Who Is This Son of Man
Page 21
and the son of man at 46.3, while at 48.6 the son of man is said to be chosen, that 23. A number of early and important manuscripts, however, read ‘righteousness’ (
[ ṣedq]) here rather than ‘the Righteous One’ (
[ ṣādeq]). The reading ‘righteousness’
has the superior manuscript support, but the transcriptional difference is very small and ‘the Righteous One’ is conceptually easier and arguably better fi ts the context. So also the translations of Nickelsburg & VanderKam, Black, Isaac, Knibb, Charles and Dillmann. Contra: Uhlig’s translation, J. C. VanderKam, ‘Righteous One, Messiah, Chosen One and Son of Man in 1 Enoch 37-71’, in J. H. Charlesworth et al. (eds), The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), pp. 169–91, citing 170; and Kvanvig, ‘Son of Man’, p. 187, n. 17.
24. 47.1, 4 also use the term
( ṣādeq) in the singular, but the context indicates that it is being used as a collective and refers to the righteous ones.
25. Cf. also 4Q252 vv. 3-4: ‘Until the messiah of righteousness comes, the branch of David’ (dywd xmc qdch xy#m )wb d(). Note also that the Messiah, according to the Psalms of Solomon 17.32, is characterised by righteousness: ‘And he shall be a righteous king over them, taught by God, and there shall be no unrighteousness in their midst in his days; for all shall be holy and their king the Lord Messiah’ (kai au0toj basileuj di/kaioj didaktoj u9po qeou= e0p’ au0tou/j, kai ou0k e1stin a0diki/a e0n tai=j h9me/raij au0tou= e0n me/sw| au0tw~n, o3ti pa/ntej a4gioi, kai basileuj au0tw~n xristoj kuri/oj.
26. 39.6; 40.5; 45.3, 4; 49.2; 49.4; 51.3, 5; 52.6, 9; 53.6; 55.4; 61.5, 8, 10; 62.1. Cf. also 46.3 and 48.6.
27.
( walda sab’): 46.2, 3, 4; 48.2.
( walda be’si): 62.5, 69.29
( bis).
( walda ‘eg w āla ’emma-ḥeyāw): 62.6, 9, 14; 63.11; 69.26, 27; 70.1. I do not include the
of 71.14 nor the
( walda
‘eg w āla ’emma-ḥeyāw) of 71.17, since I hold 70.3–71.17 to be a later addition to the text.
See below.
7. The Elect Son of Man of the Parables of Enoch 139
is, elect, in the presence of the Lord of Spirits.28 No one today would demarcate different source material from the use of these ‘titles’ as Beer and Charles once did.29
On the other hand, the three distinct Ethiopic phrases traditionally rendered in the same way, ‘son of man’, have recently been the subject of varied interpretations. Translating with a slavish literalism
( walda sab’)
would mean ‘son of humankind’, in other words, a human being;
( walda be’si) ‘son of a man’ or ‘the son of a male’;30 and ( walda ‘eg w āla ’emma-ḥeyāw) ‘son of the offspring of the mother of the living’. Some would urge that each phrase carries intended nuances of meaning.
For example, Klaus Koch suggests that the last,
( walda
‘eg w āla ’emma-ḥeyāw), probably alludes ‘to Eve as “mother of living” and her offspring’, whose coming was ‘prophesied’ in the protoevangelion of Gen.
3.15-20, while
( walda be’si) refers to Adam and contains the idea
of a ‘second Adam’. Koch also fi nds the literal meaning in
( walda
sab’), ‘son of humankind’ or ‘a human being’, particularly appropriate as an interpretation of Daniel 7. He notes that the last term only appears in 1En.
46-48, an obvious refl ection on and reinterpretation of Daniel 7 (see below), and it ‘certainly’ has ‘the Aramaic bar ‘enash as background’.31 As exegetically fruitful as these nuances appear at fi rst sight, they lose all credibility when the transmission of the text of 1 Enoch in Ethiopic is taken into consideration.
With regard to
( walda ‘eg w āla ’emma-ḥeyāw) it must be
remembered that in the Ethiopic Bible
( ‘eg w āla ’emma-ḥeyāw),
without the
( walda; ‘son of’), regularly renders ui9oj a0nqrpw/pou when the meaning is ‘a human being’. For example, the statements of Num. 23.19, Jdt. 8.16, Ps. 8.5, 143.3 LXX, Jer. 2.6, 27.40 (ET 50.40), each of which parallel a1nqrwpoj with ui9oj a0nqrpw/pou, are consistently rendered
. . .
28. The Ethiopic verb used here,
( xarya), is cognate with the title ‘Elect or Chosen
One’,
( xeruy).
29. Beer, ‘Das Buch Henoch’, p. 227 and Charles, Book of Enoch, pp. 64–65. Beer’s and Charles’ theories in this regard were decisively answered by E. Sjöberg, Der Menschensohn im Äthiopischen Henochbuch (Lund: Gleerup, 1946), pp. 24–33.
30.
( sab’) serves as the plural form of
( be’si).
31. K. Koch, ‘Questions regarding the So-Called Son of Man in the Parables of Enoch: A Response to Sabino Chialà and Helge Kvanvig’, in Boccaccini, Enoch, p. 234. Kvanvig (‘Son of Man’, pp. 193–95), in the fi nal form of his essay, takes up Koch’s suggestions and develops them slightly.
140
‘Who is this Son of Man?’
( sab’ . . . ‘eg w āla ’emma-ḥeyāw). If
( sab’; lit. ‘humankind’) and
( ‘eg w āla ’emma-ḥeyāw; lit. ‘offspring of the mother of the living’) are simply interchangeable, it is diffi cult to deny that the same is true for ( walda sab’; lit. ‘son of humankind’) and
( walda
‘eg w āla ’emma-ḥeyāw; lit. ‘son of the offspring of the mother of the living’).
Moreover, the latter term, with or without the
( walda), is simply too per-
vasive in Ethiopic to argue that it renders an underlying Aramaic, or Hebrew, phrase which contains an allusion to Eve. The vocative ui9e a0nqrw/pou, for example, at Dan. 8.17 and throughout Ezekiel, is consistently translated ( walda ‘eg w āla ’emma-ḥeyāw) in the Ethiopic Bible.32 If we are to suppose an allusion to Eve and the prophecy of Gen. 3.15 in the ‘title’ given the Enochic Elect son of man, we must do the same with the prophets Ezekiel and Daniel – at least in their Ethiopic dress!
A similar response must, I think, be made to Daniel Olson’s more nuanced argument that Ethiopian scribes (including the original translator?) used ( walda be’si; lit. ‘son of a man or male’) at 71.14 because here Enoch was being addressed and, apparently, identifi ed with the son of man of the previous visions. Since in the Ethiopic Bible, Son of Man passages which have Jesus Christ as their referent, including the Gospel Son of Man sayings,33
Rev. 1.13 and 14.14,34 and Dan. 7.13 invariably render the phrase with ( walda ‘eg w āla ’emma-ḥeyāw), Olson argues that ‘Ethiopian copyists who would have been anxious to dissociate Enoch and the walda 32. For Daniel I have consulted the edition of Oscar Löfgren, Die Äthiopische Übersetzung des Propheten Daniel (Paris: Geuthner, 1926). There is, as yet, no critical edition of Ethiopic Ezekiel, but one is currently in preparation. Michael Knibb, its editor, informs me that all the manuscripts of Ethiopic Ezekiel he has seen always use
( walda ‘eg w āla
’emma-ḥeyāw) for ‘Son of Man’.
33. We are fortunate that critical editions of Ethiopic Mark, Matthew and John have recently been published: R. Zuurmond, Novum Testamentum Aethiopice. The Synoptic Gospels: General Introduction, Edition of the Gospel of Mark (ÄF, 27; Stuttgart: Harrassowitz, 1989); Zuurmond, Novum Testamentum Aethiopice: The Gospel of Matthew (ÄF, 55; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2001) and M. G. Wechsler, Evangelium Iohannis Aethiopicum (CSCO, 617; SA 109; Leuven: Peeters, 2005). There is, however, as yet no critical edition of either the Gospel of Luke or the Book of Acts. But given the unanimity of the rest of the Ethiopic Bible, it is highly unlikely that the situation differs with regard to these books.
34. Critical edition: J. Hofmann, Die Äthiopische Übersetzung der Johannes – Apokalypse (CSCO, 281; SA 55; Leuven: Peeters, 1967).
‘eg w āla ’emma-ḥeyāw were only too happy’ to use walda be’si for Enoch.35 This also overlooks the signifi cance of Daniel 8.17 and the whole of Ezekiel in the Ethiopic version. More importantly, as has been pointed out by Knibb, it also overlooks that fact that even 1En. 71.14 is interpreted in Ethiopian traditional exegesis as a prophecy of Jesus Christ.36 Ethiopian exegesis of 1 Enoch consistently fi nds, in all three phrases, a reference to Jesus Christ.37
In the end, the three terms are in all likelihood nothing other than translation variants38 of the same Greek phrase, (o9) ui9oj (tou=) a0nqrpw/pou, which in turn renders an Aramaic or Hebrew original. If the latter, then that original was, in all probability, Md) Nb (Md)h Nb less likely, but perhaps still possible). If the former, then both ())#n()) rb and Md) rb (as in the Targum of Ezekiel) are candidates.39
35. D. C. Olson, ‘Enoch and the Son of Man in the Epilogue of the Parables’, JSP 18
(1998), pp. 27–38, citing 36.
36. M. A. Knibb, ‘The Translation of 1 Enoch 70:1: Some Methodological Issues’, in Essays on the Book of Enoch, pp. 161–75, esp. 173.
37. Cf. also Piovanelli’s discussion in ‘“A Testimony for the Kings and the Mighty”’, pp. 365–68. Although Piovanelli would like to fi nd a pattern of the three terms in the text of Enoch, he nonetheless must admit that ‘the Ethiopian scholars who produced the targumic Amharic version of 1 Enoch . . . systematically referred the three expressions to Christ’ (p. 367, n. 12).
38. Cf. the conclusion of Knibb (‘ 1 Enoch 70:1’, p. 173): ‘In reality no distinction is drawn between the three expressions used for “Son of Man” within the Parables of Enoch, and the use of different terms has to be understood within the context of the wider problem of consistency and diversity in the use of translation equivalents in the Ethiopic Bible.’
39. So also Black, Book of Enoch, p. 206.
142
‘Who is this Son of Man?’
The exegetical basis of the Elect son of man40
The author(s) of the Parables of Enoch clearly owed much to the Hebrew Scriptures for his or their depiction of the Elect son of man.41 The Book of Daniel, especially the first vision (ch. 7), the so-called Servant Songs of Deutero-Isaiah and the prophecy concerning the Davidic Messiah, ‘the shoot of Jesse’ (Isa. 11.1-9) fi gure prominently, but the infl uence of other passages, especially certain Psalms, are also encountered. We may begin with Daniel 7.
1En. 46-47 is widely and rightly seen as an interpretation of the vision recorded in Dan. 7. Enoch sees ‘One who had a Head of Days’, whose ‘head was as white wool’ (46.1) – a clear allusion to Daniel’s ‘Ancient of Days’ (7.9). In the company of this ‘Head of Days’42 Enoch sees ‘another whose face was as the appearance of a human and his face was full of graciousness as one of the holy angels’. Enoch asks his angelus interpres about ‘that son of man, who he is and from where he comes (and) why he accompanies the Head of Days’. He is told,
‘this is the son of man who is characterised by righteousness43 and righteousness dwells with him; . . . for the Lord of Spirits has chosen him’ (46.3). The 40. The following section is heavily indebted to J. Theisohn, Der auserwählte Richter: Untersuchungen zum traditionsgeschichtlichem Ort der Menschensohngestalt der Bilderreden des Äthiopischen Henoch (SUNT, 12; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975) esp. pp. 54–65 and 114–139 and M. A. Knibb, ‘Isaianic Traditions in Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha’, in C. C. Broyles and C. A. Evans (eds), Writing and Reading the Scroll of Isaiah: Studies of an Interpretive Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 1997), pp. 2.633–50.
41. That is not to say that the author’s/authors’ canon would have been identical with that which is familiar to us. It may well have included, for example, earlier Enochic works.
Many interpreters would agree with Piovanelli (‘A Testimony’, pp. 363–64) that the Parables are ‘a sort of midrashic rewriting of the Book of the Watchers (1 En 1-36) with the addition of many new motifs resonating with different parts of the Tanakh (especially Genesis, Isaiah and Daniel)’. Cf. esp. Nickelsburg, ‘Discerning the Structure(s)’, Knibb, ‘Structure and Composition’, and Kvanvig, ‘The Son of Man’, pp. 184–85. However, it is notable that the Book of the Watchers has no messianic or mediatorial fi gures, other than the four archangels.
It is from the Hebrew Scriptures that our author(s) derive(s) the material out of which he/they constructed the Elect son of man.
42. Here in 46.1 the nomenclature is ‘One who had a Head of Days’ or ‘One to whom belongs a Head of Days’ (
; za-lotu re’sa mawā‘el), but in the very next verse
and elsewhere it is simply the/a ‘Head of Days’ (
; re’sa mawā‘el).
This nomenclature, ‘Head of Days’, is mostly found in these three chapters (46.1-2; 47.3; 48.2). Other than in this passage it occurs only at 55.1; 60.2 and four times in 71.10-14.
Interestingly, all three of these passages may well be later interpolations. Elsewhere in the Parables the preferred title for the deity is ‘the Lord of Spirits’.
43. Lit. ‘who has righteousness’.
7. The Elect Son of Man of the Parables of Enoch 143
language used to describe this fi gure obviously recalls Daniel’s ‘(one) like a son of man’ (שנא רבכ; 7.13). Enoch’s angelus interpres goes on to explain, utilizing a host of allusions to Old Testament Scriptures, that this son of man will oppose
‘the kings and the mighty’ and bring them to condemnation.44 These kings and mighty are further described as ‘those who judge the stars of heaven and lift up their hands against the Most High and tread upon the earth and dwell in it’
(46.7). Although the text is undoubtedly corrupt at some points in this verse, the reference to Daniel 8.9-12 remains transparent. Then, after accusations that the kings and mighty practise idolatry and persecute ‘the faithful who cling to the Name of the Lord of Spirits’ (46.8), and a description of the intercession of the righteous and holy ones who dwell in heaven on behalf of the righteous who are being persecuted on earth (47.2), the author(s) return(s) to Daniel 7: In those days I watched as the Head of Days took his seat on the throne of His glory,
and the books of the living were opened in His presence
and all His hosts which are in the height of heaven and His council stood before Him (47.3)
All this, of course, recalls the enthronement of the Ancient of Days, the thousands of heavenly attendants, the heavenly court or council and the consulting of the heavenly books in Dan. 7.9-10. In light of this clear use of Daniel 7 it hardly needs to be emphasized that in the Parables ‘son of man’ is not used as a title comparable to ‘Messiah’ or even the ‘Elect One’. The fi gure that Enoch sees accompanying the Head of Days in 46.1 is that son of man, i.e., that human fi gure, characterized by righteousness, whom Daniel also beheld. Whether or not our author(s) conceived of him as a human being is bound up with the question of the identifi cation with Enoch found in 70.3–71.17 – a question to which we will return momentarily.
44. Raising the kings and mighty from their thrones and couches (46.4b) recalls Isa. 14.9; the loosing of their loins (46.4c) picks up the language of Isa. 45.1 (cf. also Deut. 33.11); breaking the teeth of sinners (46.4d) harks back to Pss. 3.7 and 58.6; that the kings and mighty do not recognize that their sovereignty is a gift from God (46.5) alludes to Dan. 4.17, 25 and the worms and darkness which will serve as their bed in Sheol recalls both Isa. 14.11 and Job 17.12-16.
144
‘Who is this Son of Man?’
The next two chapters, 48–49, which are clearly part of the same section, move in a new direction. Here the exegetical inspiration is not Daniel 7, but Isaiah’s Servant Songs and Isaiah’s ‘Shoot of Jesse’. From Deutero-Isaiah comes the explicit affi rmation that the son of man will be ‘the light of the nations’ (Isa. 42.6; 49.6), but there are a few more, less obvious allusions to Isaiah’s Servant of Yahweh. Isa. 42.6, for
example, claims that Yahweh ‘called’
his servant ‘in righteousness’, and we have already seen that the son of man is characterized by righteousness (46.3). The naming of the son of man in the presence of the Lord of Spirits before all creation (48.2-3) takes up the call of the Servant, while still in his mother’s womb (Isa. 49.1), and extends it to a pre-mundane existence (see below). In 48.6 the son of man is said to have been ‘hidden in the presence [of the Lord of Spirits] before the world was created and forever’. Similarly, Yahweh hid his Servant ‘in the shadow of his hand . . . (and) in his quiver he hid [his Servant] away’ (Isa. 49.2bd).
The reaction of the kings and mighty to the Lord of Spirits and His Anointed ( 1En. 48.8-10) recalls a similar response on the part of kings and princes to Yahweh and his Servant (Isa. 49.7). In addition to all this, the very title
‘the Elect One’ in all likelihood goes back to Isa. 42.1: ‘Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice to the nations (RSV)’. According to Deutero-Isaiah, the Servant of Yahweh is termed chosen or elect one (ryxb),45
the title which is so prevalent throughout the Parables, and he is charged with the same task with which the Elect son of man is entrusted in the Parables: The phrase ‘he will bring forth justice to the nations’ ()ycwy Mywgl +p#m) could also be rendered ‘he will pronounce judgement on the nations’.46 The indebtedness of our author(s) to Deutero-Isaiah’s depiction of the Servant of Yahweh could not be clearer. In the mind of our author(s), the Elect son of man is not only the fi gure foreseen by Daniel, he is also the personage foretold by Isaiah.