Transcription
He knows that his readers are going to expect certain things, and he wants to show his skill. Right? And his Greek is maybe, maybe it's a choice. Maybe it's just not the best. You know, maybe he's still learning. But he's an amazing craftsman of plot and narrative, even if the literary skill isn't there, if you see what I mean. So, he's able to communicate that sense of secrecy ironically through his use of repetition. And then if you do know about Homer or Odysseus, if you've been educated enough, you're going to appreciate the craft, right? That he's managed to make this choice and fuse it in and make Jesus [music] like a Homeric hero.
>> If you're familiar with the Gospel of Mark, you've likely heard of the concept of the Messianic Secret. But what if this isn't something that is actually that unique to Mark? Hey, I'm Jordan, and this is the Bible and Archaeology podcast, the place for conversations and questions about the lands, civilizations, and archaeology of the Bible. This week, I'm very happy to be joined again by Dr. Robin Walsh for a discussion about the Messianic Secret and some of the parallels that exist for the Messianic Secret outside of the Gospel of Mark that you should be aware of, that Mark is probably pulling on, and some of these are really big names that you might be surprised that you haven't seen as the same type of pattern before. For example, Odysseus in the Odyssey. You have the same type of hidden identity happening there. So, why haven't we seen it? What in scholarship has led to the specific perspective we've had on this role, and what can we do to resolve these problems? Because Robin's not arguing that this idea of the secret isn't there, but that we have been approaching it wrong. And if we recontextualize Mark within the broader world of Greco-Roman literature, we can get something new. So, settle in. I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation. Remember, for early access to ad-free podcast and exclusive bonus content, you can join us over on Patreon. We are Bible and Archaeology on Patreon. But, settle in and I hope you enjoy our conversation all about the real story behind the Messianic Secret. Robin, thank you so much for taking the time to come back to talk today about one of these terms that people know, but as we're just talking about, most people have never actually read about and probably don't really know this idea of the Messianic Secret. So, I appreciate you taking the time to come and get into the weeds on this sometimes what feels like a magical solution that isn't actually that.
>> Yeah, [music] the term itself. First of all, thanks for having me back and you were my first visit with the new computer. So, um if anything goes wrong, I'm going to blame it on that, but uh I'm excited to be here uh with my new machine. But, uh yes, this term Messianic Secret comes from a scholar named William Wrede, and he was writing in German. He wrote a book about this idea of the Messianic Secret in German. I won't bother trying to pronounce the German, but it came out around 1901. And it really uh hit a note with people. I kind of uh I'll use this German. It hit the zeitgeist and people really loved this concept as a way to organize their thinking around the Gospel of Mark. So, if anybody has read the Gospel of Mark, even if you haven't and you've heard this idea of Messianic Secret, you probably know the contours of it. Which is that Jesus in that Gospel, you you don't get that baby Jesus story, you jump right into Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist and then he goes out, the the pneuma, the spirit drives him out um to perform all of his uh various actions including healings, miracles, and so forth. The the things people know about. And throughout all of that activity in the Galilee on his way to Jerusalem, whenever he comes into contact with the various crowds, whenever he walks into a town, people are mesmerized. Uh they are they're marveling. This is usually the language that that gets translated into English. Sometimes they are so full of wonder, they're kind of going crazy.
>> [laughter]
>> It's the word in the way the the Greek is structured. And the word involved in Greek is thauma. Um or thaumatos. It has like different uh the root itself is kind of thauma and it has a different um variations. But it's a term that is widely deployed in ancient literature and I we could talk about some examples including in the epics, Homer, Virgil in Latin, um but the same kind of idea of wonder uh or even in some of the so-called paradoxographers in antiquity. It's actually really all over the place. But uh wonder, this idea of thauma uh occurs quite frequently. Um but when Jesus comes into these spaces, this kind of thauma is instilled in the people who are encountering him and he performs some kind of miracle. Usually right after they'll go, "Who was that guy?" Also part of this thauma construction. "What was that? Who was this guy? Whoa, like again, I'm kind of going out of my mind. Like what was this about?" And he'll go, "Shh." You know, or he'll say, "Don't say anything."
>> Don't say anything about me. Don't say anything about this.
>> Don't say anything about it. Keep this a secret. Even the disciples kind of don't know who he is. They keep going like, "Hey, what's They're just following around like, "Who's this dude?" Nobody seems to understand who he is. His activity, although overt, is shrouded in secrecy. And so when Wrede wrote this book, he said, "Well, this is the Messianic Secret." And do you want me to talk about what he says uh in in that book?
>> Yeah, let's can we go into what he says? Cuz I the this outline, I think is helpful to remind everybody. Here's the broad parameters. Because this is one of those categories of descriptions of text that I think get slapped around so often, people just smile and nod and say, "Yeah, I kind of know some of this, but not so much." But you were saying that what he actually talks about this and the way and the timeline complicates a little bit more of the way we have simplified the use of it now. Is that fair to say?
>> That's fair to say. So, when he writes his story, he's actually his story.
>> [laughter]
>> When he writes uh his monographs on the Messianic Secret as this explanatory model for the thing that we just described, the wonderment and uh misrecognition and secrecy that's throughout Mark. He says, "Well, you know, my colleagues, I don't want I you know, I don't want to put too much stank on this. So, I'm going to try to restrain myself, but I've worked on this a lot. It's very interesting." He'll say, "My colleagues, they act like they're personal friends with Jesus. They're always saying Jesus thinks this and Jesus thinks that." And um he says that they're sort of like a psychologizing superstitiousness that goes on uh and I want to really make this concrete. I'm going to look at the text. And then he goes on to be like, "Jesus thinks this. So, they're just kind of funny to me um when I when I read it, but I think it made an impact because he coupled this different structure for understanding that Jesus had the intention of delaying the recognition of him as Messiah. And that Messianic determination on Jesus' part, which is a psychologizing move again in some ways, um was a an intentional intervention on Mark's part to do two things. One is explain why didn't anybody recognize the historical Jesus was the Messiah in his lifetime. And so, Mark, again, an intervention to try to explain this away. But to also explain again this literary feature that he's identifying, which is in this text, why doesn't Jesus want anyone to know? Why is this thauma thing that we're so familiar with happening? Although he doesn't specifically talk about that as a literary feature, the thauma, but he does acknowledge the secrecy, obviously. Uh and you know, Jesus' activity, the you know, shh afterwards, um recurring over and over again. He's trying to explain that as a literary matter. And so that I suspect combination of you know, attack sort of you know, attack and reversal, right? Like you guys are all doing this thing. I'm going to bring us back to the text. I'm going to bring us back to these different principles. And even though the language ends up kind of being similar, that made it relatable, I think to people. And so this idea of like, well, the Messianic secret is Jesus as Messiah has determined he has to delay the uh acknowledgement, the recognition of his role because as soon as people recognize that he's the predicted Messiah, he knows he's going to be crucified. He has this pre-knowledge of what's going to happen. And so that becomes uh again this or organizing principle that people have used since 1901. I mean, I know when I was coming up in the field, I was still hearing
>> Mhm.
>> the idea of Messianic secret. I'm sure it has a Wikipedia page. You know, it's It has become, I think still, especially ironically in the English-speaking world, the predominant model from I I've actually done an Ngram gram study on this. Um it it has remained, and increasingly so, uh over the years, throughout the 20th century, the main model that people used to describe the Gospel of Mark.
>> What do you think it is about this framework that has allowed it to not just be popular in its emergence, but continue on in this way, is it seemingly unchallenged?
>> Well, I mean, people have challenged it, but I think it's so neat. It's just so tightly boxed with a little bow on it. It it's a very very confusing element. And I think it it agitates against ideas we have broadly, culturally, uh religiously, and not in the abstract, but when I say broadly, I think we tend to think of Jesus uh I'm thinking about iconography where he's like holding a lamb.
>> Mhm.
>> Like I think we have this idea of Jesus because he is ministering to the poor, to the sick. Uh you know, in his teachings, he's advocating for the less than. We do have this more, I would say, compassionate, maybe, um or uh accessible idea of Jesus. So then when you read the Gospel of Mark, and you have frankly a very grouchy, I mean, he he's I used to ask my students like, "Who would you cast in a Hollywood movie after you've read the Gospel of Mark to play Jesus?" Um and I used to get people like uh Samuel L. Jackson.
>> [laughter]
>> uh like right after Pulp Fiction, you know, like around that. So I would get like more of these kind of cantankerous suggestions, I would say. Um and that's just how, you know, despite what people think of the level of the Greek, that characterization of this figure does come through. So to say like, "Oh, well, he had to do it." I mean, there's a different ways that you can you could argue this. Well, he had to be that way because he had to delay the Messianic recognition. We had to be that way cuz it was a secret. Uh secrecy dominates, you know, the entire text, and so on and so forth. Um so I think you could come at that question from different angles, but I think I've established in just that one explanation sort of a crux of the different moving pieces that you might look at to explain why it's had such a hold on us in the field.
>> When when you look at it as something that exists in Mark, in this explanation of one way to explain some of what's happening in Mark. But something that is not unique to Mark that as you've mentioned is happening in these other ancient texts. Is that something that is discussed in the early development of this or is is this idea of the Messianic secret presented as something unique to Mark and distinct among this perspective, this character, this story?
>> I want to be careful because I have not read everything in the world. Um, and so I don't want to not acknowledge someone who has maybe looked at this since 1901.
>> [laughter]
>> Um, however, in my own research on the subject, I have not found too many people acknowledging the literary features in such a way that I don't see some slippage back to historical Jesus. Some slippage back into how do we psychologize this character? And if you don't mind, I'll reveal that before we hit record, I was talking to you a little about this and uh this might seem like an odd analogy. But I was noticing it uh when Euphoria was ending uh cuz I'm always on TikTok, you know, when I'm not.
>> Euphoria is the show everyone thinks of when they finish reading Mark. They probably go like I this and the the companion show to this is
>> like who would I cast? I mean, if I ask that question in the fall, everyone's going to say Jacob Elordi. You know, tomorrow's my birthday. I suggested a Jacob Elordi theme. Anyway, like he's just everywhere. He's everywhere. But, you know, when I'm not being a a scholar or a mom or whatever, I'm on TikTok like everyone else. Uh so when Euphoria was ending, it was you know, I can't help but think about work all the time no matter what I'm doing. And all of this discourse around like what does Cassie really think? Um, or you know, and we were saying like well, Cassie doesn't exist. Cassie's a character. And it's Sydney Sweeney and I don't know, right? But we have this tendency like this is what literature does. This is what these kinds of stories do. They're an entree for us to start thinking about our own positions in the world. You know, this is how storytelling is a way to think about things like virtue and vice or why we would read a biography about somebody. You know, we not only learn about historical trends, but we learn about biographical details of somebody's decision-making and so on and so forth. So, you know, we we do that with Jesus, too. Even if we're sort of aware like, oh, this might be a literary strategy. So, I have not seen much in terms of people talking about the literary strategy because I think there have been other concerns that people have had that shade into that area of, you know, what does Cassie think?
>> And [laughter] and it becomes more of a theological strategy rather than a literary strategy inside of it.
>> I see it yeah, as more unique the approach and the treatment of something like the Gospel of Mark and you know, something we haven't really talked about and so you is that it's a religious text, right? And so you religious texts and I'm sure we have had conversations and people know like the canon's much later. Gospel of Mark didn't like get born into a world in which it was automatically scripture. You know, that is a social development. It's contingent. It takes time, but you know, let's put that aside. Let's think about how this text functions now. It's scripture. You know, it's a gospel. It's a canonical gospel and so people can't help but approach it in that way and so whether it's a faith-based perspective, a scholarly perspective, a lot of the same questions obtain and so people will approach it in that traditional method and something like the Messianic secret is a very convenient again, seemingly literary strategy, intervention, theological explanation, logical, nice little bow again like nice tidy structure for understanding something that's otherwise, you know, why do I have a grumpy Samuel L. Jackson Jason A Lorde just Jesus that I have to deal with here.
>> If we put Mark's Messianic Secret then in conversation with another text that is approaching this format as a literary convention. Is there an ancient text you think people should reach to if they're wanting to come back to this idea in Mark with new eyes to try to break out of just reading it as a theological text or in the context of religious text cuz they may say, I I don't know of another I can reach to to do this. Where would you tell them to go?
>> Totally normal, right? Like that that completely makes sense. And you know, it it's not where people would necessarily begin. But one thing that I always ask myself is what did Mark have at his disposal as a model? But also let we have to set aside here to the idea of oral tradition, which we haven't talked about where there is some assumption that there's oral tradition or group think somewhere behind Mark. Let's bracket that for now. We can come back to it. But if you don't know where to look, you might go back to oh well, historical Jesus or oral tradition, these are stories that people told and that's the source, right? But yes, when you start to think what's at Mark's disposal, but also very concretely about we know Mark went to school. We can consider school here like in quotes, right? We call it paideia is the term we use in in Greek to describe how people learned in antiquity. Whether he's learning at home, you know, on his own time cuz he has the leisure time, whether he went to some kind of formalized schooling, whether he had a tutor and whatever the situation was for Mark, somebody taught him Greek. At some point, he had some kind of schooling to teach himself. And what was the number one thing in all evidence, regardless of education level, writing level, prose sophistication, so on and so forth, that anybody who can produce prose literature learned in school? Number one, Homer.
>> [laughter]
>> Right? So, whenever we ask this question about, especially Imperial Age literature, but ancient Greek literature, it always almost goes back to Homer, which frankly can be a little annoying if you're not a big Homer fan.
>> You're not eagerly anticipating the release of Christopher Nolan's Odyssey in what what is going to be a very convenient timeline between this and that?
>> I know. I'm sorry. I I'm sorry. It's just it's never I like Euripides. Like, you know, we all have our thing, right? We all have our thing. I'm like a Lucian Euripides kind of person like on my own time. I've started to appreciate Cicero more. I like his letters. He's funny. Pliny, hilarious. You know, like I'm starting I'm starting to, you know, broaden my horizons, but if I had if I'm at the beach, I'm not popping
>> [laughter]
>> the Iliad. It's just not it's just not for me. But, I had to because I was trying to figure out, you know, where do I see uh evidence, perhaps, of the way that Mark might have gone to school, his level of education, how he had been trained. And frankly, if just looking at the Odyssey, and we were just talking about how I've been working on this, when the hero, the main character of the story, in this case Odysseus, um but this goes throughout ancient Greek literature and Latin literature, when the hero comes into town, when the hero reveals themself in one way or another, especially when on a journey, which the epics almost always have, they are almost always not recognized at first. And what's the Greek word when Odysseus is uh uh you know, found you know, at the at the edge of the river and you know, he's all bedraggled and people, you know, are and the town pick him up and you know, try he washes himself off and he goes in on to the kingdom and uh is essentially saved. What's the word that every maiden uses? That every king uses? That everybody uses when they see Odysseus? Thauma.
>> [laughter]
>> So, he remains the stranger for I think nine or 10 books. He doesn't tell anybody who he is until like book 10. And he's been hanging out for like days. And they keep saying, "Who is this stranger clearly come from heaven? I am in wonder, thauma." Over and over again and he never reveals who he is. He decides when he reveals who he is at the right moment. And even other characters in this story will say things like, "Well, this guy clearly has a fate behind him that he's going to exercise. He's clearly come down from heaven. And he will reveal himself in due time." So, even something like that, right? It's so closely aligned to exactly what's happening with Jesus in the Gospel of Mark. The spirit comes down, he becomes God's son, people clearly know he's some kind of strange being, he's some kind of stranger with these crazy abilities that come into their midst. But they're just struck with wonder, they don't understand, he doesn't reveal himself until the right time. So, if you go back to Homer, it's all over there. Um it's all over paradoxography as I mentioned. Um also Virgil picks it up and Virgil also learned from Homer. So, when you read Virgil, um you see it with certain characters like Camilla. When especially if a character is paradoxical. Um so, Camilla is a warrior but also a woman. Nobody really expects that. So, when she comes in on on horseback, people are like, "Oh my god, I'm going out of my mind. I don't understand. How could she be both? And it's that same kind of uh wonder, secrecy, retention, reveal that goes on. Um and so it's just it's so common. It's [laughter] so It's so common across all of this literature that I can imagine little Mark learning in school. He would have had exercises. We have school papyri. Um there's a scholar named Teresa Morgan. The book was published in 1998. She has on literate education. It was re-released in 2000. So it's a little old now. There's been more papyri found. Uh and more ostraca and and other objects that we know students learned on. But she has these really handy charts in the back where she actually shows you how many uh extant school exercises do we have based on different kinds of writing? And guess who's front and center? The first nine books of the Odyssey, right? So I can imagine baby Mark learning Greek and having to do all kinds of homework assignments and exercises around the characterization of Odysseus. And he picked this one thing up that when you have a hero come into a you know a territory with uh these miraculous powers or other kinds of um objectives, usually he withholds revelation of who he is and people are struck with wonder.
>> When you when you see the secrecy in Mark then in this light, in looking towards Odysseus or other characters, does it change for you how you think Mark is trying to use this or adapt this or what they expect the audience's reaction to be instead of something that is this theological approach or like that type of shush, here's not who I am that that we missed, that we need to first plug back in to say, "Hey, the first thing to try to pay attention to, the first thing to try to wash your eyes of is this now that you have some of these other companions." Cuz you're not going to see it as Odysseus is there's a little bit of a difference. But of course what is what's the thing that Mark you think is then doing with it?
>> Well, I think what it shows us, you know, people are always endlessly and rightfully so interested, you know, we mentioned the historical Jesus, but the historical gospel writer and their methods and their sources. We talk about this all the time. Uh and then usually there are features of these texts that we find perplexing in modernity that I don't think were perplexing in antiquity. For example, why is Jesus keeping his identity a secret? So we just kind of handled that. Um another one that I recently talked about in an article um that came out um called Miracle Mongers and you know, we can maybe put a link to it or email me if you want to talk.
>> Absolutely.
>> Actually, I think it might be open access. Well, I'll I'll double I'll double check on that. Uh but it just came out in a journal called Judaica.
>> [snorts]
>> Um but in that I talk about time telling in Luke. And I compare it to paradoxography. And
>> Can you explain what paradoxography is for someone who is
>> yes. Yeah, it's um okay, I'm going to say something that people who study paradoxography do not like. And I want them to know that I hear them. And I respect them. And I know that this is traumatic. Ripley's Believe It or Not. Okay?
>> [laughter]
>> It's actually pretty close. Like it's it it doesn't um cover all of it, but paradoxographical texts tend to talk to you about fantastic things that have happened kind of about the outskirts of the empire or like strange details about people, animals, objects, places that are supposed to be again paradoxical um per the the name, but kind of these uh wondrous ephemera that give you an idea of like how bizarre the world can be. So somebody in Thessalonica lived to be 270 years old. Like just a little vignette that would tell you about that. There was a guy named Rufus of Philippi who I heard resurrected after 3 days. Uh there it was a baby born in Rome under the office of such and such a governor who had the head of Anubis and they threw it in the Tiber. Right?
>> [laughter]
>> It's I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh about throwing a head of Anubis baby but I don't think that happened. So, um I giggle. But this kind of thing is what you find in paradoxography and it's usually ranked uh by kind of type, story type. Uh and then you see features of it and um storytelling like Plutarch, you know, or a story about uh we heard that there was a guy who rode the back of a dolphin, you know, all the way across across the ocean. Those kinds of wonderful wondrous stories we call paradoxography. And so we do have some collections that are the Ripley's Believe It or Not, you know, a guy who ate, you know, however many tacos um versus, you know, features within a literary tradition. So, that's what what that is. Um but this article where I talk about time telling, one thing that paradoxography does is it loves to mark time according to who was in office at a certain period of time. So, I mentioned the head of Anubis, you know, so-and-so was provincial governor at this time uh when uh I There's There's one about somebody found a centaur and uh mummified it and put it in the storehouse of the emperor. So, I you know, these are just like lit- little snippets that that I can uh have on automatic recall but it's almost always again time telling with somebody who's in office. And so, I looked into scholarship on time telling in Luke. I looked at François Bovon's uh Hermeneia series. I read some work by some other scholars, and Paula Fredrickson and other people who have read, you know, worked on this. And it's been very perplexing, you know, how do we understand Luke's time telling? Because in his baby Jesus story, his infancy narrative, he mentions uh all kind you know, a census under Augustus, a worldwide census makes zero sense uh really. I mean, it makes a little sense, but not with the kind of records we have, not to go back to your homeland from like multiple generations before. Um but we know Augustus is in power. Um these references to the Herodian family that you have both in Matthew and Luke. But in in Luke specifically also Quirinius being governor of Syria. And the time that he's listing does not match up with what we know historically, right? Um and so that has been perplexing theologically, historically, how do we resolve this? Especially for those who think the Gospels can't be wrong, right? Historically, but here it is a patently unresolvable issue. But if you look at paradoxography, that's how you tell time. And what is what are the Gospels if not a collection of wondrous things that this one guy has done, right? And so that to me tells us something about whether it's Mark or Luke or any of these other writers, not just source material, but influence, structure, what they want, as you say, recognized by their readers. And not just recognized, but what's expected, right? So if you're going to tell this remarkable story about this baby that is going to grow up and, you know, perform all these miracles and is the messianic savior of the world, and you're going to tell that story with full of wonder, you're going to tell time the way that you've been both taught, but a reader's going to expect to hear it. And similarly, I think Mark made the decision his Jesus was going to be an epic hero. He was going to be an Odysseus. He was going to be a Virgilian kind of foundational this was going to be a foundational story for Jesus and the development of potentially the Jesus movement. But how else do I tell the story about this far-flung flung place in the empire and this guy who's sending demons into swine and you know, healing withered hands and you know, hemorrhaging women and so on and so forth. Multiplying wheat and you know, now I'm combining different gospels. You get my point. Like when you start to think about all resurrecting a child, you know, to Letha. Um you're you're presenting paradox both in terms of his actions, how you imagine people would react to those reactions, what readers would expect from anybody observing those reactions, but then also a Messiah who's going to be crucified. What is more paradoxical than that? So I think the stage is set and that tells us why you see this approach with these different writers.
>> So when you are looking at this for for a listener coming through and saying hearing now, I hear some challenges to the framework of the Messianic Secret or the way maybe it's been applied. For you it's not that that doesn't exist, but that some of the way it's been there has maybe misidentified features that we can better understand if we look to something else. So it's it's a widening of the way we're reading this rather than a shutting off.
>> It's uh it's a widening. I'm not shutting it off. I'm also trying to say, you know, this is something that if we keep that lens to your widening point too narrow, if we assume that the gospels because we read them theologically and they had theological weight to them are different fundamentally different kinds of literature, then we lose a touchstone with exactly what we I've been monologuing about for the last 20 minutes. But we we lose a touchstone with where do the comparisons the more more fruitful comparisons where do they lie? Um and so I I was uh just in um Austria and I I gave a paper in Vienna and one in Innsbruck and I talked about this cuz I'm a I'm working on a book. And the first question I got in Innsbruck after I did this whole thing about Homer and Virgil and Mark and massive standing secret was nobody else has seen that cuz it just seems so obvious.
>> Once you say it, you go that makes a ton of sense. And even some of the stuff for Odysseus where you have some of that paradoxical on the fringes of as you're traveling around these far away places and peoples that you're running into. You say it and you go yeah, it feels everywhere. And it's kind of surprising given the time and the place this comes out of Germany 1900s and love of Homer and that that that's not a part of how this is discussed in its formation.
>> Well, you know, even if it's mentioned, right? Like so here's one example where I think it it gets mentioned. I hope.
>> [laughter]
>> I hope I'm not the only is so some people will say there are occasions in Mark where Jesus is amazed at the lack of faith or the doubt of say the disciples or after he's done performed a miracle. And he's like what's what's with these people? Back to grouchy Jesus. And Thelma's used, right? So it's not just people wondering about Jesus. Jesus is like oh my I don't want to say oh my god, but yeah, I think he can of anybody he can say that. So he's having that reaction to these people around him. He can't believe who he's dealing with essentially. Um but Odysseus does the same thing. Um he does wonder. Now he doesn't wonder like oh these people, you know, he's he's not as frustrated, but he'll talk about how he wonders about in his journeys he saw this, you know, tree that was really remarkable or you know, a beautiful maiden that he he wonders at. So, you know, there's a mutuality to the wonder. Um it's not just one-sided. And so, I you know, I wouldn't be surprised if I went back to Vreiza and did a search for Homer. I'm sure, because as I've mentioned, everyone knows Homer was the foundational um source of education, the foundational literary model. Uh I mean, I sometimes I make the analogy to most people have to encounter Shakespeare at some point. Now, like PS, Shakespeare stole it all from the guys we're talking about, but let's forget that for a second. But, we all go back to Shakespeare, who also that's because of the Germans and their educational system, but I'm going down a wormhole. Anyway, most people in high school most people by the time that they're able to form more sophisticated prose have like even if they didn't quite understand it, they have
>> You have to have
>> So, it's
>> something. Yeah.
>> I mean, I read the CliffNotes. I'll just admit it, you know, like I had to read Portrait of a Lady. I didn't want to do it. I got the CliffNotes. You know, we all But, I did learn about character and structure and plot, right? Like we we all if we go through that kind of schooling eventually come across these models. Um and so, it that might be acknowledged, but I don't know uh again, for all the barriers we've talked about um and reasons we've been talking about, I I don't think this connection that I identify in that article I mentioned uh or that I'm working on right now. I'm not I'm not sure they've gotten the full treatment. And so, it's nice to open up a new conversation where we can look at this uh in more depth as a as a field.
>> And it taps onto the difficulty of identifying the way texts are talking about or talking with each other when it's not something like I am responding to this person. I'm responding to this thing as a critique. Those ones feel obvious, but these types of things, the allusions, especially from so far removed now in time, or when you're coming to it from a completely different perspective, are the things that can be so easy to miss until someone points it out and you feel like, "Oh, yeah, that How did I not? How did I not see that this part was in here?" And it's not that type of like deflating of the text,
>> No.
>> but a new way back into it.
>> And what's interesting is that shows the flexibility of these texts, and I think that goes a long way for explaining their staying power, cuz sometimes people might say like, "Well, I don't understand how the Bible, the Gospels, the scriptures have managed to be interpreted and reinterpreted and re- fashioned over time in such a way that they continue to be revelatory for people." Uh and I'm going to make another analogy that might get me in trouble, but uh have you ever uh you know, I mentioned my my son a minute ago, but having to watch uh cartoons, or uh we're way into Dog Man in this house right now. Uh we were into Dog Man before the movie, but we're like suit We got all the Dog Man books. We're way into it. And when I read Dog Man, there's two levels of discourse there, right? There's the level of discourse that the kid loves, and there's the level of discourse that I get the jokes. Like I know when it's an allusion to a weird 70s song, right? [laughter] Or I know because we all know from the titles. My son has no idea I mean, I've now told him, but like the Scarlet Shredder. He doesn't know about the Scarlet Letter, right? And I have to tell him, or Wuthering Heights. Like I explained Wuthering Heights to him Jacob Elordi Wuthering Heights to him, and you know, like I I tell him like, "Oh, it's based on this book," and so on and so forth, or like who Hemingway is, right? When when we get to that one. So, it's communicating on those two two registers. The parent is entertained, and the child is entertained. And and so, that's really interesting to me because I think what you have with Mark is that he knows how he's been educated. He knows that his readers going to expect certain things and he wants to show his skill. Right? And his Greek is maybe maybe it's a choice. Maybe it's just not the best. You know, maybe he's still learning. But he's an amazing craftsman of plot and narrative, even if the literary skill isn't there, if you see what I mean.
>> Mhm.
>> So he's able to communicate that sense of secrecy ironically through his use of repetition. He loves to use this uh the phrase in Greek is uh it's two words. It's uh kaiuthus which means we translate it as immediately. Yeah. So he says and immediately. And kai is and so and immediately and immediately and immediately. But it gives you that sense of like um you know like he's here then he's here then he's here. It's like it's very like it adds to the mystery. And then if you do know about Homer and Odysseus, if you've been educated enough, you're going to appreciate the craft, right? That he's managed to make this choice infuse it in and make Jesus like a Homeric hero and address that paradoxographical or the paradox problem of the Messiah crucified up front with the secrecy approach. Uh and then it it you still learn entertain by the story even if you have no idea.
>> Yeah. Even if you don't know those parts.
>> Yeah, even if you don't know. Um but if you do know what the standards are for paradoxographical figures, for figures in far-flung places of the empire with Rome as kind of that conceptual literary center. Um you know, you're you're going to appreciate what he's done on that level, too. So yeah, Gospel of Mark's like Dog Man.
>> So if you if you were looking to re-enjoy the Gospel of Mark, you can either go and read Dog Man first. Or [snorts] if you are hoping to enjoy the Odyssey or Mark, maybe you have some homework before you go and see Christopher Nolan's Odyssey. You can reread the real thing and Mark or watch that and then reread Mark as a way back into some of this secrecy. Whatever way you want to come back in, look at it again, find new ways into the Messianic Secret, which is something is there, but maybe it's not there in the way you had thought of
>> recommend Weenie Wars. The Weenie Wars and Dog Man is my favorite. Um so yeah, maybe I'll assign that to my students in the fall, like, you know,
>> Weenie Wars, the Odyssey and Mark. Your three reading recommendations uh in addition to some journal articles. So we'll have some links down below for your your homework needs as you come forward. Robin, thank you so much for taking the time to come and talk about this. I really appreciate it. It's always a joy and you never quite know what examples you're going to get. It's a blast. I I love it and it is so much fun. So thank you for coming to walk through the Messianic Secret. It's not all wrong, but it's also not all right and that's the best kind of thing.
>> Thank you so much for having me.
>> For all of you watching, thank you so much for tuning in. Be sure to like and subscribe wherever you find us. It helps us. Hopefully it helps you stay in touch with us. But for this week, for all of us here at Bible and Archaeology, until next time.