Why did the disciple John not die a horrific death?

Answer 1

A popular Christian tradition about John is that Emperor Domitian ordered him brought as a prisoner to Rome and thrown into a vat of boiling oil. John was unharmed by the boiling oil, and he was eventually exiled under guard in Patmos. Not only is the alleged episode of the boiling oil entirely implausible, the alleged exile proves it to be so.

If John was immune to harm, as shown by his escape from the boiling oil, he could scarcely have been restrained by armed guards, who also would have been totally unable to harm him. The tradition links John to Patmos because the Book of Revelation was written by a person called John, and the Church Fathers decided that this John must be the same person as the disciple John. This journey was necessary in order to identify John the disciple with the author of Revelation.

Answer 2

The Bible tells us that Judas Iscariot died violently, Matthew 27:5 saying that Judas threw down the silver in the Temple and went and hanged himself, and Acts 1:18 saying that Judas bought a field with the reward of iniquity, and fell headlong, bursting asunder and all his bowels gushed out. This discrepancy really means that neither author really knew how Judas died, but hoped that he had died in the most horrible way possible. As for the other disciples of Jesus, we do not know how they died. Various imaginative stories grew up around their supposed deaths and their courage in the face of death, but none of these stories seems to be based on fact.

John became a special case because the Book of Revelation is signed by a person called John writing from the island of Patmos. Later in the second century, the Church Fathers decided that the 'disciple whom Jesus loved' in John's Gospel was John himself, and also that the John who wrote Revelation must have been the apostle John. The final verses of John's Gospel tell of Jesus saying that the unknown disciple would not die, enough evidence for some to say that John would not die violently. A tradition then developed that John was boiled in oil but somehow miraculously escaped harm and was consequently taken in exile to Patmos, where he spent the remainder of his life.