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.

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.

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.

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 gatherthe 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 studyof 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 withcrucial information about the manuscript tradition of the different texts and provide a terminus ante quem for their composition based only on external evidence.

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.

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.

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.