Do you know who the Twelve Apostles are? Of course everyone knows
about the events in the Gospels and has a vague idea about the Acts of the Apostles and
Epistles. But what happened after that? This book attempts to collect various traditions and
writings in order to present a biography of each of the apostles.
This task is rather difficult since there are many conflicting traditions, and details are
sometimes hard to come by. In situations where there are conflicting traditions, Ruffin
presents the various stories and then explains which are most likely correct. Occasionally Ruffin
seems a little too quick to dismiss miraculous stories but, judging from the exaggerations in some of them, he may be
justified in doing so.
One of the most interesting aspects of the book is the suprisingly large number of places the
apostles visited. Thomas preached in India, Simon and Jude were martyred in Iran, and Andrew spread the gospel
in Russia. There are also various legends that say some of the apostles preached in Spain and Britain.
The only drawback to this otherwise fascinating account is the use of the New American Bible for the biblical
quotes (even though this is an approved translation, the use of words such as "ignoramus"
guarantee that this version of the bible will never be praised for its use of language).
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