Curated playlist
1st-century Jews
- JesusJesus left no writings of his own. Almost everything known about him comes from accounts by others.
- Mary, mother of JesusMary, mother of Jesus, is named more often in the Quran than any other woman. The Quran mentions her 50 times.
- James, brother of JesusJames, the brother of Jesus, left one of the oddest physical details in all of early Christian memory. The writer Hegesippus claimed that the skin on his knees became horny, like a camel's. The cause, he said, was constant kneeling in the…
- Saint StephenSaint Stephen is traditionally venerated as the protomartyr, the first martyr of Christianity. His story opens, oddly, with a pile of coats. According to the Acts of the Apostles, the people who threw the first stones laid their coats at…
- Saint PeterSaint Peter denied knowing Jesus three times on the night Jesus was arrested. Later, he three times said he loved him.
- JosephusJosephus told the Roman general who captured him that he would become emperor.
- Thomas the ApostleThomas the Apostle, one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus according to the New Testament, has bones that came close to being sold. In late December 1943, the Italian town of Ortona became a battlefield. The basilica there was blown up…
- Saint JosephSaint Joseph, the husband of Mary and the legal father of Jesus, shares his name with the most common place name in the world. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency identifies that name as the Spanish form, San Jose. Yet the man…
- Andrew the ApostleAndrew the Apostle was one of the Twelve chosen by Jesus, yet his most visible legacy is a pattern of color. The white diagonal cross on a blue field that flies over Scotland carries his name. The same cross sits inside the Union Flag, on…
- John the BaptistJohn the Baptist is the only saint whose birth and death are both commemorated in the Roman martyrology. He was a Jewish preacher who worked along the Jordan River in the early first century AD, and he is thought to have been born around 6…