Talk:Christian martyrs
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I read The Christ Conspiracy by Acharya S. In her introduction, she mentioned that early Christian martyrs were less than tradition reports.
Question: From 34 A.D. to 135 A.D., Christian martyrdom did not consist of Christians being fed to the lions in the Coliseum? They were not singled out, a wider category of people were made sport of?
About This Article In G.P. Baker's Constantine the Great and the Christian Revolution, Christians suffered under Galerius. The author makes the point that a few Christians who had the character to make a stand against the oppression, did suffer torture while others were average people who thought life had other matters which required attention. Most people went back to their lives after being allowed release on the condition of recanting their faith. The few who chose not to bend found their life's purpose to stand against religious oppresion.
Baker reports that governors enforced the edicts against Christians with imprisonment and torture but killing Christians was not prevalent. He mentions the Fourth Edict that made the penalthy of being Christian death but the few, dozens, or hundreds are not determined. Can someone comment on this.
I'll look up crucifixion in Wikipedia next time. I think there is no doubt that there have been mass punishment by crucifixion conducted by the Ancient Romans. This may have been done in Ancient Palestine, perhaps 70 AD and 135 AD. Were more Hebrews killed in 70 AD and 135 AD than Christians at any time?
The Hebrew revolts, in my historical recollection, were blatant whereas the Christian threat at anytime and particularly identified by Galerius was more of a cultural phenomenon of a growing religion.
Baker says while the Roman military preferred Mithraism, the commercial class preferred Christianity.
[edit] Rewrite
This article needs a major rewrite. Martyrdom referes to a specific religious concept in Christian traditions, but 'martyrs' cannot be presented in list if the article is going to comply with NPOV. Rather one needs to assert the Christian concept of martyrdom in general, differences between different Christian denomination in regards to Martyrdom concepts and if someone is listed as a 'martyr' then it should be clear exactly who claims martydom for that specific person. The people who executed Jan Hus hardly saw themselves as anything less than Christians. --Soman 16:00, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
