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Jesus as Son of Man

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

Benjamin W. Bacon
Benjamin W. Bacon
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Extract

In a discussion of the great christological passages of the Synoptic Gospels we have seen that the messianism of Jesus was pre-eminently ethical and religious. His attitude toward current expectations of Israel's redemption resembled that of the prophets in being critical rather than originative. He ethicized and spiritualized a hope which in its origins and in its undisciplined popular manifestations had little to differentiate it from the expectations entertained by heathen worshippers of their tribal or national divinities.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , July 1910 , pp. 325 - 340
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1910

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References

1 Parallels are not cited where there is no evidence of independent tradition. In the reference Mk. 8 30 the earliest of the three embodiments of the tradition is appealed to. The fact that it is transcribed with slight modifications in Mt. 16 20 and Lk. 9 21 adds nothing to the force of Mark's evidence.

2 The transfiguration story is expressly designed to carry back the Pauline transcendental conception of the messiahship into the earthly career of Jesus. But even in the Synoptic tradition it intervenes as a psychological anachronism, a rebuke of the twelve, which as yet they are incapable of understanding, for conceiving the messiahship of Jesus “after the things that be of men.” In the Apocalypse of Peter it is frankly placed after the resurrection.

3 Sprüche und Reden Jesu, p. 166.

4 In Harnack's Sprüche und Reden Jesu they are numbered 25 (Mt. 11 23–27, Lk. 10 21 f.) and 15 (Mt. 11 16–19, Lk. 7 31–35) respectively.

5 The passage whose comparison of the coming ofthe Baptist with that of “the Son of Man” was quoted above.

6 On Jesus' idea of the Coming of the Son of Man, see below.

7 Wernle, Synoptische Frage, p. 226: “Diese zwei Stücke [the Baptist's discourse and the Temptation of Jesus] sehen überhaupt aus wie eine geschichtliche Einleitung, die nachträglich dem Werk vorgesetzt wurde.”

8 Against Harnack, who exclaims, apropos of the same, “Welch' ein Zeichen der Echtheit!” (p. 165).

9 Jn. 6 30 ff. combines these two.

10 Note the similar antithesis in Lk. 12 13–34, where Solomon appears as the rich and wise king of Ecclesiastes in contrast with the poverty of Jesus and his followers.

11 Assonance between the names John and Jonah may have played a part.

12 It is not apparent from Harnack's language in note 2 on p. 165 whether he regards this occurrence as “unsicher,” as well as that in Lk. 12 8, where the parallel Mt. 10 32 has simply “I,” or whether he holds to Mt. 12 32, Lk. 12 10 as certainly authentic. The former is designated by him No. 34a the latter No. 34b. His statement on p. 165 is: “Doch ist er [der Ausdruck Menschensohn] in Nr. 34 unsicher.”