The Training of the Twelve

One of Jesus' most important endeavors during His short ministry involved the preparation of His twelve disciples for the work they would need to accomplish. The importance of studying Jesus' methodologies cannot be overstated. While there is much we can learn from His words and deeds, it is His work in training the disciples that facilitated the promotion and growth of the Kingdom in the first century. If we would become His disciples, we must sit at His feet and be trained by Him as He trained the twelve. The Training of the Twelve was written in the face of growing doubt about the legitimacy of the Gospels as authentic witnesses to the life and work of Jesus. In The Training of the Twelve, Bruce seeks to prove that the portrayal of Jesus and His disciples is authentic, and therefore their message is believable as revealed in the New Testament. Whereas the nineteenth century liberal scholars were saying that the disciples invented the story of Jesus, The Training of the Twelve provides sufficient proof that it is Jesus who transforms the disciples into the Apostles, and that their testimony is true. This compelling defense of the portrayal of Jesus and His disciples in the Gospel accounts is, if anything, even more necessary now than it was when it was first written. Scholars today continue to perpetuate many of the claims of the nineteenth century liberal scholars and have even gone beyond them in denying the legitimacy of the Gospel accounts of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a world that believes in a distinction between the "historical Jesus" and the "Jesus of faith," The Training of the Twelve demonstrates that the two are really one and the same. Excerpted from Introduction