There Is No Messianic Secret: Studies in Mark, Pt. 20
For many years now, scholars have tried to make sense out of silence mandate that Jesus places on many of the persons He encounters at various points throughout His mission. It is nearly impossible today to pick up a serious study or commentary on Mark’s Gospel account that does not talk about “the messianic secret.” Basically, for those who might not be familiar with this theory, it suggests that the best explanation for Jesus’ command of persons (or spiritual entities) to keep quiet about Him, is pretty much 1 of 2 things: 1) Either Mark totally made these words up and put them on the lips of Jesus and is using them as a type of literary foil, or 2) Jesus actually said them and wanted people to keep quiet about His identity because they just didn’t get what Jesus was about or because the time had not yet come where people were supposed to know about His mission and identity. These are the base theories; others have been developed or stemmed from them in some way. While I am treading ...