To tell or not to tell.

[neilgodfrey]

That said, do you have any ideas on why Mark did this?

Wrede, 1971, p. 128f

The evangelist has two contrasting motifs but in his consciousness
they do not clash. He expresses one, and close beside
it the other. The one is even necessary for the evocation of the
other. This juxtaposition is possible only if the narrator simply was
not aware of what conclusions for the historical picture must
be drawn from each of the two ideas by those reflecting on it.
That is, it is possible only if he is writing entirely differently
from what in the first instance we expect of him. Thus the
explanation in the last resort lies in the character of the author.

Wrede's explanation of the contradictions:

Mark's Jesus comes as the Messiah, he does the works of a Messiah, and those works are appropriately astonishing for all who see them -- but Mark's Jesus is never to be recognized by the Messiah (except in the spirit realm) until the resurrection.

Those are his two themes. He is oblivious to any contradiction in the narrative because to him the narrative is not a historical or biographical narrative, but a theological demonstration of those two themes.

That is, Jesus' works, being messianic, must by definition be astounding and widely known and praised. The Gadarenes demoniac spreads the word about what Jesus (not "The Lord") has done. People wonder if Jesus is a prophet, never contemplating the possibility of him being the messiah. The other theme is that Jesus' messianic identity was to remain hidden in his earthly life. So the two themes are irreconcilable if we read the gospel as a historical portrayal of Jesus.

Mark is known as the clumsy author. One of his clumsy acts was to try to write a history out of his theological ideas. It just did not work as history or biography. But who cares! It started something big.

Mark has
in fact absolutely no other purpose than to enunciate these
ideas in the story. He injects the dogmatic motif offhandedly
into the tale— and he can switch on those lights anywhere
he wants. He is little concerned with how it looks as a historical
feature in its environment. This is his procedure. Those who
understand it will, however, at the same time excuse him. Seen
from the historical standpoint Mark contains a whole heap of
bad, pointless features. If one regards as an idea what in fact
is an idea one frees him from this; that is to say, no weight will
be laid upon these. They will perhaps be regarded as understandable
concomitants of a type of authorship which somewhat
gauchely tries to fashion history out of ideas.

p. 135

[Ben C. Smith]

That said, do you have any ideas on why Mark did this?

Wrede, 1971, p. 128f

The evangelist has two contrasting motifs but in his consciousness
they do not clash. He expresses one, and close beside
it the other. The one is even necessary for the evocation of the
other. This juxtaposition is possible only if the narrator simply was
not aware of what conclusions for the historical picture must
be drawn from each of the two ideas by those reflecting on it.
That is, it is possible only if he is writing entirely differently
from what in the first instance we expect of him. Thus the
explanation in the last resort lies in the character of the author.

Wrede's explanation of the contradictions:

Mark's Jesus comes as the Messiah, he does the works of a Messiah, and those works are appropriately astonishing for all who see them -- but Mark's Jesus is never to be recognized by the Messiah (except in the spirit realm) until the resurrection.

Those are his two themes. He is oblivious to any contradiction in the narrative because to him the narrative is not a historical or biographical narrative, but a theological demonstration of those two themes.

In context, this is the kind of contradiction that Wrede is discussing. Page 124:

The public nature of the miracles does not accord with the command to keep silence about certain miracles.

I accept fully that there is an unrealistic tension in the gospel of Mark between Jesus telling his healing recipients to be quiet and them repeatedly proclaiming the news, with Jesus going right back to telling them to be quiet again, even though this tactic has never worked before.

This contradiction can even be seen in the exorcisms, as in Mark 3.11-12:

11 Whenever the unclean spirits saw Him, they would fall down before Him and shout, “You are the Son of God!” 12 And He earnestly warned them not to tell who He was.

To go by the statement itself, by all appearances it is too late to warn the demons: they have already shouted what they know about him, and Mark makes very clear that there are listening crowds surrounding him at such events.

So sure: this is a problem for trying to reconstruct an historical happening. But it is not a problem that I am trying to solve here. I am not asking why Mark has Jesus enjoining silence on the one hand and his fame spreading like wildfire on the other. No, I am asking why in one particular case Mark has Jesus telling his beneficiary to spread the word. Mark has established that he does not strive for verisimilitude when it comes to keeping Jesus' reputation in check. But this is a leap or two beyond that. This, barring some specific explanation for this one instance, is schizophrenia.

That is, Jesus' works, being messianic, must by definition be astounding and widely known and praised. The Gadarenes demoniac spreads the word about what Jesus (not "The Lord") has done.

In this case, what the former demoniac understands or fails to understand is not at issue. In this case, Jesus tells him to proclaim what happened. Why does Jesus do that in this one instance? (IOW, why does Mark have Jesus do that in this one instance?)

On pages 140-141, Wrede discusses Mark 5.20 directly. His explanation is the one to which I already directed my follow-up post: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2559#p57735. I used to hold to that explanation, but I no longer think I do.

Ben.

[neilgodfrey]

The proclamation of what Jesus was doing was all part of Mark's theme of Jesus doing the works of the messiah and those works being seen and wondered at. It was Jesus, not the Lord, that the demoniac went and spread the word about. That is, it was of the human Jesus that the demoniac spread the word. The crowds had to acknowledge the works of Jesus, he had to do the works of the messiah and have everyone astonished accordingly by those works -- that's all part of Jesus' mission. That was part of the author's agenda.

And he went his way, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men marvelled.

There would be no story at all if everything was kept secret. In fact, that would mean he was not coming as the messiah, was doing everything in a corner instead.

(As for the demons, Wrede's explanation is that their understanding or recognition was entirely on the spiritual realm and did not cross into the human sphere.)

[neilgodfrey]

I assume too much, sorry, and don't spell out my assumptions often enough.

I accept fully that there is an unrealistic tension in the gospel of Mark between Jesus telling his healing recipients to be quiet and them repeatedly proclaiming the news, with Jesus going right back to telling them to be quiet again, even though this tactic has never worked before.

Wrede's point is that these contradictions did not register with the author. They are a problem for us because they were of no concern or interest to the author. He let them fall where they did as incidental to expressing his two theological themes.

This contradiction can even be seen in the exorcisms, as in Mark 3.11-12:

11 Whenever the unclean spirits saw Him, they would fall down before Him and shout, “You are the Son of God!” 12 And He earnestly warned them not to tell who He was.

To go by the statement itself, by all appearances it is too late to warn the demons: they have already shouted what they know about him, and Mark makes very clear that there are listening crowds surrounding him at such events.

Wrede objects to this kind of reading of the gospel. It's not how the author meant it to be read, he argues.

No, I am asking why in one particular case Mark has Jesus telling his beneficiary to spread the word. . . . But this is a leap or two beyond that. This, barring some specific explanation for this one instance, is schizophrenia.

Not so for Wrede's reading, though.

That Jesus' works were well known, known for miles around, is all part of Mark's agenda. He wants to convey this message very clearly, that Jesus'' miracles and works were known by everybody. So he wants the demoniac to go and tell everyone back where he came from what had happened. The only other witnesses, the pigs, were all dead.

Jesus having him go out to declare the great miracle is fully in keeping with Mark's theme that everybody knows about the great works of Jesus.

Of course that conflicts with his other motif, but there we go.

[Ben C. Smith]

I assume too much, sorry, and don't spell out my assumptions often enough.

I accept fully that there is an unrealistic tension in the gospel of Mark between Jesus telling his healing recipients to be quiet and them repeatedly proclaiming the news, with Jesus going right back to telling them to be quiet again, even though this tactic has never worked before.

Wrede's point is that these contradictions did not register with the author.

And I tend to agree with this statement with regard to the tension described above. This is not our bone of contention.

This contradiction can even be seen in the exorcisms, as in Mark 3.11-12:

11 Whenever the unclean spirits saw Him, they would fall down before Him and shout, “You are the Son of God!” 12 And He earnestly warned them not to tell who He was.

To go by the statement itself, by all appearances it is too late to warn the demons: they have already shouted what they know about him, and Mark makes very clear that there are listening crowds surrounding him at such events.

Wrede objects to this kind of reading of the gospel. It's not how the author meant it to be read, he argues.

It seems clear to me that you have misunderstood me here. I believe what I am saying is exactly consonant with what Wrede argues. I am saying that what is happening at the exorcisms does not work as a tangible report of events, but that Mark was fine with that tension between demons screaming out Jesus' identity and yet Jesus telling them to hush up. My point was indeed precisely that which Wrede makes about this very passage (plus one other) on page 133:

A similar point presses itself upon us in the passage 1.24-27. Jesus' power over the demons is marvelled at and this presupposes that those who marvelled were witnesses of the preceding exorcism and so also witnesses of Jesus' conversation with the demon. But the demon has cried out the secret of the holy God and according to Mark no-one was to hear this. One can gain the same impression from 3.11, 12 and this has actually happened.

Thus Mark seems very quickly to forget his own presuppositions.

I am agreeing with this. Mark does not care to resolve these kinds of contradictions.

No, I am asking why in one particular case Mark has Jesus telling his beneficiary to spread the word. . . . But this is a leap or two beyond that. This, barring some specific explanation for this one instance, is schizophrenia.

Not so for Wrede's reading, though.

Then you have misread Wrede, who on pages 140-141, which I referenced for you in my previous post, treats Mark 5.19-20 as a potential issue to be explained if his overall theory is of any merit. His eventual solution to the problem (which, again, I was responding to in my follow-up post to the OP) is not, repeat not, that Mark has contradicted himself, but rather that Mark has bid the man keep the news to himself and his family only. He argues that the "seeming deviation" from the other instances he has cited might be viewed instead as a "parallel" (his words, in translation of course).

That Jesus' works were well known, known for miles around, is all part of Mark's agenda. He wants to convey this message very clearly, that Jesus'' miracles and works were known by everybody. So he wants the demoniac to go and tell everyone back where he came from what had happened. The only other witnesses, the pigs, were all dead.

Mark 5.14 flatly contradicts your "no remaining witnesses" argument:

14 Their herdsmen ran away and reported it in the city and in the country. And the people came to see what it was that had happened.

Jesus having him go out to declare the great miracle is fully in keeping with Mark's theme that everybody knows about the great works of Jesus.

No, the former demoniac proclaiming the word is what is in keeping with that theme. Jesus enjoining him to do so (or enjoining the opposite, for that matter) is meaningless if the man does not proclaim the word. Mark has set up a clear pattern so far: Jesus says to be quiet, but the healed go out and announce the matter anyway. An instance in which Jesus tells somebody to proclaim the word is not part of that pattern. It is a counterexample to that pattern. Such an instance might be meaningful if it spelled the end of the motif of silence, for then it might be interpreted as Jesus giving up on keeping his secret and leaning into his fame. But I think that would be a strained, psychologizing interpretation to begin with (Mark being the sort of author he seems to be), and in this case it seems impossible given Mark 7.36, where silence is still enjoined.

Of course that conflicts with his other motif, but there we go.

Two motifs contradicting is one thing, but an instance which actually sabotages one of those motifs is quite another.

You once argued on your blog that Romans 1.4 seems not to be Pauline because Paul elsewhere treats Jesus as the son of God at all points, whereas this verse is more consonant with resurrection adoptionism. By your logic regarding Mark 5.19-20, however, Paul may just have contradicted himself. If Mark habitually has Jesus enjoining silence, but on one single occasion has him doing the exact opposite, then why can Paul not habitually think of Jesus as the son of God from the beginning, but on one single occasion think of him as becoming son of God at his resurrection? And, if you think that the particular contradiction is greater in Paul than that in Mark, and thus less likely to be flirted with by Paul than by Mark, then please understand that this is exactly what I am saying about the two kinds of contradiction in Mark: it is one thing to have demons and healed people telling about Jesus on the one hand and having Jesus tell them to be quiet on the other, quite another to have Jesus do the exact opposite from his usual practice. The two kinds of contradictions are not of equal merit or likelihood. The first, which is an established pattern throughout the gospel at any rate, can be explained by reference to a Marcan focus on the messianic secret (as Wrede argues). The second cannot, at least not on its prima facie interpretation, as Wrede himself acknowledges; hence his reinterpretation of it as a parallel rather than as a deviation!

In fact, on page 125 Wrede argues that the idea of the messianic secret was, not only capable of introducing contradictions of the kind he is treating in this section of the book, but also bound to do so. Yet anyone can see that the contradiction coddled by Mark 5.19-20 is not one that was bound to happen. Mark may have been led by his own separate desires to emphasize Jesus' attempt to keep secrecy on the one hand and his beneficiaries' eagerness to spread his fame on the other, but there was nothing forcing him to actively reverse the first of those desires from within by making Jesus deliberately break the secrecy motif himself.This by itself proves that I am debating you on this point, not Wrede.

One last attempt to delineate the difference. Wrede argues that Mark either does not notice (or at least does not care about) the tension or contradiction inherent in Jesus enjoining secrecy and others spreading his fame. But there is no way Mark could have failed to notice (or care about) Jesus facilitating the spreading of his fame when all along he has had Jesus straining to conceal it. The two tensions are of very different orders.

Ben.

[JoeWallack]

But finally, we have a demoniac in the region of the Gerasenes who is told to tell in Mark 5.18-20:

18 As He was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed was imploring Him that he might accompany Him. 19 And He did not let him, but He says to him, “Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He had mercy on you.” 20 And he went away and began to proclaim in Decapolis what great things Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.

The question to answer, obviously, is this: why does Jesus tell the Gerasene demoniac to tell, but the Decapolitan deaf-mute and the Galilean leper not to tell?

JW:
Asked and answered. I think GMark is reaction to history:

• 1) Jesus had a Teaching Ministry
  
  2) Jesus' disciples promoted his Teaching Ministry
  
  3) Paul invented and promoted Jesus' supposed Passion
  
  4) "Mark" writes a Gospel with the theology of 1) -3)

GMark's style is to contrast the Teaching & Healing Ministry with the Passion Ministry using Irony. In the Teaching & Healing Ministry Jesus instructs not to promote himself but everyone does. Ironically, the more he says no, the more they say yes. The Passion Ministry is reversed. Jesus instructs to promote but no one says nothing.

Regarding your complaint above note that Jesus' instructions are:

“Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He had mercy on you.”

but Jesus is foiled (so to speak) again:

"And he went away and began to proclaim in Decapolis what great things Jesus had done for him"

I think the take away is that "Mark's" Jesus realizes at this point that after healing tongues will wag despite admonitions so he tries to deflect attention to himself by instructing that God, not him, did it. Perhaps like Dennis in the classic SpongeBob I'm saying too much but in any case the point stands that Jesus instructed to say God did it and not him.


Joseph

John Heller's Catechism-22 (Book review of Walter McCrone's Judgment Day for the Shroud of Turin)

[Ben C. Smith]

Regarding your complaint above note that Jesus' instructions are:

“Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He had mercy on you.”

but Jesus is foiled (so to speak) again:

"And he went away and began to proclaim in Decapolis what great things Jesus had done for him"

I think the take away is that "Mark's" Jesus realizes at this point that after healing tongues will wag despite admonitions so he tries to deflect attention to himself by instructing that God, not him, did it. Perhaps like Dennis in the classic SpongeBob I'm saying too much but in any case the point stands that Jesus instructed to say God did it and not him.

I have boldfaced the Achilles' heel of your hypothesis above. Start to tug at that thread and soon the whole messianic secret unravels. For how can Mark's Jesus realize this obvious point here and not at the several other points of the gospel in which he enjoins an improbable (and in some cases impossible) silence?

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

.
Ben is shooing us around the corners

[neilgodfrey]

. . .

And I tend to agree with this statement with regard to the tension described above. This is not our bone of contention. . . . .

It seems clear to me that you have misunderstood me here. I believe what I am saying is exactly consonant with what Wrede argues. I am saying that what is happening at the exorcisms does not work as a tangible report of events, but that Mark was fine with that tension between demons screaming out Jesus' identity and yet Jesus telling them to hush up. My point was indeed precisely that which Wrede makes about this very passage (plus one other) on page 128 . . .

I am agreeing with this. Mark does not care to resolve these kinds of contradictions. . . .

Then you have misread Wrede, who on pages 140-141, which I referenced for you in my previous post, treats Mark 5.19-20 as a potential issue to be explained if his overall theory is of any merit. His eventual solution to the problem (which, again, I was responding to in my follow-up post to the OP) is not, repeat not, that Mark has contradicted himself, but rather that Mark has bid the man keep the news to himself and his family only. He argues that the "seeming deviation" from the other instances he has cited might be viewed instead as a "parallel" (his words, in translation of course). . . .

Mark 5.14 flatly contradicts your "no remaining witnesses" argument:

14 Their herdsmen ran away and reported it in the city and in the country. And the people came to see what it was that had happened.

. . . .

etc

Sorry for the facetious remark -- surely we can see the narrative function of the herdsmen.

I give up. I can't help thinking that there would be profitable discussions if I came in under another name and was not Neil Godfrey. Last time it took me some time to realize that we had quite different understandings of the very meanings of form and redaction criticism and how they differed. Wrede's point is that there is no problem to be addressed at all. The variation is a consequence of narrative setting. The motif is the same. But I'll leave you to talk to the others, and not me. I get tired of manufactured disagreements that look more like attempts at point scoring than serious discussion.

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

.
I think we have at least two types of explanations for the so called “messianic secret”.

One is based on psychological arguments or on narrative logic or such things. These may two examples

Taking the story in Mark 5 at face value: secrecy would not be an option after the destruction of a whole herd of swine.

I think the take away is that "Mark's" Jesus realizes ...

The other is Wrede’s great contribution. Wrede showed that this type of explanations makes no sense. Tim Widowfield:

In the case of Jairus’ daughter, it’s obvious that everyone is going to find out that the little girl has been restored to life, and yet Jesus tells her parents to tell no one what happened.

Note the "strictly charged them"

Mark 5:43 “And he strictly charged them that no one should know this ...”

Wrede thought – as Tim Widowfield pointed out – that

Mark did not invent the Messianic Secret; it already existed in his tradition. ... But in Mark’s day, traditions were less clear and more varied. He had before him some traditions in which Jesus fiercely hid his identity, but others in which he performed great works in public with no qualms at all.

Wrede, 1971

Mark has in fact absolutely no other purpose than to enunciate these ideas in the story. He injects the dogmatic motif offhandedly into the tale— and he can switch on those lights anywhere he wants. He is little concerned with how it looks as a historical feature in its environment. This is his procedure. ... p. 135

Ben is correct about what Wrede wrote about Mark 5:19. But I think that at the end Neil is correct that apparent contradictions in GMark are no problems for Wrede’s theory.

... Wrede, who on pages 140-141... treats Mark 5.19-20 as a potential issue to be explained if his overall theory is of any merit. His eventual solution to the problem ... is not, ... that Mark has contradicted himself, but rather that Mark has bid the man keep the news to himself and his family only. He argues that the "seeming deviation" from the other instances he has cited might be viewed instead as a "parallel" ...

My impression is that Mark 5:43 shows that we need a third type of explanation, but I have no clue what this could be.