Month: August 2026

William Wrede and the Fame that Came Too Late

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In this blog post, I would like to show how my recent AGNTS 2026 translation of Hans Rollmann and Werner Zager’s wonderful edition of the “Unpublished Letters of William Wrede on the Problematization of the Messianic Self-Understanding of Jesus” can contribute to our understanding and transmission of the personal and scholarly legacy of William Wrede, in a way that also has the potential to enrich our own scholarship and personal lives. I will do so in three points: 1) Teaching students about the Messianic Secret, 2) Adding Wrede’s “messianic reconsideration” to the general knowledge of what is known about Wrede, 3) Gaining a deeper understanding of Wrede as a person and scholar.

1) Teaching Students about the Messianic Secret

Many undergraduate and graduate students will be introduced to Wrede’s classic work The Messianic Secret (Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien). While there are many excellent summaries and analyses of this work, I think that there is much to be said for having students begin with Wrede’s own attempt to present what he has attempted to do in his most famous book, namely by reading his “Self-Review of the Messianic Secret.” This can be found in Document 10 of his “Unpublished Letters” (AGNTS 2 [2026], pp. 32-33; ZNThG/JHMTh 8 [2001], 303-305) or as an separate article (AGNTS 1 [2025], pp. 1-2). For graduate students, it might also prove be attractive to assign some of Wrede’s other letters that discuss his book, such as Document 6, where Wrede works very hard to convince his publisher that his new book will be a hit (AGNTS 2 [2026], 20-24)!

2) Adding Wrede’s “Messianic Reconsideration” to the General Knowledge of What is Known about Wrede

While many students and scholars are aware that Wrede raised serious questions about whether Jesus regarded himself as the Messiah in his landmark work The Messianic Secret (GV 1901, 4th 1969; ET 1971), it is less widely known that Wrede subsequently reconsidered the viewpoint that he had expressed there in a letter to Adolf von Harnack (1905), where he wrote: “I am more inclined than earlier to believe that Jesus regarded himself as designated to be the Messiah.” / “Ich bin geneigter als früher zu glauben, daß Jesus selbst sich als zum Messias ausersehen betrachtet hat.” (AGNTS 1 [2025], 3-6, here 4; AGNTS 2 [2026], 46-47, here 47; ZNThG/JHMTh 8 [2001], 315-317, here 317). Against this background, I hope that my translation of Wrede’s letter to Harnack will help to make Wrede’s “messianic reconsideration” (my preferred designation) part of the general information that students and scholars learn and know about Wrede. At the same time, reaching beyond this general goal, I am also hopeful that many students and scholars will also be motivated to examine this striking statement of Wrede within the rhetorical context of his full letter to Harnack. Moreover, I hope that readers will also take note of Rollmann and Zager’s perceptive discussion of this statement, which includes the important observation that the viewpoint Wrede expresses in this letter does not represent something entirely new but rather a return to a position that he had advocated at an earlier point in time (see AGNTS 2 [2026], 7; ZNThG/JHMTh 8 [2001], 279-280).

3) Gaining a Deeper Understanding of Wrede as a Person and Scholar

For me personally, the process of reading and translating Rollmann and Zager’s excellent edition of Wrede’s unpublished letters gave me a much greater appreciation for William Wrede as a person and scholar.

For example, his correspondence with Martin Rade (See AGNTS 2 [2026], 10-24) showed how two old friends could continue to relate to each other with integrity and sensitivity, even after their thinking had moved in different directions in important respects.

One of his letters to Harnack, in turn, revealed that Wrede sometimes experienced periods of great depression followed by periods of heighted productivity (AGNTS 2, 27):

“Long explanations of why letters have not been written are usually just as little edifying for the recipient as for the writer. In this case, however, I must at least say a word. Your mailings encountered me in a time of great depression. When it then departed in the previous autumn, there came a time of restless work in which I pushed aside everything that did not imperiously demand to be completed, and this time is actually only just now coming to an end. This is no excuse. And the fact that I am a rather sluggish fellow is certainly not either. But I ask you to at least believe me that I wanted to thank you time and again and to grant me mitigating circumstances because of this.”

Finally, a heartfelt card from his wife Elisabeth to Albert Schweitzer suggested that Wrede’s fame and recognition had largely come too late for him to enjoy it, which is why it was all the more important to her that Schweitzer had honored him during his lifetime (AGNTS 2, 52):

“I am sending you the words that our friend K[arl] Müller spoke at the coffin of my husband. From this you will get to know him as a person as he really was. I very much wish that you would then appreciate my husband not only as a scholar but also come to hold him dear as a human being. For while with him both were one, the human being was nevertheless still infinitely more. – Your book and your letters brought my husband very much joy in this last year. He was truly not spoiled with recognition, and it is often now very bitter for me to see that it is now given to him in such full measure where he can no longer enjoy it. He has courageously gone his own straight way, but he felt the loneliness that was always connected with it. Thus, I am thankful with all my heart for the few who showed him what they thought of him during his lifetime.”

In addition to strengthening and deepening the very positive impression that I had gained of Wrede from reading his unpublished letters, this card reminded me of the importance of encouraging and appreciating one another in our work. Even if the vast majority of us are neither as gifted nor as accomplished as Wrede or Schweitzer, it is good that we pursue our work in the ways and forms that we are able, and it is also good that we have friends and colleagues who accompany us in the work and encourage us along the way.

For my other blog posts on William Wrede, see here.

For a complete list of my blog posts, please see here.

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Jesus’ Relationship to the Heavenly Son of Man in Gerd Theißen and Annette Merz’s New Jesus Book

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Having learned much from Gerd Theißen and Annette Merz’s 1996 book Der historische Jesus: Ein Lehrbuch (ET = The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide, Fortress, 1998) during my student days, it evoked good memories for me to read their (relatively) new book Wer war Jesus? Der erinnerte Jesus in historischer Sicht. Ein Lehrbuch (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2023).

While there is much overlap with the 1996 book, there is also much that is new or newly conceptualized, including the extent to which the 2023 book is shaped by memory-hermeneutical questions and considerations. And this is presumably why the authors and/or publisher decided to give this book a new title rather than simply characterizing it as a new edition of the original book.

As Theißen and Merz put it in the opening sentences of the preface (p. 6): “Our textbook on the historical Jesus is the new version of a textbook that was published in 1996. It has, after a quarter-century, become a new book.” / “Unser Lehrbuch über den historischen Jesus ist die Neufassung eines Lehrbuches, das 1996 erschienen ist. Es ist nach einem Vierteljahrhundert ein neues Buch geworden.”

In this blogpost, I am going to provide a translation of a paragraph from the section titled “Jesus as Son of Man: The Explicit Christology” / “Jesus als Menschensohn: Die explizite Christologie” (pp. 407-416), alternating between my English translation and the German text. At the end of the post, I will then include a comparable excerpt from John Bowden’s English translation of the first edition, so that one can compare it with what is said in the 2023 book, while noting that some of what is said in this quotation is paralleled by material from the 2023 book that I have not quoted/translated below.

Excerpt from Wer War Jesus? (pp. 415-416):

There are then two possibilities for how Jesus understood his relationship to the super-earthly Son of Man.

Es gibt dann zwei Möglichkeiten, wie sich Jesus sein Verhältnis zum überirdischen Menschensohn.

He could have understood their relationship as a two-stage activity of the same figure.

Er könnte ihr Verhältnis als zweistufiges Wirken ein und derselben Gestalt vorgestellt haben.

In that case, he would have expected, as Enoch is appointed to (or installed into) the role of the Son of Man at the end of the Book of Parables in 1 Enoch 70-71, to be appointed (or installed) as Son of Man.

Dann hätte er so, wie Henoch am Ende der Bilderreden in äthHen 70-71 in die Rolle des Menschensohns eingesetzt wird, erwartet, zum Menschensohn eingesetzt zu werden.

Jesus would have had a futuristic self-consciousness (R. Otto).

Jesus hätte ein futurisches Selbstbewusstsein gehabt (R. Otto).

He would, however, have been much more than a forerunner of the future Son of Man and instead have been the divinely chosen candidate for this role.

Er wäre aber weit mehr als ein Vorläufer des zukünftigen Menschensohns gewesen, sondern der von Gott erwählte Kandidat für diese Rolle. (Note: It is difficult to capture the force of “sondern” here — usually “but rather” is best but “and instead” might work better in this sentence.)

But his statements sound as if a Son of Man already existed now in heaven – such as how Enoch in the Parables sees him already now in heaven (1 Enoch 36-69) before it is revealed to him at the end that he is this Son of Man (1 Enoch 70-71).

Aber seine Aussagen klingen so, als existierte schon jetzt im Himmel ein Menschensohn – so wie Henoch ihn in den Bilderreden schon jetzt im Himmel schaut (äthHen 36-69), bevor ihm am Ende offenbart wird, dass er dieser Menschensohn ist (äthHen 70-71).

Therefore, Jesus also understood himself as the representative of this heavenly Son of Man already now on earth.

Deshalb hat sich Jesus auch als Repräsentant dieses himmlischen Menschensohns schon jetzt auf Erden verstanden.

In doing so, he was able to carry a social-mythical parallelism between heaven and earth to its conclusion.

Er konnte dabei einen sozialmythischen Parallelismus zwischen Himmel und Erde zu Ende führen.

For the one like a son of man in Daniel 7 represents the people of God living upon earth, the Son of Man in the Parables of Enoch only a part of the people, namely the “community of the righteous.”

Der Menschenähnliche in Dan 7 repräsentiert nämlich das auf Erden lebende Gottesvolk, der Menschensohn in den Bilderreden des Enoch nur noch einen Teil des Volkes nämlich die “Gemeinde der Gerechten.”

Jesus, however, is the only representative of the heavenly Son of Man on earth as in Mark 8.38-39 (H. Merklein).

Jesus aber ist der einzige Repräsentant des himmlischen Menschensohns auf Erden wie in Mk 8,38f (H. Merklein).

Jesus was probably both: on the one hand the candidate for the role of the future Son of Man, on the other hand already now the earthly representative of the present Son of Man in heaven.

Jesus war wahrscheinlich beides: einerseits der Kandidat für die Rolle des zukünftigen Menschenshns, andererseits schon jetzt der irdische Repräsentant des gegenwärtigen Menschensohns im Himmel.

What is decisive is that he shows his strong consciousness of exalted status (or: majesty) through the fact that he ascribed to himself the same role as “the Son of Man.”

Entscheidend ist: Er zeigt sein großes Hoheitsbewusstsein dadurch, dass er sich die gleiche Rolle als “der Sohn des Menschen” zuschrieb.

Excerpt from G. Theißen and A. Merz, The Historical Jesus, trans. J. Bowden (Fortress, 1998), 552:

“In our view the interpretation mentioned last is therefore the most probable one: Jesus spoke of both the present and the future Son of Man. He combined the expression ‘son of man’ from everyday language with the visionary-language tradition of a heavenly being ‘like a son of man’. This combination revalued the everyday expression, and the visionary-language comparison with a son of man was replaced by the direct designation ‘Son of Man’. No angel, no heavenly being, no one who was only like a man, but a concrete man will take over his role in the kingdom of God which is breaking in: Jesus himself. He is at the same time the present and the future ‘man’. This ‘double’ concept of Son of Man is analogous to the ‘double’ kingdom of God eschatology. However, the combination of present and future eschatology in the kingdom of God is more easily understandable than in the case of a person who is speaking about his own future as though about another person. The two proposed solutions discussed by scholars – the assumption of a two-stage activity of the same person and that of a representative relationship between heavenly and earthly person – do not a priori contradict each other: mythical thought understands the future as the present which already exists in heaven. To say that Jesus represents in the present the future Son of man amounts to the same thing. Except that in relating himself to an already existing heavenly figure Jesus could not be referring to himsef, whereas in relating himself to a future figure he could. At all events, it is certain that Jesus thought in terms of a symbolic representative relationship. When he chose the ‘Twelve’, they represented the twelve tribes of Irsael. This presupposes that Jesus himself represents Israel as a whole. He, a human being, was destined to lead Israel into the kingdom of God.”

For my other blogposts on Gerd Theißen, see here.

For a complete list of my blog posts, please see here.

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