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Martyrdom has been an important research topic for the speaker for more than forty years. Documents about martyrdom are often contested, and this is definitely also the case for early Jewish martyrdom or noble death. First he will offer a brief introduction into what he calls the Maccabean martyrs - a group of Jews who were tortured and killed for their refusal to participate in idolatrous worship and eat pork during the persecution of King Antiochus IV Epiphanes in 166 B.C. He will argue that a first reason for contesting early Jewish martyrdom exists because of the debate about the definition of martyrdom. Some scholars who contribute to this debate argue that early Jewish martyrdom has never existed. He will present cases of the Christianization of the Maccabean martyrs, who were stripped of their Jewish identity in this process of Christian appropriation. He will suggest that much of the scholarly reception of early Jewish martyrdom is biased, because the dominant trend is to study the relevant texts not in their own right but as a martyr theology about beneficial death that helps to understand the earliest interpretation of the death of Jesus of Nazareth. He will briefly argue for an alternative view that acknowledges the political significance of these Maccabean heroes. He ends by discussing the Medieval Hebrew work Sefer Yosippon, which reclaims the Maccabean martyrs for the Jews.