Why did Jesus ask that His miracles not be told?

Answer 1

AnswerRead literally, there is no evident reason Jesus would not want his miracles to be known. After all, if people came to know of the miracles that Jesus performed, they would learn to follow him and be saved. For almost two thousand years, the Church has used the evidence of Jesus' miracles to attract followers, yet Mark's Gospel says that Jesus told people not to tell others about him or the miracles he performed.

Dennis R. MacDonald has studied Mark's Gospel and found surprising parallels between this account and the Homeric epics of The Iliad and The Odyssey, which he documents and analyses in The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark. He says that just as Odysseus can reveal his identity to those who are his allies but must keep it a secret from those who oppose him until the time is right, so also Jesus reveals his identity to his allies but must keep it a secret from those who oppose him until the time is right.

MacDonald's analysis may seem strained in isolation from the fuller analysis, but there should be no disputing that Mark, the original New Testament gospel and principal source for the gospels that followed, is not entirely historical. The chiastic structure of Mark is, by itself, undeniable evidence of this. And if the gospel is not entirely historical, it is possible that the author was indeed influenced by the Greek classics.

A more mundane possibility is that when Mark's Gospel was written, approximately 70 CE, a reader could wonder why few had ever heard of Jesus and the great miracles he performed. This could have been preempted by portraying Jesus as telling the people not to tell others about him.

Answer 2

A:This is particularly evident in Mark's Gospel and, to a lesser extent, the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, which were most closely copied from Mark. Jesus frequently instructed those he cured and even the demons he exorcised not to tell others about him. Even at the Transfiguration, the sole purpose of which seems to have been to to let the three disciples see Jesus talking to Moses and Elijah, Jesus told Peter, John and James to tell no one.

Dennis R. MacDonald (The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark) believes he has a convincing explanation for this reluctance on the part of Jesus. He begins by describing what scholars of antiquity take for granted, which is that anyone who learned to write Greek in the ancient world learned by studying Homer's epics. Homer was the textbook. Students were taught to imitate Homer, even when writing on other subjects, or to rewrite passages of Homer in prose, using different vocabulary. MacDonald says we can know for certain that the author of Mark's Gospel was thoroughly familiar with the works of Homer and well-trained in recasting Homeric verse into new prose tales. MacDonald demonstrates many parallels between Mark's Gospel, on the one hand, and the Odyssey and the Iliad in the other. He makes a surprisingly solid case for the view that the first gospel was actually written around Homer's epics.

In MacDonald's words, Mark "thoroughly, cleverly, and strategically emulated" stories in Homer and the Old Testament, merging two great cultural classics, in order "to depict Jesus as more compassionate, powerful, noble, and inured to suffering than Odysseus." In the Iliad, Odysseus had to keep his identity secret, and thus Jesus also sought to keep his identity secret.

Answer 3

Rather than have people reach conclusions based on sensational or possibly distorted reports, Jesus wanted them to see for themselves that he was the Christ and to make a personal decision based on that evidence. This also fulfilled the prophetic words spoken through Isaiah. (Isaiah 42:1-4)