Subject:
The Messianic Secret by Wilhelm Wrede, 1901
Original title: Das Messiasgeheimnis in Den Evangelien
To Whom It May Concern:
My name is Penelope Olive and I am a member of the Anglican Church of Canada. I am also a mentor with Education for Ministry Canada and a Convener for The Montreal Chapter of the Order of St. Luke the Physician, an international and interdenominational ministry of healing.
On November 1st, 2002, I was led to write a commentary on the above-mentioned book. My paper is entitled:
This paper can be found on my website Life and Doctrine in table or in paragraph format at:
I submit this commentary to you for your perusal, and I invite you to examine it with a critical & theological eye.
For your information purposes here is a little background on Wilhelm Wrede's Messianic Secret.
In 1901, a New Testament scholar named Wilhelm Wrede (1859-1906) produced a book in which he argued that the Gospel According to Mark was not reliable as an unadorned record of historical fact. On the contrary, it was deeply influenced by the dogmatic beliefs of its author. In particular, Wrede found no evidence in the Gospel that Jesus had claimed to be the Messiah or that the life of Jesus was messianic. The Resurrection had convinced the disciples that Jesus was the Messiah. They then read it back into the life, inventing the idea of the "messianic secret," according to which (as Mark presents it) no one realized that Jesus was the Messiah because he himself carefully hid it.
Contrary to the theory presented in Wilhelm Wrede's Messianic Secret, I propose to you in my commentary, through clear and concise examination of Scripture verse, that the issue facing us concerning the biblical admonitions of Jesus is not secrecy about who he is, but rather, authority to witness to who he is.
In order to demonstrate this, I have extracted from the four Gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, all Scripture verse containing any admonition of Jesus, and I have separated them into the following three categories:
- Jesus' Admonitions Concerning Who He Was
- Other Biblical Admonitions Made By Jesus
- Positive Admonitions Made By Jesus
In brief, my premise is the following:
Wilhelm Wrede's theory - God rest his soul - has erroneously spawned many a theological school of thought, and has promulgated a lie and a perversion of God's Word that has endured for over one hundred years. It is time to put an end to the lie. And, if indeed Wilhelm Wrede was in error, as I unequivocally and systematically demonstrate in my commentary, we the people of God have put between God and ourselves a barrier and a block that must be confessed, renounced, and brought down.
It has been my personal experience in times of seemingly unanswered prayer, that I have been made aware of blocks or barriers between God and myself, and these have often been unconfessed sin or wrong-thinking. And it has also been my experience, that in the process of confessing that sin or of correcting my wrong-thinking, that the barriers and blocks have been removed, and that I have seen the answer to my prayer.
If indeed the words of Isaiah 11:9 are to come to pass,
I invite you to come along with me on this exciting journey through Scripture and to discover with me this amazing Truth - and to see with me, to work with me, and to remove with me, this lie from between us and our God. This is the appointed time.
and later again in the same book we read:
And for those of you who are in academia simply for academia's sake, would you not correct an error upon which others have based their theories, hypotheses, and ways of thinking? I would think that a center of learning would say a resounding, "Yes!"
Please feel free to print out and to circulate my commentary. And, having duly read, and properly and honestly examined the document, let us then work together to make known to all people, this error, this mis-interpretation, this perversion of Scripture, that has brought such cost to the earth and to many a way of thinking, but that will now bring - with its correction and removal - the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.
For, it is not so much that Wilhelm Wrede has taken Scripture verse out of context. It is that in doing so, he has relegated the work and place of the Holy Spirit to one of obscurity and doubt.
I thank you for your kind and considerate attention to this request, and I look forward to hearing from you in this regard.
In the service of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
Penelope Olive
/po