ABSTRACT
The view of the relation between denotation and connotation is not unlike the conventional view of metaphor, to which it is closely related. Everyone who knows the language has access to the primary level, the denotation or "literal" meaning, and they probably in fact learned it before learning the more subtle and fluid connotations. In Jesus's frankness, the parabolic estrangement of the outsider, and indeed of the entire text of Mark, is confirmed. Intertextuality is an uncontrollable gush or flux of meaning, a vibration or oscillation which can never be suppressed. The resemblance between these translated words of course cannot explain why Jesus speaks frankly in Mark's text, but it does suggest that Jesus's frankness implies a double message. The context of Jesus's frankness collapses because of the incoherence of his saying, an incoherence that is further manifested in the exchange of rebukes between Jesus and Peter.
