Deceptions Are Not Devices 2: Josephus' propaganda and the Repentant Thief

It's important to remember: If an ancient author is changing the facts in order to deceive someone, then what he's doing *cannot be* a non-deceptive "compositional device" or "accepted variation in the genre." The claim that a change (even if it really is a deliberate change) in a non-biblical author is non-deceptive because it was an "accepted" thing in his genre is a substantive claim in itself. If his purpose was to make people think or feel that something was true, which he knows was actually false, then this is propaganda and deception and by definition can't be non-deceptive. This is illustrated by Josephus's probably changing his own role in Israel prior to the Jewish war from preparing the Jews to fight the Romans (as he admits in _The Jewish War_) to merely trying innocently to keep the peace and oppose robbers (as he portrays it in his autobiography). It's plausible he was trying to avoid the anger of the Romans by the latter portrayal. But if that's the case, then this can't be non-deceptive. This lesson is relevant when we look at a change that Dr. Licona suggests Mark might have made. If Mark did that for the reason he suggests, then this wouldn't be a non-deceptive device, because the motive is supposedly to make people feel like Jesus was "rejected by all" when (supposedly) Mark knew that he wasn't! Check out The Mirror or the Mask (TMOM) for more: https://www.amazon.com/Mirror-Mask-Liberating-Gospels-Literary/dp/1947929070/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=mirror+or+the+mask&qid=1600272214&sr=8-1