But if the evangelist did proceed in this manner, what does this say of him as a writer? It suggests, Räisänen maintains, that he was not the original thinker that most scholars make him out to be.47 On the contrary, he was much more a “transmitter” of traditions, as the early form critics recognized.48 And as far as the secret of Jesus’ messianic identity is concerned, this plainly was not so important a motif to the evangelist that he was prepared to free it of the tensions, inconsistencies, and