Martyrdom and Persecution in the New Testament

Abstract

This essay examines martyrdom and persecution in the New Testament. First, Jewish persecution of the Church is considered as reflected in Acts, Paul, Matthew, and John, before turning to Roman persecution in Paul, Mark, Revelation and other New Testament texts. It is argued that the model of Jesus is paradigmatic for the way in which early Christians accounted for their own experiences of persecution. Finally, in light of recent literature suggesting persecution was largely invented by Christians, I considers the extent to which the New Testament presentation of the church as a persecuted body could reflect the social situation of the early Christians, arguing that Pliny's “prosecution” of the Christians of Bithynia, would have been experienced as a reasonably large scale persecution. Moreover, this trial setting could well have been found earlier in most parts of the empire, which accounts for the way in which New Testament text invest so much in persuading their readers to confess rather than deny should they come to trial.

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