particularly the land route intrigued me because you've got this influence along the way,
Brian Shelton: and it was the one chapter in which I could not name or make a claim that I I would suggest that this was his death spot
Brian Shelton: for each of the chapters. Each one is on one apostle. I've got a map on each one with the regions of their most likely travel, with many regions eliminated from the the supposed histories. By the way, I made some judgment calls, but I always had one place specifically the city, if I can, with a cross which represents their death spot
Brian Shelton: for Thomas, I didn't feel specialized enough to make that call. So I have two crosses. There's a northern, and there is a southern one. What's interesting for Thomas is that there are these stories of his unwillingness to go to India
Brian Shelton: like he drew a bad straw. There's actually a lot. There's a stories of lots traditions that the apostles cast lots to see where to go, and Thomas gets India. And actually Jesus has to take Thomas to the dock, sell him as an indentured servant. That's right. The resurrected Lord returns.
Brian Shelton: Uh, and Thomas says i'm a builder, i'm an architect. He goes to India. He is in den church as an architect.
Brian Shelton: I did The great story over there. Um, Andy is that he's given a treasury. He's given funding to build this palace uh for the for the the the Emperor,
Brian Shelton: and so he's called in three months later, and he said, he says, where's my palace? How's it going? And uh, Thomas is like great, And he eventually the the Emperor says, Where's my palace? Right? And he calls in all of the poor people of the church, essentially, and he says, here's the treasure. Here's what I've invested in. You have a heavenly palace. Oh, great Emperor! And the Emperor is disappointed. But of course there's great stories of conversions, miracles, uh, even some preaching.
Andy Miller III: Yeah. Oh, man, I love it,
Andy Miller III: Paul. From the extra canonical tradition
Brian Shelton: we have a lot on Paul. It is acts of Paul and acts of Peter and Paul.
Brian Shelton: There are some really funky stories out there, that one that Paul goes to the afterlife. It encounters Judas Iscariot, by the way, in Hades, waiting on Jesus to apologize, waiting on him, so that Judas can apologize to Jesus, and Paul sees his torment.
Brian Shelton: There is a tradition that Paul went to Rome. Of course we see this. I'm sorry to Spain. We see this um in in Romans, as he anticipates and hopes for this a thing. I always thought it was fancy thinking,
Brian Shelton: like the other, most parts of the earth could be Rome the capital, right cut, put Monday the head of the the world, but somehow somebody needed to go to the ocean to get to the edge. But i'll tell you I became a bit of a believer in Paul after Spain. I looked closely at
Brian Shelton: the two tones of his letters in the New Testament, and there really is in the Book of Acts particularly to start. He's got a lot of freedom at the Book of Acts. He's there a couple of years. He's meeting with religious leaders. He's in the house, I mean this guy, almost he. He has a lot of liberty.
Brian Shelton: Uh. But then, when you read some of the past short, late pastorals right second, Timothy, he's been poured out. He spent. He's fought the good fight he's virtually don here.
Brian Shelton: How How do you? How do you do compare these two? Well, if there's a tradition that he actually left Rome, that he was in room twice. I think that actually fits with the tones and the words that we see in the New Testament.
Brian Shelton: It was again easy to be able to go from room to Spain. There was a Jewish tradition, a community there, and the tradition is actually that maybe the Jews there remembered
Brian Shelton: why he was in Rome when, whatever he was sent right after Festus and Felix that he's brought there. It's almost like. No one seems to want to put him on trial, or to defend the accusations against him. And so
Andy Miller III: I've always remember the last two words of acts because of Rosari. A Butterfield's book is called Uh with
Andy Miller III: openness unhindered
Andy Miller III: like it, and it ends like that. Paul was able to reclaim the Gospel with openness unhindered like there there is like, Still, It's not just this final conclusion to his life there. Okay. So I just keep going. So there is this tradition that he's able to keep moving on.
Brian Shelton: Yeah. The only thing left was that he was brought back to Rome, and he was put on trial, and there also some historical sites, maybe four to five historical sites, depending on how you want to judge. Or suppose it in Rome, and you could almost plot a life of Paul
Brian Shelton: there, and it makes sense that he would have been on trial over here and martyred over here and varied over here, even, maybe imprisoned on one route. Meanwhile he's a tent maker. The leather workers in the Jewish community is actually near an old Roman barracks, so it's likely that he could have been among the Jews, while also on house arrest and guarded in a way that really makes sense for an earlier phase of Roman life.
Andy Miller III: Huh! So the idea, then, is he goes to Rome is under house arrest. But then are you saying that he's able to go out
Brian Shelton: from there to to Spain on. Uh forgive me if I miss something that Yes, yes, that he is set free. Oh, is there a trial again? There's no urgency to put him on trial in the Book of Acts. Upon his arrival and room. He seems to just be waiting,
Brian Shelton: and the the religious leaders are coming to him, and he's able to dialogue. We're talking two years here, and in fact, there's not even his death after those two years, but rather there, there's this this drop off.
Brian Shelton: So the idea is maybe there's something wrong with his accusation, something wrong, or we'd say right with his trial, and that there's there's liberty, and he fulfills this dream of going to Spain, I mean he's halfway there and then. Eventually. New conflicts results in his uh re imprisonment bring brought back to Rome, and then martyred, and then buried on the Austrian way.
Andy Miller III: So his in his actual death is that on a cross, or how how is it that he's. It's my beheading. You have an interesting walking around Rome, because often Peter and Paul will be statuaries together.
Brian Shelton: Uh you have Paul always symbolized by the sword.
Andy Miller III: Okay,
Brian Shelton: you have that, maybe because he calls Scripture the sword of the Spirit. And of course he's a great Scripture writer, but also this is his martyrdom um mode for most of the apostles. We often, you see, an instrument with them, and this is how they died, and it becomes their symbol for Paul as a Roman citizen, he's going to be privileged. His death can be merciful and quick, so he's going to be beheaded
Brian Shelton: as opposed to Peter, who's this rugged Galile, and without a strong Roman status, and so he can be tortured just like Andrew, his brother, tortured uh and suffer without any sense of legal mercy, or expert or virtue, if you will, they would call it What's interesting on Paul is,
Brian Shelton: and for Peter also. Gaius, in the early third century, writes, Come to Rome, we have the trophies we have these, these marks, these remembrances commemorative of Peter and Paul, and he names Peter on the Vatican and Paul on the Austian way,
Brian Shelton: and this is a draw to pilgrims, or at least to his letter recipient to come. Have your faith, Bolster, because there is this tradition, if you will uh this, this tracing of the lives and the legacies uh, in this case of Peter and Paul. But Paul's often symbolized by the sword and beheading.
Andy Miller III: So we're going to have to close up here. But i'm i'm interested. What was the um something that surprised you that you're just really happy You found as your research in this book. I know that the Mo. I ask you the most most surprising, the most exciting thing that you found that you didn't expect to find in your research.
Brian Shelton: Besides, the clarity on the death of the Apostles, which the lack of clearing was dried me crazy.
Brian Shelton: I mean, somebody needs to do something about the Internet, because every time I looked right there was a different list of how they died.
Brian Shelton: I'll, I'll do something about the Internet. Yeah, Yeah, you know, I think for me. And I I think for your listeners, this is what we want. We want to know where they at you know. Where did they go? And did they fight the good fight, or did they doubt? Did they fall away right that that recent moving um silence right about these Jesuit priests who go into Japan underground to find their mentor because they got to know.
Brian Shelton: Did our master Is he apostasized, or did he remain faithful? So I think for me, I really did. It was a faith building enterprise. I wanted it to be. I believed it would. But when you get into the nitty gritty of the writing experience, I I I think
Brian Shelton: it's shown through their testimony that they were pursuing something beyond themselves that there really was a resurrection that they believed in. The Pentecost is real, both on an individual level, right and for in holiness, but also in terms of the power of the Church in the world.
Brian Shelton: Uh, we can do so much more uh by by the grace and the power of God. So I think a lot of readers would be encouraged that there is some historicity more than we ever realized, and it's too easily dismissed, because the sources are gnostic,
Brian Shelton: so our faith can be encouraged by their faith by their pursuit. And the book, I think, helps to tell if you will, more of the story.
Andy Miller III: So let me ask you this, Brian. I'm sure you're working on some other things. What? What's next for you? I mean, i'm. I'm sure like you've this books. Done. Maybe you're I have another project coming, I hope. At least. Tell tell tell me what you're working.
Brian Shelton: I have another uh uh piece coming out. I I do. It's under editorial view now. It will come out, I believe,
Brian Shelton: but that is a historical theology of the story behind the movie, the exorcist, the one thousand nine hundred and forty-nine exorcism actually has a historical basis,
Brian Shelton: a demonization that started in Georgetown and ended at St. Louis, and was closely tied to my Alma Mater, St. Louis University, a Jesuit school.
Brian Shelton: There's a story there that has so much historicity to it. It's been called the best documented case of exorcism in the twentieth century.
Brian Shelton: There's a diary behind it, and I treat it theologically in a way that suggests. If there, If this theology is credible, then it lends itself to historicity,
Brian Shelton: it kind of the same method, that. And if it is historical, then the Church believers have some story of recent days of real demonization and real exorcism,
so that the New Testament stories are not nearly
Brian Shelton: a pre-modern view of hysteria the day of training. It's because they didn't have the science to know any different.
Andy Miller III: This is fast, and this has been emphasis that we've had at west of Biblical Seminary and offering courses and spiritual warfare. I think it's so easy for us to want to just say, Oh, well, that might have just been some mental health issues. And in Scripture we're not really going to adapt that. But look this this is. There are documented historical cases in every county in America, probably where the hospitals are in positions where they often have an exorcist
Andy Miller III: on call right, because there's situations. And then uh police records all kinds of things for people. I've seen things on that I am excited to hear what comes. What do you have? A publisher already?
Brian Shelton: I don't it's under review. I should name the publisher in case it goes back. I Gotcha Gotcha Yeah, or, in fact, or in case it goes bad for them also. Oh, there you go. Well, hey? I'm excited about that. That coming out. Now, Okay, my last question, Brian, is that title, as you have indicated, is more to the story. Is there more at this story of Brian Shelton that's usually told.
Uh, I'm Sure, I am sure that there is. But maybe it would disappoint a lot of re of listeners, I mean, if if they made it through this. They may not make it through forty-five more minutes of me. Your story, on the other hand, I mean you're the one who keeps coming and asking all the questions.
Brian Shelton: And when do we get to ask questions of you? If I were interviewing it? Wesley Biblical Seminary? I bet you they'd give me a chance to ask you about uh,
Brian Shelton: and what you learned from the reading. In fact, i'd like to be interviewed sometime about a book as an author and me give a quiz, also a podcast interview. You are such a good teacher. You just wanted to check all that out for us here. Um,
Andy Miller III: yeah. Well, I I am attracted to this title, and like the fact that you've done this work. So did you just turn the question around at me without actually asking me a question.
Andy Miller III: I kind of did. But it's It's closing banter, anyway. So i'm i'm. I'm. I'm curious. So what do you not get to talk about like is, Do you like to Do you like to hunt? Do you like to fish like what it like? What something else about you, Brian, that you don't often get to say you said you've done five podcasts on this book.
Brian Shelton: I I I I I appreciate it again. This book got a lot of attention. I valued it. I did get some critics, by the way, particularly there were. There were two Catholic writers, I would say scholars who thought I was not as pronounced
Brian Shelton: on Jesus Brothers as I could have, and should have been um even going to Catholic dogma and and professing it. But but I couldn't. I particularly wouldn't. Certainly. That's one of the challenges with um,
Andy Miller III: uh we you just to earlier. Even the perpetual virginity of Jesus right like this, it gets to be very Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. A perpetual virginity of Mary.
Brian Shelton: Yes, um, you know I I I don't hunt, although I love, if you know any listeners want to bring some venison uh I don't fish except my daughters like fishing. I don't know where they got this, so I will fish with them. I just spend time really with them. I love to hike. I'm kind of segmenting the Appalachian Trail. I'm not going to finish it unless some Benjamin button thing happens to me. But I've done all Georgia uh part of Carolina. Uh i'm digging into Virginia. Now, I absolutely
Brian Shelton: you love this experience. If any of your listeners want to connect on the Appalachian trail, if they have a car right, you need two people to do the whole parking find I would love to do that, and we could talk apostles up and down the trail. There you go. I love you. Do it by yourself.
Brian Shelton: Sometimes i'm not afraid to hike by myself. I try not to do like more than fifteen miles if i'm deep in the wilderness.
Brian Shelton: Um a little bit of bare phobi on my part, but I realize It's mostly in the head. I love to see bears afterwards, each time, if you will, but it's a chance to be in God's creation, to reflect, to pray, and then to dialogue. If you're with friends. Yeah, I love it. I love hiking. It's been a recent thing for my family. We've like really hit the national parks the last couple of years. We're in Yellowstone, Tetons this summer, and we just loved it.
Andy Miller III: Well, Brian. Thanks so much for your time. Thanks for writing this book and for your ministry as we university. I appreciate you spending some time with, and folks check out this book, make sure you get it. Um is publish you, baker Academic um, and the quest for historical possibles tracing their lives and legacies. Brian. Thanks so much for coming on. We appreciate your time.