Uploaded September 2023 | Updated September 2026, 6 days ago
This week I'm starting a series about this question: Does Acts support the idea that at least twelve specific, named individuals were willing to risk their lives for the claim that they had seen Jesus risen from the dead?
Some skeptics have claimed that *even if we take Acts at face value* in its account of the early days of Christianity, it still doesn't support this claim. They may downplay the seriousness of the risk. They may imply that only Peter and John among the original twelve disciples actually stood up and took a risk or that the others stopped taking a risk after the religious leaders first told them to stop preaching.
Paulogia claims this here: youtu.be/9omTjcRwd1M?si=ej6dI2K75yYvjdcy
In the coming weeks I'll be addressing these claims from Acts itself. Here I am setting up the question.
Remember, this is addressing what we can learn from Acts itself if we take the narrative at face value about who was proclaiming the resurrection and what they were risking.
(Thumbnail courtesy of freebibleimages.org.)
This week I'm starting a series about this question: Does Acts support the idea that at least twelve specific, named individuals were willing to risk their lives for the claim that they had seen Jesus risen from the dead?
Some skeptics have claimed that *even if we take Acts at face value* in its account of the early days of Christianity, it still doesn't support this claim. They may downplay the seriousness of the risk. They may imply that only Peter and John among the original twelve disciples actually stood up and took a risk or that the others stopped taking a risk after the religious leaders first told them to stop preaching.
Paulogia claims this here: youtu.be/9omTjcRwd1M?si=ej6dI2K75yYvjdcy
In the coming weeks I'll be addressing these claims from Acts itself. Here I am setting up the question.
Remember, this is addressing what we can learn from Acts itself if we take the narrative at face value about who was proclaiming the resurrection and what they were risking.
(Thumbnail courtesy of freebibleimages.org.)




![Unstated Gospel symbolism: Its too easy!
What do I mean by saying that its too easy to come up with theories of unstated symbolism in the details of the Gospels? And why does the fact that its too easy create a problem for those theories?
A song from an operetta by Gilbert and Sullivan says, If everybodys somebody, then no ones anybody.
If youre willing to go far enough to come up with an unstated symbolism theory for the details of the Gospels (such as the view that John is symbolizing some particular theological idea by dyschronologically moving the Temple cleansing), then there is virtually no limit to the additional theories you can come up with. The choice among them is arbitrary. And thats a Gilbert and Sullivan problem.
Thumbnail by Studio Ellis & Walery:[1] Alfred Ellis (1854-1930)[2] & Walery (Stanislas Julian, Count Ostrorog, either senior (1830 - 1890) or junior (1863 - 1935).)[3] - Scanned from the 1914 edition of François Cellier & Cunningham Bridgemans Gilbert and Sullivan and Their Operas., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3987877 Unstated Gospel symbolism: Its too easy!](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/QuOwEA8I1Bs/mqdefault.jpg)





