<P> In 1901, William Wrede identified the "Messianic secret"--Jesus' secrecy about his identity as the messiah--as one of Mark's central themes . Wrede argued that the elements of the secret--Jesus' silencing of the demons, the obtuseness of the disciples regarding his identity, and the concealment of the truth inside parables, were fictions, and arose from the tension between the Church's post-resurrection messianic belief and the historical reality of Jesus . There remains continuing debate over how far the "secret" originated with Mark and how far he got it from tradition, and how far, if at all, it represents the self - understanding and practices of the historical Jesus . </P> <P> Christology means a doctrine or understanding concerning the person or nature of Christ . In the New Testament writings it is frequently conveyed through the titles applied to Jesus . Most scholars agree that "Son of God" is the most important of these titles in Mark . It appears on the lips of God himself at the baptism and the transfiguration, and is Jesus' own self - designation (Mark 13: 32). These and other instances provide reliable evidence of how the evangelist perceived Jesus, but it is not clear just what the title meant to Mark and his 1st century audience . Where it appears in the Hebrew scriptures it meant Israel as God's people, or the king at his coronation, or angels, as well as the suffering righteous man . In Hellenistic culture the same phrase meant a "divine man", a supernatural being . There is little evidence that "son of God" was a title for the messiah in 1st century Judaism, and the attributes which Mark describes in Jesus are much more those of the Hellenistic miracle - working "divine man" than of the Jewish Davidic messiah . </P> <P> Mark does not explicitly state what he means by "Son of God", nor when the sonship was conferred . The New Testament as a whole presents four different understandings: </P> <Ol> <Li> Jesus became God's son at his resurrection, God "begetting" Jesus to a new life by raising him from the dead--this was the earliest understanding, preserved in Paul's Epistle to the Romans, 1: 3--4, and in Acts 13: 33; </Li> <Li> Jesus became God's son at his baptism, the coming of the Holy Spirit marking him as messiah, while "Son of God" refers to the relationship then established for him by God--this is the understanding implied in Mark 1: 9--11; </Li> <Li> Matthew and Luke present Jesus as "Son of God" from the moment of conception and birth, with God taking the place of a human father; </Li> <Li> John, the last of the gospels, presents the idea that the Christ was pre-existent and became flesh as Jesus--an idea also found in Paul . </Li> </Ol>

Where did mark get the information for his gospel