This book situates Acts’ story of Stephen’s death within the emerging discourse of early Christian martyrdom, challenging the historicity of this narrative and arguing for its significance in constructing a social group of Christians, distinct from “the Jews.” It analyzes Stephen as the perfect martyr in terms of rhetorical fittingness, noting key aspects of the story perfectly suited to the rhetorical aims of Luke-Acts to denigrate nonbelieving Jews, to affirm Roman imperial views on security, and to introduce “marcionite” identity claims concerning the distinctiveness of Christian mercy. It ... More

This book situates Acts’ story of Stephen’s death within the emerging discourse of early Christian martyrdom, challenging the historicity of this narrative and arguing for its significance in constructing a social group of Christians, distinct from “the Jews.” It analyzes Stephen as the perfect martyr in terms of rhetorical fittingness, noting key aspects of the story perfectly suited to the rhetorical aims of Luke-Acts to denigrate nonbelieving Jews, to affirm Roman imperial views on security, and to introduce “marcionite” identity claims concerning the distinctiveness of Christian mercy. It also analyzes the Christian tradition that Stephen was perfected through his dying forgiveness prayer. This distinctive prayer proved more radical than Gospel teaching on enemy love since the plea for forgiveness of undeserving persecutors, more so than the enemy love exhortation, posed a challenge to notions of cosmic justice. The prayer was frequently read intransitively, as idealizing the one who so prays, without having any effect on the prayer’s object, thereby functioning analogously to the Roman discourse of clemency. Those who read the prayer otherwise landed upon this radical challenge, which explains the prayer’s complicated reception history. The book also introduces related extracanonical narratives of the martyrdom of James in Hegesippus, Josephus, and the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions to disrupt the perfect coherence and singularity of the canonical narrative and to evoke a more complex historical narrative of violence, solidarity, and resistance among Jews and Christians under empire.