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This chapter introduces the world of Christians — who came from both the Greek religious environment (Gentile Christians) and Judaism (Jewish Christians) — but also from the group of pagans who were ready to convert to Judaism (the so-called ‘God-fearers’). Emphasizing the multiplicity of backgrounds, the chapter aims at warning the reader that conclusions concerning early Christianity and its relation to animal sacrifice cannot be definite, especially as regards the Christians who lived in Jerusalem that is next to the Temple, before AD 70.

This chapter presents some concluding thoughts from the author. It argues that the flyer continues to be held in high esteem because his courage and sacrifice coincided with the last hurrah of the romance of flight. However, while he had attained rarefied status through his ability to ride above the clouds, in a world still inaccessible and unfamiliar to his contemporaries, the flyer was also grounded in the sensibilities, values, and social fabric of the society from which he came, albeit one that was being violently refashioned by the requirements of wartime mobilisation.

In order to reconstruct the kind of self presupposed in Paul’s letters, this chapter explores the relation between Pauls self-understanding and the story he tells to identify Israel. As a dyadic personality, Paul understands himself in relation to Israel: “I have been crucified with Christ” signifies that Paul has died in Israel. Sacrifice symbolizes the death and resurrection of the sinner; thus, that Christ is a sacrifice means that Israel has passed through death and resurrection in its King, Jesus. Christ can be raised because he goes to the cross anointed with God’s Spirit. Christ is the righteous community in the world that goes into death and rises again. Paul recognizes, in retrospect, that this is the event that “the faith of Abraham” had always anticipated. The Pauline categories of spirit and conscience relate the crucified and resurrected self to the Spirit in the community that dies and rises with Christ.

This chapter seeks a reappraisal of Eusebius’ political theology from the standpoint of ethnic argumentation. Often characterized as laying the basis for later Christian conceptions of kingship and Byzantine ‘caesaro-papism’, his political thought must be analyzed in the context of his portrayal of Hellenic political or civic theology (that centered upon ancestral cult sites) and his synchronism of Augustus and Christ. Eusebius criticizes Greek polis religion as fundamentally controlled by wicked daemons, who have misled the Greeks and others (including the Romans) into the abominable practices of animal, and even human, sacrifices. Even though the lifetimes of Christ and Augustus are synchronized, Eusebius does so in a way that slights Rome’s power in emphasizing the victory of Christ over daemonic activity. Through close readings of important passages, this chapter shows that Eusebius’ conceptions of Rome and its empire were more ambivalent than previously thought. Furthermore, passages from his later works, which seem to offer theological support to the imperial office, are suggested to carry similar implications to those of his earlier apologetic writings.

Abu–Surur epitomizes “the happy death” touted in countless slogans of the intifada. One gets the impression that his words never felt so wondrous as now, so full of consequence and meaning. The idea that one had to prepare for self-sacrifice, and rehearse death lovingly as many times as possible was commonplace during the uprising. The “natural” or “accidental” death was something to be avoided at all cost. Hamza Abu–Surur smiled all the time, even when he was sad — a habit that to some suggested a secret.

This chapter first elaborates a theory of how kinship and ethnicity are both considered “natural” categories yet are also treated as mutable. It describes the ideology of patrilineal descent and identifies certain normative assumptions (such as “you are your ancestors”), which accompany this ideology and which invest it with authority. Religious ritual is important because it both ratifies and creates kin relationships: members of patrilineal cultures regulate, sanction, and adjust descent patterns with religious ritual, specifically sacrifice. The chapter presents a series of case studies where kinship and ethnicity are used as strategic practices of persuasion. This survey illustrates a variety of discourses available to 1st-century thinkers such as Paul, and thus lays the groundwork for the subsequent chapters on Paul's use of kinship and ethnicity, where we find similar persuasive practices.

Finding an appropriate way of evaluating altruistic benevolence is a crucial test of a theory of virtue as a sort of intrinsic excellence. Some may think that altruism is sufficiently commended by its social benefits without any thought of such excellence. Consideration of Nietzsche's critique of altruism leads, however, to an argument that it is morally important that altruism be intrinsically excellent. This is followed by an argument that altruism has indeed such excellence. Not that altruism must (or indeed should) be unmixed with other motives. Relations between altruism and self-sacrifice on the one hand, and agent-centered or self-regarding motives such as conscientiousness and self-respect on the other, are explored.

In the aftermath of Anselm of Canterbury's version of redemption as ‘satisfaction’, notions crept in about Christ being literally burdened with all human sin, being punished by God in our place, and so placating the divine anger. This chapter rejects such views and does so by examining the texts on which they commonly rely in the Old Testament and the New Testament.

This chapter discusses what it means to talk about Christ as priest and victim expiating or atoning for human guilt through a unique, once‐and‐for‐all sacrifice. By repairing a world damaged and polluted by sin, he made possible human beings' new communion with God. If understood correctly, ‘sacrifice’ remains a necessary part of this explanation.

This chapter explores the devotion to Gaucho Gil and other outlaw and criminal folk saints in Argentina. It examines the charismatic, Robin-Hood banditry as a response to poverty and oppression; the themes of sacrifice, martyrdom, and injustice; and the nature of contemporary devotion at the principal shrine in Mercedes and at regional shrines elsewhere.

This chapter examines the interpretation of the martyrs’ deaths in the early church and the significance of this kind of death both for the martyrs and for other Christians. It focuses on the presentation of martyrs as savior figures and the contribution this depiction makes for the history of soteriology. Against the dominant scholarly view, it argues that the martyr’s death was rarely viewed as a sacrifice for sin. Instead, it was interpreted differently in different accounts and regions. While allowing for the interweaving of various soteriological models, the chapter argues that martyrdom was viewed primarily as a victory over Satan in the apocalyptic cosmic battle and a moral example for imitation by the audiences of the account.

A crucial moral virtue of Du Bois's religious discourse is the virtue of sacrifice. His discourse of sacrifice is composed of two halves. The first half is contained in his series of parables that depict the lynching of a black Christ figures. The other half is what he calls his “Gospel of Sacrifice,” in which he enjoins black Americans to sacrifice for each other and the country at large. The difficult questions at the heart of this chapter revolve around understanding these two halves of Du Bois's sacrificial discourse. This chapter argues that despite its dangers, Du Bois acts as a Durkheimian priest and battles America's sacrificial perversions with an empowering discourse of sacrifice of his own. Du Bois attempts to transform black Americans from the victims of a sacrificial system into agents of a sacrificial system who then make claims on the political, social, and even material goods of the sacrificial system.