The Flavian sons should be the ones on the crosses

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Giuseppe
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The Flavian sons should be the ones on the crosses

Post by Giuseppe »

Usually the Christian apologists say that there is not evidence at all in the Gospel that the disciples were persecuted just as Jesus was persecuted and killed.

Pace the apologists, I read this:

The scene of the two crucified criminals adds irony for the benefit of the powerless Christians who are themselves considered criminals because they carry the name of someone crucified by a Roman prefect. This is epideictic rhetoric at its best: Mark uses irony to lament with his readers that the real criminals are those in power, while the innocent ones—Jesus and the Christians of Rome—are the ones crucified. The Flavian sons should be the ones on the crosses.110 These allusions would be obvious to a community unjustly dealt with by imperial policy, and who had heard of the rivalry and ambition within the Flavian family. Mark’s two scenes of those on the right and the left may have caused some ironic laughter in the house-churches

(The Gospel to the Romans: The Setting and Rhetoric of Mark's Gospel, Brian J. Incigneri, p. 186, my bold)

Note 110 reads:

This irony would be even greater if both Titus and Domitian had been involved in the investigation or execution of Christians.

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