The Death of James, son of Zebedee-- Interesting Random Facts
[I'm double dipping here.  I already wrote about this in my review of Claudius the God.  But I thought this would also work independently as part of my Interesting Random Facts project.]

James, son of Zebedee is the only apostle to be martyred in the pages of the New Testament. 
Church tradition is that almost all of the 12 apostles were martyred.  But this is church tradition, and not in the Bible.  (Bonus extra fact--there is one exception to the martyr tradition--John, who is believed by the church to have lived into old age (W).)

...Although.... according to the 18th-century historian Edward Gibbon, early Christians (second half of the second century and first half of the third century) believed that only Peter, Paul, and James, son of Zebedee, were martyred. The remainder of the claims of martyred apostles do not rely upon historical or biblical evidence. (W)  This, if true, would undermine claims of Christian apologists like Lee Strobel, who argue that the fact that the disciples willingly gave their lives for the cause proves the resurrection must be real. 
But all of that is just by-the-by.  The thing I really want to talk about is the death of James, Son of Zebedee.

The death of James son of Zebedee as written in the book of Acts is something that always used to confuse me from my Sunday School days.  Church tradition makes such a big deal out of venerating the martyrs.  And James son of Zebedee was one of the most important disciples. (The infamous trio of Peter, James, and John.)  And James is the only disciple who dies in the New Testament.

But if you read the book of Acts, the writer treats it as an aside. 
Stephen, who wasn't even one of the original 12, gets a huge death scene, which covers 3 chapters in the book of Acts, in which long speeches are given and everyone reflects on the martyrdom.  But James?  He's just killed off in one verse.  And not only that, he doesn't even get his own death story.  It's just mentioned as a brief set-up to the main story, which is about Peter being imprisoned:

Acts 12
1 About that time King Herod laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the church. 2 He had James, the brother of John, killed with the sword. 3 After he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. (This was during the festival of Unleavened Bread.) 4 When he had seized him, he put him in prison and handed him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending to bring him out to the people after the Passover. 5 While Peter was kept in prison, the church prayed fervently to God for him.

...and then the whole rest of the chapter is about the story of Peter.  No more is said about James. 
Not only does that confuse from a literary point of view (doesn't James get a better death scene than this?), it also confuses from a theological point of view.  The whole point of the rest of the chapter is how Peter was saved through the power of God and the power of prayer.  But, then, what about James?  Where was God when James was getting put to the sword?