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Jesus the Son of God

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

Benjamin Wisner Bacon
Benjamin Wisner Bacon
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Extract

No passage of the Synoptic Gospels throws so much light upon Jesus’ sense of his own mission as that which deals with Knowing the Father and Being Known of Him in Mt. 11 25-27, Lk. 10 21-22. It belongs to the common element of Matthew and Luke unknown in Mark, and in the judgment of the great majority of critics must therefore be referred to a common source of high antiquity. In short, as respects attestation, its claims to authenticity are unexcelled. As respects content, it deals with the all-important matter of Jesus’ doctrine of divine sonship, and yet it seems to stand alone among Synoptic sayings, and to be paralleled only by utterances ascribed to Jesus by the fourth evangelist. But the Johannine discourses give every indication of having been composed by the evangelist himself in order to expound in dialogue form his own deutero-pauline Christology. The only instance in all Synoptic tradition of anything comparable to this apposition of “the Son…the Father,” is Mk. 13 32, Mt. 24 36.

Of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , July 1909 , pp. 277 - 309
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1909

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References

1 The paraphrase of Is. 5 1–7 in Mk. 12 1–9 reflects the same standpoint and is better understood as an allegorical composition of the evangelist than as an authentic parable of Jesus, though a parable somewhat resembling this is inserted by Mt. just before it (Mt. 21 28–32).

2 Sprüche und Reden Jesu, 1907, Exkurs I, pp. 189–211.

3 In the extract only Harnack's positive results are exhibited. He leaves it doubtful, for example, whether the order in Mt. 11 27 should not be “the Father…the Son…the Son…the Father,” and whether in the last clause we should not read “revealeth,” as in the emended Lk., instead of “willeth to reveal.” As these are merely possible changes and make no practical difference to the sense, they are not indicated.

4 So the Germans generally and Salmon (The Human Element in the Gospels, 1907). The designation is better than L (W. C. Allen, International Critical Comm., 1907) or A (H. J. Holtzmann, Synoptische Evangelien, 1863), for it does not prejudge the question of the relation of this Mt.-Lk. source to the Matthaean “Logia of the Lord” mentioned by Papias. Burton and Sharman of Chicago University employ the letters G (Galilean document) and P (Perean document) for the respective intercalations of Lk. 6 20–8 8 and 9 51–18 14, which other critics designate together as Q.

5 Paulus und Jesus, 1907, p. 31.

6 That this common Mt.-Lk. discourse material (Q) is not derived by one of these evangelists directly from the other has been conclusivelky demonstrated by Wernle (Synoptische Frage, 1899, pp. 40–80), and is an accepted result of New Testament science. Even Allen pleads only for an “influence” of Matthew upon Luke. Advocates of oral tradition (A. Wright) make their oral source the equivalent of a document, since its form is so stereotyped as to make the resemblance of Mt. to Lk. closer in the portions not shared by Mk. than in the parts taken by each from this admittedly written source.

7 Sprüche und Reden Jesu, p. 210, note 1.

8 Yet our passage furnishes the only occurrence of the word in the gospels (save the quotation from Ps. 8 3 in Mt. 21 16) against eleven occurrences in the Pauline epistles.

9 Sprüche und Reden Jesu, p. 126.

10 Mt. 11 28–30, which fails to appear in Luke, seems, beautiful as it is, to be of the evangelist's composition from phrases derived from the Wisdom-literature. See W. C. Allen, ad loc., in Internat. Crit. Commentary, 1907, and Bousset, Religion des Judentums, p. 338, for the parallels.

11 Rom. 11 8, Col. 2 2, 1 Cor. 1 29 30, 3 19, Rom. 9 20 21, 2 Tim. 2 20 21, 2 Cor. 1 3 4, 7 6, 1 Thess. 3 7, 4 18, 5 14.

12 Cf. besides the present passage Mt. 11 5, Lk. 4 18, 7 22.

13 Is. 29 9–24(LXX).

14 Mt. 11 12–15. This obscure passage is illuminated by the rabbinic tradition, Edujoth viii, 7, where on the authority of Johanan ben Zakkai the function of Elijah as restorer of the tribes is declared to be, “not to pronounce clean or unclean, to exclude or receive in general, but only to receive those who had been excluded by violence, and to exclude those who had been received by violence.” See Bacon, , “Elias and the Men of Violence,” Expositor, sixth series, xxxi (07, 1902), andGoogle Scholar W. C. Allen, Intern. Crit. Comm. on Mt., ad loc.

15 On the reference to “the baptism of John” in this answer of Jesus to the demand for a sign from heaven, which Matthew and Luke in contradictory ways endeavor to apply to Jesus himself, see Bacon, Sermon on the Mount, p. 232, and cf. the parallel demand for a sign and its answer, Mt. 21 23-25; also the combination of the two in Jn. 2 18–21.

16 Mk. 4 11 12 is an editorial insertion quite out of harmony with the context, which presupposes that not merely the parable of the sower, but “all the parables” have preceded (vs. 13), and expresses surprise that explanation should be needed (vs. 13). In vss. 10 and 13 the sense of the question about the parables is not, as assumed in vss. 11 and 12, “Why use this method?” but “What is the meaning of the symbolism?” Vss. 11 12 with their Isaian proof-text apply the Pauline doctrine of the hardening of Israel (Rom. 117 8) to the fact that Jesus had taught in “parables,” the “parable” being erroneously regarded as an enigma, riddle, or dark saying. Mark doubtless applied the parable of the sower to the hardening of Israel much as Ep. Barn. 9 5 (cf. Heb. 6 8) applies the common prototype of Jer. 4 3, “Sow not upon thorns, break up the fallow ground.” But Mark did not invent a logion to justify his theory of the parables as a preaching of judgment. He adapted that now under consideration to suit his Pauline theory.

17 For Mark's estimate of the Jewish people generally and their religious character see Mk. 7 3 4 6 7.

18 Mk. 4 22 is given twice in Luke. Lk. 8 17 = Mk. 4 22; Lk. 12 2=Mt. 10 26.

19 Commentators differ as to whether in the evangelist's application “the lamp” stands for the Messiah, who is destined to occupy the throne of glory (cf. Rev. 21 23), or, as originally intended, for the gospel message. Either interpretation would suit our contention.

20 2 Esdr. 6 55-59, referring to Gen. 1 26 27 and Is. 40 15. Cf. Psalms of Solomon 17 30, “He shall take knowledge of them that they be all the sons of their God.”

21 Cf. Deut. 4 6–8.

22 Ass. Mos. 1 14.

23 Cod. Vercell. gives in Lk. (not Mt.), Omnia mihi tradita sunt a patre, et nemo nobit quis est pater nisi filius, et cuicumque voluerit filius revelavit.

24 Cf. the two kindred parables, also peculiar to Matthew, of the tares and the net full of fishes, Mt. 18 24-30 36-43 47-50.

25 The parallel to the above-quoted passage (Gal. 4 6 7) in Rom. 8 14-16 26-27 shows that the reference is to the charisma of tongues. Those who “prayed in a tongue,” amid their inarticulate groanings and utterances intelligible only to God (Rom. 8 26, 1 Cor. 14 14–17), stammered forth the infant's cry, Abba, Abba.

26 Mt. 5 45 = Lk. 6 35, 2 Cor. 6 18.

27 2 Sam. 7 13, Ps. 132 11, referred to in Acts 2 30.

28 Budde, Israel before the Exile, 1897.

29 Philo, Quis rerum divinarum heres?

30 Ex. 33 16, Jer. 51 45, Ez. 20 34, 41 Is. 52 11, 2 Cor. 6 17.

31 This was the function of Elias redivivus in contemporary legend, cf. Mal. 4 6 resting on 1 Kings 18 37. See Bacon, , “Elias and the Men of Violence,” Expositor, sixth series, xxxi (07, 1902)Google Scholar.

32 Mk. 1 17, resting on Jer. 16 16.

33 So Edujoth viii, 7, resting on Ecclus. 48 10.

34 Gal. 4 6.