Books by Kyle Smith

"A brilliant, entertaining, and accessible account of the history of martyrdom. Invaluable for anyone interested in understanding the Christian faith."--Bart D. Ehrman, author of Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why "An elegant and enlightening book."--Elizabeth A. Castelli, author of Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making "A sweeping tour through the history of Christianity that makes the familiar seem fresh and dramatically brings to life the remarkable connections across time and space that constitute the Christian story."--Kyle Harper, author of The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire "Cult of the Dead is vivid, readable, and often witty. Taking the reader on a journey from the time of Christ to the seventeenth century, it shows the intimate engagement with death at the heart of Christianity."--Mary Wellesley, author of The Gilded Page: The Secret Lives of Medieval Manuscripts "Masterfully presented. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the significance of pain, torture, and death in the construction of Christian communities from the time of the apostles to the Protestant Reformation."--Kristina Sessa, author of Daily Life in Late Antiquity

It is widely believed that the Emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity politicized religious allegiances, dividing the Christian Roman Empire from the Zoroastrian Sasanian Empire and leading to the persecution of Christians in Persia. This account, however, is based on Greek ecclesiastical histories and Syriac martyrdom narratives that date to centuries after the fact. In this groundbreaking study, Kyle Smith analyzes diverse Greek, Latin, and Syriac sources to show that there was not a single history of fourth-century Mesopotamia. By examining the conflicting hagiographical and historical evidence, Constantine and the Captive Christians of Persia presents an evocative and evolving portrait of the first Christian emperor, uncovering how Syriac Christians manipulated the image of their western Christian counterparts to fashion their own political and religious identities during this century of radical change.

Learn the A to Z of building excellent Splunk applications with the latest techniques using this comprehensive guide About This Book - This is the most up-to-date book on Splunk 6.3 for developers - Get ahead of being just a Splunk user and start creating custom Splunk applications as per your needs - Your one-stop-solution to Splunk application development Who This Book Is For This book is for those who have some familiarity with Splunk and now want to learn how to develop an efficient Splunk application. Previous experience with Splunk, writing searches, and designing basic dashboards is expected. What You Will Learn - Implement a Modular Input and a custom D3 data visualization - Create a directory structure and set view permissions - Create a search view and a dashboard view using advanced XML modules - Enhance your application using eventtypes, tags, and macros - Package a Splunk application using best practices - Publish a Splunk application to the Splunk community In Detail Splunk provides a platform that allows you to search data stored on a machine, analyze it, and visualize the analyzed data to make informed decisions. The adoption of Splunk in enterprises is huge, and it has a wide range of customers right from Adobe to Dominos. Using the Splunk platform as a user is one thing, but customizing this platform and creating applications specific to your needs takes more than basic knowledge of the platform. This book will dive into developing Splunk applications that cater to your needs of making sense of data and will let you visualize this data with the help of stunning dashboards. This book includes everything on developing a full-fledged Splunk application right from designing to implementing to publishing. We will design the fundamentals to build a Splunk application and then move on to creating one. During the course of the book, we will cover application data, objects, permissions, and more. After this, we will show you how to enhance the application, including branding, workflows, and enriched data. Views, dashboards, and web frameworks are also covered. This book will showcase everything new in the latest version of Splunk including the latest data models, alert actions, XML forms, various dashboard enhancements, and visualization options (with D3). Finally, we take a look at the latest Splunk cloud applications, advanced integrations, and development as per the latest release. Style and approach This book is an easy-to-follow guide with lots of tips and tricks to help you master all the concepts necessary to develop and deploy your Splunk applications.

The Martyrdom, and the later History, of Simeon bar Sabba'e narrate the death of the bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon who was killed around the year 340 C.E. at the beginning of King Shapur II's "Great Persecution" of Christians in Sasanian Persia.

Desiring to lead an ascetic life during the 5th century, Paul abandons his bishopric in Italy and travels to Edessa. The two leave Edessa to visit the monks on Sinai, but instead of reaching their destination they are abducted and taken to Yemen by tree-worshipping Arabs.

Which Tom Farrell is the real Tom Farrell? Is he a really nice boy as his mother claims or does he just want to get laid? While he pines for his smart and sexy coworker, Julia, he's also trying to get other women drunk enough to entice them into bed, but at the end of the night, he's always going home alone.