Giuseppe wrote: ↑Sun May 27, 2018 1:24 am
I read this comment by prof Bob Price:
Wrede noted certain inconsistencies in Mark's presentation implying that, while he preserved the Secret motif largely intact, he no longer understood it.
https://books.google.it/books?id=hD1RDw ... es&f=false
I am curious of examples in Mark where he broke inadvertently the Messianic Secret,
according to Wrede (and/or Price).
May an example (of the Price's claim about Wrede) be the fact that the demons recognize Jesus as the davidic 'Holy of God' ?
....
Other more clear examples?
Wrede pointed out Mark's inconsistency in the matter of the silence enjoined about Jesus' messianic character. Several themes run through the gospel all at once, and some of them do not rest easily with the other themes. By themselves, the various themes are fine; but some of them create tensions and contradictions once Mark, "or someone like him" (Wrede's own words on page 33), wove them together.
So here are some examples of Wrede dealing with this issue:
William Wrede, The Messianic Secret, page 34:
Mark does not merely represent the demons as simply addressing Jesus as Messiah; he twice emphasises that they know him (1.24, 34). This would make no sense if he did not in the same connection have the contrast in mind that in general Jesus was not known.
I am not saying that in this the process by which this characteristic came into being has been clearly described. On this subject one can hardly establish anything quite certain and precise, as indeed will be true in many another doubtless unhistorical feature. But the following would be a possibility. First of all the story was told of how the demons were afraid at the approach of Jesus, their enemy. This was an accepted idea. But as the idea existed that Jesus' messiahship was unknown, it attracted attention that the demons constituted an exception. This idea then became important and acquired a definite character.
William Wrede, The Messianic Secret, 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.
William Wrede, The Messianic Secret, pages 237-238:
A great deal of what now does not fit the idea of the secret messiahship can already have been told in the very oldest tradition essentially in this way, without the contradictions having already existed then. I am thinking especially of the miracle stories. To be sure it will have been narrated from the start that Jesus performed miracles and therefore naturally public miracles. But if to start with the miracles were not as yet erga tou Christou..., that is, messianic works, naturally that contradiction too was not present. The public nature of the miracles thus maintained itself simply in the tradition and the contradiction arose first of all through their being later regarded as messianic, while the messiahship itself was reckoned to be a secret.
Other material, however, is of such a form that it must be attributed to a tradition which by reason of its origin is already opposed to the idea of the secret Christ. The clearest examples might be the entry into Jerusalem and the confession before the High Priest. These stories make no bones about the public messiahship of Jesus. Thus in Mark's day and previously there certainly was such a tradition in existence.
On page 140 Wrede also recognizes Mark 5.19-20 as a potential crack in the silence; he offers a solution to this problem, but it is one that I am not really on board with.
ETA: Good going, Giuseppe: an OP with some grist to it!