Apostle: Travels Among the Tombs of the Twelve

4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars | 285 ratings

Price: 19.69

Last update: 12-21-2024


About this item

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.


Top reviews from the United States

  • Mass Hysteria
    5.0 out of 5 stars Remarkable Account of Religious History
    Reviewed in the United States on March 28, 2016
    Bissell's "Apostle" is a brilliant synthesis of almost 2,000 years of theological, historical, and textual debate surrounding the identities and stories of the men known as the Twelve Apostles. The book is unusual in that it combines the descriptive panache of the best travel writing with a deep understanding of the construction/evolution of Christian theology and of the development of new(ish) disciplines like the archeology of religion. If this sounds dense, fear not! Bissell has an incredible talent for explanation. He's also a skilled, witty writer. It might seem strange to say that "Apostle" is often laugh-out-loud funny, but, really, it is. Ultimately, this is an invaluable resource for any reader who wants to understand the world-changing significance of Christianity as a historical force.
  • Sparkleplenty
    4.0 out of 5 stars A very Unexpected experience
    Reviewed in the United States on August 26, 2023
    I chose this book because of a National Geographic article i read recently about the rather extraordinary adventure this author took to visit the likely tombs of the original twelve apostles. Not only was it a fascinating adventure, but the author has done meticulous research on the Apostles as he tries to track each of them down. About three quarters of the way through the trip he makes a profound observation. The gospels are “accidental biographies of the people they were written for as well as their authors”. This sentence put all of the information he shares in perspective. What you see depends on where you are standing. The authors of each gospel were speaking at a different time to different audiences about things that the author thought were important. Too much time has passed, too many wars, too much destruction to allow us to stand where they stood. At the end of the day, we all have to find our own way.
  • John D. Cofield
    5.0 out of 5 stars A Journey
    Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2016
    To most people, Christian and non-Christian alike, the Twelve Apostles are both known and unknown. Most can correctly identify them as the first followers of Jesus Christ, but after that knowledge of the Twelve quickly dwindles into half-remembered stories and legends. Tom Bissell was born and raised a Roman Catholic, but lost his faith as a teenager and now considers himself a non-believer. His journeys to visit the tombs and shrines associated with the Apostles reveal both his early religious training and his present skepticism. The book which is the result of those journeys is a fascinating combination of religious and cultural history with a modern-day traveler's diary, leavened with good humor which is often, not surprisingly in the circumstances, irreverent.

    Bissell's book is full of fascinating information that often branches into surprising tangents. The first chapter, on Judas Iscariot, includes a lengthy segment detailing Bissell's journey to Jerusalem and his efforts to locate the Hakeldama or Field of Blood, which involves a lot of tense Israeli/Palestinian contacts and confrontations. Similarly, his chapter on Thomas covers Bissell's arduous journey to and through Chennai/Madras while that on Matthew includes a long odyssey through the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Every chapter describes what is known about an Apostle and what the legends and traditions surrounding him tell us. Inevitably this means that there is a lot of early Christian history, which Bissell does a good job of explaining so that the differences between Arianism and Athanasianism, for example, are clear even to those without much background in the subject.

    I have a strong religious background, but I was surprised by so much that I read in Apostle that was new to me. I knew vaguely that the Apostle Thomas was supposed to have traveled to India, but I had never realized that "Thomas Christians" had played a long and continuing role in the subcontinent's history. I have studied the early Christian heterodoxies but have rarely found them described so clearly and succinctly,

    Apostle necessarily includes many terms and concepts which may not be familiar to readers without much background in the subject, but Bissell helpfully provides a Glossary of People and Terms at the end which was invaluable. I also appreciated his lengthy annotated Bibliography. I finished Apostle with renewed appreciation for the complexities of Christianity and the lengthy, sometimes intricately detailed, road (or roads) it has followed since its beginnings in first century Judea.
  • Raymond Camiscioli
    3.0 out of 5 stars Is there an editor in the house?
    Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2016
    As a lover of church history (the more arcane, the better), the title immediately caught my eye.
    I truly enjoyed the author's thorough investigation of the alleged grave sites of the Twelve, as well as his efforts to clarify the identities of certain apostles who have gotten confused over the past 2 millennia -- for example, is "James the Just" (a/k/a "James, Brother of the Lord"),who is martyred in the Acts of the Ap., the same James as "James, son of Alpheus"(a/k/a "James the Less")? Similarly, is St. John, the son of Zebedee, also the "Beloved Apostle" of the 4th Gospel?
    An added bonus: The author is also a gifted, and very funny, travel writer. Traveling across India, the author searches not only for the tomb of St. Thomas but, equally important, for clean public toilets, having contracted a nasty stomach bug shortly after arriving. [Spoiler alert: He finds salvation in a chain of Domino pizza shops.]
    Now for the criticism: The author can often be long-winded, loading the book with "filler" that, while interesting and well-written, doesn't belong in this type of book. Case in point: The chapter on St. Paul should be about half its current length, the author having loaded it with a lengthy discussion of Paul's travels, theological disputes between Paul and the other disciples, etc.
    SUGGESTION: Buy the book and skim over areas that are essentially filler. It's still a very good read, the author writes beautifully, his research is impeccable, and he gave me a few good laughs, too!

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