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Karen L. King, "Is a Martyr's Death Special? Early Christians Struggle with the Meaning of Violence"

16 September, 2016
7:00pm
Donald Gordon Conference Centre, Lecture Room C
(421 Union Street, Kingston)

The early Christian theologian, Tertullian, famously wrote that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”  In his view, the public tortures and brutal executions of believers were the will of God.  But at least some Christians objected.  They forged other answers to the question of what this violence means, and in so doing offered resources for contemporary reflection on many vital matters, including (in)justice, (hyper)masculinity, and (un)knowing.  The lecture will approach these topics through the lens of a recently discovered work from Egypt, The (First) Apocalypse of James, in which Jesus prepares his brother James to be stoned to death.

Karen L. King is the Hollis Professor of Divinity, Harvard University’s oldest endowed professorship (1721).  Trained in comparative religions and historical studies, she is the author of books and articles on the diversity of ancient Christianity, women and gender studies, and religion and violence, including What is Gnosticism?; The Secret Revelation of John; The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle; “Christianity and Torture” in The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence; and “The Place of the Gospel of Philip in the Context of Early Christian Claims about Jesus’ Marital Status” in the journal New Testament Studies 59.