Of the transfiguration, Oskar Holtzmann can state with confidence, "that it merely represents the inner experience of the disciples at the moment of Peter's confession." How is it then that Mark expressly dates that scene, placing it (ix. 2) six days after the discourse of Jesus about taking up the cross and following Him? The fact is that the time-indications of the text are treated as non-existent whenever the Marcan hypothesis requires an order determined by inner connexion. The statement of Luke that the transfiguration took place eight days after, is dismissed in the remark "the motive of this indication of time is doubtless to be found in the use of the Gospel narratives for reading in public worship; the idea was that the section about the transfiguration should be read on the Sunday following that on which the confession of Peter formed the lesson." Where did Oskar Holtzmann suddenly discover this information about the order of the "Sunday lessons" at the time when Luke's Gospel was written?
It was doubtless from the same private source of information that the author derived his knowledge regarding the gradual development of the thought of the Passion in the consciousness of Jesus. "After the confession of Peter at Caesarea Philippi," he explains, "Jesus' death became for Him only the necessary point of transition to the glory beyond. In the discourse of Jesus to which the request of Salome gave occasion, the death of Jesus already appears as the means of saving many from death, because His death makes possible the coming of the Kingdom of God. At the institution of the Supper, Jesus regards His imminent death as the meritorious deed by which the blessings of the New Covenant, the forgiveness of sins and victory over sin, are permanently secured to His 'community.' We see Jesus constantly becoming more and more at home with the idea of His death and constantly giving it a deeper interpretation."
Any one who is less skilled in reading the thoughts of Jesus, and more simple and natural in his reading of the text of Mark, cannot fail to observe that Jesus speaks in Mark x. 45 of His death as an expiation, not as a means of saving others from death, and that at the Lord's Supper there was no reference to His "community," but only to the inexplicable "many," which is also the word in Mark x. 45. We ought to admit freely that we do not know what the thoughts of Jesus about His death were at the time of the first prediction of the Passion after Peter's confession; and to be on our guard against the "original sin" of theology, that of exalting the argument from silence, when it happens to be useful, to the rank of positive realities.
Is there not a certain irony in the fact that the application of "natural" psychology to the explanation of the thoughts of Jesus compels the assumption of supra-historical private information
