Early Christian Martyr Stories

Early Christian Martyr Stories PDF Author: Bryan M. Litfin
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 1441220070
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Personal narratives are powerful instruments for teaching, both for conveying information and for forming character. The martyrdom accounts preserved in the literature of early Christianity are especially intense and dramatic. However, these narratives are not readily available and are often written in intimidating prose, making them largely inaccessible for the average reader. This introductory text brings together key early Christian martyrdom stories in a single volume, offering new, easy-to-read translations and expert commentary. An introduction and explanatory notes accompany each translation. The book not only provides a vivid window into the world of early Christianity but also offers spiritual encouragement and inspiration for Christian life today.

Early Christian Martyr Stories

Early Christian Martyr Stories PDF Author: Bryan M. Litfin
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 1441220070
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Get Book Here

Book Description
Personal narratives are powerful instruments for teaching, both for conveying information and for forming character. The martyrdom accounts preserved in the literature of early Christianity are especially intense and dramatic. However, these narratives are not readily available and are often written in intimidating prose, making them largely inaccessible for the average reader. This introductory text brings together key early Christian martyrdom stories in a single volume, offering new, easy-to-read translations and expert commentary. An introduction and explanatory notes accompany each translation. The book not only provides a vivid window into the world of early Christianity but also offers spiritual encouragement and inspiration for Christian life today.

The Myth of Persecution

The Myth of Persecution PDF Author: Candida Moss
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062104543
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
An expert on early Christianity reveals how the early church invented stories of Christian martyrs—and how this persecution myth persists today. According to church tradition and popular belief, early Christians were systematically persecuted by a brutal Roman Empire intent on their destruction. As the story goes, vast numbers of believers were thrown to the lions, tortured, or burned alive because they refused to renounce Christ. But as Candida Moss reveals in The Myth of Persecution, the “Age of Martyrs” is a fiction. There was no sustained 300-year-long effort by the Romans to persecute Christians. Instead, these stories were pious exaggerations; highly stylized rewritings of Jewish, Greek, and Roman noble death traditions; and even forgeries designed to marginalize heretics, inspire the faithful, and fund churches. The traditional story of persecution is still invoked by church leaders, politicians, and media pundits who insist that Christians were—and always will be—persecuted by a hostile, secular world. While violence against Christians does occur in select parts of the world today, the rhetoric of persecution is both misleading and rooted in an inaccurate history of the early church. By shedding light on the historical record, Moss urges modern Christians to abandon the conspiratorial assumption that the world is out to get them.

Martyrdom and Noble Death

Martyrdom and Noble Death PDF Author: Jan Willem van Henten
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415138918
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
This volume explores the fascinating phenomenon of noble death through pagan, Jewish and Christian sources. The cross-cultural approach of this study make it valuable for students and scholars.

Ancient Christian Martyrdom

Ancient Christian Martyrdom PDF Author: Candida R. Moss
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300154658
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Using perspectives on death from ancient Greek, Roman and Jewish traditions, a theology professor discusses the history of Christian martyrdom and challenges the traditional understanding of the spread of Christianity.

I Am A Christian

I Am A Christian PDF Author: Anthony P. Schiavo, Jr.
Publisher: Arx Publishing, LLC
ISBN: 1935228188
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
"Jesus never existed." "The Bible is a book of fairy tales." "Accounts of Christian persecution are fables." Christians of today face ridiculous claims of this type on a regular basis. These charges gain traction in the modern world because the average person has practically no knowledge of the Church's ancient past. I Am A Christian: Authentic Accounts of Christian Martyrdom and Persecution from the Ancient Sources aims to remedy this deficiency. The works collected in this book represent some of the most trustworthy first-hand accounts of the triumphs and travails of the early Church that have survived antiquity. These include several authentic transcripts of Roman legal proceedings against Christians, along with obscure but fascinating historical works that are unfamiliar to even the most informed Christians of today. In several cases, readers will be presented with the actual words of the martyrs themselves. In others, they will read accounts penned by eye-witnesses or authors writing within the living memory of the events themselves. Taken together, these works form a glorious record of early Christian zeal and fortitude in the face of aggressive state persecution. When reading them, one notices a common refrain: when questioned, the accused would cry out: “I am a Christian,” which was the equivalent of saying, “I am guilty as charged.” In an era when such an admission carried a death sentence, these authentic testimonies provide a convincing answer to modern skeptics who will find them as baffling as did the ancient Roman emperors, proconsuls and magistrates of nearly two millennia ago.

Martyrdom and Memory

Martyrdom and Memory PDF Author: Elizabeth Anne Castelli
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231129862
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
Utilising a wide range of early sources, this title identifies the roots of the concept of Christian martyrdom, as lloking at how it has been expressed in events such as the shootings at Columbine High School in 1999.

Perfect Martyr

Perfect Martyr PDF Author: Shelly Matthews
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199924651
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
This book analyzes the story of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, both in terms of rhetorical fittingness, and Christian tradition concerning the significance of his dying forgiveness prayer. It questions the historicity of the account of his death, underscores Acts' rhetorical violence, and reads Acts against narratives of the martyrdom of James as a means to a richer history of early Jewish-Christian relations.

Christian Martyrs Under Islam

Christian Martyrs Under Islam PDF Author: Christian C. Sahner
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069120313X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
A look at the developing conflicts in Christian-Muslim relations during late antiquity and the early Islamic era How did the medieval Middle East transform from a majority-Christian world to a majority-Muslim world, and what role did violence play in this process? Christian Martyrs under Islam explains how Christians across the early Islamic caliphate slowly converted to the faith of the Arab conquerors and how small groups of individuals rejected this faith through dramatic acts of resistance, including apostasy and blasphemy. Using previously untapped sources in a range of Middle Eastern languages, Christian Sahner introduces an unknown group of martyrs who were executed at the hands of Muslim officials between the seventh and ninth centuries CE. Found in places as diverse as Syria, Spain, Egypt, and Armenia, they include an alleged descendant of Muhammad who converted to Christianity, high-ranking Christian secretaries of the Muslim state who viciously insulted the Prophet, and the children of mixed marriages between Muslims and Christians. Sahner argues that Christians never experienced systematic persecution under the early caliphs, and indeed, they remained the largest portion of the population in the greater Middle East for centuries after the Arab conquest. Still, episodes of ferocious violence contributed to the spread of Islam within Christian societies, and memories of this bloodshed played a key role in shaping Christian identity in the new Islamic empire. Christian Martyrs under Islam examines how violence against Christians ended the age of porous religious boundaries and laid the foundations for more antagonistic Muslim-Christian relations in the centuries to come.

Foxe's Christian Martyrs of the World

Foxe's Christian Martyrs of the World PDF Author: John Foxe
Publisher: Moody Publishers
ISBN: 9780802428721
Category : Christian martyrs
Languages : en
Pages : 590

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Book Description
For centuries Christians have been brought up on the works of John Foxe, which, outside of the Bible itself, have been among the most widely read documents in history. Foxe's Martyrs has inspired millions to live lives of commitment in the face of persecution.

Torture of the Christian Martyrs

Torture of the Christian Martyrs PDF Author: Antonio Gallonio
Publisher: Olympia Press
ISBN: 1626575096
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
The legendary treatise on how so many died at the hands of Roman and Pagan aggressors. In good Catholic fashion, the work is heavy on the descriptions, showing who and how and where they died, with attention paid to each and every sin, in graphic detail... with loads of illustrations.