What happened to the twelve apostles of Jesus and why did only four give their accounts about Jesus?

Answer 1

A:

We actually know nothing about what happened to each of the disciples of Jesus, except perhaps Judas, whose death is reconted in two mutually contradictory stories in Matthew's Gospel and Acts of the Apostles. The disjunction between these tow stories tells us that the writers were trying to assure their readers that Judas suffered a satisfyingly terrible death, although they really knew nothing of what actually happened to the traitor apostle. There are legends as to the remaining lives and fates of the others, but none of these traditions can really be accepted as likely to be true.

It comes as a surprise to most Christians to learn that we also do not know who wrote the four New Testament gospels. True, two of the gospels are attributed to the apostles Matthew and John, but they were actually written anonymously and attributed to these disciples later in the second century. Modern New Testament scholars say that none of the gospels was written by an eyewitness to the events portrayed, so what we can say is that Matthew and John were not really authors of any of the gospels.

The original New Testament gospel was the gospel now known as Mark's Gospel, but once again this was anonymous and can not be attributed to Paul's companion, Mark. Scholars have established that Matthew and Luke were substantially based on Mark,but both used further sayings material attributed to Jesus taken from the hypothetical 'Q' document. They also say that John was loosely based on Luke, but with some material taken direct from Mark.