Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 21:1 (NA 1970)
Article: The Messianic Secret In Mark
Author: J. D. G. Dunn

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TynBul 21:1 (1970) p. 92

The Messianic Secret In Mark*

J. D. G. Dunn

*Revised form of a paper given at the New Testament Study Group of the Tyndale Fellowship, at Tyndale House, Cambridge, July, 1969.

Despite the cool reception given to it by English scholarship when it first appeared, it is now abundantly evident that Wilhelm Wrede’s Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien (1901) marked a turning point of considerable importance in the study of the Gospels inasmuch as Wrede was really the first to recognize and appreciate the theological nature of the Synoptics. His specific thesis (that the Messianic secret motif in Mark has a theological rather than a historical origin) has ‘markedly influenced the researches of those who came after him, to such an extent that it is often taken for granted, a ‘given’ in the investigation of new propositions and theses.1 His own statement of the thesis has not escaped criticism and refinement, of course, but his main conclusion still stands as proven for the majority of continental scholars. An investigation of the Messianic secret motif in Mark must therefore deal in the first place with Wrede himself, and I will begin by briefly outlining Wrede’s argument.

He points first to the commands with which Jesus silence the Messianic confessions of the demons (1:23-25, 34; 3:11f cf. 5:6f; 9:20). Since the various explanations offered for the possessed individual’s knowledge are unsatisfactory, we must recognize a legendary development in the tradition. When other commands to silence are also taken into consideration― to those healed miraculously (1:43-45; 5:43; 7:36; 8:26), the disciples after Peter’s confession (8:30) and after the transfiguration

TynBul 21:1 (1970) p. 93

(9:9)—as also the intention of Jesus to remain hidden (7:24; 9:30f.) and the command addressed by the crowd to Bartimaeus to be silent (10:47f.), it becomes evident that what is being thus guarded is the Messianic secret. He goes on to cite other evidence, the most notable of which are the private instruction ...

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