Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE QUESTION OF JESUS' SELF-UNDERSTANDING §15.2
the end of the twentieth century the consensus is almost the exact reverse of the
consensus at the end of the nineteenth. As Hengel notes, 'Today the unmessianic
Jesus has almost become a dogma among many New Testament scholars'. 56
Let it be said at once that Wrede identified a distinctive feature of Mark's
Gospel — what might indeed be characterized as a 'secrecy' motif. The presence
of the motif in the obviously Markan summaries (1.34 and 3.11-12) puts that issue
beyond doubt. But three questions begin to unravel Wrede's case to an extent
too little appreciated.
(1) Is the 'secret' a single, coherent motif? Wrede so argued. But subsequent
analysis has been more impressed by the complexities and diverse strands
in the Markan material surveyed by Wrede. They do not all readily cohere under
the single heading 'messianic' secret. The admirably clear exposition of Heikki
Räisänen puts that issue equally beyond dispute. 57
(2) Do the tensions within and between these strands simply reflect different
layers of tradition, tensions not resolved by the redaction process? 58 On the normal
understanding of redactorial freedom and creativity, one would have expected inconsistencies
to be more fully ironed out. The presence of unresolved tensions suggests
rather a respect for the tradition being utilized. Which raises in turn the question
whether the stubborn elements in the tradition are stubborn because they were
primary tradition, that is, they embodied very early memories of Jesus. In other
words, are we witnessing the tensions and inconsistencies of real life situations
rather than the compositional 'flaws' of the redaction? 59 I have already suggested
the possibility that even the 'parable theory' of Mark 4.11-12 may have roots in
memories of Jesus' own reaction to his lack of success at least in some villages
(§13.1). And a similar question will have to be posed in regard to the 'confessions'
of demoniacs and the command to silence in Jesus' exorcisms (§15.7d(5)).
(3) Above all, there is the challenge to Wrede's argument that the decisive
basis for Jesus' messiahship was the resurrection, first posed by Schweitzer and
regularly repeated thereafter. 60 Belief that Jesus had been raised was not enough
56. Hengel, 'Jesus, the Messiah of Israel' 16.
57. Räisänen, Messianic Secret, e.g., 16-21, 71-75, ch. 4, 232, 242-43.
58. Contrary to a common perception, Wrede recognized traditional material; he did not
regard the secret as a Markan creation (e.g., Messianic Secret 145); it was Bultmann who took
scholarship down that road (History 348-50); but see, e.g., G. Strecker, 'The Theory of the
Messianic Secret in Mark's Gospel' (1964), in Tuckett, ed., Messianic Secret 49-64 (here 51-
54).
59. As Räisänen, Messianic Secret, exemplifies, the dominant alternative to Bultmann's
reworking of Wrede has been to conclude the latter: still 'theological, and therefore
unhistorical'. For the traditional material utilized by Mark see Räisänen 101-102, 144-49, 168-
70, 195-96, 222-23, 232, with summary 244-48.
60. See, e.g., Tuckett, Messianic Secret 7-9.
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