Markinische Krisenintervention

Mark creates a highly ambiguous image of Jesus, which shows facets of absolute power and greatest powerlessness in equal measure. The repeated commands of silence (e. g., Mark 1:34; 3:12; 9:9) serve him to maintain the ambiguity of this image throughout the whole narrative. This challenging image design is not of a theoretical nature but Mark's reflex to the existential crisis in which he currently sees his community. He needs the structural ambiguities in his image of Jesus in order to be able to react appropriately - from his perspective - to the so contradictory and unsettling experiences of the people following Jesus: They experience themselves in a tensionfilled simultaneity of a calling to salvation and a danger of losing one's salvation.