Books like The Twelve: The Lives of the Apostles After Calvary

A whole new shelf for this work. Rankly disappointing. The man assumes and guesses and accepts hagiographical legend and places it alongside tradition which I realize for many people might be one and the same thing but it isn't. Ruffin does the investigation of the early Church after Christ's death and Resurrection absolutely no favours with this book. "According to the middle Eastern document, Thomas, while still at the court of Gundaphorus, was attending a banquet when he was punched in the face by a cupbearer. Thomas told the offender, "My God will forgive you this injury in the world to come, but in this world He will show forth His wonders, and I shall even now see that hand which smote me dragged by dogs!" Shortly afterward the cupbearer went out to draw water and was attacked by a lion, which killed him and mauled his body. A big black dog gnawed on the mangled remains and walked into the banquet hall with the cupbearer's right hand in his mouth."Really, Oh really? Puuuuueaze. Placing these stupid and quite unworthy legends alongside the small number of details we do know only serves to undermine that genuine knowledge. The Traditions handed down by communities can having something to say and to illuminate the darkness of these periods but placing rubbish like this in the centre of a reflection and speaking of it as though it were, if you'll pardon the expression, Gospel is quite frankly ridiculous. Being a practising catholic and very proud to be so, I am well aware that many might see the Catholic Church as grounded or founded on such legends but that is not the case. Hagiography, the overly imaginative, shall we say, accounts of saints lives and deaths are never presented in any meaningful way as scholarship or useful other than as piety. Ruffin presents the dubious next to the inspiring, the insanely silly alongside the beautifully moving and it besmirches everything. I had hoped this would be a simple reflection on the little we know about these twelve men, it wasn't. It was grabbing at straws and constructing a house which anyone,wolf or sheep, would very easily blow down with the slightest breeze of logic, reason or even the genuine search for knowledge of these central yet shadowed figures.