Apostle, or, Bones that shine like fire Travels among the tombs of the Twelve

Review by New York Times Review

NIETZSCHE BELIEVED THAT if only a Dostoyevsky had been among the apostles who followed Jesus, someone who understood the environment in which "the scum of society, nervous maladies and 'childish' idiocy keep a tryst," we might have been spared centuries of ovine idiocy One genius could have given us a work of ennobling art. Instead, we got 12 bleating sheep and one filthy religion. Nietzsche is hardly alone in his contempt for the disciples. Many a preacher, whether for castigation or consolation, has pointed out their all-too-human foibles. There's Thomas and his infamous doubt, Peter's craven denials as Jesus is being tried and crucified. There are all the parables the disciples are too boneheaded to understand, kiddie squabbles about who is going to get the best seat in heaven. Even at Jesus' most agonizing moment in the Garden of Gethsemane, the disciples, like exhausted teenagers, fall sound asleep. It almost seems as if the Gospel writers wanted to emphasize these inadequacies, wanted to root an entire religion in the very human weakness that so appalled Nietzsche. Given the mediocrity of those to whom Jesus' message was entrusted, it seems surpassing strange that the message should have taken hold with such force. Somehow those hapless men rose out of their stupor to become paragons of Christian virtues. Somehow that general obtuseness and vague malaise became a wildfire of faith so fierce that some were willing to go to their death for the sake of what they'd seen. Or at least that's one story. Tom Bissell, in his new book, "Apostle," is out to tell another. "History does not record a single member of the Twelve, with the possible exception of Peter, as having had any particular impact on early Christianity." This is overstated - the Gospel of John claims to rely on eyewitness testimony, and scholars are still debating this - but the larger argument is really Bissell's point. From the standards of modern history, we know very little about the disciples, sometimes only their names, and even those are often in dispute. Their lives are mostly legends, scattered around the world like their bones. It is these legends (and these bones) that Bissell, an intelligent and lively writer probably best known for "The Disaster Artist," sets out to investigate. Over the course of four years he travels to nine countries and more than 50 churches. Along the way, often while standing in front of relics whose provenance he has just decimated, he meets priests, pilgrims, students and others. Aside from substantial digressions for Jesus and Paul, each chapter is devoted to one or two apostles, and divided between passages of history and journalism. At one moment you might learn that many of the Christians in Syria and India trace their origins to Thomas, or that crucifixion began "as a way to humiliate the already dead," or that in one of the apocryphal Gospels, Peter resurrects a smoked fish. Turn a page and Bissell is in his favorite falafel restaurant in Jerusalem, or talking geopolitics with his guides in Kyrgyzstan, or giving yet another update on the state of his beleaguered bowels. Even for a writer as protean as Bissell - I would especially recommend his 2012 essay collection, "Magic Hours" - "Apostle" is a quixotic project. An altar boy when he was growing up in Michigan, Bissell lost his faith when he was 16 and has never recovered it. Nevertheless, he says in his preface, he has continued to find Christianity "deeply and resonantly interesting" and feels that anyone who disagrees "has only his or her unfamiliarity with the topic to blame." He wrote this book, he says, to put that belief to the test. This is ominously anodyne language for such an ambitious project, and "Apostle" seems fundamentally confused about its aim and audience. Readers familiar with the material will be frustrated by the unfocused scholarship, not to mention the jagged contrasts in tone. And many an amateur is going to plow into a sentence like this - "Traditionalists such as the Maccabees overthrew the Seleucid modernizers seeking to bring Judaism into a place of accommodation with Hellenism . . ." - and reach for the remote. A steady, low-grade, dyspeptic irony keeps Bissell at the surface of his subject. At times this takes the form of evoking complicated theological arguments he doesn't engage. ("Why was Judas's soul the price of God's vacation into mortality?") At others he keeps a descriptive distance from human interactions that might challenge or change him. In St. Sernin's Basilica in Toulouse, France, for example, Bissell finds himself momentarily alone in the reliquary when two young Americans come down. "Two young Americans always come down," he says irritably, paving the way for the tiny annihilation that follows. The man's hair is "so gleaming and brown it seemed like an accessory picked to match his outfit," and his sandals show off "the seashell perfection of his toenails." Together he and his wife look like "Mr. and Mrs. Leisure Traveler on their way to a travel magazine cover shoot." IN THIS INSTANCE, Bissell is surprised. The woman discusses the Letter of Jude. She even knows that Paul is called "an Apostle Not of the Twelve. Like Mark and Luke and Barnabas." This leads Bissell to conclude: "A person visiting a Christian church who knew something about Christianity. It had taken me four years, but I finally found her." This sentence occurs late in the book - after beers with the earnest young evangelical Glenn in Rome, after a conversation with a grief-stricken mother and son in Turkey, after countless exchanges with ordinary Christians around the world. The apparent compliment releases an unpleasant current of retroactive contempt. Then there's this: Is being able to recite obscure historical information really what it means to know something about Christianity? Bissell's brief, beautiful last chapter gives some idea of what this book might have been. "What Christianity promises, I do not understand," he begins. "What its god could possibly want, I have never been able to imagine." This sandblasting candor comes as a relief. Bissell has just completed the 500-mile pilgrim walk known as the Camino de Santiago and discovered that he feels . . . not much, really. One hears so many rhapsodic accounts of this walk that Bissell's wry impiety is refreshing - and promising. He goes on to privilege fiction over religion, which is "vulnerable to mere fact." This will be a familiar argument to anyone who reads literature. It will be equally familiar to anyone who has read modern theology. ("Religion may produce deep emotions," Paul Tillich wrote, "but it should not claim to have truth.") In fact, there is a raft of modern scholarship - see Northrop Frye or Jack Miles, for instance - devoted to using literary analysis for theological insight. Which is to say: Bissell's revelation here is a place from which to set out, not a place at which to end. But then, as he himself says of the disciples, all too often "the footprints they left behind lead us to places we long to be led." In one of the apocryphal Gospels, the apostle Peter resurrects a smoked fish. CHRISTIAN WIMAN'S "Hammer Is the Prayer: Selected Poems" will be published in November.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [February 7, 2016]

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Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Bissell, author and a contributor to Harper's and the New Yorker, takes on a formidable task: melding a travelogue with intensive biblical scholarship. From 2007 to 2010, he traveled to the tombs of the 12 Apostles in Rome, Turkey, Jerusalem, even India hoping to make sense of whom these men really were. Or, more accurately, whom legend says they were. Bissell writes with a keen eye about his fellow pilgrims at the tombs: the young Evangelical who, despite his religion's tepid view of the saints, still goes to the resting place of Phillip and James; the Greek guide who can rattle off every fact about John as if they were, well, the gospel truth. But Bissell mostly uses these stops as jumping-off places for an erudite discussion of theology, biblical history, and competing religious theories. At times, the theological discussions turn dense, which makes them juxtapose uneasily with the travelogue portions of the book. Yet just when theology or history becomes too obscure, Bissell offers a startling insight or profound observation that immediately reengages the reader. It also helps that he is a beautiful stylist. On the tomb sites, he says, You feel gusts of anxious longing. This is no ordinary tourist trip through the Holy Land; rather, it's a thoughtful journey and should be savored.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2016 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Bissell (The Disaster Artist) journeyed to the tombs of the apostles, finding some sticky with kisses and others bone-barren. His account of his travels is an excellent cornucopia of history, exegesis, travelogue, biography, analysis, corrective, and hilarity. Bissell, a scholar but not a believer, pairs some disciples (Philip and James) and adds one not of the original twelve (Paul) in this quirky and learned Christology. Each chapter covers an apostle's life story and legend, comparisons of the apostle's appearances throughout the Gospels, and places from Italy to India where relics beckon pilgrims. Bissell includes questions, definitions, traveler's tales, and sprightly interviews with the pilgrims, translators, and docents he meets, and these bolster his Bible commentaries; his accounts are always grounded in his meetings with scholars and church fathers. Even if readers don't care about the apostles, Bissell's style is compelling on its own. His unforced humor is delightful, his wealth of research grounds this formidable apostolic project, and his crafty rhetoric and irresistible charm make it a must-read. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

One might mistake this for a travel book, but that's not quite right. In actuality, Bissell (The Disaster Artist; Magic Hours) visits the tombs traditionally and historically associated with the 12 apostles in what might be more specifically categorized as a travelog of apostolic memory. By his own admission, Bissell is an unbelieving lapsed Catholic whose intent is to "explore the legendary encrustation upon twelve lives about which little is known and even less can be historically verified." The author captures early Christianity's unsteady beginnings and traces its successes through the mythology, theology, history, and politics that permeates the resting places of each of these men in an engaging narrative. His personal ruminations on the quirks and reverence of various faith traditions which now hold the secrets of these far-flung geographic sites are at times humorous, in other places less than reverential, even snarky. He concludes that it might be the power of story which supersedes the faith, an compelling thought to consider. VERDICT Well documented, with an extensive bibliography, this is a full-bodied read for the religiously curious. [See Prepub Alert, 9/28/15.]-Sandra Collins, -Byzantine Catholic Seminary Lib., Pittsburgh © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

A deep dive into the heart of the New Testament, crossing continents and cross-referencing texts. Bissell (Magic Hours: Essays on Creators and Creations, 2012, etc.) delivers an unusual work of Christological travel literature, visiting the alleged tombs of Jesus' disciples, supplementing his journey with close readings of Scripture and ancient church history. At the church sepulchers, which have become tourist attractions, the author met priestly defenders of the faith who make broad claims for the historic relevance of their sites, as well as the many alleged artifacts that go with it, whether it's the remains of Bartholomew in Rome or the bones of Peter in the Vatican. On the page, Bissell finds the Gospels to be a vast, crazy quilt on which every jot and tittle is suspect, from proper names to history, due to both the vagaries of oral tradition as well as the varying translations and competing agendas of copyists, scribes, and leaders. The author examines all these controversies in scholarly depth. Was there really a Judas? Was John actually the Beloved Disciple of history, or was that someone else? Was James actually the stepbrother of Jesus? Were the Gospels written as a reaction to the fact that the second coming did not immediately occur? As a long-lapsed Catholic, Bissell's driving concern is why people still believe, and his somewhat condescending answer is that they simply want to. "To explain the realness of that which we cannot see, we turn to stories left behind by evangelistic writers, working behind their complicated veils of anonymity," he writes. "The footprints they left behind lead us to places we long to be led." Bissell is by turns analytical and cynical, illuminating and, given his passion for splitting etymological hairs, occasionally dry. A rich, contentious, and challenging book. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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From Peter:   IV.   Catholic tradition holds that Peter brought the faith to Rome. Today, the Vatican's view of this long-battered, almost certainly inaccurate belief is highly qualified. The actual founder of Roman Christianity is not known. The scholar Peter Lampe, in his groundbreaking work on the origins of Roman Christianity, used multiple sources--ancient pagan history, scripture, archaeological studies--to determine beyond all reasonable doubt that Roman Christianity began as a number of Jewish cells in some of the poorest Roman neighborhoods, particularly the crowded, stinking, and destitute harbor quarter and brick-making neighborhood of Trastevere. Once established, Christian believers gathered in homes across the city and worshipped according to their own understandings, with no centralized authority. There was evident friction between these new Christians and the city's Jews, one cause of which might have been the Christians' successful efforts to win non-Jewish God fearers* away from the synagogue. The synagogues fought back in some manner dramatic enough to have moved the emperor Claudius to take action. In the late 40s, Claudius banned a large number of "Jews" (early Christians, almost certainly) from Rome. This expulsion marks Roman Christianity's first historical appearance.   Despite its eventual destruction of Jerusalem, Rome was not a fierce enemy of the Jews. In fact, Diaspora Jews frequently sought out Rome's protection, and Rome (Claudius's expulsion edict notwithstanding) usually provided it. Josephus, the great first-century Jewish philosopher Philo, and others suggest that, among Diaspora communities at least, elite Jews could find favor among the Roman authorities. Even during the Jewish War against Rome, Jews did not suffer unusual maltreatment in Rome, provided they did nothing to support the insurrection.   The first Christians in Rome might have anticipated equal benevo­lence: as immigrant slaves, many of them occupied a position of similar social ambiguity. In fact, Christianity likely infiltrated Rome via slavery, as a number of Jewish (and, thus, Jewish Christian) slaves were sold to Roman aristocrats by members of the Herodian dynasty. Later, many Roman Christians voluntarily sold themselves into slavery, the proceeds of which they apparently used to feed the poor in their communities.   The break between Gentile God fearers and Roman Jews did not happen instantly. In all likelihood, a theologically immature form of Christianity reached Rome by the late 30s or early 40s. A decade would go by before Claudius's expulsion edict. During this time, early Roman Christians, many of them former God fearers, most likely periodically attended the synagogues of their choice, and most of the Jews of these synagogues, however grumblingly, tolerated them. One result of Claudius's expulsion was to permanently separate Christians from Rome's synagogues. Less than twenty years later, during the anti-Christian terror of Nero, Jews and Christians were viewed as distinct groups of people.   Well into the third century, not a single Roman church was anything other than a private home. (The world "basilica" does not occur in the Roman tradition until the fourth century.) This lack of a public place of worship made early Christianity much unlike Judaism or paganism; meetings between pagan groups often occurred in private homes, but to worship there was unusual. Yet Roman Christianity as a whole appar­ently had access to quite a bit of money. Various scattered references allow us to infer that by the middle of the second century Roman Chris­tianity was the richest of all the world's Christian communities and had been for some time. Roman support was a good thing for the Christians of the Mediterranean world, but it caused unease among the Christians of Rome, who feared the corruption of the faith as it moved deeper down the corridors of power. The Shepherd of Hermas, a product of early Roman Christianity that dates from the beginning of the second century, contains a devastating portrait of rich, hypocritical Roman Christians.   Just as there were no churches in early Roman Christianity, there were no "popes." There were, perhaps, presbyters or bishop-like figures but no single recognizable leader of the faith. Paul mentions no leader in his letter to the Romans, and neither does Ignatius in his letter to the city, written roughly fifty years later. The first titles of identifiable ecclesiastic authority do not occur before the middle of the third century.   For Catholics, then, it would seem that the only salvageable part of Peter's foundation of the Roman church was the idea that Peter came to Rome and ultimately died there. And now, in the grottoes, Zander and I were getting close to his supposed tomb.   He encouraged me to explore, but much of the area was a red-velvet-rope-lined maze used to corral those not fortunate enough to have Zander guiding them. There were two grottoes: the Old Grottoes (the part contiguous to Saint Peter's nave) and the New Grottoes (a U-shaped gallery beneath the basilica's central crossing), which are older than the Old Grottoes but were opened to visitors later. Hulkingly squat columns divided the Old Grottoes into three aisles festooned with the doorless crypts of several popes and esteemed Catholics, including John Paul I; Queen Christina of Sweden; and Adrian IV, the lone Englishman in the history of the papacy, who had been entombed beneath a Medusa-headed sarcophagus for reasons unknown even to Zander. Also here was Pius XI, whose death had instigated the grottoes' refurbishment.   Hundreds of people were moving through the grottoes' velvet-rope maze in herd-animal silence. Many of them were priests and nuns. No cameras flashed, and no guidebooks were consulted. A good number of the grottoes' visitors seemed in a state of reverently subdued grief. Zander suggested we abscond to the part of the grottoes found directly beneath the basilica's confessio and directly above the site of Peter's purported grave.   Above the archway leading into this space was a carved marble scroll sculpture, on which was written sepulcrum sancti petri apostoli . On either side of the archway, a stone lion lay with its paws forward. Mounted nearby was a pair of angel statues salvaged from Constantine's Basilica. The archway itself was roped off. Zander seemed genuinely pained he could provide no escort closer than this to the "tomb," which seemed to glow within a soft ocher light that had no immediately discernible source, other than, possibly, God.   The anti-Christian emperor Julian the Apostate once rather cunningly condemned the Christian practice of revered burial: "You have filled the whole world with tombs and sepulchers, and yet in your scriptures it is nowhere said that you must grovel among tombs and pay them honor." There was a time, however, when Christians venerated the dead by drink­ing half a bottle of wine with a few like-minded friends beside small memorials; when secrecy governed all ritual; when proofs of faith were more personal if no less strongly felt. A few scattered leavings of this abandoned form of Christian devotion could be found in the necropolis, toward which Zander and I now headed.       * Again, pagans who took an interest in the god of the Jews, attended synagogue, or maintained some of Judaism's behavioral requirements. Excerpted from Apostle: Travels among the Tombs of the Twelve by Tom Bissell All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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