This volume explores the fascinating phenomenon of noble death through pagan, Jewish and Christian sources. 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. The cross-cultural approach and wide chronological range of this study make it valuable for students and scholars of ancient history, religion and literature.

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).

INTRODUCTION; Chapter 1 PAGAN TRADITIONS OF NOBLE DEATH; Chapter 2 NOBLE DEATH IN EARLY JEWISH SOURCES; Chapter 3 CHRISTIAN MARTYRS FROM THE FIRST TO THE THIRD CENTURY CE; Chapter 4 MARTYRDOM AND NOBLE DEATH IN THE RABBINIC TRADITION; BIBLIOGRAPHY; Index;