In 1563, historian John Foxe told many of the earliest stories in a book that would become one of the most widely read works in the English language. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs chronicles hundreds of Christians who gave their lives or were persecuted for their faith from the New Testament all the way to his day. Through generations of expansions and editions, it became an indispensable classic.
Foxe’s Book of Martyrs was written from a Protestant perspective and, almost 50 years older than the King James Bible, is a challenging read. Recently, a pair of daring authors took up Foxe’s mantle to tell the stories of the martyrs afresh for modern readers. In The New Book of Christian Martyrs, Johnnie Moore and Dr. Jerry Pattengale of Indiana Wesleyan University offer accounts of heroes of the faith from the first to the 21st centuries.