What caused betrayal and fear among Christians?
In 64C.E., a large area of Rome was engulfed by fire. The emperor Nero was suspected of having had the fire set so as to facilitate enlargement of his palace complex. To divert suspicion from himself, he scapegoated Christians and ordered them set on fire atop poles to serve as street lamps for the city (Tacitus, Annals xv.44). In order to round up more Christians, he directed that those already in captivity be tortured until they betrayed their fellows. The Gospel of Mark recalls this time when betrayal of Christians was running rampant, with informants drawn from one’s erstwhile friends, even relatives: cf. “brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child…” (13:9). Consider here, once again, how the same Greek verb allowed the concepts of “deliver up” and “betray” to be used interchangeably. Would a story of Jesus’ betrayal have helped Christians of the time? Yes. Christians who had been betrayed probably identified with a Jesus who had himself been “delivered up
