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A Sidelight on the ‘Son of Man’1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

A. Gelston
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Extract

The term ‘Son of Man’ is one of the enigmas of the Gospels. G. Vermes has re-examined the Aramaic background of the phrase in Appendix E of the third edition of M. BlacK's Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts. Even if his argument that barnāsh (ā) is in some passages a mere circumlocution for ‘I’ is not wholly convincing,page 2 he has demonstrated beyond doubt that the phrase was not in New Testament times a title with a clear and recognised meaning, whether messianic or other. The phrase in itself merely signifies ‘man’, whether mankind in general, or a particular man. Only the context can determine its meaning more precisely. Apart from Act 7.56 it is used virtually exclusively in the New Testament by Jesus, and the question of the crowd in John 12.34—‘who is this Son of Man?’ —shows clearly that the expression was not immediately intelligible to the first century,page 3 and that we are not at liberty to dismiss it as no more than an elaborate way of saying ‘man’ or ‘I’. This is the justification of the immense activity that has gone into the exploration of the previous history of the expression, and to which this article is a small contribution.page 4

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , June 1969 , pp. 189 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1969

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References

page 189 note 2 It seems to the present writer that in the passages cited as illustrations of this usage, while there is an undoubted reference to the first person, there seems also to be present the wider generic sense of ‘man’ (‘I as a particular man’ or ‘I qua man’), so that the phrase is more than a mere circumlocution for ‘I’.

page 189 note 3 cf. Bernard, I.C.C. ad loc.

page 189 note 4 cf. a different approach in Emerton, , ‘Origins of the Son of Man Imagery’, JTS, NS. ix, pp. 225ff.Google Scholar

page 189 note 5 Because it shows that as an expression it means even in Daniel merely ‘man’, taking a more precise meaning from its immediate context.

page 190 note 1 cf. Teaching of Jesus, esp. pp. 227ff.

page 191 note 1 A word of caution needs to be said against too great a readiness to draw a parallel between the Son of Man coming to glory and sovereignty through suffering in Dan. 7, and a similar pattern in the Gospels. (Cf. Hooker, M. D., The Son of Man in Mark, pp. 108f, 132Google Scholar.) Surely the suffering is of a very different kind. In Dan. 7 the ‘people of the saints’ suffer at the hand of unjust oppressors, and their subsequent vindication and exaltation is a kind of reversal of the roles. But in the Gospels the sufferings of the ‘Son of Man’ have a redemptive value in their own right (Mark 10.45).

page 191 note 2 For this, passages from Enoch are generally adduced.

page 191 note 3 cf. Moore, , Judaism, ii, 334ff.Google Scholar

page 192 note 1 This line of approach has been adumbrated by several writers, notably by Nestlé, E. in E. T., xi, p. 238Google Scholar. But it does not seem to have been fully developed in most of the recent major studies on the ‘Son of Man’. Cf. however Borsch, F. P., The Son of Man in Myth and History, pp. 116f.Google Scholar

page 192 note 2 e.g. Oesterley, The Psalms, ad loc.

page 193 note 1 cf. Briggs, I.C.C. ad loc.

page 193 note 2 cf. Ps. 107, where strophes of very different length are marked by a partly varying refrain.

page 194 note 1 Zech. 4.11 may also be relevant, if the olive tree on the right is to be identified with Zerubbabel.

page 194 note 2 cf. Russell, D. S., Method and Message of Jewish Apocalyptic, p. 341fGoogle Scholar, following Bowman, J., ‘The Background of the term “Son of Man”’, E. T., lix, p. 283fGoogle Scholar and Black, M., ‘The “Son of Man” in the old biblical literature’, E.T., lx, p. 11.Google Scholar

page 195 note 1 I Chron. 6.31–47, 15–17, 2 Chron. 35.15.

page 195 note 2 I Sam. 1.3 etc., esp. 4.4. Cf. Kraus, , Psalmen, p. 556 with references.Google Scholar

page 196 note 1 cf. the identification made by some scholars of Immanuel in Isa. 7.14 with Hezekiah.