(Acts 1:15–26). Mark describes their vocation with the phrase “and Jesus made Twelve” (3:14). Their primary task is simply to be the community of the Twelve. Two additional functions then come into play: “that they might be with him and that he might send them” (Mk 3:14). The symbolic value of the Twelve is consequently of decisive significance: twelve is the number of Jacob’s sons, the number of the twelve tribes of Israel. In constituting the circle of Twelve, Jesus presents himself as the patriarch
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