Overview
Today's society is uncomfortable with death, and willingly submitting to a violent and ostentatious death in public is seen as particularly shocking and unusual. Yet classical sources give a different view, with public self-sacrifice often being applauded -- the Romans admired a heroic end in the battlefield or the arena, suicide in the tradition of Socrates was something laudable, and Christians and Jews alike faithfully commemorated their heroes who died during religious persecutions. This volume explores the fascinating phenomenon of noble death through pagan, Jewish and Christian sources. The authors look at Jewish and Christian articulations of noble death as martyrdom, asking how we construct the figure of a martyr, and what makes a passage a 'martyr text'. The main body of the book combines accessible introductions with a wide range of relevant translated texts, dating from the eighth century BCE to the rabbinic period (up to the fifth century CE) The cross cultural approach and wide chronological range of this study make it valuable for students and scholars of ancient history, religion and literature.
Full Product Details
Author: Friedrich Avemarie ,
Jan Willem van Henten
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint: Routledge
Dimensions:
Width: 13.80cm
, Height: 1.70cm
, Length: 21.60cm
Weight: 0.279kg
ISBN: 9780415138918
ISBN 10: 0415138914
Pages: 216
Publication Date: 07 February 2002
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
General/trade
,
Undergraduate
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
This volume aims at offering undergraduate students in various disciplines (religion, classics, Jewish studies, etc.) a survey of ancient sources about those kinds of noble death that can be called martyrdom or are rather similar to martyrdom...as a sourcebook, it has fuller introductions to the texts than most... New Testament Abstracts March 2003 _. <br>
"""This volume aims at offering undergraduate students in various disciplines (religion, classics, Jewish studies, etc.) a survey of ancient sources about those kinds of""noble death"" that can be called martyrdom or are rather similar to martyrdom...as a sourcebook, it has fuller introductions to the texts than most... ""New Testament Abstracts March 2003 _."""
""This volume aims at offering undergraduate students in various disciplines (religion, classics, Jewish studies, etc.) a survey of ancient sources about those kinds of""noble death"" that can be called martyrdom or are rather similar to martyrdom...as a sourcebook, it has fuller introductions to the texts than most... ""New Testament Abstracts March 2003 _.""
Author Information
Jan Willem van Henten holds the chair in New Testament and Hellenistic Jewish literature at the University of Amsterdam. He is director of the Netherlands School for Advanced Studies in Theology and Religion (NOSTER). His publications include Studies in Early Jewish Epigraphy (edited with P. W. van der Horst, 1994) and The Maccabean Martyrs as Saviours of the Jewish People (1997)., Friedrich Avemarie is a research and teaching assistant at the Institut für antikes Judentum und hellenistische Religionsgeschichte, Evangelisch-theologische Fakultät, University of Tübingen. His most recent publication is Die Taufberichte der Apostelgeschichte: Theologie und Geschichte (1999, 2001).
