Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text: Ideas
The customs, offices and ideas a first reader knew without being told, what each meant then, and the nearest thing you already know.
Martyrs
Jews remembered those who died rather than break God's law, above all the Maccabean martyrs tortured under Antiochus, and the prophets said to have been stoned or sawn in two. Their hope was the resurrection.
Every nation tells the stories of those who would not bow, even when it cost them everything. In 167 BC the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes tried to stamp out Jewish practice. Those who kept the law were whipped, tortured and killed, and their stories, told in the books of the Maccabees, were known to nearly every Jew. One family of brothers died with their mother, declaring that God would raise them. Jews also told of prophets killed for their message, Isaiah sawn in two under King Manasseh and Jeremiah stoned. By the first century the martyr was a hero whose reward waited at the resurrection.
Nearly all Jews knew the stories of the Maccabean martyrs, tortured by scalding, flaying and the wheel. Regular Greek torture included fire, thumbscrews and stretching on a wheel to break the joints, and the martyrs were scourged as well. Josephus writes of Antiochus's victims: "they were whipped with rods, and their bodies were torn to pieces, and were crucified, while they were still alive, and breathed" (Antiquities 12.5.4). Their hope was the resurrection. All Jewish sources that addressed the question agreed that martyrs would be honored at the resurrection, and 2 Maccabees makes that the hope that let them endure. Wright recalls the brothers and their mother who declared, as they were tortured, that God would raise them bodily. The Greek-speaking Jewish work 4 Maccabees applied the image of athletes in a contest to the martyrs, and said they looked to God as they endured. The earlier martyrs held that breaking the commandments to save one's life profaned God's name in public. Some Jewish teachers allowed most laws to be broken to save a life. Jewish literature also gave martyrs a past. Abel was counted the first. Tradition told of prophets killed for their message: Isaiah, hiding in a tree, sawn in two under Manasseh, and Jeremiah stoned. Charles introduces the Jewish Martyrdom of Isaiah, which survives inside the later Ascension of Isaiah. He retells how Manasseh "caused Isaiah to be sawn asunder with a wood saw", and notes that Origen already tied the story to Hebrews 11:37.
An analogy: the resistance fighters a country names its streets after, whose stories every schoolchild learns. Remembering them tells the next generation what loyalty may cost.
The roll of those tortured, stoned and sawn in two in Hebrews 11:35-37 draws on martyr stories every Jewish reader knew. Jesus counts the blood of the prophets from Abel onward against his generation in Matthew 23:35, and the souls under the altar in Revelation 6:9-10 ask how long until their blood is avenged.
Not fighters who fell in battle. The martyrs were killed for refusing to break God's law or to stop speaking his word, and their honor came from faithfulness under torture. Their hope also lay beyond the nation's memory: every Jewish source that took up the question expected them to be honored at the resurrection.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/hebrews-11-32-40\/","n":"Hebrews 11:32-40, Sawn in two, dressed in skins","s":"Time fails to tell of the judges, David, Samuel and the prophets, who conquered kingdoms and escaped the sword. Others were tortured and refused release to gain a better resurrection; they were mocked, flogged, chained, stoned, sawn in two, and wandered in skins and caves, people the world was not worthy of.","r":"Hebrews 11:32-40"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/hebrews-12-1-13\/","n":"Hebrews 12:1-13, The race, the shame and the Father's discipline","s":"Surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, believers are to throw off every weight and run with endurance, eyes fixed on Jesus, who endured the cross and scorned its shame. Their hardships are a father's discipline, which only legitimate children receive.","r":"Hebrews 12:1-13"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/1john-2-28-3-24\/","n":"1 John 2:28-3:24, Children of God, Cain, and love in deed","s":"Those who do right are born of God, whose love makes them his children, and when he appears they will be like him. Whoever keeps on sinning belongs to the devil, who has sinned from the beginning, and the Son came to undo his work. The readers are not to be like Cain, who murdered his brother, but to love in deed and in truth, as Christ laid down his life.","r":"1 John 2:28-3:24"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/revelation-2-8-11\/","n":"Revelation 2:8-11, Smyrna, poor and slandered","s":"To Smyrna the risen Jesus says he sees their hardship and poverty and the abuse they suffer from local opponents claiming to be the true Jews, whom he condemns in harsh terms. Some will be jailed for a short time; if they stay loyal even to death he will reward them with life.","r":"Revelation 2:8-11"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/revelation-2-12-17\/","n":"Revelation 2:12-17, Pergamum, where Satan's throne is","s":"To Pergamum Jesus, who wields the sword of judgment, says they have stayed loyal in a city he calls Satan's seat, even after the martyrdom of Antipas. But some follow teaching like Balaam's that leads to idol meals and immorality. The faithful are promised hidden heavenly food and a white stone carrying a new name.","r":"Revelation 2:12-17"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/revelation-6-9-17\/","n":"Revelation 6:9-17, souls under the altar and the great day of wrath","s":"At the fifth seal the souls of those killed for God's word cry out from under the altar, how long, and are given white robes and told to wait. At the sixth a great earthquake shakes the world, the sky rolls up like a scroll, and kings and slaves alike hide in the caves from the wrath of the Lamb.","r":"Revelation 6:9-17"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/revelation-12-7-17\/","n":"Revelation 12:7-17, war in heaven and the accuser thrown down","s":"Michael and his angels fight the dragon and throw him out of heaven, and a voice celebrates the fall of the accuser of the brothers, defeated by the Lamb's blood and the witnesses' testimony. On earth the dragon chases the woman, who is given eagle's wings, and when the earth swallows the river he spews after her, he turns to make war on her other children.","r":"Revelation 12:7-17"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/revelation-17-1-6\/","n":"Revelation 17:1-6, the woman on the scarlet beast","s":"An angel carries John into a wilderness to see the great prostitute who sits on many waters, riding a scarlet beast full of blasphemous names. Dressed in purple and scarlet and glittering with gold and pearls, she holds a golden cup of filth, bears the name Babylon the great on her forehead and is drunk with the blood of God's people.","r":"Revelation 17:1-6"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/revelation-20-1-6\/","n":"Revelation 20:1-6, Satan bound and the thousand years","s":"An angel with the key to the Abyss and a great chain seizes the dragon, binds him for a thousand years and seals him in the Abyss so that he cannot deceive the nations. Those beheaded for their witness, who refused the beast and its mark, come to life and reign with Christ for the thousand years, the first resurrection, over which the second death has no power.","r":"Revelation 20:1-6"}
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Hebrews 11:4, 11:35-36 and 11:37, introduction to Hebrews 12:1-3, and on 12:2 and 12:4
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Hebrews 11:35 and 11:37
- ESV Study Bible, study note on Hebrews 11:37
- Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 12.5.4, trans. William Whiston
- N. T. Wright, Hebrews for Everyone, comment on Hebrews 11.32-40, and Glossary, entry Temple
- R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, vol. 2, The Martyrdom of Isaiah, Introduction, sections 1 and 2
