The Gospel, Christians and Acts

Sorry to dredge this up from so early in the thread, but I'm a newby and am just catching up with the threads, and this got my attention.You have taught potential ministers so I'm sure you know this, or maybe you disagree, but your reference to love thy neighbour in Leviticus needs deconstructing.
The Old Testament - or certainly the parts like leviticus that are from the Tanakh - need to be read in context of the intended audience - the Jews. 'People' is a concept reserved for other Jews, this is made clear in many places in the Tanakh. Thus when reference is made, such as not killing, and loving thy neighbour, one has to read that as meaning 'fellow Jew', not 'fellow man'. There is much slaughtering of non Jews, with either the tacit approval of God or the active participation of same.

Bailey,
interesting argument and well supported. I have to say that I find little to argue with in this. I would extend it, though.
Yes, I agree that the crucifiction is a, if not the, focus of many early Christians. What is equally clear to me is that the resurrection played no part at all, and I actually don't think it happened in anything other than a symbolic sense.
What is slighly perplexing, however, is that the gospels, and indeed the whole NT, makes no reference to personal sacrifice for one's beliefs in the form of martyrdom, aside from Stephen, who was stoned on a trumped-up charge and therefore didn't die for his beliefs, and James, who's death we are told very little about.
There is no consistent, or even apparent, theme of dying for beliefs anywhere in the NT which makes it rather strange that this should become such a focus of Christianity in later centuries.