He appointed twelve, that they might be with him, and that he might send them out to preach,
World English Bible
This verse is examined in more than one Scripture Analysis section. Each lens is shown on its own terms, in the section's own words; GEBible reaches no verdict of its own.
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He appointed twelve, that they might be with him, and that he might send them out to preach,
World English Bible
Historical claims about the natural world, weighed against the scientific record.
The scientific record: Medical competence requires structured training, and clinical knowledge and skill cannot be transferred to a person instantaneously. (NIH)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
The New Testament gives four lists of the Twelve (Matt 10:2-4; Mark 3:14-19; Luke 6:13-16; Acts 1:13) and they don't match. Matthew and Mark name "Thaddaeus" (or in some Matthean manuscripts "Lebbaeus whose surname was Thaddaeus"); Luke and Acts replace this figure with "Judas the brother of James"; and Simon is called "the Cananaean" in Matthew/Mark and "the Zealot" in Luke/Acts.
Critical scholarship: Genuinely disputed among scholars.
The proposed answers and sources for each reading are on the question page.
Each section sets the viewpoints side by side; you weigh the evidence. Here, "critical scholarship" means academic study, not a value judgment. How this is built →
Within each section, grouped by shared field or question type — not a cross-section comparison.
One of these tensions involves a difference in wording across manuscripts or translations. Examine the original language on Lemma →
This citation refers to this GEBible page — the verse and the analysis gathered here. To cite the underlying scholarship, cite those sources directly.
"Mark 3:14 — Scripture Analysis" GEBible, https://gebible.app/analysis/verse/mark/3/14?version=WEB (retrieved 27 August 2026).