As far as we can tell, none of the apostles actually suffered a martyr's death and, apart from perhaps Judas Iscariot, we do not know when or how any of them died.
In the case of Judas Iscariot, Matthew 27:5 says that Judas threw down the silver in the Temple and went and hanged himself. Acts 1:18 says that Judas bought a field with the reward of iniquity, and fell headlong, bursting asunder and all his bowels gushed out. These and other irreconcilable differences tell us that neither author really knew when or how Judas died. They simply wated to show that Judas never got to enjoy the rewards of his treachery and that he died a horrible death, differently in each case.
Acts of the Apostles mentions the imprisonment and miraculous release of Peter, but does not say anything about his subsequent death, even though the book was written around the end of the century, long after Peter would have died. A second-century tradition was that he was beheaded, while a later tradition was that Peter was crucified upside down in 64 CE. Another tradition is that Paul was executed on the same day as Peter. However, Clement of Rome, who should have known of these events, in writing general terms of the life and death of Peter (1 Clement, c. 95 CE) seems to have been unaware that Peter was ever in Rome or had been executed.
Various other traditions, some of them quite fantastic, gradually grew up around the deaths of the other apostles, but there is no evidence for any of them. So, we do not really know how any of the apostles died.
Copyright © 2026 eLLeNow.com All Rights Reserved.