That is, I submit that the diversity of sentences/sayings in which ‘the son of man’ is used in the Gospels leads to the conclusion that in these texts the expression’s primary linguistic function is to refer, not to characterize.15 The expression refers to Jesus (and almost entirely in sentences where it is used as a self-designation), but does not in itself primarily make a claim about him, or generate any controversy, or associate him with prior/contextual religious expectations or beliefs. ‘The son of man’ can be used in sayings that stake various claims about Jesus (e.g. Jesus’ authority, or humble situation, or heavenly provenance, or eschatological signifi cance), but it is the sentence/saying that conveys the intended claim or statement, not ‘the son of man’ expression itself.
With genuine respect for the many scholars who have done so, it is, nevertheless, a linguistic fallacy to impute to the expression ‘the son of man’
the meanings of the various statements in which it is used. Instead, we are to attribute to the referent, Jesus, the import of these sentences. As an analogy, let us consider the statement, ‘The professor is compassionate’. In this statement, compassion is ascribed to a particular fi gure referred to as ‘the professor’; but the word ‘professor’ itself does not thereby carry (or acquire) the meaning
‘compassionate’. ‘The professor’ designates and even classifi es a given person as holding a particular professional role, but the term itself does not acquire the attribute ascribed to this particular professor. So, for example, to treat ‘the son of man’ as if in itself it ‘means’ a fi gure of authority (on the basis of sayings such as Mk 2.10), or of humility (on the basis of sayings such as Mt. 8.20/
Lk. 9.58), or eschatological judge (on the basis of Mt. 25.31), or a heavenly being (on the basis of Jn 3.13-14), or even the fi gure of Dan. 7.13 (on the basis of Mk 14.62/Mt. 26.64) would all represent the fallacious move that I identify here. For emphasis, I repeat that in all the Gospels sayings, the function of ‘the son of man’ expression is essentially to refer to Jesus as the fi gure about whom the sentence says something. The particular ‘meaning’ of each statement/saying lies in the statement, not in the expression ‘the son of man’. In short, Jesus (as 15. I employ here some elementary insights about language from linguistics, a subject with which NT remain surprisingly ill-informed. For a helpful entrée, see John Lyons, Language and Linguistics: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
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portrayed in the sayings/sentences in question) defi nes ‘the son of man’; ‘the son of man’ designates but does not defi ne Jesus.
Of course, ‘the son of man’ is a particularizing form of an idiomatic expression with broad inherent meaning. Any study of the uses of the singular and plural forms of ‘son of man’ in the OT will show readily that in the relevant Semitic languages these expressions connoted, singly or collectively, human beings, members of the human species (and so the mysterious fi gure in Dan. 7.13 likened to a human in the phrase, ‘one like a son of man’). The unusual articular-singular form so frequently and consistently used in the Gospels,
‘the son of man’, probably connotes further a certain particularity or specifi city.
So, in the Gospels ‘the son of man’ may convey something like ‘the man’ or even ‘this man’.16 If this seems an unusual expression in English, especially as a self-designation, it appears that it was equally unusual and curious in biblical Hebrew, in the Aramaic of Jesus’ time, and in Koine Greek, to judge from the scarcity of any occurrence of the fully equivalent expression in any of these languages outside of the Gospels.17
But the sheer diversity of sentences in which the Evangelists used ‘the son of man’, and the instances where they felt free to use the personal pronoun interchangeably with the expression, surely show that it did not have for them some precise and fi xed meaning (or fi xed set of meanings). Instead, these authors knew the expression essentially (and in all likelihood solely) as the distinctive way that Jesus typically referred to himself, and so deployed it accordingly when they sought to represent Jesus uttering sayings that included a self-reference. The imprint of this peculiar expression as distinctive to Jesus’
usage is found frequently in all four Gospels, and even in sayings that are widely thought to derive from the sayings-source, Q.18 But other than this function of the expression as Jesus’ unique self-referential device refl ecting some 16. The Greek defi nite article, which originated as a demonstrative pronoun, retains something of this quasi-demonstrative sense in Koine Greek. See e.g. C. F. D. Moule, An Idiom Book of New Testament Greek (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), pp. 106–17, esp. 111.
17. Given the controversy over relevant Aramaic expressions, I emphasize here that we have no instances of the defi nite-singular in Aramaic texts of the Second Temple period. I do not consider instances in texts of several centuries earlier or later to be probative of Aramaic usage of the time of Jesus and the Evangelists.
18. Cf. the single instance of the equivalent Coptic expression in Gospel of Thomas 86, which is a version of the saying found also in Mt. 8.20/Lk. 9.58.
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sort of emphasis on him as a particular human being, the expression ‘the son of man’ has little by way of inherent Christological meaning.
In later/other early Christian texts, to be sure, ‘the son of man’ takes on more confessional signifi cance.19 In early orthodox circles, for example, it was used to emphasize Jesus’ human nature in comparison with his divine nature (typically expressed by use of the title ‘the Son of God’).20 But I contend that
‘the son of man’ does not really function as a Christological title in fi rst-century Christian texts, and that it is a mistake to seek to assign to it some precise
‘meaning’ or set of meanings.21 Instead, it functions essentially as a unique self-designation of Jesus and is deployed in sentences which ascribe this or that action, signifi cance or attribute to the fi gure referred to as ‘the son of man’.
Origins
The obvious other question is how to account for this expression and its prominence in the Gospels. I suggest that there have been two types of scholarly proposals about the origins of ‘the son of man’ expression, some attributing it to Jesus, others to the early church, and both types remain advocated in current discussion.22 In what follows, I assess briefl y main current options of each type, especially taking account of the other contributions to this volume.
Several decades ago, Norman Perrin argued that the expression ‘the son of man’ arose through a creative early Christian exegetical move in which the ‘one like a son of man’ in Dan. 7.13 was identifi ed as the risen/exalted Jesus.23 Perrin found his evidence in the rather obvious allusion to Dan. 7.13 in Mk 14.62 and 19. Frederick H. Borsch, The Son of Man in Myth and History (London: SCM Press, 1967) surveys uses of the expression in early orthodox and heterodox Christian circles/texts.
20. As noted also by Reynolds in his essay in this volume, who cites Ignatius ( Eph. 20.2), Justin ( Dial 100.3-4), Irenaeus ( Adv. Haer 3.10.2; 16.3, 7; 18.3-4; 19.1-2), and Barn. 12.10.
21. It will be clear, thus, that I do not fi nd persuasive the sort of approach taken, e.g., by Reynolds in his study of Johannine uses of ‘the son of man’ in this volume.
22. See the fuller review of previous scholarship by Delbert Burkett, The Son of Man Debate: A History and Evaluation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), who similarly judged that ‘the bulk of scholarship is now divided between two basic alternatives’: the expression originated either with Jesus’ own use of an Aramaic equivalent, or as a messianic title applied to Jesus either by himself or the early church (122).
23. Norman Perrin, ‘Mark 14:62: The End Product of a Christian Pesher Tradition?’, NTS
12 (1965–1966), pp. 150–55.
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&n
bsp; parallels, where Jesus is portrayed as affi rming that ‘the son of man’ will be seen seated at God’s right hand and ‘coming with the clouds of heaven’. Perrin argued that this saying was put into the mouth of Jesus, but actually originated in early Christian ‘ pesher’ activity driven by Christological interests. Then, from this initial move, ‘the son of man’ expression quickly came to be deployed more widely in a variety of sayings in the Jesus tradition. More recently, in his survey of scholarship on the expression, Delbert Burkett seems to lean towards a somewhat similar view, with some slight hesitation.24
But all such proposals that ‘the son of man’ originated in early Christian circles and expressed some Christological conviction about Jesus seem to me to ignore, and so to founder on, a rather important datum. As we have noted already, there is no evidence that ‘the son of man’ functioned in the proclamation, confession or liturgical practices of any fi rst-century Christian circle, at least to judge from the available texts. Instead, the sole place of the expression is in sayings of Jesus, where it seems to serve simply as a distinctive self-referential formula. By contrast, in the case of ‘Messiah/Christ’ or ‘Son of God’, we clearly have Christological titles that were central in early Christian discourse, and that also laid claims about Jesus that were recognizable in the settings of fi rst-century Christian circles. In principle, therefore, it is fully reasonable to consider whether one or both of these latter titles may have been heightened in the Gospels narratives of Jesus (or even read back into them), the Evangelists thereby linking these narratives somewhat with the discourse and beliefs of the fi rst readers.25 But in the case of ‘the son of man’ we are not dealing with the same sort of item. ‘The son of man’ is a fi xed expression and has a prominent and distinctive function in the Gospels, but it is simply not a Christological title.
Burkett suggested that the absence of the expression in the NT outside of the Gospels (and the one Acts passage) could be accounted for ‘if the title had currency primarily in Palestinian Christianity’. Granting that the NT generally refl ects ‘Hellenistic Christianity outside of Palestine’, nevertheless, he judged that the Gospels and early chapters in Acts ‘retain traces of Palestinian 24. Burkett,
The Son of Man Debate, esp. pp. 122–24.
25. I neither offer nor imply any judgement about whether this happened, only that it is reasonable to consider the matter.
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‘Who is this Son of Man?’
tradition’. So, he contended, ‘the son of man’ appears in the NT precisely where we should expect it.26
But this argument does not convince. Certainly, the Gospel narratives are set in Roman Judea (Palestine), but it is dubious to suggest that they therefore refl ect and preserve the beliefs and supposedly distinctive discourse of ‘Palestinian Christianity’. The Gospels are late-fi rst-century accounts of Jesus that are each intended to be meaningful for readers of that time and in the various settings in which they were read.27 The authors sought to connect these readers with Jesus, not particularly with ‘Palestinian Christianity’. So, they deployed the expression ‘the son of man’ apparently because in the traditions they drew upon it was already a distinctive mark of Jesus’ own sayings, not because it was supposedly a feature of ‘Palestinian’ Christian Christological confession.
The early chapters of Acts are presented as refl ecting the earliest days of the young Christian movement in Jerusalem and related areas, which makes it all the more interesting that ‘the son of man’ does not feature in the representations of early Jewish-Christian proclamation and confession. The one instance of the expression on the lips of Stephen in Acts 7.56 is obviously one feature of the author’s larger presentation of Stephen’s martyrdom as echoing Jesus’ interrogation and death. So, in 7.56 we have an allusion back to Lk. 22.69, where Jesus predicts that ‘the son of man’ will be seen at the right hand of God in heavenly glory. This sole instance of the expression scarcely suffi ces to show that it functioned as a Christological title in ‘Palestinian’ Christian circles of the time. In short, Burkett actually presupposes the very thing that needs to be shown – that ‘the son of man’ was ever used as a Christological title in confession and/or proclamation, among early Jewish believers or any others.
Perrin, Burkett and others who ascribe the expression to the early church tend to posit Dan. 7.13 as the crucial biblical text that provided the exegetical point of origin. Unquestionably, Dan. 7.13-14 was drawn on and alluded to in 26. Burkett,
The Son of Man Debate, p. 123.
27. I side-step here the issue raised by Richard Bauckham over whether the Gospels were originally written for some specifi c church or geographical/cultural setting. See Richard Bauckham, ‘For Whom Were the Gospels Written?’, in The Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences, ed. Richard Bauckham (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), pp. 9–48. Whatever the force of Bauckham’s argument, the Gospels quickly circulated among various churches, but clearly among Greek-reading circles and well beyond ‘Palestinian Christianity’.
8. Summary and Concluding Observations
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several NT texts (esp. Mk 14.62/Mt. 26.64; Mk 13.26/Mt. 24.30; Lk. 21.27; Rev. 1.7). But it does not seem to me that Dan. 7.13 was quite as crucial in framing the Christological convictions of the early church as would seem to be required/presumed in the sort of proposal supported by Burkett. Other OT texts seem to have been far more crucial (especially Ps. 110).28 Moreover, if ‘the son of man’ originated via pondering OT texts, there are actually other texts as well that could have served to suggest the expression. These include Ps. 8.4; 80.18/
LXX 79.18, the latter interestingly combining a reference to ‘the man at your
[God’s] right hand’ and ‘the son of man’.
Other scholars, e.g. Darrell Bock in his contribution to this volume, have proposed that Dan. 7.13 was particularly important to Jesus in framing his self-understanding, and that ‘the son of man’ may have originated as his somewhat veiled device for linking himself with the mysterious fi gure in Daniel 7.
I grant that it is entirely appropriate to explore how Jesus might have drawn upon his biblical heritage in framing his understanding of his own particular mission and role in the divine plan. Also, I think that it is fully plausible that Jesus could have made the sort of claim, involving an allusion to Dan. 7.13-14, which we have refl ected in the scene of Jesus’ interrogation by the Jewish authorities (Mk 14.62). But I am not persuaded that the expression ‘the son of man’ originated through Jesus perceiving Dan. 7.13 as the crucial text in forming his self-understanding and his use of the expression.
One important reason, again, is the lack of evidence that ‘the son of man’
functioned as a claim made by believers about Jesus’ signifi cance in fi rst-century Christian texts. If ‘the son of man’ originated in Jesus’ pondering of Dan. 7.13-14
and served in particular as his device to affi rm his identify as the human-like fi gure of that passage, it is very curious that this expression was not then taken up in early Christian proclamation and confession. Why would early Christians have dropped or ignored the expression, if it had served in Jesus’ own teaching to identify himself as the exalted being in the Daniel passage? If the expression was a ‘veiled’ way of making this claim in the time of Jesus’ own ministry, in the post-Easter situation of overt proclamation of Jesus we should expect a clear and forthright proclamation that Jesus is specifi cally ‘the son of man’ of 28. David M. Hay, Glory at the Right Hand: Psalm 110 in Early Christianity (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1973).
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‘Who is this Son of Man?’
that passage. But there is scant indication that the expression ‘the son of man’
functioned in making any such claim in early Christian proclamation. Jesus’
allusion to Dan. 7.13-14 in the scenes of his interrogation before the Jewish authorities will hardly serve by itself as suffi cient evidence of early Jewish Christian confess
ional use of ‘the son of man’.
The other major approach in contemporary scholarly discussion is to take o( ui(o&j tou~ a)nqrw&pou as deriving from Jesus’ use of one or more equivalent expressions in Aramaic, but not as a pointer to Daniel 7. There are different options offered. One option is to posit that Jesus used an idiomatic Aramaic expression that was putatively a common way of referring to someone else or to oneself. Among current exponents of this sort of view, Maurice Casey is probably the most prominent, and certainly the most vigorous.29 This is refl ected in the attention given to his work in several of the chapters in this volume (especially the contributions by Albert Lukaszewski, Paul Owen, David Shepherd and P. J. Williams). The particular wrinkle in Casey’s approach is his insistence that the defi nite singular form, )#$n) rb, was an Aramaic idiomatic expression that did not necessarily carry a particularizing force, and was simply a common way for a speaker to refer to someone (including oneself) as a human person.
Casey further proposes that the Greek expression o( ui(o&j tou~ a)nqrw&pou originated as a rather literal translation of this defi nite-form Aramaic expression, the early Christian translators thereby introducing innocently a particularizing force into the Greek phrasing that was not connoted in the Aramaic equivalent.
This, Casey further proposes, then contributed to the Greek for ‘the son of man’
becoming a title as applied to Jesus, as it came to refl ect the kind of uniqueness that early Christians quickly wished to ascribe to him.
But, as was pointed out forcefully by Owen and Shepherd several years ago, it is a major problem for Casey’s argument that there is no evidence for a common use of the defi nite-singular expression )#$n) rb in extant Aramaic texts of the Second Temple period and Palestinian provenance.30 The essays 29. See now, especially, Maurice Casey, The Solution to the ‘Son of Man’ Problem (London: T&T Clark, 2007), which consolidates work from a number of his earlier publications. Casey’s confi dence in his proposal is refl ected in the title of this book: ‘ The Solution’!
Who Is This Son of Man Page 25