60 Dean B. Deppe the Christ by Peter and the disciples in 8:29, so the title “Son of God” in 1:1 should not be taken to mean that he was confessed as “Son of God” before his baptism. Furthermore, this text was not employed against the adoptionistic heresy by the church fathers. In addition, Jan Slomp56 argues that Mark would not give away the secret of Jesus’ divine Sonship in the very first line of the text. But Mk. 1:1 is aimed at the reader so that at the outset the audience is confront- ed with a complete Christology making the suffering and death of the Messiah good news. As Matera proclaims, the two-fold title in Mk. 1:1 “suggests that the dramatic irony of the narrative derives from the fact that the readers possess inside or privileged information, given in the pro- logue, which the characters of the story (Jesus excepted) do not know”57. Therefore, the human characters are puzzled by Jesus’ identity because, unlike the readers, they have not been privy to the prologue. To create this situation Mark would want to include both the titles of “Messiah” and “Son of God”. Therefore, the phrase “Jesus Christ” at 1:1 is more than just the name of the main character58. Hort explains that “these two familiar words must be carefully distinguished. We use them together as a single name, but originally each had its own significance”59. For Mark “Christ” is a title that can only be assigned to Jesus along with some additional designation like “Son of God” or suffering “Son of Man”. Both “Christ” and “Son of God” are the content of the proclamation. So although the internal evidence alone is not conclusive, the strongest piece of internal evidence, namely Mark’s nuanced conception of Christology, supports the longer text with the inclusion of υἱοῦ θεοῦ. Explaining the Omission of “Son of God” at Mark 1:1 Jan Slomp, “Are the Words ‘Son of God’ in Mark 1.1 Original?” Bible Translator 28 56 (1977): 148. Matera, “Prologue as the Interpretive Key,” 290. 57 Lane, Mark, 44, n. 22, for instance, states that “Χριστοῦ in Ch. 1:1 is not a proper 58 name but a titular designation.” Secondary support for Jesus Christ as a name in Mk. 1:1 is found in Carl Kazmierski, Jesus, the Son of God: A Study of the Markan Tradition and Its Redaction by the Evangelist (Wurzburg: Echter 1979) 25, n. 79. But against this proposal Kazmierski points out that there is “no parallel to this use of the Χριστός designation in the entire gospel”. See also Clayton N. Croy, “Where the Gospel Text Begins: A Non-Theological Interpretation of Mark 1:1,” NovT 43 (2001): 115. It is possible that “Jesus Christ” is only Jesus’ name in Mt. 1:1,18, but Luke employs only “Jesus” in the gospel while “Jesus Christ” is freely employed in Acts after Jesus’ resurrection. F.J.A. Hort, The Gospel According to St. Mark (Cambridge: University Press 1902) 59 53.