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Christians and Persecution Essay

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Christians and Persecution

In the year 64 A.D. in the city of Rome, the centre of the Roman Empire, there was a huge fire which wiped out most of the city. A rumour started to circulate that the Roman Emperor, Nero, had started the fire as it was well known that Nero thought that much of the city was ugly. It was thought he burned it down so he could re-design and rebuild it himself. Because of this he needed to find someone to blame it on. The Christians were an obvious choice as they were not well like by the roman people. This was mainly because of a number of misunderstandings. The Roman people thought that Christians were cannibals because they 'ate' the body and blood of Christ at mass. …show more content…

The Gospel was written in Greek originally but it contains some Aramaic words which Jewish Christians would understand. But non-Jewish Christians would not have been able to read these Aramaic words. Mark explains what these words mean in Greek which suggests that he was writing for non-Jewish. Jewish customs such as Corban were also explained in Mark's Gospel, this furthers the suggestion that Mark was writing for non-Jewish that were being persecuted at the time of Nero.

The parables told by Jesus in Mark's Gospel appear to be describing persecution and trying to give the people hope. In Mark 4:16-20people are described as seeds. Those that fall in the good soil hear the word and take it for what it is. They prosper and grow to produce many more times the original. Others fall in the barren soil or on the rocks, hearing the word, but the meaning becomes strangled and corrupted. In Mark 4:35-41, the calming of the storm, the persecution of the Christians. Could be conveyed as a great storm, and maybe the story is trying to say that their faith would get them through the storm safely. The storm featured in the story could be seen by the Christians facing persecution at the time of the mass executions and the story could

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