the twelve

If the One True God came to earth and chose twelve men to lead, those men would be known the world over, to the four winds, right?

Well how many can you name? I’m pretty bible-literate and can only name half the dozen, 4 of whom are brothers.

What gives?

Follow up thoughts:

– The Eastern communions will undoubtedly have a more rich mythos of all 12, but that’s still not the world…

– The answer is gonna be located in the nature of the Christian gospel and God/Kingdom they witnessed to (not of this world etc.) right? But why the relative visibility split? Half remembered, half (culturally?) forgotten?

– The God-man was the one they magnified, and everyone’s heard of Jesus?

– Their presence in John’s Apocalypse etc. seems to indicate an enduring importance for all 12 that doesn’t align with their earthly prestige (that never has?).

– The Pope enjoys the scale of recognition you’d expect for the twelve, so maybe that speaks to their work-and his apostolic see, I guess.

– But then, the Roman church is built on Peter and Paul, with a bit of John. Has the non-Christian world even heard of these 3?

– Now who got in the Bible (in both ways) seems like the deciding factor.

– So it’s a media ecology question? But then why pick 12 and only have 6 leave a civilisation-defining artefact? (maybe this is the real question)

– Maybe like 50AD everyone in the known world knew one of the apostles or something, no can’t imagine it, and Paul did Spain way later.

– There just seems something profound being said in the split of 6 (7! Paul) remembered, 6 (7! Matthias) forgotten. What does that difference reveal? (I feel like Andrew and Matthew could go either way, but the equal split is nice)

– Like these men are *still alive* and the majority of communions thinks they can be prayed to. So do (Philip, Bartholomew, James 2, Simon 2, Judas 2 + Matthias) have a different role in the kingdom ? But then they were all given the same commission.