Resisting Honor: The Markan Secrecy Motif and Roman Political Ideology

Abstract

This article builds on the work of David F. Watson, who has recently argued that major features of Mark's so-called messianic secret should not be understood in terms of at all, but rather should be understood in terms of intentional resistance to honor. While I agree with Watsons evaluation of the (as intentional resistance to honor), I find Watsons claim that the Markan evangelist inverts standard honor/shame conventions to be unsatisfactory. The article explores alternative explanations for the Markan Jesus' resistance to honor and proposes that a possible explanation might be found in Roman political ideology. While examples of resisting achieved and proscribed honor are few and far between in the ancient Mediterranean world, they are frequently found in the lives of first-century Roman emperors, particular emperors who were remembered favorably. I propose that this Roman political background might be a useful way forward in understanding Jesus' resistance to honor in Mark's Gospel. To support this argument, three spheres of evidence are considered: (1) the clear presentation in Mark's Gospel of Jesus as a world ruler; (2) the strong possibility of a Roman provenance for Mark; and (3) numerous features in Mark's Gospel suggesting that it is challenging Roman imperial power.(ProQuest: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.)Just over a century ago, William Wrede left an indelible mark on the field of NT studies when he demonstrated the presence of a distinct secrecy motif in Mark's Gospel. Yet a century of scholarship has not produced a consensus regarding the motif's meaning and significance. In his recent monograph, Honor among Christians: The Cultural Key to the Messianic Secret, David F. Watson has taken a decisive step forward, a step I attempt to build on here.1 While Watson rightfully reads the text in light of the first-century honor/shame value system, I believe his reading only partially resolves the conundrum of Mark's secrecy motif. This article complements Watson's work by adding a political dimension to his insights. In particular, Jesus' actions will be viewed through the lens of Roman political ideology and will be compared to the actions of Roman emperors. The results will be combined with Watson's insights on the Markan secrecy motif in an attempt to explain the motif's significance for Mark's first-century readers.I. David F. Watson: Honor or Secrecy?Watson uses the tools of social-scientific criticism to explore the meaning of secrecy in the ancient Mediterranean world as well as in the Markan pericopes that are so often associated with secrecy in modern scholarship. Regarding the former, he argues that the language and function of secrecy are virtually absent in Mark's Gospel. Words closely associated with secrecy (particularly in religious texts) such as ... and (... are rare or absent in Mark.2 In fact, Watson demonstrates that in the whole of Mark's Gospel, the language of secrecy occurs only four times, three of which come in two verses of ch. 4. Watson demonstrates that secrecy functioned in three primary ways in the ancient world: to protect from danger, to preserve community boundaries, and to defend an individual's or a group's reputation. According to Watson, none of these prominent functions of secrecy stands out in Mark's Gospel. Ultimately, Watson concludes that what is often described as a motif in Mark is misleading and that the intended readers of the Gospel would not have understood the pericopes that form such a motif in terms of secrecy.But if Mark's readers would not understand these pericopes in terms of secrecy how would they understand them? Watson proposes that these pericopes must be understood in light of the honor/shame value system that dominated the ancient Mediterranean world.3 He first considers pericopes in which Jesus performs a healing and commands the recipient not to report or speak of the healing (Mark 1:40-45; 5:21-24, 35-43; 7:31-37; 8:22-26). …