The Early Martyr Narratives


The Early Martyr Narratives
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The Early Martyr Narratives


The Early Martyr Narratives
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Author : Éric Rebillard
language : en
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Release Date : 2020-11-27

The Early Martyr Narratives written by Éric Rebillard and has been published by University of Pennsylvania Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2020-11-27 with Religion categories.


From Eusebius of Caesarea, who first compiled a collection of martyr narratives around 300, to Thierry Ruinart, whose Acta primorum martyrum sincera et selecta was published in 1689, the selection and study of early hagiographic narratives has been founded on an assumption that there existed documents written at the time of martyrdom, or very close to it. As a result, a search for authenticity has been and continues to be central, even in the context of today's secular scholarship. But, as Éric Rebillard contends, the alternative approach, to set aside entirely the question of the historical reliability of martyr narratives, is not satisfactory either. Instead, he argues that martyr narratives should be consider as fluid "living texts," written anonymously and received by audiences not as precise historical reports but as versions of the story. In other words, the form these texts took, between fact and fiction, made it possible for audiences to readily accept the historicity of the martyr while at the same time not expect to hear or read a truthful account. In The Early Martyr Narratives, Rebillard considers only accounts of Christian martyrs supposed to have been executed before 260, and only those whose existence is attested in sources that can be dated to before 300. The resulting small corpus contains no texts in the form of legal protocols, traditionally viewed as the earliest, most official and authentic records, nor does it include any that can be dated to a period during which persecution of Christians is known to have taken place. Rather than deduce from this that they are forgeries written for the sake of polemic or apologetic, Rebillard demonstrates how the literariness of the narratives creates a fictional complicity that challenges and complicates any claims of these narratives to be truthful.



Early Christian Martyr Stories


Early Christian Martyr Stories
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Author : Bryan M. Litfin
language : en
Publisher: Baker Academic
Release Date : 2014-09-30

Early Christian Martyr Stories written by Bryan M. Litfin and has been published by Baker Academic this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2014-09-30 with Religion categories.


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.



Greek And Latin Narratives About The Ancient Martyrs


Greek And Latin Narratives About The Ancient Martyrs
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Author : ric Rebillard
language : en
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release Date : 2019-08-08

Greek And Latin Narratives About The Ancient Martyrs written by ric Rebillard and has been published by Oxford University Press, USA this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2019-08-08 with Religion categories.


Greek and Latin Narratives about the Ancient Martyrs provides a collection, with facing-page translations, of Greek and Latin Christian martyr narratives dating from the first four centuries CE. While Herbert Musurillo's authoritative collection The Acts of the Martyrs (1972) aimed to gather the most 'authentic' and 'reliable' accounts of early Christian martyrdom, Eric Rebillard argues that modern scholarship instead calls for texts which attest to the contexts in which the memories of the martyrs were constructed. As such, this extensive volume provides a textual basis for the study of martyr narratives without making assumptions about their date of composition or their authenticity. It focuses on the ancient martyrs executed before 260, and examines which of their texts was known to Eusebius or to Augustine. Introductions describe the hagiographical dossier of each martyr with crucial information about the manuscript tradition of the different texts and provide a terminus ante quem for their composition based only on external evidence.



The Myth Of Persecution


The Myth Of Persecution
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Author : Candida Moss
language : en
Publisher: Harper Collins
Release Date : 2013-03-05

The Myth Of Persecution written by Candida Moss and has been published by Harper Collins this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2013-03-05 with Religion categories.


In The Myth of Persecution, Candida Moss, a leading expert on early Christianity, reveals how the early church exaggerated, invented, and forged stories of Christian martyrs and how the dangerous legacy of a martyrdom complex is employed today to silence dissent and galvanize a new generation of culture warriors. According to cherished church tradition and popular belief, before the Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal in the fourth century, 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. These saints, Christianity's inspirational heroes, are still venerated today. Moss, however, exposes that 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 taught in Sunday school classes, celebrated in sermons, and employed 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. Moss urges modern Christians to abandon the conspiratorial assumption that the world is out to get Christians and, rather, embrace the consolation, moral instruction, and spiritual guidance that these martyrdom stories provide.



Martyrdom And Memory


Martyrdom And Memory
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Author : Elizabeth Castelli
language : en
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Release Date : 2004-10-15

Martyrdom And Memory written by Elizabeth Castelli and has been published by Columbia University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2004-10-15 with Religion categories.


Martyrs are produced, Elizabeth Castelli suggests, not by the lived experience of particular historical individuals but by the stories that are later told about them. And the formulaic character of stories about past suffering paradoxically serves specific theological, cultural, or political ends in the present. Martyrdom and Memory explores the central role of persecution in the early development of Christian ideas, institutions, and cultural forms and shows how the legacy of Christian martyrdom plays out in today's world. In the pre-Constantinian imperial period, the conflict between Roman imperial powers and the subject Christian population hinged on competing interpretations of power, submission, resistance, and victory. This book highlights how both Roman and Christian notions of law and piety deployed the same forms of censure and critique, each accusing the other of deviations from governing conventions of gender, reason, and religion. Using Maurice Halbwachs's theoretical framework of collective memory and a wide range of Christian sources—autobiographical writings, martyrologies and saints'lives, sermons, art objects, pilgrimage souvenirs, and polemics about spectacle—Castelli shows that the writings of early Christians aimed to create public and ideologically potent accounts of martyrdom. The martyr's story becomes a "usable past" and a "living tradition" for Christian communities and an especially effective vehicle for transmitting ideas about gender, power, and sanctity. An unlikely legacy of early Christian martyrdom is the emergence of modern "martyr cults" in the wake of the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School. Focusing specifically on the martyr cult associated with one of the victims, Martyrdom and Memory argues that the Columbine story dramatically expresses the ongoing power of collective memory constructed around a process of rendering tragic suffering redemptive and meaningful. In the wake of Columbine and other contemporary legacies of martyrdom's ethical ambivalence, the global impact of Christian culture making in the early twenty-first century cannot be ignored. For as the last century's secularist hypothesis sits in the wings, "religion" returns to center stage with one of this drama's most contentious yet riveting stars: the martyr.



The Cross Or Prosperity Gospel


The Cross Or Prosperity Gospel
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Author : Kwaku Boamah
language : en
Publisher: Langham Publishing
Release Date : 2022-05-30

The Cross Or Prosperity Gospel written by Kwaku Boamah and has been published by Langham Publishing this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2022-05-30 with Religion categories.


Are Christians meant to experience suffering? This question has long been a contentious one within the church. Christ is risen, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, yet sickness, poverty, and persecution continue to be daily realities for Christians around the world. In this study of martyrdom and persecution in the early church, Rev. Dr. Kwaku Boamah reminds us that there is no Christianity without a cross and that suffering has played a prominent role in church theology and tradition since the time of Christ. Examining second- and third-century apologetic texts and martyr narratives, he utilizes a systematic comparative approach to create a holistic picture of the extreme challenges facing Christians under the Roman Empire. Drawing parallels to the history of persecution and martyrdom in his homeland of Ghana, Boamah locates the experience of African Christianity firmly within the larger narrative of church history, reminding Christians that they are not alone in their suffering but are members of a global, unified whole.



Donatist Martyr Stories


Donatist Martyr Stories
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Author : Maureen A. Tilley
language : en
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Release Date : 1996-01-01

Donatist Martyr Stories written by Maureen A. Tilley and has been published by Liverpool University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 1996-01-01 with Religion categories.


With this volume, Donatism regains its voice and its hagiography is available in English for the first time. The stories included provide a unique opportunity to glimpse the daily life of the church which for over a century was the faith of the majority of North African Christians. The narratives represent the lives and deaths of Christians who carried on pre-Constantine traditions from the fourth century to the advent of Islam.



Desiring Martyrs


Desiring Martyrs
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Author : Harry O. Maier
language : en
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Release Date : 2020-12-16

Desiring Martyrs written by Harry O. Maier and has been published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2020-12-16 with History categories.


Martyrs create space and time through the actions they take, the fate they suffer, the stories they prompt, the cultural narratives against which they take place and the retelling of their tales in different places and contexts. The title "Desiring Martyrs" is meant in two senses. First, it refers to protagonists and antagonists of the martyrdom narratives who as literary characters seek martyrs and the way they inscribe certain kinds of cultural and social desire. Second, it describes the later celebration of martyrs via narrative, martyrdom acts, monuments, inscriptions, martyria, liturgical commemoration, pilgrimage, etc. Here there is a cultural desire to tell or remember a particular kind of story about the past that serves particular communal interests and goals. By applying the spatial turn to these ancient texts the volume seeks to advance a still nascent social geographical understanding of emergent Christian and Jewish martyrdom. It explores how martyr narratives engage pre-existing time-space configurations to result in new appropriations of earlier traditions.



Divine Deliverance


Divine Deliverance
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Author : L. Stephanie Cobb
language : en
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Release Date : 2017

Divine Deliverance written by L. Stephanie Cobb and has been published by Univ of California Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017 with Religion categories.


Imprint -- Subvention -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- 1. Bodies in Pain: Ancient and Modern Horizons of Expectation -- 2. Text and Audience: Activating and Obstructing Expectations -- 3. Divine Analgesia: Painlessness in a Pain-Filled World -- 4. Whose Pain?: Pain as a Locus of Meaning in Christian Martyr Texts -- 5. Narratives and Counternarratives: Discourse and Early Christian Martyr Texts -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index



Dying For God


Dying For God
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Author : Daniel Boyarin
language : en
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Release Date : 1999

Dying For God written by Daniel Boyarin and has been published by Stanford University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 1999 with Religion categories.


Scholars have come to realize that we can and need to speak of a twin birth of Christianity and Judaism, not a genealogy in which one is parent to the other. In this book, the author develops a revised understanding of the interactions between nascent Christianity and nascent Judaism in late antiquity.