The Messianic Secret in the Gospel of Mark and It's Ramifications for Our
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TANGAZA COLLEGE THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN AFRICA JOHN KUDJO DORBORKOE, S.V.D. THE MESSIANIC SECRET IN THE GOSPEL OF MARK AND ITS RAMIFICATIONS FOR OUR CHRISTIAN LIFE TODAY - Moderator Rev. Dr. Antonio Magnante, I.M.C. A Long Essay Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Baccalaureate in Sacred Theology NAIROBI 2009 II , DEDICATION To my parents, family, friends, teachers, and the Society of Divine Word. # A 111 EPIGRAPH "But we impart a Secret and Hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory." (RSV I Corinthians 2:7-8) IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First of all, my gratitude to the Triune God who is the source of my being and the source of all inspirations. To him be glory, honour and thanksgivings for ever. My sincere thanks also to Fr. Antonio Magnante who agreed to supervise this work in a comprehensive, scholarly, and friendly manner. I wish to thank also my confreres, formators, and students of the Society of the Divine Word for their support, prayers, and brotherhood. My gratitude also goes to my parents, family, friends, teachers, and all the parishioners of St. Maria Gorreti Catholic Church in Battor, Ghana for their love, concern and care. In a special way, I thank Fr. John Mervin Noronha, Fr Narciso CeIlan, Chester Paschal, Clement Addae-Kyei, Joseane Maria Serpa, Gabriel Ukhurebor, Sr. Theresa, Kolia, Chris Ankah, and Fr. Freddy Fingila, who either read this script or made some valuable suggestions. My hearty thanks to all the parishioners of Born Jesus de Iguape, Sao Paulo (Brazil) where I had my two-year overseas training experience. It was during Encontros Biblicos (Bible encounter or meeting) in Brazil that I first came across the idea of the Messianic Secret. I am really grateful to all my friends in Brazil, and to them I say, Matto obrigado (thanks a lot). Finally, I am grateful to all individuals, groups, organizations and institutions who have contributed in one way or the other to bring this work to completion. A V DECLARATION I, the undersigned, declare that this long essay is my original work achieved through my personal reading, scientific research method and critical reflection. It is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Baccalaureate in Sacred Theology. It has never been submitted to any other college or university for academic credit. All sources have been cited in full and acknowledged. Signed.. Name of Student: John Kudjo Dorborkoe, S.V.D. • q0(-` This long essay has been submitted for examination with my approval as the college supervisor. Signed. Name of supervisor: Rev. Dr. Antonio Magnante, I.M.C. Date. cti° J OV MJ VI CONTENTS DEDICATION II EPIGRAPH III ACKNOWLEDGEMENT IV DECLARATION V CONTENTS VI ABBREVIATIONS VII GENERAL INTRODUCTION Chapter One 5 THE MESSIANIC SECRET IN THE GOSPEL OF MARK 5 1.0 Introduction 5 1.2 The Origin of the Messianic Secret 5 1.3 Injunction to Silence 9 L3.1 Silence Imposed on Those Healed 10 1.3.2 The Silencing of the Demons 11 1.3.3 Silence Imposed on the Disciples 14 1.4 Conclusion 15 Chapter Two: 17 Attempts to explain the Messianic Secret in the Gospel of Mark 17 2.0 Introduction 17 2.1 The Historical Explanation 17 2.2 The Apologetic Explanation 20 2.3 The Epiphanic Interpretation 21 2.4 The Theology of the Cross Interpretation 22 2.4.1 Is the Messianic Secret a Response to a Heresy? 24 2.5 The History of Revelation Interpretation 26 2.6 Conclusion 27 Chapter Three 29 The Implications of the Messianic Secret for our Christian life Today 29 3.0 Introduction 29 3.1 Messianic Secret and the Full Identity of Jesus 30 3.2 The Messianic Secret and the Message of the Cross 32 3.3 Messianic Secret and the Proclamation of the Good News 33 3.4 Conclusion 34 GENERAL CONCLUSION 35 BIBLIOGRAPHY 40 VII ABBREVIATIONS ADB FREEDMAN, D.N., ed. (1992) Anchor Dictionary Bible, New York: Doubleday. BTB Biblical Theology Bulletin CI Confer; Compare Dr. Doctor e.g. Exempli gratia; for example ed. Edited by EDB HARTMAN, L.F. S. (1963) Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Bible, New York — Toronto London: McGraw-Hill Book Company. etc Etcetera, and so on, and the alike HBC MAY, J.L., ed. (1988) Harpers Biblical Commentary, San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers. i.e. id est - that is IMC Institutum Mission urn a Consolata Mk Mark NJBC BROWN, E.R. FITZMYER, J.A. - MURPHY, R.E., ed. (1990) The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. OCB METZGER, B.M. -- COOGAN, M.D., ed. (1993) The Oxford Companion to the Bible, Oxford: Oxford University Press. OT Old Testament Quelle Rev. Reverend RSV Revised Standard Version Sam. Samuel St. Saint SVD Societas Verbi Divini trans. Translation GENERAL INTRODUCTION Background The figure of the Messiah played a crucial role in Israel's understanding of God's salvation plans for her future. As a result, Judaism, at that time, knew of a list of figures such as Elijah, Moses, perhaps the Son of Man, the Anointed Priest, etc. All these figures were expected to appear at the time of God's definitive intervention on behalf of Israel. But the real transition to the expectation of a Messiah was brought about by the Old Testament idea of a king. The king was regarded, alongside the priests, and later the prophets, as the anointed (I Sam 10:1, 16:3, 2 Sam 2:4), as Yahweh's representative.' But the title 'Messiah' in general was undefined, even unclear; hence, subject to many forms of interpretations and misinterpretations. But to some extent the Messiahship that would be attributed to Jesus is best confined to a specifically defined idea, which is, the anointed King of the Davidic dynasty who would establish in the world the definitive reign of God.' The Messiah was mainly seen as the royal Son of David who would bring victory and prosperity to the Jewish nation and who would also set up his throne in Jerusalem. I Cf. W. !CASPER, Jesus Christ, 104. 2 Cf. J.L. MCKENZIE, "Aspects of Old Testament Thought", NJBC, 1310. 2 However, there is neither proof that Jesus ever explicitly described himself as Messiah in the royal Davidic sense, nor evidence that he categorically rejected the title.' In Mark 8:29, when Peter acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah, Jesus reacted with great reservation. But when the blind Bartimaeus in Mark 10:46, referred to Jesus as 'Son of David', Jesus did not instantly assume the title and did not rebuke him either. Jesus is frequently depicted in the Gospel of Mark as trying to keep up an element of secrecy about himself and his work. At the wake of the twentieth century, this characteristic was referred to as the Messianic Secret. This conception of the Messianic Secret was presented in a particularly challenging form by William Wrede in his work, Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien.° Wrede put forward a radical hypothesis which was held by certain scholars including R. Bultmann and some scholars today that Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah. According to this hypothesis, "the tradition used by Mark invented this imposition of secrecy by Jesus, the purpose of the invention being to cover this state of affairs and to justify the later tradition creating belief in Jesus as Messiah." According to W. Wrede, the apostles and the evangelist had to find a reason why Jesus was not commonly recognized as the Messiah, and, therefore, they pretended that, he himself had forbidden people to make his Messiahship known. In Wrede's view then, the Evangelist wished to make it look as if belief in Jesus as the Messiah had existed prior to that apostles' belief in the resurrection.' 'Cf. J.P. MEIER, "Jesus". NJBC , 1323. 4 Cf. W. WREDE, Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien (1901) which was translated into English under the title- The Messianic Secret, (Cambridge, 1971). 5 R. BEDA, The Testimony of St. Mark, 93. 'Cf. L.F. HARTMAN, "Mark, Gospel According SC, EDB, 1454. 3 Motivation Shocked with the conclusion drawn from Wrede theory, I set out to investigate why on earth Jesus is telling people to keep quiet? And if Jesus is really asking people to be quiet and not to announce him, then why am I here training to be a missionary? To an astonishing extent in Mark's text, every time someone recognises Jesus as the divine Son of Man, as the Messiah, Jesus tells that person to be quiet. The question is, why so much noise about Jesus while in fact Jesus is asking both human beings and demons in the Gospel of Mark not to make him known? What exactly is happening? Aim On a deeper level, if historical evidence is lacking to support the claim that Jesus called himself the Messiah, then the logical implication is that the Church or Mark invented it or was wrong to think of Jesus as Messiah. Was the title Messiah later attributed to Jesus? We could just consider Jesus' whole emphasis on secrecy a matter of mystery and be done with it and case close! But I think reasonable explanations for Jesus' insistence on silence merit consideration and attention. Therefore the author's main purpose in this paper is to discover what the Messianic Secret in Mark is about. In this research, we will also try to look at possible explanations and their relevance to our Christian life today.