The Jewish Gospels (6 page)

He will be enthroned on high.

He is given power and dominion, even sovereignty on earth.

All of these are characteristic of Jesus the Christ as he will appear in the Gospels, and they appear in this text more than a century and a half before the birth of Jesus. Moreover, they have been further developed within Jewish traditions between the Book of Daniel and the Gospels. At a certain point these traditions became merged in Jewish minds with the expectation of a return of a Davidic king, and the idea of a divine-human Messiah was born. This figure was then named “Son of Man,” alluding to his origins in the divine figure named “one like a Son of Man/a human being” in Daniel. In other words, a simile, a God who looks like a human being (literally Son of Man) has become the name for that God, who is now called “Son of Man,” a reference to his human-appearing divinity. The only plausible explanation of the “Son of Man” is that of
Leo Baeck, the great Jewish theologian and scholar of the last century, who wrote: “Whenever in later works ‘that Son of Man,' ‘this Son of Man, or ‘the Son of Man' is mentioned, it is the quotation from Daniel that is speaking.”
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This dual background explains much of the complexity of the traditions about Jesus. It is no wonder, then, that when a man came who claimed and appeared in various ways to fit these characteristics, many Jews believed he was precisely the one whom they expected. (It's also no wonder that many were more skeptical.)

There are many variations of traditions about this figure in the Gospels themselves and in other early Jewish texts. Some Jews had been expecting this Redeemer to be a human exalted to the state of divinity, while others were expecting a divinity to come down to earth and take on human form; some believers in Jesus believed the Christ had been born as an ordinary human and then exalted to divine status, while others believed him to have been a divinity who came down to earth. Either way, we end up with a doubled godhead and a human-divine combination as the expected Redeemer.
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The connections between older pre-Jesus ideas of the Messiah/Christ and those that Jesus would claim for himself are thus very intimate indeed.

Who Is the Son of Man?

Jesus famously refers to himself by that mysterious term “The Son of Man.” Oceans of ink and forests of trees have given their substance so that humans could continue to argue about where this term came from and what it means.
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Regarding its meaning, some say it refers to Jesus' human nature, while others say it refers to his divine nature. In the Middle Ages it was taken as a sign of Jesus' humility but later on was understood as such a potent mark of potentially blasphemous arrogance that many scholars have argued that the “Son of Man” sayings were all put into Jesus' mouth after his death. Some have argued that the term referred to a primordial heavenly man figure and was connected with Iranian religion, while others have denied entirely that there ever was such a figure at all. All this has added up to what has been called for generations now “The Son of Man Problem.”

When Jesus came and walked around Galilee proclaiming himself the Son of Man, no one ever asked: “What is a Son of Man, anyway?” They knew what he was talking about whether they believed his claim or not, much as modern folks in many parts of the world would understand someone saying “I am the Messiah.” But there is a puzzlement here, because the term is very odd in any of the ancient languages with which we are concerned—Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.

The Christological use of the term “the Son of Man” as a name for a specific figure is unintelligible in Hebrew and Aramaic as an ordinary linguistic usage. In those Semitic languages it is an ordinary word that means “human being”; in Greek it indicates, at best, somebody's child. One would think, then, that when Jesus referred to himself as the Son of Man, Aramaic-speakers would hear him just calling himself a person. But the contexts in Mark will not allow us to interpret Jesus' use of the term as meaning just a human being. It would be very difficult to interpret the verses of Mark 2 (discussed later in this chapter) as meaning that any old human has the capacity to forgive sins against God or that any person is Lord of the Sabbath.

Referring to an individual as the Son of Man therefore has to be explained historically and literarily. It only makes sense if “The Son of Man” was a known and recognized title in the world of the writer and characters in Mark. Whence came this title? All such usages must have been an allusion to the pivotal chapter in the book of Daniel.

Much New Testament scholarship has been led astray by an assumption that the term “Son of Man” referred only to the coming of Jesus on the clouds at the
parousia
, Jesus' expected reappearance on earth. This has led to much confusion in the literature, because on this view it seems difficult to imagine how the living, breathing Jesus, not yet the exalted-into-heaven or returning-to-earth Christ, could refer to
himself
as the Son of Man, as he surely seems
to do in several places in Mark and the other Gospels. This problem can be solved, however, if we think of the Son of Man not as representing a particular stage in the narrative of the Christ but as referring to the protagonist of the entire story, Jesus the Christ, Messiah, Son of Man.

It has been frequently thought that the Son of Man designation refers only to the Messiah (the Christ) at the time of his exaltation and after. In Mark 14:61–62, the high priest asks of Jesus: “Are you the Messiah [Christ], the Son of the Blessed?” And Jesus said, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” One could easily understand from this verse that Jesus uses the title Son of Man to refer only to the moment in which you will see him coming with the clouds of heaven. Now if the Son of Man is, the reasoning goes, the Messiah (the Christ) seated at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of heaven, how could the term “Son of Man” have been used by Jesus to refer to his earthly life? The scholarship then has to go to great lengths to determine which of the Son of Man sayings Jesus could have, might have, or did say and which were added by the Early Church—the disciples or the evangelists—and put in his mouth. If, however, we understand that the designation Son of Man refers not to a single stage in the narrative of Jesus—birth, incarnation, sovereignty on earth, death, resurrection, or exaltation—but to all of these together, then these problems are
entirely obviated. If Jesus (whether the “historical” Jesus or the Jesus portrayed in the Gospels) believed that he was the Son of Man, he was so from beginning to end of the story, not just at one moment within it. The Son of Man is the name of a narrative and its protagonist.

This narrative, the narrative that Jesus understood himself to embody, grows out of a reading of the story of the career of the “one like a Son of Man” in the Book of Daniel. In Daniel 7, we find the following account of the prophet's night vision:

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As I watched, thrones were set in place, and an Ancient One took his throne, his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames, and its wheels were burning fire.
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A stream of fire issued and flowed out from his presence. A thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood attending him. The court sat in judgment, and the books were opened. . . .
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As I watched in the night visions, I saw one like a son of man [human being] with the clouds of heaven. And he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him.
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To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed.

In this prophetic narrative, we see two divine figures, one who is clearly marked as an ancient and one who has the appearance of a young human being. The younger one has his own throne (that's why there is more than one throne set up to start with), and he is invested by the older one with dominion, glory, and kingship over all the peoples of the world; not only that, but it will be an eternal kingship forever and ever. This is the vision that will become in the fullness of time the story of the Father and the Son.

From the earliest layers of interpretation and right up to modern times, some interpreters have deemed the “one like a son of man” a symbol of a collective, namely, the faithful Israelites at the time of the Maccabean revolt, when the Book of Daniel was probably written.
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Other interpreters have insisted that the “[one like a] son of man” is a second divine figure alongside the Ancient of Days and not an allegorical symbol of the People of Israel. We find in Aphrahat, the fourth-century Iranian Father of the Church, the following attack on the interpretation (presumably by Jews) that makes the “one like a son of man” out to be the People of Israel: “Have the children of Israel received the kingdom of the Most High? God forbid! Or has that people come on the clouds of heaven?” (Demonstration 5:21) Aphrahat's argument is exegetical and very much to the point. Clouds—as well as riding on or with clouds—are a common attribute of biblical
divine appearances, called theophanies (Greek for “God appearances”) by scholars.
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J.A. Emerton had made the point decisively: “The act of coming with clouds suggests a theophany of Yahwe himself. If Dan. vii. 13 does not refer to a divine being, then it is the only exception out of about seventy passages in the O[ld] T[estament].”
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It is almost impossible to read the narrative here of the setting up of thrones, the appearance of the Ancient of Days on one of them, and the coming to him of the one like a son of man apart from stories of the investiture of young gods by their elders, of close gods by transcendent ones.
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Some modern scholars support Aphrahat unequivocally. As New Testament scholar Matthew Black puts it bluntly, “This, in effect, means that Dan. 7 knows of two divinities, the Head of Days and the Son of Man.”
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Those two divinities, in the course of time, would end up being the first two persons of the Trinity.

This clear and obviously correct interpretation would seem to be belied by the continuation of the Daniel 7 text itself, however:

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As for me, Daniel, my spirit was troubled within me, and the visions of my head terrified me.
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I approached one of the attendants to ask him the truth concerning all this. So he said that he would disclose to me the interpretation [
pesher
] of the matter:
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“As for these four great beasts, four kings shall arise out of the earth.
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But the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever—forever and ever.”
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Then I desired to know the truth concerning the fourth beast, which was different from all the rest, exceedingly terrifying, with its teeth of iron and claws of bronze, and which devoured and broke in pieces, and stamped what was left with its feet;
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and concerning the
ten horns that were on its head, and concerning the other horn, which came up and to make room for which three of them fell out—the horn that had eyes and a mouth that spoke arrogantly, and that seemed greater than the others.
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As I looked, this horn made war with the holy ones and was prevailing over them,
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until the Ancient One came; then judgment was given for the holy ones of the Most High, and the time arrived when the holy ones gained possession of the kingdom.
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This is what he said: “As for the fourth beast, there shall be a fourth kingdom on earth that shall be different from all the other kingdoms; it shall devour the whole earth, and trample it down, and break it to pieces.
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As for the ten horns, out of this kingdom ten kings shall arise, and another shall arise after them. This one shall be different from the former ones, and shall put down three kings.
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He shall speak words against the Most High, shall wear out the holy ones of the Most High, and shall attempt to change the sacred seasons and the law; and they shall be given into his power for a time, two times, and half a time.
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Then the court shall sit in judgment, and his dominion shall be taken away, to be consumed and totally destroyed.
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The kingship and dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the holy ones of the Most High; their kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, and
all dominions shall serve and obey them.”
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Here the account ends. As for me, Daniel, my thoughts greatly terrified me, and my face turned pale; but I kept the matter in my mind.

Those Jews who were Aphrahat's opponents could clearly have retorted, then: “Is a heavenly being or junior God subject to oppression by a Seleucid king who forces him to abandon his Holy Days and his Law for three and a half years? Absurd! The Son of Man must be a symbol for the children of Israel!”

Both sides of this argument are right. As we've just seen, Daniel's vision itself seems to require that we understand “the one like a son of man” as a second divine figure. The angelic decoding of the vision in the end of the chapter seems equally as clearly to interpret “the one like a son of man” as a collective earthly figure, Israel or the righteous of Israel. No wonder the commentators argue. The text itself seems to be a house divided against itself. The answer to this conundrum is that the author of the Book of Daniel, who had Daniel's vision itself before him, wanted to suppress the ancient testimony of a morethan-singular God, using allegory to do so. In this sense, the theological controversy that we think exists between Jews and Christians was already an intra-Jewish controversy long before Jesus.