Apostle

Travels Among the Tombs of the Twelve

De: Tom Bissell

Narrado por: Tom Bissell

A profound and moving journey into the heart of Christianity that explores the mysterious and often paradoxical lives and legacies of the Twelve Apostles—a book both for those of the faith and for others who seek to understand Christianity from the outside in.

“Expertly researched and fascinating… Bissell is a wonderfully sure guide to these mysterious men.… This is a serious book about the origins of Christianity that is also very funny. How often can you say that?” —The Independent

Peter, Matthew, Thomas, John: Who were these men? What was their relationship to Jesus? Tom Bissell provides rich and surprising answers to these ancient, elusive questions. He examines not just who these men were (and weren’t), but also how their identities have taken shape over the course of two millennia.

Ultimately, Bissell finds that the story of the apostles is the story of early Christianity: its competing versions of Jesus’s ministry, its countless schisms, and its ultimate evolution from an obscure Jewish sect to the global faith we know today in all its forms and permutations. In his quest to understand the underpinnings of the world’s largest religion, Bissell embarks on a years-long pilgrimage to the supposed tombs of the Twelve Apostles. He travels from Jerusalem and Rome to Turkey, Greece, Spain, France, India, and Kyrgyzstan, vividly capturing the rich diversity of Christianity’s worldwide reach. Along the way, he engages with a host of characters—priests, paupers, a Vatican archaeologist, a Palestinian taxi driver, a Russian monk—posing sharp questions that range from the religious to the philosophical to the political.

Written with warmth, empathy, and rare acumen, Apostle is a brilliant synthesis of travel writing, biblical history, and a deep, lifelong relationship with Christianity. The result is an unusual, erudite, and at times hilarious book—a religious, intellectual, and personal adventure fit for believers, scholars, and wanderers alike.

Beautiful prose behind mediocre research

Bissell blends travelogue, historical context, & biblical studies to tell the story of the modern encounters with the Apostles. He simply doesn’t do it well.

What Bissell does well is giving you a rambling travelogue about the modern shrines to the Apostles. He also spans a good breadth of scholarly information about the Apostles to tell their story.

But it is a deeply flawed telling.

Bissell has never met a critical theory he doesn’t like and eschews all conservative viewpoints. The Apostles don’t live in stories of faith & faithfulness but should be examined through a skeptical lens.

The challenge is Bissell makes plenty of mistakes in the book. He tries to understand incredibly complex terrain of the first century but is not equipped to make scholarly judgments.

The Apostles are left as venerated icons whose legacies are embellished and enlarged by error laden writers. His approach is typically skeptical and only informed by the most critical scholars.

At the end. I hope Bissell finds the faith he is so clearly seeking. His prose was wonderful in the book. His conclusions were withered old questions already answered by present day scholarship.

One example of his poor scholarship is a note about Paul where he says the word “pillar” in Galatians 2:9 doesn’t occur anywhere else in the NT. He is simply wrong, the term στϋλοι (pillar) actually occurs in 3 other passages in the NT: 1 Tim 3:15; Rev 3:12; 10:1. This is the kind of detail that actual scholars know and recognize that Bissell doesn’t have his academic house in order.

I would’ve given the book 2.5⭐️…but gave it an extra half star because the book is well written.


Note for the audiobook: the author is the narrator and it bears noting that this is why I think he doesn’t have significant access to actual scholarly discussions about the topics he is writing on: he mispronounces almost every ancient name. As a scholar (I have PhD in historical ecclesiology) part of gaining your education is learning how to pronounce the names. Bissell doesn’t do this well. It is a tell that he hasn’t engaged deeply in the scholarship he purports to understand.

Excellent summary of early Christian history

I found this an excellent summary of what is known and not known about early Christian history, especially related to the apostles (or disciples?). Bissell and I have read many of the same books, but he has clearly done so more carefully and thoroughly then I have. He provides a lot of information and analysis, but then steps beyond to include anecdotes about his personal travels to the various tombs of the apostles. This detour away from a scholarly evaluation made the book more interesting and readable from my perspective. Note; he is an atheist so some Christians might be slightly offended at some of his characterizations. For me, it was an excellent book, with exactly the kind of analysis I was looking for.

Fascinating

A fascinating historical inquiry into the lives of the apostles; travelogue visiting purported burial places; archaeological questionings; intersections and development of various early Christianities and other religions; and contemplation of religion itself, by an author who clearly has a deep interest in the subjects but is untainted by a religious point of view himself.

A great read stumbled upon by chance.

I actually found this book only after listening to "The Disaster Artist", which the Bissell co-wrote with Greg Sestero about the latter's experience filiming "The Room". What a leap in subject matter! I've always had a curiousity about the Twelve Apostles, and this book is pretty much unique in covering them and visiting their tombs, and after "The Disaster Artist" being such a great listen, my interest was piqued.

Bissell reads the book himself, and is quite good. While scholarly in presentation in parts, he injects the odd bit of humor, too, and he discusses his experiences with quite a bit of intimacy. His experiences in India and Greece were the sections that stood out the most to me, and I really felt for him in his misery visiting the tomb of Thomas in India.

I should have liked it more

The author, a one time Catholic turned atheist, presents an interesting overview of the many branches of the early Christian church while seeking out the purported resting places of the 12 Apostles. The travelogue chapters of the book did not hold my attention as intensely as the historical chapters, but this is just personal preference; both are well written. I think what kept me from truly engaging with the content was that the author is not a believer. This is not a slam on him; he is always respectful of the faith though at times his atheism pops through in unobtrusive and inoffensive ways. I cannot really say exactly why I wish a believer had written this. Reverence for the subject matter perhaps, though I have enjoyed other scholarly books on Christianity written sans faith. Perhaps the presented information would have held an added luster for me if it had been written in the shadow of faith. At any rate, I did learn quite a bit about the early Church, which spurred me to pick up some more in depth studies.