How were the disciples martyred?

Answer 1

A:Apart from James and perhaps Judas, we do not know when or even how any of the apostles died. Even the two accounts of the death of Judas, in Matthewand Acts, are sufficiently different (and sufficiently parallel Old Testament stories) to cast doubt on their historicity.

During the second century, various imaginative traditions arose to tell of the generally gruesome deaths suffered by each of the apostles. The most popular of these is the story of Peter crucified upside down in Rome. Yet Clement of Rome, writing around 95 CE (1 Clement), spoke in general terms about the life and death of Peter but appears to have been unaware that he had even visited Rome and was certainly unaware that he had been executed in any way at all. In fact, there is no good reason to believe any of the late Christian traditions of the deaths of the twelve disciples. We do not know whether any of them were really killed for their faith.

Answer 2

Apart from Judas Iscariot, The Bible does not tell us how any of the disciples died.
Matthew 27:5 says that Judas threw down the silver in the Temple and went and hanged himself. The priests took the blood money and bought the potter's field, which they called the field of blood. Acts 1:18 has a different story, that Judas bought a field with the reward of iniquity, and fell headlong, bursting asunder and all his bowels gushed out. Because of this, the field was called the field of blood. In other words, neither the author of Matthew nor the author of Luke knew how Judas Iscariot died, but Matthew seems to have got its story from the Book of Zechariah.

Various traditions have grown up around the supposed deaths of other disciples, but there is no evidence that supports those traditions. So, for example, Peter is widely believed to have been either beheaded or crucified (upside down) in Rome. Another story is that Matthew was allocated to evangelise Ethiopia and there he was arrested while he stood teaching in his church and was nailed to the ground with short spears and beheaded.

In summary, the disciples could have died of natural causes, suicide, accident or execution. We simply do not know.

Answer 3

Some were crucified; some were beheaded. Some were stoned to death.

Answer 4

All of the twelve disciples (except John) and many of the extended group are thought to have been martyred.

Answer 5

Peter was cricified while James was beheaded.