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How did the 12 apostles die? 
Summary:  The Bible only mentions the deaths of two apostles, James who was put to death by Harold Agrippa I in 44 AD and Judas Iscariot who committed suicide shortly after the death of Christ.    The details of the deaths of three of the apostles (John, the Beloved, Bartholomew and Simon the Canaanite) are not known at all, either by tradition or early historians. The deaths of the other seven apostles are known by tradition or the writings of early Christian historians.  According to traditions and the Bible, those eight Apostles died as Martyrs.  At least two of the Apostles, Peter and Andrew were crucified.
Simon surnamed Peter  died 33-34 years after the death of Christ.  According to Smith’s Bible Dictionary there is satisfactory evidence that he and Paul were the founders of the church at Rome, and died in that city. The time and manner of the apostle’s martyrdom are less certain. According to the early writers, he died at or about the same time with Paul, and in the Neronian persecution, A.D. 67,68. All agree that he was crucified. Origen says that Peter felt himself to be unworthy to be put to death in the same manner as his Master, and was therefore, at his own request, crucified with his head downward. 

James the son of Zebedee:  He was put to death by Herod Agrippa I  shortly before the day of the Passover, in the year 44 or about 11 years after the death of Christ.  From Acts 12: 1-2. 

John: No death date given by early writers.  Death date is by conjecture only and is variously assigned as being between 89 AD to 120 AD

Andrew:  No accurate death date given. A variety of traditions say he preached in Scythia, in Greece, in Asia Minor and Thrace.  He is reported to have been crucified at Patrae in Achaia. 
 

Philip:  Again, the Bible does not say when he died nor do we have accurate information.  According to tradition he preached in Phrygia, and died at Hierapolis. 

Bartholomew: There is no information concerning his death, not even by tradition

Matthew: He must have lived many years as an apostle, since he was the author of the Gospel of Matthew which was written at least twenty years after the death of Christ. There is reason to believe that he stayed for fifteen years at Jerusalem, after which he went as missionary to the Persians, Parthians and Medes. There is a legend that he died a martyr in Ethiopia

Thomas: The earlier traditions, as believed in the fourth century, say he preached in Parthia or Persia, and was finally buried at Edessa. The later traditions carry him farther east.   His martyrdom whether in Persia or India, is said to have been by a lance, and is commemorated by the Latin Church on December 21 the Greek Church on October 6, and by the Indians on July 1. 

James Alpheus also known as Thaddeus : We know he lived at least five years after the death of Christ because of mentions in the Bible.  According to tradition, James son of Alpheus was thrown down from the temple by the scribes and Pharisees; he was then stoned, and his brains dashed out with a fuller’s club. 

Simon the Canaanite – No information either in the Bible or by tradition.

Judas Iscariot: Shortly after the death of Christ Judas killed himself. According to the Bible he hanged himself, (Matthew 27:5) at Aceldama, on the southern slope of the valley of Hinnom, near Jerusalem, and in the act he fell down a precipice and was dashed into pieces. 

You once again mistate Christian tradition to falsely discredit Christianity.  Perhaps you can find one prominent and informed Christian who makes the claim as you stated it.  Second please note that Judas the disciple was not an Apostle. 

Willingness of the Apostles to Undergo a Martyr's Death

The first Christian to die for his faith was Stephen, one of the original seven deacons of the church in Jerusalem. He was stoned to death after a trial before the Jewish Sanhedrin in about the year 35. In 43, Herod Agrippa executed the apostle James, who had been the third member of Jesus' inner circle along with Peter and John. James was killed "with the sword"—that is, he was beheaded (Acts 12:2). The next major figure in the early church to suffer martyrdom was James, brother of Jesus and leader of the church in Jerusalem. In 61, during the interim of three months between the death of Festus and the arrival of a new Roman governor, the high priest Annas took the opportunity to attack the church. He arrested James and some others and delivered them to be stoned (6). Several independent traditions affirm that both Paul and Peter were martyred in Rome (7). Many scholars believe that they were victims of Nero's fierce onslaught against the church in 64 (. It is probable that Paul was beheaded and Peter was crucified (9). Legend with a possible basis in fact remembers that Peter was crucified head down at his own request because he did not regard himself worthy to die in the manner of Christ (10). According to church tradition, another nine of the original twelve apostles were also killed (11).

Tradition alleges that John was the only apostle to die a natural death, though only after much persecution (12). Among the torments he supposedly endured was to be boiled in oil (13). But the traditions concerning John are probably unreliable. False stories about him were circulating even while he was alive (John 21:23). The earliest writer to speak of John's fate is Papias, mentioned earlier, who states that John was killed by the Jews (14). Any doubt that Papias is correct is resolved by Jesus' own comments concerning the future of James and John.

20 Then came to him the mother of Zebedee's children with her sons, worshipping him, and desiring a certain thing of him.
21 And he said unto her, What wilt thou? She saith unto him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom.
22 But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They say unto him, We are able.
23 And he saith unto them, Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with: but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father.

Matthew 20:20-23

The question that must be asked is this. Would men go to a martyr's death, ordinarily a death as shameful and cruel as the authorities can devise, for the sake of a lie? If the apostles knew that the Christian message was false—that Jesus had not done and said the things they ascribed to Him and that He had not risen from the dead—would they have continued to affirm this message even unto death?

After deep reflection, Blaise Pascal, the great French polymath of the seventeenth century, answered as follows:

The supposition that the apostles were impostors is very absurd. Let us think it out. Let us imagine those twelve men, assembled after the death of Jesus Christ, plotting to say that He was risen. By this they attack all the powers. The heart of man is strangely inclined to fickleness, to change, to promises, to gain. However little any of them might have been led astray by all these attractions [that is, had any of them been moved even slightly by these attractions away from fidelity to the conspiracy], nay more, by the fear of prisons, tortures, and death, they were lost [that is, their conspiracy could not have succeeded] (15).

Another cogent response to the question was penned by the famous nineteenth-century lawyer Simon Greenleaf, whose Treatise on the Law of Evidence is generally regarded as a seminal contribution to modern jurisprudence.

The great truths which the apostles declared, were that Christ had risen from the dead, and that only through repentance from sin, and faith in him, could men hope for salvation. This doctrine they asserted with one voice, everywhere, not only under the greatest discouragements, but in the face of the most appalling terrors that can be presented to the mind of man. Their master had recently perished as a malefactor, by the sentence of a public tribunal. . . . The laws of every country were against the teachings of his disciples. The interests and passions of all the rulers and great men in the world were against them. The fashion of the world was against them. Propagating this new faith, even in the most inoffensive and peaceful manner, they could expect nothing but contempt, opposition, revilings, bitter persecutions, stripes, imprisonments, torments and cruel deaths. Yet this faith they zealously did propagate; and all these miseries they endured undismayed, nay, rejoicing. As one after another was put to a miserable death, the survivors only prosecuted their work with increased vigor and resolution. The annals of military warfare afford scarcely an example of the like heroic constancy, patience and unblenching courage. They had every possible motive to review carefully the grounds of their faith, and the evidences of the great facts and truths which they asserted; and these motives were pressed upon their attention with the most melancholy and terrific frequency. It was therefore impossible that they could have persisted in affirming the truths they have narrated, had not Jesus actually risen from the dead, and had they not known this fact as certainly as they knew any other fact. If it were morally possible for them to have been deceived in this matter, every human motive operated to lead them to discover and avow their error (16).

Josh McDowell and Bill Wilson ask, "Who would die for a lie?"—a simple but apt formulation of the question crucial to deciding whether the Gospels are reliable (17).

No, Sorry.  I d id not claim that every single Apostle died a martyrs death. I did say to a many they were all willing to die for what they believed.  I see that Josh says the same.


No, again your words stand apart from their claim.


I recall that you were unable to demonstrate with any direct evidence that Foxe's book was in error on these these early Christians.

(ad hom deleted)

In the previous conversation we were waiting for you to provide references and physical evidence (I say physical because barney is in the habbit of form critique of each and every word of every phrase one writes (see above).  He uses brevity and poor word choice to sow doubt, but has nothing to back up his reinterpretations) that shows Foxe's book to be in error.

Since you reject the sources I provided, if you wish to show they are in error, then please do so.  I am not going to do your work for you.

XIV. Luke

The evangelist, was the author of the Gospel which goes under his name. He travelled with Paul through various countries, and is supposed to have been hanged on an olive tree, by the idolatrous priests of Greece.

XVII. Barnabas
Was of Cyprus, but of Jewish descent, his death is supposed to have taken place about A.D. 73.

X. Paul

Paul, the apostle, who before was called Saul, after his great travail and unspeakable labors in promoting the Gospel of Christ, suffered also in this first persecution under Nero. Abdias, declareth that under his execution Nero sent two of his esquires, Ferega and Parthemius, to bring him word of his death. They, coming to Paul instructing the people, desired him to pray for them, that they might believe; who told them that shortly after they should believe and be baptised at His sepulcher. This done, the soldiers came and led him out of the city to the place of execution, where he, after his prayers made, gave his neck to the sword.

Other writers have been more particular concerning his death: they say that it was not by the command of Nero that he was martyred, but by that of the prefects of the city, Nero being then absent; that he was beheaded at Aquae Salviae, about three miles from Rome, on Feb. 22; that he could not be crucified, as Peter was, because he was a freeman of the city of Rome. But there is great uncertainty on these subjects, so that we cannot positively rely on any account that even the ancients have transmitted to us concerning the death of this apostle; and much less on the accounts given by the moderns; and least of all on those which are to be found in the Martyrologists. Whether Paul ever returned after this to Rome has not yet been satisfactorily proved. It is probable that he did, and suffered death there, as stated above; but still we have no certainty" (Commentary on the Bible by Adam Clarke, commentary on Acts 28:31).

1. Not believing in the bread and wine of the Eucharist turning into the literal body
of Jesus Christ.
2. Not believing in infant baptism
3. Not recognizing the authority of the pope above all others.
4. Translating the scriptures into the common language of the people.
5. Preaching the word of God or reading scripture in a language other than Latin.
6. Teaching against Purgatory
7. Teaching that faith in Jesus alone brings salvation, not the church rituals and
sacraments.
8. Opposing the authority of the Catholic Church.

Allow me to adjust my statment.  No apostle even under threat of death has ever recanted his testimony regarding Christ.  No documentation shows that they have, more to the point, enemies were everywhere seeking exactly such a redaction, and yet with the whole of the Roman and Hebrew cultures persecuting them and using any means possible to discredit them, nothing was written to support such a view.

Care to disprove it barney?