no evidence that they ever existed. They are not mentioned except in
the New Testament books, which, as we shall see, are "supposed" copies
of "supposed" originals. If Peter ever went to Rome with a new
doctrine, how is it that no historian has taken note of him? If Paul
visited Athens and preached from Mars Hill, how is it that there is no
mention of him or of his strange Gospel in the Athenian chronicles?
For all we know, both Peter and Paul may have really existed, but it
is only a guess, as we have no means of ascertaining. The uncertainty
about the apostles of Jesus is quite in keeping with the uncertainty
about Jesus himself.

The report that Jesus had twelve apostles seems also mythical. The
number twelve, like the number seven, or three, or forty, plays an
important role in all Sun-myths, and points to the twelve signs of the
Zodiac. Jacob had twelve sons; there were twelve tribes of Israel;
twelve months in the year; twelve gates or pillars of heaven, etc. In
many of the religions of the world, the number twelve is sacred. There
have been few god-saviors who did not have twelve apostles or
messengers. In one or two places, in the New Testament, Jesus is made
to send out "the seventy" to evangelize the world. Here again we see
the presence of a myth. It was believed that there were seventy
different nations in the world--to each nation an apostle. Seventy
wise men are supposed to have translated the Old Testament, sitting in
seventy different cells. That is why their translation is called
"_the Septuagint_" But it is all a legend, as there is no evidence of
seventy scholars working in seventy individual cells on the Hebrew
Bible. One of the Church Fathers declares that he saw these seventy
cells with his own eyes. He was the only one who saw them.

That the "Twelve Apostles" are fanciful may he inferred from the