What Did Jesus’s Disciples Do after He Was Gone? - Bible and Beyond Discussion

This is an archival recording of a live online discussion that took place on Monday, March 27, 2023.

Presenter: Dr. Shirley Paulson (with guest scholar Dr. Christine Shea)

Wouldn’t we love to know what Jesus’s disciples did after his crucifixion and resurrection? There just weren’t any historians keeping track of them to record their works for posterity. But we can put some clues together and draw conclusions for the scraps of information we do have. Most people know whatever they know about the disciples from the Bible, but not much else. So we’re going to look at some of the other texts that were circulating during the first couple of centuries after Jesus to see if we can get a better picture. Although there are quite a few texts we could be looking at, we’ll zero in on three gospels not in the canon. The Gospel of Judas, the Letter of Peter to Philip, and the Acts of John all provide some information about how the followers of Jesus understood the people in Jesus’s closest circles and what was going on after Jesus’s departure. We’ll consider the differences between fact, fiction, and in between. We’ll also think about why the authors of these texts might have knowingly made up these particular stories – and even other stories in the Bible.

Texts Used:
Gospel of Judas

Letter of Peter to Philip
(by chapter number) 2:1-3, 3:1, 7:6-8
(by bold page number) 132.10 – 133.10, 140.10

Acts of John – John in Ephesus
Paragraphs 18, 20, 32, 33, 37, 114, 115