The Solution to the 'Son of Man' Problem

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The Solution to the 'Son o f Man' Problem

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THE SOLUTION TO THE 'SON OF MAN' PROBLEM

MAURICE CASEY

.\\ u adark

Copyright @ Maurice Casey, 2009 Published by T&T Clark International A Continuum impriut The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SEI 7NX 80 Maiden Lane, Suite 704, New York, NY 10038 www.tandtclark.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitte--d in any form or by any means, clc.ctronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or rctric.\'al system~

without permission in writing from the publishers.

Maurice Casey has asserted his right under the Copyright, Dc.signs and Patcnt.s Act~ 1988> to be identified as the. Author of this work.

First published in hardback as volume 343 of the Library of New Testament Sntdics series, 2007 This edition published, 2009 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the Brirish Library

ISBN 10: 0567030709 (paperback) ISBN 13: 9780567030702 (paperback) Typeset by Free Range Book Design & Production Limited Printed on acid-free paper in Great Britain by Biddies Ltd, King's Lynn, Norfolk

CONTENTS

Prejm·e Abbre11iatio11s CHAPTER

I

CWAPTER 2 CHAPTER

3

CJ.JAPTER 4 CHAPTER

5

C i-IAPTER 6 C i-IAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8 CWAPTER 9 CHAPTER 10 CJ.JAPTER

II

VII

" The State.of Play Tile-Use of the Anunaic.Tcnn (K)1V;(N) u , •Son of Man' The ·son of Man Concepr' Six Authentic Sayings The llealing of the Paralytic (Mark 2.1- 12) Jackal< lla,•e lloles (Man. 8.19-201/luke 9.57-58) The Son of Man io the Heavenly Ulul't (luke 12.8-9// Man. 10.32-33; Mark 8.38) Octl'ayed by a Kiss ( Luke 22.48) Jesus Predicts his Death aod Resurrection Other Synoptic Saying,.:;

56 82 116 144 168 179 195 200 212

Translation and the Use of Scripture. From Sayings of

C i-IAPTER 12

J es-lL~ to the Sy nop•ic Evange-lists The-Johannine-Sayiog.:;

C i-IAPTER 13

Conclusions

274 3 14

Bibliography /1tdex of Scriplllre and Ancien/ Literatllre Index of Modem Aullwrs

321 345 357

246


PREFACE

T his book was writteo in 2002-4. In 200 1- 4, I hd d a Leverhuhne-Major Research

Fellowship awarded for me to complete all the nec.essal)' research and write the. first drafl of this book. as well as a small monograph on the Similitudes of Enoch. I

am extremely grateflll to the Leverhulme Trust for this award, which enabled me to oomplere this mnssive piece of research. I am also g.rateJUI to all those who have discussed with me the problems of method and of detail which 1his wotk ha..~ emailed. I began research on some-

aspec.ts of the Son of man problem by re.ading for a doc.torate at Durham Uniwrsity under Professor C. K. Barrett. whose extraordinary combination of learning and helpfulness with lack of bure.aucrac.y or interference re.mains a model to which one cao only al>pire. I would paJ1iculal'ly like-to thank also Dr A. Angel, Professor R. Bouckham. the late Professor M. Black, Professor B. D. Chilton, Dr. J. G. Crossley, Professor J. A. Fi11J11yer. Professor D. R. A. Hare. Dr C. Fletcher Louis. Professor R. Keams, tJ1e late Professor B. Lindars. Professor M. MUller, Professor C. M. Tuckeu and Professor W. Walke-r. 1 would ab~o like to thank memberS of the Aramaic. Bnck£JOUnd and Historical Jesus seminars at SNTS, the Jesus seminar at meetings of British NC\1/ Testa.ment scholars, and an annual semi oar oo the Use. of the Old Testament in the Ne\\1 now ge1lerally held at I lawarde11, fOr what I have leamt from them. I alone am respolts ible for what 1 have said. I would also like to thank my Nouiugh.arn colleague Dr R. II. Oell fi)r help with the \\'Ord processor on which this bt)ok wa.~ wrinen: a.od the libnlries of SOAS and tJ1e British Library for the facilities necessary for advanced scholarly work.


ABBREVIATIO:VS

AB Ad1•. Haer. 11d~>. ,\1c.

Ad11. Pmx.

AGJU

Akk. An Bib

Anchor Bible Adversus Haereses Adversus Marcionem Adversus Praxeam Arbeiten zur Gesc-hichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristenlums Akkadi:m Analecta Biblica

ANRW

II. Temp01i ni and W. l laase-(edl>), Aufstieg tm d Niederga11g der rOmisclum l\-e/t (mall)' vols., GeJ·(io: W. de Gruy1er. 1972- )

Ant.

Antiquilies of the Jews

A.Pers. ASTI

Aeschylus, Per.fians Annual of the Swedish Tlumlogical lnslitw e

ATANT

Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testame-nts

r1ThD

Acta 111eologica Dn11ica

•\Z

'Abodah Zarah

b. BaL

Babylonian Talmud Bampton Lectures

2 Bar.

2 Banrch

Ber BETL BGBE

Berakhol Bibliothec-.a ephemeridum thoologicarum lovaniensium Beitrage.zur Geschic.hte der biblischen Exegese

/Jib

/JJ RL 8111/..M

B iblica B iblical Research B ullet ill tif the JtJ/m Rylrmds Libra(\' Bullet ill tif the JtJIUJ Rylrm ds Librmy tif Mtmclre.\·ter

BNTC

Black's New Tesuunenl Commeruaries

BSRel

Bibliothec.a di Scienze Religiose

BTL

Oenjamins Tran.:;Jation Library

BWANT CBM

Beitrage.zur Wissenschaft vom A1ten und Neuen Testament CheSler Beauy Monographs

CB Q

Cmlwlit· B iblical Quarterly

CChr.Sl 2 Clem. ConBNT

Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina 2 Clement Coniectane.a biblica. New Testament

BibRes

Abbreviations

Dnn.

Coniectanea biblica, Old Testament I Corinthians Cornpe.ndia renun iudaicarun1ad Novum Teslame.,uum Cotpu;. Scriplorunl Chrislianorun\ Otieo1alium Curetonian Daniel

Dec. Dem.

De decalogo Denum:rtrmio

Deut

Deuteronomy Dialogue Dipsades Discoveries in the Judaean Desen Etudes Bibliques

CO !~ BOT

I Cor. CRINT

csco cur

Dial.

Dips. DJD EBib Ebr.

De ebrietate

EKKNT

E\langelisch·Katholisc.her Kon-lfnentar zum Neuen Testament

I En.

I Enoch 2 Enoch

2 En. 2 Esd

LXX "Ea5pa,

n·

E"'. E,...R.

Es01e.r E.'ther Rabbah

ETL Eu.s. Exod.

Ephemuidu lheologicar Jowmienses

Eu.sebiu.s Exodus

Exp7im

Expository Times

Ezek. FRLANT

Ezekiel Forschungen zur Religion und Lite.ratur des Ahen und Neuen Testaments Freiburger Zeitschrift fiir Philosophie und Theologie Galatians Genesis Genesis Rabbnh Gittin Gospel ofThomas

FlPT Gnl. Gen. Gen.R. Gitt. Gos. Thom. H.A. hark Hnb. Hdt H. E. IJag Hos. HSM

Hi.\·to1in Animalium

Harlde.an Habakkuk Herodotus Historin Ecc/esinstica l~agigah

Hosea Harvard Semilie r--•tonographs

HTR

Harwrrd 11u•<Jiogicrlt of Cltl'i.stolo-gy. A Hi.nnry t>f lnterprelJ.ci: &Vnpo; AOOIJ ...

KaiTo• oUK iK onipt.~cno; Ov-8p6c;. 0)..).' ~t::: nvnfuaroc; O:yiou ytvVfl&ik , tvOr; ¢ VTOIO. Toli npc.nonk&orou AOciiJ vi~ voq&i}ona1. For 1hc Word. 1-hc ani6cct of the uni vcr~.:-, app.:::.tcd liS Son of man, not :.s having bo.--eoolc soolclhjng diiltrem, b1.u a sc..--ond Adam •.. II thctcforc he bcc:.mc Son of m:Ul oo c-anh, yc1 '"'till bcgoucn of (ahe) holy spitit. 001 of 1he seed of man. he shall be eoosidctcd son of one. thc firsl·f(Jt mcd. Adam. (Otl tilt> l11camalicm A.gainst Apollillaris 1.8)

Here again the doctrine. of the two muures unde.rlies the whole discussion. the tem1 Abyoc; be.ing used with reference to the fully divine maker of the universe, and u'16c; OvOpc.lrrou referring to his existenc.e as man during his incarnate life on earth. Here too it will be. noted that ulO;- Ov8pWrrou doe$ not need the.ru1icles in Greek. This line of interpretation did not merely continue for centurie.s, it is regre.uably still with u.s.' 1l is acco!'d ingly to be noted that in the Greek Fa1hers it does not require any stress on the second anicle in 0 v·u); ToiJ O:v6pWrrou. as if the e.~pre.ssion itself required the incan1ate Jesus to be son or a ptlrticular man. On the corurary, we have j u.~t see-n in Ps-Athan.asius that this interprelation was held with the artides omined from u'l~ 0 v0pc.lrrou. Til iS iSagain due tO lhe OVeJriding ioftue.nce Of lhe doctrine of the two natures. Once the Fathers produced these interpretations \Vhich stt\\' the term Son of man having some special reference to ~ futther his use of Da11. 7. 13. cornme-rlling a.:; fOllows: Idem ips.i Danid i rc\·dal\lil dirc.:1o fil ius OOminis ~·cni c-ns eum c-adi nubibus iudcx. s:ic-u1 C1 sc-riplura dc:monstmt. He \vtiS also reve:aJrcod dirccdy to Daniel himsdr as Lhc Son of man coming with the d ouds of hc-:twn as judge-. as sctip1urc al!.O dc-m\'ltlStr:uc~. (Adlt.lllc. IV,IO, t2)

This interpre-t:; Dan. 7. 13 as a direA·~

Th e Sollllitm to the 'Sou of Man ' Problem

6

This did not prevent Theodoret from expounding a conventional western Christian view M Dan. 7. 13 and or the Gospel title 0 u'u)c; Toli Ov8pc:.)rrou. Commeming on Dan. 7. 13-14. he q uotes tvlt 24.30 eomplete with both the articles of 0 O:vOpc:.)rrou. and comments:

ul<X- roU

-roliTo oo:¢c.Y; n~Qr; iO'i&:~t\1 0 I!OXciptor;: f!.O:t/1.,)., ll}v &VTfpav OW'fitpOt; i mq,ciVt>. 121- 5 ~l ow.

8


At the same time, s:omewhat similarly to the western Fathers, the Syriac-speaking

Fathers also used their Gospel title 'Son of 1\lan• with reference to Jesu..:;• humao nature. For example. Philo:xenus refers h) the doctrioe or Jest:~s' IWl) oatu~s: ~~t~:->:! n·10~ N;;!!:->1 ti ;n:n :mtiro n•"Md !Oiti ti ;r,:n and {his) Son o f God U\ d)' i n his dci!y. and (his) Son o f mall by nallHC' i n the hum:.nity.

( 1irlctatlls Je Jtdwrw.rio 32)

Here Lhe two balancing ChristologicaJ tilles :.m~- inte-rpreted by means of more general terms to give clear reference to the divine and human natures of Christ With son1e idea l)f the 1wo narures in the background, ~~:(x) 1J or ~iVJ(K) 1J' 1n oould be used to refer to Jesus as a human being, the reference being made clear by the context. For example. NarSai Ct)lnments, leU 1\.il(:.:) 1~ 1n. 'he chose. one (soo ol) l'nan' (H omily On the Epiphany t)j Our Lord. 387). He.re the lengthy contextual discussiOil makes it dear that the relercnce i:: to God's choice- of Je-$uS fOr the

incarnation. a situation 10 which his human nature. wa•:; essential. Again, Jacob of Serug commenlS: XO'i? 'T;; n;:; Ki'J-dii :riO l't ~S

1hc d,..nying ()Cop!c who hung a/the (son o l) man oo a/llle 1, 17)

1rec. (Homily a,~;aill.fl lite Jews

In this c.ase, the.broad c.uhural cootext is as important as the immediatelysurroundiog lite.rary oouh~xt ioleaviug no doubtlhat this refers to the crueilixion M Jesus by the

Jews. Both these examples illustrate the massive.gap between the kind of comments that could be made during the ministry of the historic.a1 Jesus and the advanced lite.rary aod theologic.al environrnent of the- Syriac.-::peaking church. The laner context pennit.J: even the simple (K)Wl(~) -u to be 11.Sed on its own with reference to

Jesus himself alone. where.as attempts to reconstruct sayings of Jesus with similar reference result in confusion. The use M Dan. 7.1 3 in Ihe Syriac-spe.aking d1urc.h was complicated by two thctors. One was the e-xtraordinary lranslalion of the origi1lal :oiJK u wilh ri.?J..:: 1:!, perhaps otiginally a deliberate attempt h) avoid the-interpretation of this figure-as a

direct prophecy of Je.sus. The second fac.tor, whkh may indeed have been involved in the first, was thallhe Syriae-speaking church preser"'ed t11e original interpretation M Wl~ 1:!J as refhriog to the Saiots oft11e Mt)St High, inte-J'Pretjng these as Maccabean Jews or somethiog dose lO this: they added a secondary re.fe.reoce, at the level or n or the like.• 10 Jesus. For example, l11eodore bar Kooi commenrs on rWJ~ 1.:1 at Dan. 7.13: !'1'7.:~"'1~ N!'C;IJ j""''l~ FCt them ffl..'\:: a1)d ~thi ~ O'iK 1:: LJillum /umtJnl. f) homin-em quenwis signific:u~ But as. I said. il is qui1e clear th:u fot the Hebrews O$iah. And ](';US himscM. indeed. by rncans of this
16.

Schohcn,

De apptllatiune

rOO u(oU roV Ov8pcirroo, p. 92, d !ing I. B. C:wpzov. uti Du11.

f'IJ I J. /;/, Ch. II. M. C~y. St>ll t)j.ltftm. 11u~ Jurt'tpr~tUtrltm mul hiJiuetlc found in the Lord's usage. In practice, this meaos that he c.t)uld argue from the surface me-aning of Gospel texts in Greek. and largely ignore the question of how Jesus could mean this in Aramaic. At this point, Schulze takes hi:. next Jnajl)r step. lie lists scholars who have seen tJ1e origin of 0 ul~ TOO O:vepc.lrrou in Dan. 7. 13, quite a long lilil already in 1867.:$ He then argues for this view himself. He does so within a \'ery strong framework, the. Christiao ''lew of Jesu s as Messiah. Jleoce he regard'> ·son ofma.n• as d1e equivalent Casey. Ammai< Soun:es ofMark's Gospel, pp. 122- 3; pp. 125-3 1 below. Scholte-n. D~ <tppt'llotiOJu• ro!i uioii roV &vOp<Jn-ou, p. 163. Scholtc:n. D~ :.tl:CJ', 1821}: idem. Ubti Enm:h rersitJ ethiopica (Oxf(Jtd: Parker. 1838}: A. (i. HoO'nlann. Das Btu:h HmOf:h in l·ol/sramli,'>er Ubt•rset:,ltJig mit fmtlauf~ndttJ K(}mmentat ... (2 \'o ls: Jena: Croci:e•·, I &33-8): A. Dillnl:lnn, Libu E111xh anlliopice uti qlfiJI(/Jt~ NN.Iit.'nm ./idem ediws (Leipzig: \ b gd, 1851 ); idt•m. Das Buell Hmocll iib~tset~ wul etf!iirt (U:ipz.ig: Vogel. 1853). 29. A. Hilgcnfcld. Dit' j iiE9hon a:t Tole; uiol c; Tc.lv Crv9pt.lTT(.)V, \\'here he saw a d ear ec.ho of~IL;n~ in the original saying. None-theless, he had insutlicient appreciation of lhe need w understand the tran.!;lator. The use of t'J-o in the indelioitestate, which is entirely reasonable onArarnaic grounds, requires an explanation of the consiste-m use of d1e articles in 0 uiCt;- ToUCtvOpc.) nou. Meyer also offered an Aramaic.rec.onstruction ofMk 2.10. He knew ftom his study or Aramaic, more extensive than that or any of his pn."'dec.essors, 1ha1 (K)iiJ(K) 'U had to refe-r to ·man' in general, and he knew frotn his study of the-Gospels that each Son of man saying had to refer to Jesus in particular. He had not however found Ammak e.vidence that both thiogs were posltible at onc.e. This led hifn to a conjecmre whic.h was to run fruit]e$sly fo r some time. lie note.d the use of lhe-Aramaic KU) ~i:l:i by a speaker in the third person to refer to himself. and announced that one would 39. 40. 4 1.

Mcyc-t•."-l•rrterspmche. p. 9 1. Meye-r. Mlttlfm-prache. p. 93. Meye-r. Mltfler.\'/Jrttch~. p. 94.

20


also expect ~:oiru ~1:1;1 . He c.ould no 1 however produce any e-vidence of this, aod this was emphasized rnlher than mitigated by his bringing forward a linJe evide-nce which was not Lhe same at all. such as the Christian Palestinian Syriac. lectionary havil)g ,~where olhe-r Sytia.c versioos have ~nJ.:~: He proceeded to offer Aramaic recoustruclionsofMt 8.201/Lk. 9.58 and o f r-.•tt. 11.18-19a/llk. 7.33 34a. renderiog 4

Wlu as •ein Mensch (wie ich)' and •je.nand' respect i vely.' 1he see-r of Daniel 7.59 This is a panicularly clear example of Christiao traditil)O being use-d w lOon and expound ' the conceptioo of the-Son of Man'. conttary to the text \\•hich is S-t:ipposed 10 lOon the basis for the exposition. Mowinckel proceeded to the Similitudes of Enodr and 4 E:ra 13, the two other major sources of1he Son of Man Concept I le added in several Olhen:, announcing for e.xafnple-the messianic interpretatjon of Ps. 8.5. withoul any discussion of texts which so interpret it. let alone their date .~ He then provided a lengthy discussion of \'arious feature.s of the Son of Man. a composite character drawn from the various texts \\-'hic.h 1\-•lowinckel conside-red to be rele\•ant. Having fonned this comple.'t C-haracter l'rorn 1nany ditfe1'tnt texls. Mowinckel fOund that his 'heavenly, pre. existent being, "the Mao", of divine angelic character ... did not originally have aoy c.onnexioo with the Old Testa1nen1 Mes.o;ia.h ... •M h is this which took him to 'the 51.

S. r..·Jowinckel. Hall .wme kommt"r (Copt•nh:tgcn: Gad.

\V. AnMrson; Oxli>rd: Blackwdl. 1956).

5S.

59. 60. 6 1.

Mowinekcl. HI' That Comt'IIJ. p. 352. Mowinckct. H,. Tltut Comnlt, pp. 352- 3. Mowil\Ckct. He Tltut Comt'tll. p. 351. Mowinckcl. Ht> That Comnle, p. 420.

195t): HI' 71urt Comtlh (tram;.. G.

24


Primordial t>.•lan ' , c.onceptious of \\•hich he supposed to have been 'widespre'iew of Himself as the Son or Man.' To understand this ' inc.omprehe.nsible innovation' . Mow·inckel tumed to the Sullering Servant of l:.aiah 53. 'Je~us was the iirst to mke this prophecy seril)USiy in its real meaniog, and apply it h) Himself. •.w Conrempt for Jewish use of scripture is thus combined with this proposed solution. What is so striking is that after the use of two modern constructs. the Son of rvtan Concept and the Primordial Man, Mowinc-kel totally failed to oner a prope.r explanation M the use or 'Son of mao' in the teac.hiog of Jesus. His whole approach indicates his membership of an ;.tcademic Christian social subgroup. whose members devoted a massive amount of effon and learning to the. furthe.r devetopmem of the. work of their predecessors. Their efforts. learning and positions as distinguished professors ser.•ed to conceal the decisive methodological weaknesses at the.centre.of their work. In 1967. Borsch rnade anothe.r ane1npt at the.pn)blem frorn a similar pe-rspective-. but with much more exte-nsive. discussion of the New Testament material ' 0 The first part or the-book is similar in methodology 10 the work of tvtow·inckel. drawing on ruany diverse sources to pu( rogedte-r· an anificial cons-truct. fiors:ch made more effort 1han tvtowinckel to explain the specific tern\ 'soo of mao'. For example. he6S. Mowi.nckcl. Htt That Comrth. p. 447, quo1ing F.. Sj6bcr,g. · ~t~nnisk(llioncn i judcndom odt ut'ktistcndom'. i.n 28:e Srenska LiimlwhliiroreniJte i StO.·lan• sugge-s ting that there is •very

re.a1 poim in the second desi~,nation. for the reigning king was the re.presentative of his anc-estor the f\•lan. the first king. in whose offic.e he now serves. but he is also the son of that Man, his desc.endant and legilimate heir.' ;1 This is however dependent on the artificial cons1ruc1of 'his ancestorthe-Man, the first king', as \!Jell as on dubious interpre.tntu. One rea.~on was that tl1e.y wereseparate from his 1irst group, Mother that they are absent from Q. another thal they were implicated in the iruer'(ln:tation of his death in the-light of the early church's interpretation ofscripture, since 'the idea ora sullering. dying, rising rvtessiah orSon of Marl \Vas unknown to Judaism' .u• This is one of the points where Buhmann was dependem on the Son of tvlan Concept. It also presupposes that Q was Ut)t merely an entity from which things could be abse.nt. but also so extensive that Matthew and Luke were bound to visibly reproduce from it things which they had already inherited ffom f>.·lark. It does not really permit a pn)per explanation as h) \\' hy thesepredictions c.ontain the term 0 ulO; ToU O:v9pc.lrrou. This is doubly so because Bultmann argued thatthe.y are 'p!'obably later products of the l lellenis(iCChurch' ,n even though the Hellenistic. church as found in Acts and the. Epistles shows no sign of them. The fact that the predictions of Jesus• r~surrec tion are separate from the parousia predictiOtL;; re!'nains irnportaut. D'ulHnarm thought his iirst group were old, and contained autheutjc predictions of the C-Oming t) f the Son of Ulan. Tbjs figure was not however identifie.d with Jesus in these sayings, but ooly later by lhe church. Here again Bultmann was dependent on the Son of Man Concept, which is requin."itrary interpre(ation ofa vigorously presented individual who is finally identified as Enoch ( J En. 71.14). ManSt)ll (rie-s to 9 1. T~ W. M:~Mon, 71re Teur.lling of JI!JIU (Cambridg~: CUP, 1931. 2nd c-dn, 1935). pp. 211- 34. 259-84~ 'The S(ltl of Man in D:~nid. Enoch and the Gospel ~ ' , BJRL 32 (1949- 50). pp. 17 1-93; rets•. p. ISO. = Sludks. p. I 32. 95. SCi: csped:~ll y J. \V. Rogerson, 'The Hcbtew Cooccprion of Corpoi'".UCPets003liry: aRc.:.>.:.smiru:uioo', Jl"S NS2 1 ( 1970). l)f). 1- t6. 96. Manson, Tetu:lrillg. p. 214. 9?. 1". W. Manson. The SayitrsstJ/ Jesus ( 1937. :ts. Pan ll ofn•e MisJion and Me.u ugt'tif J tJfU. eh AAoold be rituslly sbugh!4'rcd. l·lc:lling this. R. Haggai sent him lhis otdc•~ Con\C and be- !\ICOurgcd! f-Ie replied, Should;.:;! u tx- scourge:m i." no doubl due to the impliod humiliation.

l lere-Vent~s has correctly 1>erccived that !!i) IJ is a ge-,n•ioe refere-nce h) the speaker hi m~lf. hlthe state t) f scholarship as it \\ as, that was an important advance. Vennes was also right in arguing that the idiom is an indirecC"t~use JOlt did 001 give !be t ig.hlmti.ng 0-o n•;·;; ~'?).

This presupposes that texts with variants may be interpreted as the same. when the. main p0int1nay be that they are diffc-reJlL II also e:'l:emplifies again lhe rc:.lric.tion l)f Vermes' ime1pretative et)mnle.Jll withio the traditional question. This parallel does indeed show that :;JJ -u in Jacob's saying is a proper ~fereoce to hilhse-H: bul \Veshould not follow Verme-~~ in supposing that this undermines the gene-ral level of meanmg. Thus Vermes should be congratulated on writing a seminal paper. Much more research would however be-necessary before his work could be fully utilized to put forward a complete solution to the Son of man problem.

The next eveol in scholarship was a magisterial and inltuential survey of the whole problem by Colpe. 1011 Colpe's prese--ntatiofl of re.levant Aramaic evidenc.e included Seti re 111,16, the oldest extant exaJnple of(N):z.-"J(x.) 1~. 1 ~ Referring to the e\tidence e-oll~cted by Vennes and his predecessors. Colpe Stl£.geste.d that ·a spe.aker could include hi1nselfin tdnJ as well as x'WJ '"U, whose generic sense ' "as ah\•ays apparent, or he could refer to himse-H in either and yet generalise at the-sa,ne-time: 1111 This presemation of both le.vels of meaning at the same time pointed scholars in the right direction for future work. Colpe took the view that 0 utOc; ToU Ov6pc.)rrou was a translation of the definite state x'WJ(K) 1J.. assertjng that the definite state in Aramaic was aJready meaningless. 111 He-thought 1his translalion was ·not wroog·. bul ·whe1l K+liJK 1:11 which originally meant only a man in the evetyday seose-. is re.nde.red 6 ulO:;- ToU O:vOp the preaching of JelOlL.::. I Jere Colpe included only three sayings which he understood in terms of his earlier discussion of the Aramaic expres.st

imponant criticisms. In a brief aJt ide in 1976, I pn)posed that the examples of Lhe idiornatic use M (K)tOJ(K} -u b1(1ught forward by Vcnnes have.(\VO Jevcl.s of meaning. In discussing Tg. Gen. 4.14b as an example, I described the-idiom as li.)IJ0\\1S: ' ill Aramaic. a speaker could U$e a genemJ statement. in which the exp1~ssion lOr 'rnan • w-a..:: ;;~ 1J . in order to say something about hirnselr' ." 6 While I have been C.otlSinlined by some •~&orenablt

criticism Lodescribe this indifferent ways. the main poinl remains vnJid and is expounded in Chapter2 oftllis book. I also argued that the Lranslation \\rith 0 v'10:;- To0 O:vepc.)nou was natural and. n04.ing other possibilities. virtually inevitable. Subsequem work has enabled 111oe to futthcr in'lprove our unde1standing of the translatioo process. I also began to make use of Ara.1naic reconstructioos of saying:; of Jesus, and in Sl) doit~g I noted that the impression that Son of man sayings might refer to someone other than Jesus •js simply a fUnction of the lac, that Son of .-nan sayings are trnnslatjonese'. 117 l11is simple point is sutricient •o den.olish one of the main points or all Lhe wotk io t11e Bultmann tnldiliOI\. I proposed about a dozen c.xrunpk:s of this idiom in authentic. sayiogs or Je~'>us, all but one of \Vhich are IOund in Mark or Q. I aiSl) argued that thi:; hypothesis would enable. us to solve. the classic. problems of Son of man research. a contention '"hich this book lOeek.s to establish. Jn ano1hcr article in 1976. ! tackled theGe'ez text ofd1e Similitudes of E11ach. m I argued 1hat its use of1he tenu ·son of man' should be underStood in tl1e light of nonnal use of the Aramaic tenn (~)lL;:(~) -u, and that the Son of man figure was from 1he first inter.ded 10 be understood a..:: Enoc.h. I

I 16.

tl 7. t18.

P. M. C:.:>cy. 'Th~ Sol\ of M:w. Problem'. ZN\V 6? (19 76}. pp. 14?- 54 (147). Casey, 'The Soo ofM:.n Probl~m·, !). t5-0. Casey, ' "'!100 of m:.n" il\ the Simili/L1des of Etux·h'.


38

oond uded that the Similitudes should therefore be discounted as evidence of a special ·son or rnan' c.onoept in Judaism. which lefl very liule evidence or aoy such thing. I developed my hypothC'$iS moc-h further in a 1980 book. 119 This wal< the first auempt h) oner a complete di scus..~io n of 1he-comparative exegesis or Daniel 7, and hence to explore fully i1s significance tOr the Son of man problem in the New Testanh~tH . The discu.:;sion of Daniel 7 it-;;etf io Ch. 2, and of its use t)r absetlce in

the Apoc-rypha and Pseudepig:rapha in Cb. 5, demonstnlted that the-re \liaS no ·son ofMau Concept' in ancient Judaism. 11le discussioo of the Gospels inCh. 8 shO\Ved

that the use l)f Dan. 7. I3 was iodeed inlportaot fl) t understanding a small numbert)f Son of man sayings attributed to Jesus. These were.however too fe.w to be the origin of 1he tenn. 1 argued that all or them \\•ere the work or the early c.hurch or of the evangelists. This was entirely consislent with seeing the origin of the term in the use of(K)\dJ(K) u by the historical Jesus, in accordance with 1he idit)tn to which Vermes had drawn attention. With all this in rnind, I \Vas able to draw up a table which showed h0 \1/ the development ofSonofrnansayings tined into the developrnentMGospe.l traditions. 12" Genuine sayings of .leS'lL{j LL'ing the Al'amaic IC:fl'll (K)idl(K) u were almost aU frorn our oldest sources, Mark and Q, and thu$ confined 10 the synoptic Gospels. Seve.ral fUrthet say ing,~ n::sulted from developmeots: of Jesus• genuine prediction of his: death and I'CSlun."'Ction: this fitted well into the needs of the evangelisLr;; a.r;; they composed their Gospe.ls:. There was: also a group of sayings: which used Daoiel 7.13, ill which 0 u'16t; ToiJ O:v9p 'the idiomatic use or the gene-ric article, in which the speaker re.fers to a class of persons. with whom he identifies himself ... II is this idit)m, properly requiring bar (e)Tiasha mther than bar (e)nash. which provides the best guidance to the use of the Son of Man in the sayings of JesLL-.;! 1:: There are two serious problems \\1ith this, as I pOinted out in 1987.1::1 01le M these. should have been obvious e-mpirically at the time, though it was not fully unde-rstood until later. This is that eumples of this idiom 1

1

Casey. S<m t/Man. C:tscy. Sen t)j'M«Jt, t). H6. B. lindzlrs. Jes1u Son of Mmt A /rtJII i".t«miJwli011 (}f 1he Stm of Ma11 sayi11g:~ iulilt' GcJtNis(l.bt\don: SPCK. t983). 112. Undars. l tsus 5().11 ofMmt. p. 2.J. 123. P.M. C:.scy, ' Gcocral, Oe~ric :.nd lndcfini1c: Ttl~ Use of 1ltc Thml "Son of M:.n" in Ar:1maic Soul\.~ and in 1ltc Teaching of Jesus'. JS.\rr 29 ( 1987). 1>1>. 2t- 56 (27- 34). 119. 120. 12 1.

71te State of Play

39

in fact vary as to \\'hethe.r tl1ey use the definite or indefinite state M ~WJ(~) 1J . This is sunlciently striking to be. inconsistent with lindats' clainl that this idiom properly requires the definite state (K)IV:(K) "'IJ. The se.cond problem is that lindars' reference h) the ·geoeric article' is not a satisfactory de$cription of the Aramaic. defi nite-state. Underlying d1is is the filet that oeither anicles nor generics we.re fully understood a1 the tin1e. '''ith the-resuh that descriptions of the defioite state in Aramaic were often misle.ading. This was especially regreuable in that Lindars was quite right to see that Son of man sayings might be true. of a restricted social sub-group rather than o f everyone. l ie appears to have thought that this was not consistent with my undenaanding: of this idiom: I argue in Chapter 2 of this book that it is a major feature of it. Responding to lindars io I985, Dauckham sugge-sted that •Jesus used barc11ash (probably, rather than bar euaslta) in the indefinite seose ('a man•. 'someone'), whic.h is itself a very common usage. bm used it as a fom1 of deliberately oblique or ambiguous se lf.re ference.' ~~ This has t)ne of the same-problems as lindars' proposal, in that it implies that Jesus use.d only one state-of (K)W:(K) "U, whereas extant examples vat)'· l111:·re is oo dinicuhy in 1inding examples of this idiom in which tdJ I J is used in an indefinite sense-: in I987 I dre"' attention to what I now present as passage$ 24 and 29 in Chapter 2 . But none of the examples provide an 'ambiguous self-•-e-li!rence'. All are intended to be true of m.ore people than thespeaker. ~·loreover, Son of man sayings in the-Gospels are not generally presented a..:; an1biguous. Oo the contrary, 011e of the nHtjor reatUI'eS of this proble.-n is tl1a1 the apparendy unique and newly produced term 6 vi <X- TOU avep(.)rrou causes no difficulty in unde.rstandiog: everyone km)wS that it refers (0 Jesus, Md apparently to him a1oneYs Bauckham's proposal should thereli.)re !lOt be acc.epted. In 19 84 , rvL MUller c.outributed a thoro·ugh survey of the ,yhole problcm.11h In addition (0 discussiog the rtlevant ptifuary sourc-e rnaterial. MUller provided a massive a.nou1U of infonnatjon about the-history or scholarship, c.arefully classified into ele\'en excursuses. The tirst two substaJUive chapte-rs oner a very care-ful discussion of Daoiel 7, e$pecially v. 13, and of the Similiwdcs of £11och and 4 Ezra 13 - the three major sources of the Son of Man Concept. In Dan. 7. 13, MOller interpre~ ed !VJK-.D as 'e.in reines Symbol', a symbol for the 'l leiligen des H<Schste.n•, and .so ' ein Symbol des triumphierenden Israel in desser\ TriUit!ph ·.~~· He noted the creative use of this text in both Lhe other documents. While he did not himself discuss tJ1e text of the Similitudes of Eno li~\ in M. Sanches :l.l\d 8 . 0 . Blount (cds), Stx·i<X·,t/mral Dimttl.filJns of U:msuage Use INew York: Acadcmk P~ss. 1975), pp. 57-79: K. Wales. ' "Personal" and "Indefinite" Rc.fcreJlCC: The u11cs of lhe. pronoun ONE in Prc.~t -day English·, Nutlingl1am li11guistk cirntlar 9 ( 1980), I'P· 93-1 17~ idtm. 'Exophors rc-txami n~d: the use11 of lllC J>CtsOOSI ptOik>lln WE in pre~m-day English'. U£-\ PaMrS in Littgui.flio 12 ( 1980). pp. 12-44.

42


In 1987, I carried furthe-r the study of the idiomatic u.~e of the Ararnaic 1efl'11 (~)1.92(~) 1~. IM I noted the early e-sample of it at Sefire 111,16. long bef\)re the l i.ue M

Jesus.u.s In discussing this and other exaJnples. I a•-goed thatlhey all h:we a general level o f 1\leanin.g, but that this may be restricted to a Sfnall social subgroup. I also argued 1hat examples of tlle idiom ma>' use (~)t.:7:( N) !J in the definite or indefinite state, and thai the presence or absence of tl1e-prosthetic Kmakes no di nerence to the usage or 1he idiom. 1presented Aramaic IX.'C.t)ll.Struc.t ions of further sayings or Jesus, \Vith brief discussions: f>.•lt. 12.321/lk. 12.10 (cf. Mk 3.2&-29), Mk 2.27-28, lk.

22.48, ML 11.1 9//lk. 7 .34, Mk 14.21, and I0.45. I also made a preliminaty auempt

to unmvelthe origin and secondary development of other Son of man predictions of JesulO' passion now fOund i1lthe synoptic Gospeb. In 1988. I a lTered the first attempt at an Ar.unaic recons(fuetil)O of a whole f>.·larkan perieope. natnely Mk 2.23-28, as then seemed po~sible in the light of

modern di~ooveries of Aramaic documents, especially the Dead Sea scrolls."' The passage had often been split into smaJI pieces by scholars who could not see the c.onnection between the situation aud Jesus' arguments, becalL';e they studied

it in Greek against a bac.kground of Christian assumptions. After presenting the Aramaic reconstruction l)f the whole pas.~ag.e., I Sl)ug.ht to uode-rstand it by means l)f Je,vish assumptions which would h.ave been common to Je-sus. his djsciples and his Phatisaic oppone111s. This enabled me-to see the Son of man saying at r...tk 2.28 in its original cultural context. This cultural context was in the life of the historical Jesus hjmself, so thai the. !\."COnstruction of the Aramaic source of the whole perioope greatly increased the arguments for the historicity of the whole incident. In I994, I offered a nw1-e thorough survey of the use-of(~)Wl(~) -u in the Targums aod Pe-shitta tha.n had previously been anempted. In general, I c.oncluded: ( K)>Z'!(l.") , ::ill a nomu.l Ar~nl3ic term f.:~r 'll\31l '. hs serna.ntic :~~:. COITCSt)()lldS :.ppmxim:udy

tll th:u of th\~ Hc-br.:'\v l:l1X ;:: :.nd the- AJ:.maic- (N)e!;K h overbps grcady wi1h the Hebrew o1x and ;t.ux, :md 10 a lcs.>!er cxtcnl wi1h ~ Atsm:.ic (N}i;!!(~) 'Jl.: i1 ovcdaJ)!i: tll some extem with Lhc Hebrew ;z!•x. ~l :uld other w(l(ds., a1ld wilh 1hc Arnm:.ic -cJ. A1ld ltm. Consc-quentl)', some uanslaum used it fi\.'p. 391--407 (399): idem, ' Oa.nicl 1 and Jesus'. Jocmwl ofTheology 93 (1989), pp-. 5-19 ( 14 ): idem. ' Daniel 1 and ~ Hi ~IOficat J esus'. in Of Scribts a11d Srmlls: Swdies on tht Hrbrt>w Bible. lt11t'l1tstamnltal l11daiJm and Chril·tiatl Orisitls prest med tu ](Jm Stm,gt~eU on thr occaJiOII tif llis Sixtieth Bitthduy (~d. 1-1. W. Atui dgc, J. J. Collins and T . H. i\'lbin: Lanham/NY/london: Univcr.>i1y p-ress of A •nc••ka. t990}. pp. 18t- 93 ( 1 90)~ J. ~t . Roits, 'The- Son o f ).fa•''- 185 13 ( 199J).pp. 186-9&(191).

44


questioo of the lirst article by effectively translating 0 ulO;- ToiJ O:utlpc.lrrou back i11to Aramaic. commenting: Th:.t Al :unaic"'"ll~ilking Chri s•ians did not pcrcd vc the phti111C :Ill gC1lrfi c ••• is adequ:udy

dcmons11tatcd b)' the. consi!>tC'nl choice of lm lwios lOu mllhriipou as iiS G~ttk c:quin1knt The: ankks indicate that the-ttudeniS re-garded the Ar.tmaic phrosc: as n"fc.rring to a single indi\'idual. lcsus.1.u

In thil> sitwuio•t I brought to bear l)U this probll."m our greatly inc-reased knowledge

of the habits of translators. and especially the massive varie.ty in the degn.~ of lite-ralism which the-ir works exhibit I s lh)\Ved 1hat the trans lation of (K)WJ(~) 1J wilh

0 uiO:; ToU clvOpci rrou falls within the. range of nonnal behaviour by translators. I noted that all traoshnors suner frofn interference, both a..~ bilinguals and doubly so from the text in front of them. The degree of literalism in this c.ase is consistent with the kllO\Vn behaviour of the tran~lators of the l=lebre\1/ Dible into the LXX. I also argued that, given 1he variatioo in the state of (K)WJ(~) ~ io t11is idiom. it was elltirely reasonable of the translators to consistently use the first article in 6 u'u)(; Toil O:vSp~nou. This e-nsured the reference to Jesus remained clear. and c.ould be perceived by bilinguaJ translators as both generic and particular. so th.at the phrase 0 u'u)(; ToU O:vOp~rrou as a whl)fe was as nearly accurate a translation of (~)::IJ(~) 1~ as was in practice possible. Ill 1998 and 2002, J carried this \IJOrk fUrther in two mooog:raphs, one on Aramaic sources or Mark's G ospel ~ and the sec.ood on Aramaic traditions behind the Q material. 1'*1 There were three main points at which I SOll£:ht to go further than had pre-''iously been possible. First. I sought to advance furtller the methodology M doing Aramaic reconstructions: of whole passages. I a•gued that more work had become possible following the discovery of more Ammaic.. especially the De.ad Sea Scrolls. Secondly. this meant that it wa..~ now possible to rec.onstruct far more Aramaic sources than had pre,•iously been feasible. at poilUs where the existing Greek •ext of the Go:> pe-ls had been literally tnlnslaLed. In parLicular, some Son M man sa)~ ng.s could now be reconstructed within a comp!e.te narrative context For example, Mk 10.45 could be-seen to c.onc1ude Mk 10.35-45. and h) draw together the whole pericope with reference back to its opening, and the whole pericope could consequently be set within the ministry of the his1orical Jesus. An even more remarimble example i:> 1he Son of man saying round at Mk 9. 12. Til is has always beer\ part of the-small oarrative now fOund at Mk 9 .11-13. 11li.s dl">e-S not make proper sense. in Greek. The proposed Aramaic reconstruction. however. makes excellent sense. and can also be set within the ministry of the. historical Jesus. '"' )' d iSClL~S:ioo of tvlk 9. 11-13 1t1ade pa.rtic.ular use of the third major advanc-e whic.h I sclught lO make in these t\\'0 monographs, h) carry further the insights into bilingualism and the proc.esses of translation which continued to come fro m our t 40. Hat.:. Stm (ifMall. p. 249. 14 1. Case-y. Aramaic Simrcts of Murk S Gosptl: An Ammaic AtJProuch UJ Q: Solln:tsfor Ihe G.\"fJels of.41altllt'll' und Luk~ (SNTSMS. 122: Cambridge: CUP, 2002}.

45

71te State of Play

c-Olleagues i1l these tields and in the study of the LXX. I pr (:l-1 One is thai the Aramaic.

language was re1ativelystable fora period ofcenmries. Consequently, it is in principle legitimate to use the Aramaic of different times and places in order to reconstruct Jesus• sayings, and s tories about him. in •he language in which they were orig ioall>' traosmiued. Sec.ondly. !laid out the optional use of the definite and indetinite states in generic nouns, and in sonle-unique o nes. For this purpose, I Sludied all the nouns

in Ammaic. down to the time of Jesus. A very clear pattern eme-rged in ge-nerics: the deHn ite o r inde-fin ite state may be used. This is entirely Joglcal because tlle use of

either state c-annot afrect the meaning and use of such nouns. The same is U1te of the small number of nouns for unique items such as the eanJl. This is very imponant for unde-rstand ing the variation in the state of (~)i/J(~) , J irl the idiomalic usage c.eutral

142. Clsc:y, .-\mmaic Souft't'.r ofMarkS Go.rpt.o/, p. 103. 143. 0.-sc:y. Ammai< Sourc~.r nf MarkS Gospel, p. 132, quoting H. G. l·l i~ni g. 'f-lolm.::s' "Mapping Thco1y'' and the Lsndsea1>e of Memal 'Tta.MI:uion Proc:csscs'. in K. M . van Lcuvenz,\1311 a1)1! T. Na:.ijko:ns {ed11). Traru/(llitHl Srudies: The Sial~ of th~ Arl. Procc:edings of the First James S. l~olmt.'ll Syn1posium on Transla1ioo S!Udics (Amsterdam. t991). pp. 7?- 89 (85). quoting 0. C. Kiraly. 'Toward a Sysacma1k At,t,roach to Translation Skill ~ 11\SLruCiion\ (Ph.D. thcsi~, Utb:.na. l llinoi~. 1990}. p. 149. 144. P. M. Ca~y, ' Atamaic ldioo\ a1)1! the Son MM11n Problcnl! a Rc11ponsc To Ow~n a.nd Shepherd'. JSNT 25 (2002). pp. l - 32.

Th e Sollllitm to the 'Sou of Man ' Problem to this book. The older ~lu)farship debated whether the fOrc.c of the d efi nite state had a lready been removed in ti rst-- fr01H taking my d e!lcriptiOtl of the idiom using the ten n ·general statement' too literally, a nd treating my ~u ggesti NIS in Englis h or

Gem1an rather than Aramaic. For example. Hooker. apparently referring to my interpre.tatiOil of tvh. 8.20//Lk. 9.58. induded ·a n1an has nowhere to la y his head' among sayings which, if so understood, are 'manifestly untrue'.' 4 s. S he did not

however attempt lo interpret the-proposed Aramaic reconstruction, and interpreted parl of my English tmnslation in much too universal a sense. S imilar problems appear to lie behind the obj ections of those scholars who consider my exegesis to be wrong. For example, Ktimmel commented in general: Die cxcgctischcn Gcw:dtsucic-h..::, xu d~n sich CASEY ut\d LINDARS gczw1.mgcn schen, um Jcsu ROO\: ' 'Om ' Mc-llSChcn' :tis cine- bcsondcrc An dcr tlblic-hcn Vcrwcndung diCliC$ Wooc-s zur Um!iehrc-ibung, voo ' jc,b• zu crwcisen. ?.c-igc-n zussmmcn mit ;e seed is h) be like the dtiSI of 1he eaJ1h which In) mao cao nun1ber, is given in llebre\11 at Gen. 13.16, where the word lOr 'rnar1' is v'\'\. The author of1he-Ge1~e$iS Aplx:ryphon represe-nted~·~ \\1ith ~lJ~ ,J, a fac.r which sho"'S clearly that (~)Wl(~) 1~ was already a nonnal term for 'man' . But for Keams, the author has to be-supposed h) have God declaring that Abraham's seed will be like the dust of the eanh whkh no smallho lder can number. Keams docs not e-xplain why the h)•petbole ·uo marl can nul'nber• should be IX:!ldered so peculiarly 'llO smallholder can number' , when \dJ ~ and 1~ wen:: ~ad ily available to the midrashic.author. Kearns also oonstructs a number of traditions. most of which are no more convincing lhan the Son of ~'lan Conce.pt and the Primordial Man. These include. for example. the. tradition M the returning Elijah, rrom which Kearns derives !JtniTp~lt; fJ1..1Epac; in the Markan passion predictions.u~t At least in this case the.re. was a tradition or Elijah's rt lum, utilized by Jesus at r'-'lk 9.11-13 and Mt. I 1.13-14.U10 This did not howeve-r contain IJ~TCX Tptlc; it!Ji:pac;. which Ke.arns draws from vel)' late sources such as the. Gospel of Nicodemus and Lactantius. For the clouds of heaven, Keams goes right back to the formula rkb ·rpl from the cuhjc.mythic. Hadadtradi t i on Y~ Kearns suggests lhat Hadad might have lx~n translated into western Arart\aic. as :ziru rather than 7-:.•J.. I lc. takes 'll!i', quoted ff 0 1ll Dan. 7. 13 but described as the vehiC-le of the lord of the World ( wellenherr) in the apohdyptic Tradilimugefiige, as the equivaJent of ·rpt}f>1 The. problem with all arguments of this type is that they cmtJtrucr from diverse primary sourc--es extant centuries apm1 discrete traditions whic-h are suppposed to have been available to Jesus and the Gospel writerS. The strength of Keams' belief in the tt'.aditions which he- has C-O-nstructed is espec-ially well illustrated by his suggestion that ~~l k 13.26 is not depe-1ldent on Dan. 7.13, but ruther on Keams' tradil i oo.t ~ 6

156. Se-e pp. 61- 2bd aw. 151. Kc-.uns, MmpluHogischt- 1md Semasiulogi.w·he Studit, p. IJS n. IS I from J). 134. ISS. Ke-ams, 1iuditimugtfiigt. J>t). 146-54, 161-70: B:tchriswlogi.sieron,_$!, ,,..;~ ): Epiph<mie.

p-. 4. n. 10. 159. Casey; Aramaic SourccJ ufM(trH Go.sptl. pp. 121- 17: Aramaic ApJIIVOCIJ to Q. pp. 105-1. 125-9. 160. Keams, Rt-ligitmsgesdridulidft llnd Tmditimug~sdJidulicll~ Stctdie, pp. l-82: Epiphanie.pp-. 1- 2. 13- l(t. 161. Ke-ams, Rt-l(l!ionsgen'lrichllicht> 1md Tmdilimugeschkhtlicht> Srudit. ,,,,. 106- 7; 1huliriomsefiise, pp. 66- 7: Epiphanit-. pp. 13- 16. 162. Ke-ams, 1i·adiliMsgefi(fit'. pp. (>6-8. nn. 220. 230: EmchristQ/ogi.fi mms, pp. 67-&. n. 16: £pip1wnie. pp. 16-11, n. 47.


50

Kearns also suffe.rs from some of the standard faults of traditional Gennan iilurliefcnmgsgeschichte and redaktitmsgesd tichte. For example. referring back to the work o f Colpe-. he supposes that the original saying beh ind tvlk 10.45 had an implicit or explicit first person pronouo Y.' hidl was replaced \Vith Wn:r during the

1\istor)' of ill> developme.Jll. This is as arbi triU) ' as Colpe's work on this verse.1M For all these reasons, Kearns' anempt 10 solve this problel'n should M t be

accepted. Throu~Jlolll

this period. traditional approaches also continued to be. reworked and presented afresh. Perhaps the outstanding anempt to argue again for the crucial iflflue.nce M Dan. 7. I3 was that of Ono Detz.IM Betz begins with a description of Son or man sayings as ' J lohe.itsl>ageu. die auf eine einzigartige Vollmacht \Veisen'. and he argues that 'de.ute-te-Jesu.~ mit der Selbstbezeichuung "dc.r Mensc.bensohn" seine besondere, singultire, Sendtmg ·und Vollmacht an·. • ~ This fits in with Be12's con"ictions about the-meaning of Son of man sayings in the Gospels, btn it is very di tlicult to rec.oncile with the usage l)fthe Aramaic te.nn ( ~)ii!J(~) -u. Jl.etz's di::cussion of Aramaic source material is "ery meagre. The bulk of the. book is de\'O(ed to discussion of the influeoce of Dan. 7. I3- 14 and .some other Old Testament pa.;;sages on Son of man sayings auributed to Jesus, \\1iLh a Jlnal chapte.r on aspects or the teac.hiog of St Paul. Detz presents his fi nal conclusions about Jesus ir1 a post~cript : Jcsu!: ha1de,, fomukn Begriff•~tensdlCna'hnlkher. Menschensohn' in Dan 7,t3 i.nhahlicl\ tiliher bestimmt. F..tlllt dies. inde-mcr ihn mit nlllkren Vorstellungen aus Sl'hri t\wortc: n verb:end. die llli seine Zdtgcnoss:cn widnig w:uen. so mit der ~tcssiascrw~nung (Oen 49,10: 2. Sam 7 .12· 14: Ps 110.1) und mit dcm \rOI1c-g;.nc~~ht {Jcs 42~ 43: 53} odcr mi1 Ps 103. Aull !Ink her Zu.~1mmc."nsc:hau ergab skt. c.inc At1 Dimstanwdsung fUr hdfelldcs Handdn. Dabd wurdc. die \•i>llmaclu des Mcnsc:hcn!OOhns.. \'00 der J)sn 1.14 StWic-ht. :ru ciner 8C\'OIInl:khtig:ung lilt dC'n GCM~ndten Gottes umgcm1ndeh. dcr die HC'i ligrn Gouc:.s. da.s Volk des Nrurn Sondes. bcrufl und sammelt und die helk nde. Gen:chtigkcit de$ Gotlesreiches uufrichtct. 166 With regard 10 i1s. comem, Jesus :l.o;c-ertaincd the ti>nnal nschJIII'OJ'U' l tStltllld dit' Z•tlawftscNtlriiiiiS Jt>.r Paulus( Dm:iel 7./J./4). 165. Bctz. Mt>nsdmuolulhYJJU Jcm. 1,· I>. 166. tku. MtrudteJI.rtJhJih·orlt' lt'SII. p. 175.

163. I(J4.

71te State of Play

51

sayings of Jesus. This me.ans that he neve-r discusses the general level of meaning of authentic sayings of Jesus. the main point which cannot be reconciled with his convictions that the term simply refers to Jesus (Selb:ohe:.eidnumg), and that all the sayings are sayings M maj e~ty (Hoheitsau.,·.mgen) which poiot to a lmique power. Sec.ond l >'~ Be-tz's argurnents for t.he use of scriptural tex•s proceed by weak oonneetions and loose associative links. For e.xample. at the beginning of his di scus~i on, Detz c.onside-rS Mk 2 .10. He asserts: IXnn gcr:-.M die gl\"'lk Vollm:•clu, dk Jesus in den McnschcnMJtnwon~-n bckonckt, Ml ihr~-n

biblir.chcn 8e7.U£..'1punkt in dc-.r \'On D.:mic-1geschauten Ein~twng des r-.trnschC'nsohns in dk Wtln:lc- des Endzcilk&ig,>~. 11"1

For c--xocd)' the massi\-c. power, whkh Jesus be-ars witness to in the Son of man suyings. has its biblical

td~rc.ll:c

tx>im in the l)ltu.x~ment ofd1c Son of m:m iot.:. lhc

cn3jc~ty

oflh..-

eschatological king pictured by Daniel.

Yet, apart frorn the question as to what atl Aramaic reconstruc-tion of Mk 2.10 might mean, Dan. 7. 13 -14 cannot be seen as a t-easonable sourc.e M it for three rea.:;ons. Firstly, there are 100 few c.onnecting links. a l~lc.t obscured by Betz's failure to discuss the Aran.aic tenl) { x)~;J(X} 1~ a.'> an ordinary tenn li)r ·mao'. TI1is on•issit)n makes the use of :OJ~ -a appear to be a muc.h stmnger conne-e::tion than it is. Sec.ondl)', the man·like iigut-e of Dan. 7.13, and Saints of the f>.•lo~t Jligh symbolized by hitu, "'e1-e not given the. power to forgive.sins or anything of thm kind. Thirdly, there is no sign in the Ne''' Te~tament that aoyone placed the fulfihne-nt of Oao. 7. 13-14 at the time of JeSlL'>' earthly life. whe-~as there is very clear evidence that it was interpreted of his paro-usia, as most ob,•ioosly at tvlk 13.26// Mt. 26.64//U:. 21.27; Mk 14.62//Mt 26.64. I had moreover already made these points, in a discussion to whic-h lletz makes no reference. IM Finally. e'•eu the btief ~lln'lfllary which I quote.above contains itc.ms notoriously absem from the. teaching of Jesus. These include the Servant of God. the. people of the New Covenant. and the assoc.iation between the Son of man and the kingdom of God. These. Lhings are however ve.ry important to Gennan Luther.tn ac.ademics, and that loc:11es Detz•s b(X)k where it belongll. It distort.-.. the evidence frorn begi nn i t~g to end in the servic.e of the social subgroup of which Betz is a member. After the work of Vermes and myself which had alre.ady been published, this shows a degree of b liodn e~.s to evidenc-e and ar.gun~eut \\'hich the Dan. 7. 13 h)')X)thesis had not needed in earlier times. Despite the criticisms of the Son of f\.·lan Concept. it did not die out. For example, in 1984 KUnunel c-Ontinued to ba.l)e it primarily oo the Similitudes of Enoch.lf>'l He. dealt with this difficult text entirely ill Genllan. He added $0Jne discusllion of Dan. 7.13 aod ..f Ezra 13 . together with Sib. 01: V,4 14-6 and a saying of R. Aqiba at bT IJag 14a. Des-pite the . 465-6. 176. J. J. Collins, 'The OaoiclicSon ofM:m'. Ch. 8 of Tlu: Saplrt' and lite Slur (New York:

Doublcd!!y. 1995), ~lp. 173- 94 ( t89).

71te State of Play

53

that of Jlorbury in 1985. In an art id e e-11tilled ' TI1e rvtessianic Associations of "TI1e Son of Mao"'. l lorbury brought li)l'\\'ard passages including tOr example Tg. Ps. 80. 18. \Vhere -.dJ u is used with refe-rence to ~ii':x/1l107.o. and Ezekiel the Tragedian, where Mose$ sits on a throne in heaven. and llorbury suggested that Eze-kiel's presentation was in part fonned by Dao. 7.m There are. two problems with this kind or vie\lt. One is that it is ditlicult h) see how the 1trundane use or the Anlmaic tenn (~)'Ol(~) ,J can be n::t.OilCiled with such views except \Vhe.re the context makes d ear a reference 10 Dan. 7.1 3. The second is that the exegesis of many of the passages brought forward does not seem to me. to be convincing. Two such passage-S are discussed in Chapter 3., ;s A much olde.r tr.~ditionaJ approach which supposed that 0 vi&; ToU O:vep(.)rrou refe-rred l'O Jesus as •son of Adam• h.as c.ontinuOO to fi nd the-occasional adhen--..,t. There \\'ere two notable ones during this period, Col'tesand Gaui in 1968, and Marcus a..o:; re.cenlly as 2003." "' In discussing the. patristic vie\1/ that 0 u·.~ ToU O.v6p(.)rrou referred to Jesus as son of Adam, I noted that the Fathers we.re sin-1ply not aware of the nonnal usage of the Aramaic (~):xl'J(x) ,J.1110 Both Corte.s and Gatti and Marcus set aside out kJlOwledge of the use of this (enn, which was unsatisf.1.crory in 1968, and ahnost beyood belief in 2003. when \\'e ktu)W so 10uch more-about it. Tile-y e.ach make a number of other moves which the Fathers did not make, and which are. c-Ontrary to result;; agreed in this and other fields of study on the basis M a nlassive amount of e.\ridence put together over a period of years whh careful argument. For e..'(ample. both of them s1ress the second ankle, ToU. as if it should me.an thm Jesus was the son of a particular mao. hl so doing. they do not take proper accouot of the generic use of this anicle, and ignore the. problem of interlerence which is important for understanding bilinguaJs and doubly so in understanding the work of bi linguals as translators. They both also prefer to suppose that 0 viCe;- ToiJ O:vSp(.)nou must somehow m·e:m exactly what Jesus said. TI1is was culpable io 1968 when we had significant kno\'' ledge of iutel'fe-renc.e and shill~ in .neani1lg which take plac.e during the translatiOil process. In 2003, Mare-us had to cast a..~ ide all the knowledge of these mauers ac.hie\•00 by our C\)fleagues in the fields M bilingualism. translation srudies and the study of the LXX, evet1 though he had access to work ir1 which 1 had pointed out what the~c;e results are and what they might signify for tltis problem. We lllll'it oonclude that the continued presemation of this proposaJ is regrettable. and can only be underslood as attempted continuation of ancient tradition.

117. W. l~ orbmy. 'The Messi::.nic Associ:.tH>n~ of'"Thc Son o f Man'" , iTS NS 16 ( 1985), I~P· 3 4--55 (48- 9 :~nd ~2-3). I?S. Set' !)(). 112- 4 below. 119. J. B. CortCs. :~nd F. ~i. Galli. ' The S(ln of MM o r The Son o f Ad:.m '. Hib 49 ( 1968), 1'1~· 45?- 502: J• •\fan:-us., ' Son of Msn a~ son o f Ad:trn', RB 110 (2003). pp. JS- 6 1. 3 70-S6. ISO. SCi! PI). l . 9-IOabcwc.

54

Th e Sollllitm to the 'Sou of Man ' Problem 5. Com:lu:sians

The history of scholarship shows abundantly how and why the solution to this problem bas been so e.xc.ruciatingly diHic.uh to find. Two problems have been so

colossal that we are only now beginning to recover fro m them. One 1rtassive problem has been the lnltuenee-o f exboting traditions. TI1e notion

that 0 ulO:; Toii CtvOp~nou is detived from Dan. 7.13 is as old as TeJtullian. Every se-rious scholar who has espoused this \•iew has made refere.nce to some. of their predecessors. N01 only is 1his view traditiooal in itself, but Dan. 7. 13 is part M

scripture. and thus pan of the.traditional sacred textof the traditional religion to which these scholars have. belonged. Moreover. some New Testament texts which use the term 6 v'u)c; ToU O:v6p(.)rrou g:enuine.ty do make use of Dan. 7.13 {most obviously Mk 13.26//lvll. 26.64/llk. 21.27; Mk 14.62//MI. 26.64). so 1he u.<eofDO, for it oc.curs at Qurnmn in both

singular and pluraJ. and it is quile nonnal in more extensive documents of later date. Similarly, many words found in the Qumran texts are.aUested abundantly centuries later in SyriaJ •to ran ·, :")10, 'end'. and 77li, •e.JHer'. TI1e- p l ace n~ru o r a suffix on a tu)un before the particle 1 or '1, ·or•, IOIIowed by the no un anticipated by the sunix. is also li.)und at Qumran and common l n Syriac. The term (K)lVJ(K) 1~ belongs he re too.

for it occurs at Qumran in both singular and plural. and it is quite normal in more e.x!ensive Syriac docun..ents of taler date, just as iola!er Jewish sources.

As far as the development of Aramaic is concerned, the importance of the.Qumran discoveries is lo make this stable situation clearer. This also means that, as far as it goes. Qumran Aramaic can safely be used in the reconstruction of sayings of Jesus. not hl)we.ver go far e no ugh., ftw the Dead Sea ~rolls do not c.ontain t oough Aramaic to fonn a language-. If there lOre we confine ourselves to them., we. do no!

11 d oes

have. enough Aramaic to reconstruct the. whole language of anyone. Accordingly, we

l'nul\-1

rnake careful

e.xample~~ from

use

o f later Aramaic som"C.es 100.

I

illustrate this with son1e

the synoptic Gospels.

A• Mk 5.41, we ha,•e .Jesus' words in the o riginal Aramaic transliterated into

Greek letters. and translated into Greek:

T he tirsl " 'o rd, Kn~J, is properly aue-s ted both in later Je,,•is h Ar::unaic and in Syriac. h is io the emphalic state becau.se- it is a fi>rm of address. ove.rliterally translated with 1he Greek delioite a rticle. Would anyone serious ly suggest that Je.sus d id not say th is because s.n~7o is not fo·und in the Dead Sea sc.rolls o r in earlier Aramaic? One hopes not: it is straightli.)l''''a rd evidence that Jesus• speech included words no!

found in earlier Aramaic because there. is so little earlier Aramaic extant The words oo1 Aiyc.l are simply explicitative. The next imeresting point is the form KOUJJ. The. ...el'b OlY is w idely attested both be lOre and afte.J' the time of Jesus. Its 2 .f.sg:. imp. is wriuen 'llli' (e-.g . Dan. 7.5), to which some MSS orthis verse ha"e correc1ed it. There is however ample evidenc.e that linal vowels after the 1011e syllable, including this

one. were quie.scent in Syriac and in Christian Palestinian Aramaic. though they are written down in standard texcs and textbooks.:- This is accordingly straightforward ev idence that Jesus• idiolect. a nd the-reiOre surely his Galilean dialect. had this

panicular isogloss in common with these later dialects. 2. Th. N31dd:e, Cmnpmtlious Syri(IC Grammur(u:tnll. J. A. Crichwn: London: Willhuns & Norg_s1c, 1904), pp. 35-6, I 03--4: F. SehullhCllll, Gramnwtiktle.s d erist!ich·paliislinisclem Aramiiisdr (Tilhing.-:n: J. C. B. ~toh r (Paul S iebt~'k), 1924), PJl. 16. 62.

The Sollllitm to the 'Sou of Man ' Problem

58

At t>.•tk 7.34,. h is abse-1H from earl)' soun::es because there were U t) Pharisees before the-se.cond centur:' DCE. II ill ahseot from a few Dead Sea. scrolls for the-same reason and from the others for two differe-nt re.asons. f\ frequency belong~

with this class of evidence. ·o uiO;- roU O:vOpi:llTou occurs no less than 14 times in

tvlatk, and 8 times io Q: there-are 69 occurrences in 1he synoptic Gospels as a whole. and when all para ll el~ r a vil>it)n at IQapGen XXJ,S; 1\.l\?15 , 'righteousness· at 4Q542 I i 12; and ;iOOii, 'violence' at 4Q En• I iv 8 (/ En 9.1 ).

1. On the origin of the cmph:llic state. or I)I)Sipociitivc sniclc. s.:-e J. Troppcr. 'Die HCI'ausbildung des bcs1ilnnucn Anikds. im Scmili ~c-hcn '. JSS 46 (2001). pp. 1- 31. with biblioguphy.

60


The e-mplw.tic:: state was howe"er optional for such expres.o;ions. Sl) \\1e find io the pro\•e.rbs of Ahiqar 171l ti.w a ge-neric. king, and v·u for a ge•lerically righteous pe-rson (lines 107-8, 126): and at the end of the fifth century BCE, :1:11 and ~o~ ll)r ·gold' and 'silver• (Cowley 30, lioe 28). 5 Similarly io biblical Ara•naic., we find J ;'11 and :>rCJ- lOr ·gold' and 'silver' (Dan. 2.32), and ;iy>T;; for 'righteousness' (Dan. 4.24). AI Qumran, Noah's vineyard produces 1lln ( IQapGen XII.U), and :1eal: and reprodutt and yow old. while cal.ing and drinking und skC'ping and waking. and that

he should die'.

Passage 2 is the oldest ,genera1discussion of humankind exrant in Aramaic sources. This is the only rea.'lon 'vhy it is the earliest ie-xt in which (K)tOJ(K) 1~ has all the lhl)St basic human experic n~es. including demh. h is nm ho\1/ever true or everyone. When it was writte-n, many c-hildren died before they were grown up, some people had no children. and relatively few grew old. This was n04 considered relevant to this generaJ description of human life. Death is such a natural pan of life that the death of the son of man is found in Jewish Aramaic li-Oun:.-.es a..:; S(>On as they are. sullicicntly extensive-. Pa:.sage 3 is a general statemerH inserted into the story of how· J.laninah ben Dosa wa...:: bitten by a snake when he was praying, with the result that the snake died. I quote MS Leideu Or.4720: those-te.x•s whi~h traosntit ;ziJ ""lJ ifl dte iodeti•tite state do not offer any djffere-nce. in meaning. 3. y. lkr5. 112(t (9a). .n··..., :o;;;!J 1:! :-; ·.~·, O"o/ K1Y on l'Kl n..IJ l'>.in:!n. X'7:J? 0'1~ :-;;:!: -o r x :-;;;!: "'07 n~ mr.o ;:~ if ll>e (son ol) nun reaches (the) water titst the S!~Ske dies. snd if the s:n:.kc rct~dles (the) water fi rst.lhc (son ot) msn dies. Wh~:n i1 bites a >'IlK: (!--1&. 12- 30 ahm1;;;! :nn:l Xi'IK :o;~iom;;# N :> ~ y.. .;:,h~'7; ~,U ;:;? jK lQYI..~ 1(1;.;)7 Km 'i? :i:l i:i SC;l"U "\..'\l'ii After Lhi ~ lrnnsf\'M'Ol3tioo. dl«C followll snothcr wmllfOtiMtion i.n "''hich tir~ clothes t.hc (soo ol) m:tn from th'7J:l 1 l:hi:l:t> 11:! :l:O K:" a single \\'Ord, as often

later in both Jewish Aramaic and in Syriac. 10. I JQTg.Job XXVI.2·3 (MT Job 3.5.8 e n;.~).

. .. -.,v u !l'll(. -o7; Tim - ( ... Your sin Lalfecls a mun like yoJu. nnd your righteoustK'ss a son or man.

I k re ldJK 1:1 has been used h) traoshne Oil\ pin a Ycr y general c.om.nent t)ll the effect of Job's behaviour on other human beings. The broad range or (K)WJ(K) 1J in natural Araruaic. is rellected in the diO'e.re1H Hebrew words which it is used to translate in the Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Dible. In addition •o Oi K p as in passages 8-10, I have noted it used (Wice fOr D'n\:1 it'l passage 7. and in place or \if'K in the very fl'lidrashic passage I. Passages 11- 15 funher illustrate its range. I I. Tg. Ps. I04 .14 · 15: MT 01!\:1. i'UK. 'L''Ul\: l\,:UX? NdJ 1:11 ~...,

'101)1 ~,llnl x;.-,Kill ~n'7 y-;~-;o:.? NC'J 1:11 ~..;7~7 'i'!l ' 1-:~:h ~Oll ~i.'='i

.1~·o• ~~ -o; ~n•? xr.~,,., No;;k:. p x-.;x Who in~'fC:lSCS tile grass ror Lhc caul.-. and g1\."enS rm the sc•' 'icC' of(ths. 88.5: MT -cl.

The- Jlebrew 1~ is usually reodered with the Anunaic. (K)1)J , because this is 1he same \YOrd. In this ease. howevet. lhe psalmis1 has made a complete-ly gene-ralized

comparison of himself to people.who are we.ak to the point of death. This comparison to anyone of a particular kind. or anyone in a particular situation, explains the. translator's d1oice oflhe ,~ ery ge.neral lenn

~J

-u to re-rlder 1~. The context shows a

close, if metaphorical. association with death. In vie'v of the normal use.of(K)\ifl(K) ""C' both as a general tenn ifl narural Anunaic., and to rende.r severaJ different terms in Aramaic translations of the Bible. it is natumJ that we-should also find it used in chose Targums -whic.h add pieces to the translation ol't11e llelm~w 1ex1. This is i lllL~tr.Hed by passage 15. 15. Ncofl, in t ill i ns~ni oo :u Gen. 49.22. .NI'!'n' ill :o>.li:: ""0? ruv:n iil"K •o? -,m-,; 1:i:l :o:'n :;:•-.; ·;m iro 7;K K7; K1~r. :o:.u. ·1or K"':i r+ This is Joseph. the. pious man who has not gone after the impressions of his eyes nor all ~ r the i mt~gi nmions ofhis h-esn . Thcs~ ar~ what dcslmy a(/th~ son ol) m:.n from 1he world.

Here. following on the description of Joseph. 1he targumist has added a general statement abou1 the- etlf:c•s of certaio human f3ults, a11d has used s.'WJ 1:! because it is a nonnal term for people in general.


66

As a tenn fOr human bein_gs, (K)Vl(l'\) -u may also be used in the singular for a single indi\'idual, whed~er anonymous. gene.ric or specific. This is illustrated itt passages 16-19. 16..v. Demai1. 1/ 11 (22d). .-?Jo ,:: ?In:'-.; j":l'i~y. :;7~ x;n •n-N 'tJ -u ;n A (son otj man brought :1. ba.ik,..l of leeks toR. fsa.."'C son ofT:~blai.

This is o ne of l)ver 100 s1ories in the Ye rus halmi whic.h begifl :;JJ 1:1 1i1. lls poitll is to set up a situ:tlion so that a legal d ecisiotl can be taken. In this c-ase, a decision has to be taken as to whether some produce is liable-to be tithed as doubrful produce-. It is

to be considered whether the nature of a given load c-.an lead the matter to be settled. on the ground that such a load of produce would or would not be likely 10 have been produce-d locally or out~ ide Israel. h mauers who the rabbi is. but it does not matter who d1e. pe-rson bl'inging the load is. h does have-to be a pe-rson. however, so that a decision on his case c-.an be taken. Hence il is appropriate to use a generic term for ·person' which could n011ethele.ss relh to anyone. t7 ..v. Shabb. 1.11t0(3cJ•

•ri7~'> ;;? nWn."S.CI"VOO one (son

x-.·:;;-::t ;:;.:: K't3-c

;~;

of} man ~C"Uicly withOtu comrpti\'ln.

llere God has bee11 clearly set up in the preceding oootext as the subject. The explanation of this sentenc-e follows immediately, with Enoch being mentioned by name in line 77. TI1e s~-neral backgronnd is the drastic c.orruptioo of most people at the-time. Accordingly, NlZiYU 1n is in the lirst instance ao indefioite geoeric.,

h)

indicate that when everyone else was corrupt God preserved one being of the same species without corruption. At the same. time, the context unfolds a reference to one single individual. Enoch. t9. Na~i. llomily 011 thf' Trmulaliort of £Jwd1 <mel Elijah. line 425. OOYJ-? ;;·, '7;; il'T. NnW s;;rc or. 0 1l1: {son ot) nlsn. lhc Mc~sisb. who i ~ of us. cmercd i1firs1 .•.

The. context makes clear thai this is Jesus. s.honly after his death and 1\.surrection, e.He-rifl_g the garden of Eden. where Enoch and Elijah already were. lie then went on

711e Use of the A ramah: 1enu (.'")vi:;(.''\) 1::1

67

up to heaven. The-re is no problem in the collocation of son of man and Messiah. The Arart\aic term ?\i1'I.Vt3 c.ould be used h) indicate-Jesus in the Syriac-speaking churc-h it1 a. \\1a.y that was not pt)SSible during tlle minisu y l)f Jesus. This i.:; bee.alL:;e of a major cultural c.ltange. At the time of Jesus the high priest was the most imponam anointed figu.re. as a king might aiSl) be. More would therefOre.be oeeded than the simple ten'tl ?\iiVr:l to refer to a. ti.gure who might be tiH:>'IJglll of as anointed metaphorically becauseGod had appointed hirn fOr an important pn)phe-tic task. In the Syriac-speakiug church however, ?\i'T'IV.O had beeome a terril ror JeslL:; alone. translating the Greek 0 XPIOT0;-, and there \Wts no othtf significant anointed figure i1l view. In these-c-ircum:,.tances ?\nV;:) c.ould fUJlC-til)n perfOCdy as a. title, rnuc-h like 0 XPLOT0:;- in Greek ·n is figure is refenx:d h) a_:; ?\:dJ1~ 111 because his humanity v.·as impormnt. Til is ,...-as also fnuc.h less likely to bappeo during tlle historic mioist.ry. \\then Jesus• tfumani(y was taken ror gr:.mted by e.vei)'One. and no thought of hjs divinity had yet bee-n emenained. In geoeral, therefOre-, (K}oil(K) 'U was a genera.! term fOr hlli\130kiltd It could be used fi)r everyone in geJlera.l, or for a. more restricled group of people-. h could be used in the sio.guJar of a ~ingle- individtt. .i::O,'V ;n ;rO, trit''i ;;; i~li'i Kil:'ry d:l U 7'~K :-;7; :-;,_:i1K:o.'U':• ;;!•:z ...._, ,jl::-, 1hc CUl>IOnl of 1hi." land. that s (SOil of} man caMot c:u a pound of meat until they have givcn him a l:J:ih!

Rabbi ~, how C\'il is

This is a general statemt-tH referring especially to the.speaker, R. Ze'ira.. The general C-Ontext is that M a group M Slt)ries about rabbis whl) i1runigrated to 1sl'ael frorn Babylon, a situation in which anyone is liable ro be unaware of loc.al customs. R. Ze'ira \Vent h) buy a pound of me-at fn)m a butcher. \Vhen he asked tl1e-price, he ' "as told ·so minas aJld a las h'. lie oft'ered more and rnore rnoney to get his pound of meat without soft'ering a lash~ but wt~e•l his one.r of 100 n1inas '"as still reftL~ed, heS.""e ill with the \IJOrds 1::.-"lPOJ T'Jli, ·Do aec.ol'din_g to yourcustom' . Passage 24 is a

comment whic.h he made to his colleagues in the e\'ening. R. Ze'ira.'s colleagues did not acce-pt that this was a custom in Israel, and made enquiries as a result of which it eme-rged thm the butcher was alre:.\dy dead. R. Ze'ira re futed ~oy idea that he was n--spMsible fOr divine vengcanc.e Oil his behalf by sayiog that he was lh)t really angry with the butcher bec.ause p ~;;->Ji'l1 n,Jo. •1 thought that the custom (was) like that'. IL is clear ti'omthe reactions l)fR. Ze'ira's colleagues, and frorn his own final adn1ission., that he- ' "as the-only person who

was lashed by the butcher when he bought his pound of meat. bUl this does not diminish the generaloature-or the state-ment u.'iillf; the.ge ner~l tenn VJ ""0. In rclatio_g a humiliating inc.ident, R. Ze'ira deliberately used a g.ener.al statement in Ol'der to avoid referring directly to himself. His three refe.re.nces to loc-aJ custom show that he did not belie.\'e that he was the onty person to be treated like. this. Since however


70

he was wrong about the custom in a place with which he was not familiar. it is clear that he feh able to use-a general statement by generalizing from his own e:\:perience. At one level, tJ1erefore, this is on an extre.me wing of the use of 1hese. statements. in that the maj o1i(y of them are lrue at Jeal!t l)f a social subgroup of people.

Although this example is in Jewish Aramaic whic.h has no particular Babylonian teanu~s, and in particular do~ not have the Babylonian spelling ~J'K 1~. it should be noted 1hat il is a uributed to a n1hbi who had j ust come from Babylon. 25. y. lkr. l . l/12 (6a). ,;;..,:r;? I ::!I 'tJ .,:: ~K .ill1 ,f7 .,llK

He said to !hem:

Rabbi.~.

docs a (~n ol) man tr~l his collc:1gu~ like Litis?

This is a saying o r R. Isaac. his difficuh •o know which R. Isaac be('.ause oftexh:tal

vari:.mts: most probably he was son of R. Hewa the scribe. The situation arose when R. Isaac \1/as bereaved of a close relative, so R. Mana and R. Judan \Vent to c.a ll on him. And there was good wine. and they drank a lot and laughed. This was within the par.uneters of permissible c.ustoms in cases of bereavement. with the obvious intention of trying to make the bereaved person feel valued and a litlle less miserable. Next day, however. R. Maml and R. Judan wanted to call on R. Isaac again! It is this which led R. Isaac to make the above conunenL I le concluded by reminding them that the previous day they had done e.verything but get up and dance. Clearly) therefore. the. above question is a general question expecting an answer on the lines of ' not really', or •t)ne shouldn't' or the. like. The tentl tilJ "U has a general level of meaning which doe..s not however refer to all people, lxn rathe.r to rabbis with c.olle.agues who are also rubbis. A• the same time, iJJ 1:2 reiCrs primarily to R. Mana and R. Judan. as is obvious from the conte~l. 26. y. lkr.

~1.1/ 11

(12a).

7;; 1?:1~ N7i jli"ir ":!-o ;~s :n:o x:..,:t:J? rrm :r:< i"Jl N;·.m ·~;j ,~;; :n;; ;;~:;;;7 '?""lN :n:
, he djd 3C"Cll1XIing 10 R. JohaMn, so I.Mt he might 001 differ from 3 (son ot) man i.n his pl '

72


d ear. In bmh Yerushalmi versions the c.onnection is more temtous, and Ber.R. I 00,2

doe.s not have this story. to the. point where the saying in these versions c-an barely be regarded as an e:\:ample of this idiom. It is therefOre especially useful to have this llabyloniao example, which is clear

and which indicates that the idiom was more widely used than has sometimes been tl1ought. It is also ilrtp\)rtant that, ho \~ever gene-ral the sta.teme-r)t rnay be perceived to be, il really does apply to the two Ethiopians. At one level. it is on the extreme

end of this idiomatic.usage, in thm it is clear from the parallels thm the saying could circulate independently. 29. y. Shcvi. 9. J/12 (38b)f/B.:-r.R. 79.6 .

.svJ 1:! J:;.i ~ .~u· :-;7 s-r-"!t -;!."'T.ll:l ,~~·i A bird doc11 OO! Jm ish willtoUI Ihc will of Hc:lvcn. How much less a (t\hc son ol)

man.

This is from the stOJ)' of R. Simeon, son of Yohai, holed up in a cave on the run fro m the Roman authorilie$ after the Bar Kokhba war. He was wondering whether it was safe to come out He saw some. birds bc.ing hunted: some were.c.aptured. while others escaped, and the fate of all of them depended on the j udgemetH of a heavenly voic.e which he. heard. He made the above comment. and then emerged from the eave. It fOIJo,vs that he intended to apply the staremenltO himself. A tlhe same tjme, each of the sentences is a genemlsratement. The comment on the birds is obviously a general comment on the fate of several birds. Equally. the son of man statement whidl balances it cannot Jose its gene-ral level of meaning. which would be entirely acceptable in R. Simeon's culture. This version of the story ultfs the definite state N:ziJ ""0. Among 1he variants in the parallel at Det.R. 79,6 are the use of the indefinite stale ldJ LL This in no 'vay atlt'S'i i>! ; :: lll l'>1::-t:: r~7· x"; We do nm lcam dtc Mdsio•t from an inf~rio•· (son o l) man!

The-acial subgroup, t10t to everyone. On the other hand, not one sin~Je example makes sense unle-ss Lhe point of using the idiom

is to say something quite precise about a panicu1ar rabbi. Even in these examples. therefore. the panicular reference.to a single individual is essential to the use of this idiom. 35. y. NOO. 5,413 (39b). .~-::or•Jy:: x>n; 1:::. &'l ;

:: 1=1

And a (son of) man docs !VO 1h:.1he may noc ~ 3 g;~mblcr! The di~tt.;;sion or vows has turned to the case of a man (Wl u 1n) who VO\Ved not to make a pn)fit. He came before-R. Judan bar Salam, who responded with the above

general statement. The generaJ leve.l of meaning concerns observant Jews who \'OW not (0 tllake a pro1il. The. panicular rere.re.nc.e of 1.!7l

'1:1

is to the-anonymous subject

of !he story. 36. y. S3n. 7)/3 (2-lb). .nW r n?ro m~ 't3 u 1.w 1?:i:: ~Y, xu;;; Nn-.·:-; rr?

his not 1-h\.' w:~y of 3 grc:.1 m:1n 10 walk wi!h a (soo ol) man who is less than 1hiny yeph·s speec.h 1llakes the partic-ular reference ofljJ 1J to the chief buder equally unambiguous. 43. Ncofl Gen. 40.23 (~, from Jcr. t 7.5). ,~o:: ::·., .Jo :->:!1-o 1J.X x7; . .. T ::l!: -.'L':::l::! :;~u~ :r1 . . • ;,-,'n x ; o m 7¥7; K>:..• 'i.01' ii':l: t ••• K1b::l:l j"ii"m ·; XV! 1:: •r.· : .•ry . .. '"'1 Kf.-,~ Jose.ph ab.:1ndoncd the gr.Ke which is from obo\-c: Md the gmce whic:h is from below ... and he put hi.Sll\llll in the i!h.ief of the butkrs.. in flesh which pas~ll :.way . .. a.nd he- did 001 rcmcnlbct lhc scripture \\thich is wriucn in lhc book of the Law of the lord ... 't\tr!led bethe son of ma.n who ,,uiS his U\lllt in llcs.h ... '

Here Neof I uses ~JL;J 1~ to rende.r 1~1 from Jer. 17.5, thus inse.rting a geoeral staternent which applies partiC\1Iarly to Joseph. The rendering M 1~1. oonnally rende1-ed with (~)"U:. in the Aramaic. translations of the Hebrew Bible.•P with the. generalteJ·rn x~iJ -u indicates the Targumist"s deliberate intention •o make a general Slcsh Ps. 405. r-.n -u:.o • . .. 'T~ K.,o:!i ;;:.'t ~1 ~;;'Jl;. -a? "':ii:!':r 8 1..-:~ is 1hc (son of) man who 1tu~111 ill dle n:mlc oflhc L.otd.

Psabn 40 begins in dle-fi rst pe-rlhln. 11liS is used again io vv. 6-7, and the subject of vv. 8-1 1 is also in 1he tirs1 person. h is natural lO mke v. 5 as a general stonemerH which refers especially h) the speaker, and \\'C IIIUSI infer from lhe rendering of ,JJ.1 with KiJJK ,J that the Peshitta ha..c; done Ihis. 53. P.c11h Ps. 94.11. r...rr ~. ";~7:\ 10l'XI ill' X"11! ;m;. ".11'i"'U"'i ~e- is not ho,vever recorded with refere-nce to the speaker. and the only general level of meaning is that the individual is a human being. which may be of cenrral importanc-e or somewhat incidental. I have- round over 30 exarnples of general statements using {!\)Vil(l\) 'U with reference to the speaker. or a group of people including the speake.r, or someone else made obvious b)•I he context The majority of example-s are io Jewish Aranulic

711e Use of the A ramah: 1enu (.'")vi:;(.''\) 1::1

81

from Israel, and most of the.se c-Oncern rubbis who have some c.onnection with Galife.e. There is al::o one very early example (passage 20 above), which is important

bec.ause it establishes the use of lhis idiom long before the time of Jesus. There is also one Bab)1lonian example (passage 28a above), and a handful of examples have be.en noted in Syriac. h follows that when examples of this idil)matie usage

emerge from the reconstnlc(ion of Aramaic sources fro m our Gospe.l sayings. they should be accepted ns genuine examples of this idiom. This will entail that they have to some extent a kind of geuerul level of meaning. It dt)es not lh)\\'ever in

any way unde.rmine the fact that most of these sayings are obviously and primarily about Jesus.

Chap1er Three. THE ;S oN OF MAN CoNCEPT.

We have seen from the history of scholarship in Chapter I that for many years scholars believed in a Son of Man Concept. or M i'mclwuolmbegr iff, or Men:rchen:roluworstelluJJg. Sharp criticism of Slid\ views began St)me 40 years ago, but some scholars still believe in it. The purpose. of this chapter is to show that no version of this \~ ew should be regarded as tenable. The foundational documents on which this view was based were Daniel 7, the Similitudes (if Enoch and 4 E=ra 13.

Acc.ordjogly, l discuss these documents lirst. Long after this view was considcted by some.scholars to have bee.n established. a numbe-r of other documenlS were brought fOrward as evide-nce or it. I discuss lWO of these to illustrate that they should not be

accepted as evidence of it either.

1. Daniel 7

I have di~lt.;;sed this document. and the history or its int~Tpremtion, at Jeogth elsewhere. 1 Actordingly, I repeat here only the main points necessary (0 detennine the correct interpretarion of it. Daniel? is an apocalypric.chafUe-r which consists ofa vision and its interpretation. It ,,ra..;; written in Israel. c. 166-5 DCE. In the visionar>' section of this chapter, four extraordinary beasts. each pan ty like a real ferocious animal but with features that make all of them Miscltweseu. come up from out of the big se-41. the normaJ tem1 for the ~·lediterranean. The most ferocious is the fourth. which is not said to be like a real animal. though Jews of the period would surely have. recognized a caricmure of a Seleucid ele.phant.: It has more fea(ures t11Wlthe ot1le•· aoimals, l'tll)St nl)(ably a linle horn, which puts down three of the te-n horns before il, and has eye.s like the eyes of a man and a mouth speaking big things. The visio1l contioues w'ilh a judge.ment sc.ene. Throne$ are placed. and one Ancienr of Days takes his seat. I lis throne and its wheels are flames ofiire. and he has thousands of attendants. The court sits. and the books are opened. The fourth beast is irnmediately put to death, and its body destroyed. This is evidently the first I. Casey. SoJ1 t(M(m. 2. U. S1aub, ·oa~ Tier mil de" 382-96.

t-l ~mcrn:

Eilt Btiuag :ru 0:111 7.1f'. FZPT 25 (t978), pp.

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·s~m

of l'lf(m' Cmrcept

83

m.aj otevent l)fthe judgement The otl~er be.a~t~ have their pO\Yel' taken a\\'ay, but are

allowed to live for a time. The next eve1U of the judgemenl scene i~ the one eenlr.'ll fOr p 1~sent purposes. Ofle like a son of man, !YJK ,~.is bn)ught before the Ancient of Day'S. lie is given

power and glory and kins,ship. all nations will se.rve him, and his power and kingship are eternal and indestructible. There is then a small interlude in which Daniel nsks one of those standing by for the i1Uerprel 'V1~1 X'i.'Y. .r;Yi? ~; ;

i''r.i :->:'?r:

ThC'sc. arc the Babylonians who will arise:.•nnd the:. Mc:dcs and the Persians and lhc Gtc:eks.

That will have been obvious to everyone at the time. So will the interpretation of the I Joly O ne.~ of the. l\•lost I ligh as the Jewish people, whose hopes tOr delive.ra,,,c.e are.

so vigorously expressed in this book. The s:u r,~ ving authors of the Syrian tradition, writing muc.h later. tend to be quite specific aboul the. Jews or this pe.riod. So. lOr example, 7;; n':i~iiXl x;;·;;

. .. a1\d when Judah snd his. broth~:"rs w~•~ lightirtg for thdr JX:Opk and Wi:'fl! living in l\C.·lost l ligh, \Vearout the I loly Ol!el< of the Most lligh, a11d seek •o change times and Ja,~,~: they will be givetl into his hand tOr a time. times and half a time-(Dan. 7.25). This is evide.ntly the detailed interprt t'im6 OJUl ~iU1i .K'Y'l'.n ;;ov.)j '-..: :; .IWYT IOi.r ylt :!:> r ;;7; ,K\i Jj O.,l'\ l"'nll? ' ... a time, times. a.nd h:•lf a tim~· (Dan. 7 .25). That ~. lltrec y~"!!rs :~nd 11 half. • And the ;i scrvituri sim'? \Vho is that stone whkh. cui from the mountain without hands. grew into a grcut mountain and filled the W(lf ld nnd shsuct\"d the f,'ltlr-pan st:truc·.• Who i ~ that Soo of toon who will colllC' with the- d ouds and stand before the-. Ancient or Days.. and to whom a kingdom is to be gh'tn which will oot be compktcd with any ending. and aUproplc.s. trilxs and longues them.sch'C·S will serve?

The inte.rpretatiotlt)fboth the s-tone oroan. 2 and the man-like tigure of Dan. 7. 1314 as Jesus is taken to be so obvious that Jerome. ha\~ng said so in his comments on those passages. felt no need to repe-.at these interpretations here. He calls these

Tfu!

·s~m

of l'lf(m' Cmrcept

89

interpretations 'obvious' again in 1he nexl sentence, io which he rthlils the view of Porphyry: Hacc quae nlanif.:sta sum p1act~ri1. \'1 ck fudaci~ as."cri1proptl~L."'ri ql!O.'t I.ISQUC hodi~ s~rvite

cogooscimus. He passeso,·cr these points which nreob\'iOU$. and lll.'linlllins Lh.:1llhe prophecy concerns the kws. whom we know to be enslaved until the prcsc-.nl day.

Three pl)ints are crucial here. One is the d arity of Jerorne's evidence-thai Porph)'l)' believed that both the man-like figure of Dan. 7 .13-14 and the stone of Dan. 2 symbolized the Jews. A second major point is the nature-of Jerome's objection, that the Jews are eoslaved until the present day. This is a \'e·l)' good l)bjec.tion 10 the historiciz.ing interpl'thllion of the mao-like figure as a syrnbol or the Jews "·inning a vic-tO!)' for e.ver in the Maccabean period. The. third point is that Jerome accuses Porphyry or passing ove.r the main poiots which Jerome has j ust made. We lhll.O: t illfer that Porphyry did uot irtte-rpret the n\an-like figure as an iodividual. Before proceeding to Je-rome's rctalut - ftX'gcrit tuque comrivcrit. Si rcspoodcrit Amiochi princip~'ll

a luda. ~fachaOOoo fuis..;c

!l:IIJ">CI'ai OO., do~'\"1'1."

•lS. !>CC funhcr Ca~y. S011 of.Wall, pp. 24-40.

92


It bas not how·e ...e.r been suflicienlly realized that Christiao use of the tenn 'Son M

man' was of CC-Ittral irnportanc.e to lhis interpretation of the tenns for ·soo or l'l'lafl' in the Similitudes. For example, in the first English translation in 182 I, Laurence

expressed the opinion that this work repeatedly refers to the nature and character of' the Me..~siah', even though the tenn m a.s(h)ilpt occurs only twice (I En. 48.10; 52.4)Y This was because the ICn h ·tvlessiah' was so widespread in the JudaeoCbristian tradition that h was the natural renu for scholars such as Laurence to use when they sought to label this figure. Laurence also trans lated the rno:a impotla.nt

part of Enoch's crucial question at46.2. •... c.onc.eming this Son of rna11; \!Jho he was ..:. and likewise tllt~- opening or the anger s reply, 'This is tl1e-Son or '"an, 10 \Vhom righteousnes..., belongs ... • (46.3). In bod1 ca~es ' S011 of n1an' has beeo c-apitalized in accordance with Christiao usage. withoul any diltt.u~ ion of the tenn 'son M man' in Aramaic. Moreover. the second example has acomma put after it The combination or capitalizatioo and cor"ma creates a title. ' the Son of man•, \Vithout any anempt to consider whether a Jewish Aramaic text might mean this. Again, this is due to the influ<mce of Christian tradition. Similarly, in the first Gerrnan translation, lloll"mann rendered the most imporlant part ofEih)Ch's questil)ll •... in Betreff dieses tvlenschensohnes: werer sey. woherer sey ... ' (46.2): he comrne11ted on 'die Erscheinung des tvlenschensohnes' , aod on the limited occurre-nces of 'Oer Name Menschen:mlm': and began the angel's response ' Die$eS ist der tvlensc.l•ensohll, dem Gerechtigkeit ist ... ' (46.3)." The capitalization is doubly naturnl in German. a language. in which the capitalization of prope.r nouns is universal. Nonetheless. the c.ombination of capitalization with the comma gives the impression that Menschensohn is a title. an impression which Hoffmann carried through in translmion and discussion alike. AsimiIar impression permeates the classic editions.translations and c.omn1entaries of Dilhnann and Charles. both of which 1-emain inlluential more tharl a century aner they were written. Oilhnano 's opeoing desc.ription of the Bilderreden has in th-e second one. 'dcr f\•lessias' and 'das messianisch Gericht', and the 'messianisc.he Reich' features in his descriptioo of the d1ird parable-aod of the etldiJlg or the whole work . •~ Among the New Testament concepts now known to us from Jewish doc.u.nents, Dilhnann lists 'vorausgeset:zen De-g,rille de.s Hirnmelreiches, des r-.•tensd1ensohnes• .1$ Here the Mensc/um.whn is clearly a Be&riff in accordance with Gennan Christian tradition, and has little c.onnection with an ordinary Aramaic te-rm fOr 'man' . At the rnosl impol'tant paJ1of46.2. Enoch asks •ube-rjenel'l r-.•tenschensohn, we-r er sei ... ', and the angel's response begins, •... die~~Js ist der Men.schensobn, der die Gerechtigkeit hat ... (46.3). 1-lere again, the oombination or capitali:uuion \\'ith the comma reinforces the impression that Mcmst·hen:wJm is a title. an impression which Dillmann does not seem to have seriously questioned.

12. 13. 14. t 5.

lau.rtn.x. Book of £11odJ 1l1t' Pmphe1. p. :d. Hoffmann, Dus Slrrh Hemx·lr. pp. 346-7. Dillmann. Dus Such Htnodr. p. Ill. For Lhc thip until very recently. and it in no way solves the problems produced by positing the Christian title 6 uiiw; To\i Cxv6pc..)nou as the underlay of these three Ethiopic. tenns. Anmher major problem caused by this hypothesis arises from 1he demottsh-atives nonnally used with all three of these expressions in the. Similiwdes. whereas wulda ·egualu 'ilmma~1iifiw as a tmnslmion of 0 u'tOc;- roG Cxv6p(.)nou in the four Gospels does Mt have a demonstrative wit11 it once-. In the li..st English translation. l aurenc-e simp!)' put ' the Son of man' all lburtimes at the end ofCh. 69. 11o1Tmann, critic-izing hinl lOr ollen omittiog the de.noo.strative. announced that the demonstrative ·voo dem Ko:T' E;ox~v sogennanten rvlenscherlSOhne verstehen miissen', but he did not explain how any original text could be understood like this.:: Thirdly, at I En. 7 1.14 Enoch is gree-ted. ·vou are the son of man who is born to righteousness ... ~. If walda bif'i!si here. is taken to be a careless translation of the n1ajor tjtfe 0 uiOt; ToU Cxv6pc.lnou. this is quite impossible to explain. Indeed. it has c-.aused endless tJ'Ouble m scholarship. In 1893, Charles use-d this as an argument that this part of the Similiwdes was of different authorship from the rest and his comparison with I Eu. 60. 10 notably did not cau.:;e hitn 10 consider that M ylhing might be wrong with his overall unde-rstanding of the three Ethiopic phrases as re-pres.eotinga title of tnajesty.!.l Itt 1912, he-proposed a notorious textualemendatioo, producing the following translation: This is the Son of Man who is born unto ri&ftteousncss. And rightrousncss abides O\'er him. And the. rightcousneRS of the Head of Days forst~kcs himnot.!>I Chsrl.:s. Book of Enofh. p. t28. Ch.1r!e;s. Book ofEnorll. p. 128. lauttn~~·. BmH: (Jf E11och, :n his (>1!..26-29. subS\'(jUCillly lli.Unl>el\."d 69.26-29~ 1-loffinann. D.1s Budr HmtJdl. p. 5'79. 23. Charle;s. Book of Ent~dl, p. 183. referring ba.:k hlp. I56. 24. Char!e;s. Book of Enodr (2nd cdn. 1912), ad Joe. 20. 2 1. 22.

Tfu!

·s~m

of l'lf(m' Cmrcept

95

Thjs simply alters the te-Xt to what Charles thought it should have said. All these problems resuiiOO li'om d1e-basic notion that 'soo of man• was a lille. of rnajest)'. as it is io Christian !radition, both in Ethiopia and else.whe-re. Til is inllue-nce was so pervasive lhat scholars did not re-ally ll')' to explain how theAramaic (x)li!J(K) "'IJ could have functioned in lhis way, not evetl if lhey really belie.ved in an original Aramaic. text I have JlOLed 1hat at about the same time as Charles was working. the. dominam view was chalfenged by Lierzmann.:s This was primarily because of his exce.tlent knowledge of Aramaic. but neither he nor his critics were cornpele-!lt io Ge•ez, and this \\1liS ill least pa11ly why he made no impression on the. dominant view. In 1946. Sj3berg wa.:; learned enough 10 mounr a challenge 10 lhe dominant view. but he. did so only tentatively.!o For example. he noted the demonstrative in ~iku '""/d(l sab ·;at J Eu. 46.2. and c.omme.JHed, 'Hier ist der Ausdruck "Mensc.taeoltOhn'• selbstverstlindlich kein Tite.t.•!k of Erwch. p. 63.

JJ. l. T. Milik. 11re 8 tx'ik.t ~)l £;welt. .-'11YJmaic FrPgmt>llb' (if Qumn m C.Cn~ 4 (Ox lOrd: Cbrendon. 1976). pp. !50. 152. 34. M. Knibb. Tht Elhiopic Btx>k of Emx·h. A Nell' EtlititXI i11 lht Liglu oflht' Aramaic Det«l Sea Frasmenls (2 \'Ois~ Ox lOrd: Clal\',ldon. 1978). vol. 2. pp. 68- 9. 35. For nl Kil:i :.:tllt r.;;:. 'ii'~l\i i'oil'> iil:~l ,~l i'::>'J ;;:.:.f:.;1) ll':>'' ~~ ;;'7; !'!Nfi i'~""l. I C¥ !'>1!7- K\i to jl!l ~;;; jO p; l'>C!JK ; :: '7:~,·;·;~ x,,-"iCi'! '?:.;·~::;; ?n-;; I\:; ,K"JKiTl.J .dn'? :o:o;:~,~ :o;:;;n; K-c a;y "l?n ?1:-.':· ;;v.,.; ;;;nJ K;;;-,; N"'l.'l I. There I s:!IW one wl'l\) had a hc!ld of days.. ~nd his hcsd wa..; like 1>ore wool. snd with him "J ~'?;;• x1:. K.,~.,o~r•

wus another whose fuoe was like the appearance of 11 man. and his fnce was full of gf':tOt like a Watcl\cl' Md t1 Holy One. 2. And I t~skcd one of the Clngds.. he who wcm wilh me and showed me all the myst.:rics~ sbout th!lt (soo ol) man.. who he W:!IS and where he \\'35 f1001, why hi.' was going with the

Head of Days. 3. And he ans-wered a.od said w me. 'This is IMI (s.>•l of) nlal\ who ha.e possible-that I should have reconstructed mo1-e lite-rally ~""1V'1i' ~·=-~?ll to 1nJ. It is importaot that this degree M uncertainty affects

only this expres.sion. and does not mean that the rest of this reconstruction is uncertain. In v. 2. p1 ~WJK 1J is used with reference to the-being whom Enoch saw with God, a11d it is used before this being is identified. It fl)IJows that -~:oiJK -u ean.not be. a title here. because Enoch in asking the question is making clear that he does

not know who this being is, and Lhis question is not answered until the following \'e.rse. TI1us ~;;iJK 1~ is an ordinal)• •e-rn-1 fOr ll'IAO, as it is in all sut viviog Aramaic tex•s. The demonstnltive p1 is entailed b )' the Ethiopic demonstrative :;ikJJ. In each language. this demonstrntive is anaphoric., that is to say, it refen> back to the tigu•-e seen in the first vetse. This anaphoric demonstrative is necessary p~cisely because (~)1.92(~) 1:. is an ordinary tenn lOr •man•. h \VO'l1ld not have been neces...;a.ry if it had been possible to use (~)it'J(K) -u as a title-. whic-h alro would not make se.nse because it Y.•as an ordinary tenn tOr man. Jf the authors had wanted a title for the ligure .-nentiOiled afler God in the first verse. (~)liiJ(~) 1:. would acc.c.wdingly have been a VCJ)'

unsuirable c-hoic.e.

Tfu! It foJh)WS that

·s~m

of l'lf(m' Cmrcept

99

is not a tide in v. 3 either. TI1e following relative cla1.1.~e defines which (son ol) 1llan Enoch has seen. The folll)Wing description is a covert description of Enoch himself. seen from the perspective of the de.votees of Enoch who wrme d1is dl>Cumcnt. It would not be dear 10 outsiders. who would need thedenoument at J En. 71.14·17, a denoume111 which will have delighted audiences who we.re this interested in the-figure of Enoch. There are four poilllt;: :•ndJ~ ,~

I. Ri gh teo~.t..;ness is his otnstanding characteristic. \V11ile other rnajor figui\."'S ifl

Second Temple Juda.ism might be re.garded as especially righteous, in the Enoch l iteranux~- this is partjc.ularly true ofEtuX'-h himself. In the-opening of the whole-book, he is described as a righteous man (0:\16p(..)IToc; OiKau:ll; . bi!'b i .~·iidlq), and the oomext implies that this was necessary for his visionary experiences. At 12.4. when he is called by Gt)d'ii O\\··n Watchers to go from the divine preseoce.aod convey the djvine-judge.fnent to dlC-wicked \Vatchers, he-is addressed a.o; sc-ribe of rigl11eousne$S (0 ypaJ,JanUc; Til.; O!KOlooUvqc;, ~a~uif€ !idiq). At 14. 1, the account of Etu)Ch 's \•ision and re-primand ofthe Watchers has a tide which begi11S '11)e-book of the words or righteOlL'eys another piece of infOnnation, !hat 'this soo t) f man' w·a s alre xV;y ; :;;1:;. ;;;rnm .8

p7m r"ix; x-7;;; K"u·~~ K":h::; ?J i'~,.9

.:nw i=' r er." 5. A.nd they will lo..'ll: a1 ~c-h o.thct snd be :.f.-aid :tnd lower 11\cir .Cl'lttntet\Sili:C~ sod di ~tre~s will seize them. wht'n they see thai son of mnn !>itting on his gklrious throne. 6 . And Lhc king.~ :.nd the mighty :.nd aUthe lsndownc-r~ will bless and prni ~ Clnd magniiY him who ruks O\'t'r c\'Ct)'lhing. he who was hidden. 7. F(l( from of old th:u !iOO of m:m wa..; hidden, a.nd the Mos1High kct)l him bcf.:~re lljs host, and tc\'c--alcd him to the clcct. 8. And 1hc oommunit)' of the holy ones will tK- sown, snd all the chosen will SL"'I'Id bctOrchim on that day.

9. Al)d all the ldng,~ a 1)d miglny snd cx.altOO :l.rtd lh,)Sc- " 'ho rule 1hc dry ground wm fall down and wor.;hip. und they wiiJ stl thc.ir hope on thai son of mun. and the-y will bc.secch him and

stel: llk'rc)' from him.

Given the-context, it is dear lhat throughoul this passage the 1enn 'son o r mao' refers to the 'Chosen One'. Al 62.5, the Elhiopic term lOr •son of 1nan' is ~w.rldn

Tfu!

·s~m

of l'lf(m' Cmrcept

IW'ifT, a change from the use of waldn S(tb

103

·e in 1he-prtvious examples. It is diflicult

to see any si£.1lific.ance in 1his change. Bmh ex:pressil)nS mean 'soo of 1nan' in tllesens.e of 'human being' , and must go back to ao origio.al Aramaic ( ~)'Ii:J(K) 13. We should infer that after n gnp of severaJ chapters. one or another translator simply wem for an established alternative phrase. Nonetheless. this c.hange caused trouble. Ethiopian Christians came to believe that this is a wonderful prophecy of Christ Jesus. and some of them perceived waldn biN!si ~a son of a man in the sense that he wa~ born. as we all are., with n human fa ther. Accordingly. all late MSS read ,mfda bi'bit, •son ora woman', with the virgin bil'th of Jesus in rnind. This reading mus1 ac-Cordingly be regarded a'> secondary. It may be for 1he.sanle !'e.ason that Tana 9 reads walda sab ·e. Before. the tenn 'soo or man'. all MSS ha\•e. a dernon..'>tralive. almost all of them ~iku. I have accordingly reconstructed p1, as befOre-. Tiltdemon.strative is again anaphorie. It refers back directly w the 'Clh)stll One', and to the earlier l'>CCurrenc.es of(~)~:(~) 13 in Chs 46 and 48. This figure is still sittiog on his glorious throne as the eschatological judge, who tu)w rec-ei ...es adoration ffom the ''~eked kings and mighty. At 62.7, the Etbiopie text has the first occurre-nce of walda ·~guala 'i nunal!iitiw. This is the second change in tl\ree verses. h stroogly suggests a translator who did not like ,wtfda sab 'i . a1~d \Vho did not know quite what to do. h is difficult to irt~agine any1hing mhe1· than (~)19~~) '1J in an Aramaic source-text. In the Ethiopic. text. the immediately preceding word is /.:.Ona. which must be. taken in the meaning '\!Jas' with the p roc.edi,~g pa11iciple (tlbri ', ' hiddeft'. to give the meaning ' the S\)1\ of man '"as hidden'. The Aramaic underlying ktina must however be ~1;1, or ;n;,. This may also be r)
.,u.,, ·n"'n 'm.'='

K\1 ~;

26. And they had g_rca1 joy. and tho.-y blcs..;~d s1ld pr:.iscd a.nd extolled. bc~'3usc the name- of that son of man was revealed to !Mm. 27. And he sst on his glorious throne-. and tl~ J>um ofjudg~nll::m Wai given II> th:.t son of man. And he-will nol pass away nod he will 001 perish from lhc fucc of the eanh. 28.And 1hoscwho led the worldasLr:.yshall be bound withch:.i"~ Md 1hcysh:.Ubc imprisoned

Tfu!

·s~m

of l'lf(m' Cmrcept

105

in an asst.mbly of dC$truction. und nll1hdr deeds will \·unish from the face of the earth. 29. And from then onward~ dlefC will 001 be (lllylhing corruJ)Iiblc. fot IMI son of m.sn has appean:d and has sat on his glorious throne-. and ull C\•il will vanish from ~fore his fuoc~ And He will go and speak to that son of man. and he will be strons bdon: the Lord of Spitils. This is the third p:uubk of Enoc-h.

TI1is scc.fion is lhe end Mthe third parable. This parable began a1Ch. 58. 1have noted that additional material has been interpolated into it. and we ca nnot tell whether anytJ1ing was lost in the process. only that the. transitions are very une.ven. The changes of tense in t1liS seclion are due ro changes of perspective. 1ft vv. 26-27a. theperfecl te-nse is used to narrote \\'hat Enoch saw in his vision. Tile major event here is t11e-re.velation of the name or 'that son M man'. This is c.!early the same rnajor rigure as befOre. t)therwise the ·chosen Ooe'. and referred to with the tenn •so11 of nt:Ul' since Ch. 46. The tent• tOr 'SOil of man' in mosl f>.•ISS of the Ethiopic le-xt of v. 26 is again walda ·eg uala 'imma beiaw. It is dinicuh to know \\1hat to make of theomission of walda in a few relati,•ely good MSS (Krtibb lists DM 49 1, Abb 35, Abb 55 and Tana 9). This may be due h) homoit)iircton atler the preceding demon~lrat i ve wi'i!tu. I have presupposed this in recons.ll'ucting xlifJ~ ,~ ~1:1. Here again the demonstrative is at~aphoric, reff-rring back ro the (igure of the previous chaplers. and pre~u•hably it was originally rnuch closer to the end of Ch. 63 than il is now. It is bO\!Jever po~ i b l e that the omiss.ion or w(llda is original, and that it was added to c.onfom1 the expression to the one which is commonest in the Similitudes. In this ca$e the translator wa:.;; even more inc-onsistent than we now suppose, tOr Intrinsic. Probability favours lhe view that 'iguala 'inww~tiitiw would be a translation of (K)l.9l (~) ,:J rather than of anything else. The name of ' that son of man' is knov.·n to us from the end of t he-Similitudes as ' E-noch', and we have seen that this was known to the chosen already in Ch. 62. He sits on his glorious thr011e to carry out his role as the esc.hatologic.al judge-. In v. 27a. the •e.nu tOr 'St)ft of man' in the Ethiopic text is again 'wilda 'iguala 'i mmal!i1iaw. This time it is preceded by the Ethiopic ltilli J. liternJiy. this me.ans that the s.um of judge-ment wa:.~ given •h) hi1H, to the SOil of the ofT..;-pring oflhe fll()tber ofthe living'. This is an alternative to Lhe demonstmtive. another way of making clear that the figure referred 10 is the san-1e rigure a.'> was referred 10 previously. I have anr'ibuted this change to the ttanslatt)l', and I have recons.trucled KtXi:JK , J ~d7. There should beno doubl about ( ~)ilJ(~) 1:J, but one or two olher details are necessarily uncertoin. For e:tample. the. Aramaic might have been closer to the pre.se111 Ethiopic, reading pethaps ~IVJX ,J7 ;,7. Sud1 possibilities do not a lfectlhe meaniog of the text. Verl>e 27b 1Hakes an intportaot poim about '!hal son of man'. namely lhat hewill not die. despite being human, the only possible interprelation of his. being a (soo of) tnan. This interprehlliou results fr0111 following the reading or Tana 9. with some varying degree of suppon from other ~·ISS which sometime$ preserve old readings. It prepares the way lOr his identific.ation as EriOC.II himself ifl the following account of his translation. This is contrary 10 Ethiopian Christian tradition. whic.h interpreted walda 'iguula 'i nuna/Jiitiw as Jesus Christ, and whic.h held the atoning death of Jesus to be imponant, as have. most stmnds of Christian tradition. Hence

106


Lhe conuptions in later MSS, which drop the 7, •not', before botl1 verbs. change their aspect and give them an l)bj ec.t, •sinners'. which enables v. 27b to be utkeo in h) the picture of the destruction of the wicked in v. 28. TI1e reading M Tana 9 has a

pe-rfect Sit~ im Leben in the original text of the SimUitudes, and the above Aramaic reconstruction from it is unproblematical. The very phrase (~)id:( ~) -u implies that this being is human. and will therefore die. Enoch, almost uniquely among human beings, did not die. and it was accordingly very important to the Enoch devotees who \\' rote th is document to declare h is inun orta lity at this point. Jlis natne has j ust been revealed to people ln the last days at v. 26, and v. 27 furtherconfinns to aoyone in the know thm his name is indeed Enoch. as they will to varying degrees have knowf!OI' su~pected since Ch. 46. In v. 2 8. the imperfOCI is used with a l'i.trure sense ro predict the final punishment of lhe wicked. In the J.ii'St sente11ce of v. 29, lhe imperfecH are used as in v. 28 I t) pred ict future e\'eiHS, and the- h i/O pe-rfect~ both hark back to Enoch's \'ision and relate an eveot, the appeal'ance of ' that son of man', \Vhich takes place-before the destl'uction l) fthe wicked. Here the.tenu for 'son l) f ma.-,· is waldn be ·; Ji, as at 62.5, preceded by the demonstrative wf! ·e1u. The demonstrati ve is unproblematic. as is the ..econstruction ~1.9::.'\ 1~ ~l;"l . TI1e den)OIL.~ tratj ve isagain anaphoric, re-ferring back to the central 1igure of the previous \'erses, and of the Simililude:s as a whole. The re.asons for the traoslators· change ftom ~ ~Ydda ·egualn ·emmaJ.ri iiiw back to waldn be'isi, however, remain pu1.zling. We c.an only i nfer that since both expressions begio with ·son or·. and me-an one single rnan. the trartslators considered tl1e.n both equivalent to the A ramaic ( ~)iJJ(K) 1:!, and did not mind which they used a.~ rnuch as w~ think they should have done. The fi nal sentence of the narrntive of v. 29 ha..,;; been found so dit1icult l11a.1 it is customary to alter the text. We should not do this. We should rather follow the re.adi ng of Taua 9 , with support fron1 fil)dl 4. The$e MSS read the singular ve-rb wayihwgir._ 'and he will speak '. 1 have ac.cordingl)' rec-Onstructed ""'':l~''· I have also taken ?r~1 with it, and I propose that the suhjeII0\1/Cd it io the above reconstruction, where lt means that the words ~;ziJ~ 1J ~ 1;1? x.~n ;10\7 can all be taken together, It) mean 'the living name of that s.on or man•. Ill the light of the above recon..n ruction, I fOIIO\V the main lines or Olson's c.ommenlS on the Ethiopic translation as my interpretmion of the. original text. The iirs.t verse refers to Enoch's outstanding reputation befOre God. At v. 2, Enoc.h rea lly is taken up. but this is not his translation eithe.r: it is his removaJ to the place designated in v. 3. OJ:.on also c.orrectly saw, as Black had done., that the end of the 1 \ erse refers to his fame-. not to his disappearance. I have readily reconstructed an Aramaic source whic-h also refers to his fu n~e. for in Aramaic as in Ge'ez this is the fneaning of an idiom ac.cording to \Vhich a person's name going out relers to their fh.ne. AI l ev.R. 619:2, fOr e-~ample, ~t)?ll"'3 p· ~ y.rd 111eans 'you ·will be farnous'. This is in accordance with traditions about Enoc.h. At Jub. 4.23~ for example. he is taken from anlOng the childretl M men and condue~ed ro the-garden of Eden ' 1\)r _gre-atness aod honour '. At v. 3. the text says in a differem way that he was removed from among people, and this time it says where he was put There is a delibe.rate reference to I En. 61. 1. where the angels head for the nonh with their measuring ropes. Enoc.h is therefore in the ·gatden of rightcousoess' , the nafne tOr Eden at J En. 32.3. whe.re it is placed it"l the north-cast ( I £11. 32.1-2, cf. 77 .3). Chapter 71 really does gi,•e an acc.ouut of Em)Cb 's translation. In the opening M v. I. we mu~t recon~truct np-7n.-.: lOr the Ethiopic 1i tl.:aba1. using the same word as at Gen. 5..24. This gives us the Ji.)IJowing blunt stateme.nt right at the begioniog: .~:~b? i-;o·

\i1, r.y"'ij"'Xi ;;;; 'miO ;;;;n . I

I. And it came to pass nfic:--t this that my spirit was translated nnd ascended to the hcavcns.

A detailed ac.count of Enoch's truditjonal ttanslation fl)flows. l ie sees many aogels, aod ~tadil i onal image-ry M 1ire, light and the like are 1huch LL
110

Th e Sollllitm to the 'Son of Man ' Problem

that I /:)r. 69.29 lt)l.)kS ron\•ard 10 thi.s scene. h tOII0\1/S that this

d~noue.nent

is

an integral pan of this work. not some kind of late addition. Finally. it should be 110ted that Kl:i, like wi'itii in the Ethiopic text, couJd be taken as a demonstrative rather than as the copula. whic.h is not strictly speaking necessary. We could then translate-, ' You are that (son ot) man who is bomto ri ghteoosoes.~ .. : . This \VOuld not significaotl)' anect the n1e-.aoing, sinc.e it would sti ll be a reference back to I £11. 46.3, and with all the overtones ,vhich I have describe.d. The final use oftl1e tenn 'son of man', at I En. 71.17. must be- interpreted as a d osing oonunent by the author. For the exprcssil)U 'soo of man' itseu: the trunslator has gone back to n:(llda 'i!guala ·emm(t~ti!i6w. Again this change is puzzling, but does no! seem to be signilicant. It must again represe1U (N)liiJ(K) -a, a..~ in the above recoos1ru' (/l:.it. 90.3 1). llere. the-ref01'e, Eooch, while aslee-p. sa\1/ himse-lf in a vision at the last judgemeot The Ani11wl Apocalypse- was writte-n c. 165-60 BCE. This means that. when the Similitudes were written. the idea of Enoch seeing bim..o; elf in a vision at the la,.;;t judgement had been arouod arnl>ng Enoc-h devotees for generations. His position in the Similiwdes. where Enoch sees himself not merely at the last judgement, but a.:; the eschatological judge himself, is a vigorous de.velopment of exisring Enochic traditions. We should therefore see this as a c.reative literary and religious achievement we should not refuse to follow the only natural interpretation of the. text The following conclusions may therefore be drawn. The Similitudes of Enoch were written in the form of a re.velatOI)' work. The-y belong to a very old tradition of Enoch as a visionary. and as a scribe. who wrote down the condemnation of wicked beings. and the salvation or the righteous. In this \\'Ork. Euoc.l1sees visions of the eschatological judge ,.;ho will carry out the judge-ment, of the salvation of the righteous aod the punishn'1en1 of the wicked. In the vision ofCh. 46, Em'>Ch sees this figure and desc.ribes him io such a way that Je\\•ish devotees of Enoch \VOUid ~cogn ize him. InCh. 69, at d1e-efld of the third visioo, there are deliberate pointers to Enoch's translation in Ch. 71 . Jo Ch. 70, after the '•isions, Enoch is taken to the garden of Ede.o. InCh. 71, there is a narrative of his trans1ation. in accordance-with old tradition about him. This narmtive has the further development of a recognition scene-, in which Gl>d identifie-s Ef!OC.h in terms strongly rerninisc.ent of Ch. 46. It follows that Enoch in a vision actually saw himself in the future. in accordance with old tradition about him. In the visionofCh. 46, betCwe the de.sctiption \\'hich would alert de-\'Oieesof Enoch to the identity of the son of man JigUI-e. he is first ofall described in more 111yste-rious terms with S.OI'lle teminiscences of Dan. 7.13. This is where the term (~)117:{~) 1J was originally drawn from. Throughout the Similitudes, this tenn (K)1J t>fMutf. 5 Gospel, PI)· 76- 9: and for funher bibliogra~'hy. p. 6 t. n. tO:lb\wc. 2. On 1M usnslatioo pr<XX:ss, sec pp. 246-66 below. 3.

For thorough di!>eussioo., ~c l)t>. 256-61 tk'low.

Six Authemic Sayi11g:r

(~)IV:(x.) ,J.,

117

is nonnally rendered ui~ CrvOpc.)rrou in the LXX, by several different translators. Sixth, the Gospel expression 0 ui6c; Toli Ov6pc.)rrou evidently did not cause diflkuhy in unde-rslanding at lhe litne-. II tnUS[ therefore represent a normal Ara.naic expressit)n rather thew an unusual one. This require-ment is satisfied by (~)W:(x.) 1~. Seve-nth. some Gospel sayings (notably Mk 13.26; 14.62) tnake 1.1.:;e. of Dan. 7 .13. where V.:J ~ , J is c-ertainly the unde-r lying Aramaic expression. This combination of arguments is decisive. Authentic Son of man .sayings mus:t be reconstructed ·wilh (x.}-.!J(~) -u where the Greek te-xt M the Gospels has 0 u"u)t; ToU O.vOpc.)rrou in order thm we-may correctly understand the-m. We have seen inCh. 2 that (~)lt'J(K) 1~ is well enough attested fOr 1his purpose-. so lhe pre.sent chapter can be de.voted to discussing the reconstructed sayings in the. light of earlier discussion of the idiomatic uses of this phrase. Other sigos M interfe-rence ioclude the use of ce11ain "'ords. For example. a1 Mk 14 .2 1 Urr6:yEt is 1.1.o;OO with refen"'tlce to Jesos' fOrthcoming death. TI1e Greek word Urrc'xyc.l was not a nonnaltc.nn for dying, whereas the equivalent Aramaic ?rx. was used with this reffre-nce. The-re are. plenty of examples of this in later Jewish Aramaic and in Syriac. and the word itself occurs in e.arlier sources with the mundane meaning ·go·. We must inle-t that this word was already used as a metaphor fOr death in first-century Galilee-. and interpret this as a piece or evideoce that Mk 14.21 is indeed a translation of an Aramaic source . ~ Sometimes the different forms of a saying should be explained as a result of transmission in Ar.~maic. or translation from Aramaic into Greek. For example. at Mk 3.28 the ooly occm~nc.e orO u"16t; ToV Ov6pc.)rrou in the plural in the Gospels is evidently due to the translator. He did not like the sense of a genuine saying of Jesus, which can be reCO\'ered with the help of f>.·h. 12.32//Lk. 12.10.s The son of Aramaic th.at may rea.sonab1y be used for reconstructing sayin£,S of Jesus has been controversial. We must suppose. that Jesus spoke Galilean Aramaic, but hardly any Galilean Aramaic l)f the right period survives. This ditllcult situation has been quite transformed by the discovery of the Dead Se.a scrolls. which provide us ''~th a large slice of Aramaic voc-.abulary. and standard synta.'\:. fro m shortJy before. the time of Jesus. These words and constructions are virtually all found in other dialects too. We have seen inCh. 2 that we now know what a stable language. Aramaic was ove-r a period of centuries. Consequently, we. c.an use material fro m other dialec.ts \\~ th caution. The probability of words extant in old sources still being extant is high. even when they do not survive in later mate.ria1. Similarly, we should not hesitate to use later sources with c.are.. The mo.st imponant single source is the Palestinian Talmud. This is the right language and culture. only somewhat later in date. It C-OtHains 1nany \\·ords which are also exta111 in the Dead Sea scrolls aod earlie-r sources. and many sayin_g.:; which are auributed w rabbis long before the final dme of ilS composition. Finally we may tum to other later sources. including the Syriac versions of the.Gospels. 4. S.

Sec further Cascy.Ammaic Srmra.HifMark's GosJWI. pp. 2.33-().

Fot dclaitc:-d di~cusJ>ion, ~c pp. 1 4~43, 254-S below.

118


I ba\'C floted the imporla nce o r later Anun aic in d i ~.l.ISSir\g the i diornati~ use of (~)1.92( ~) -u thn)u_ghout Cit 2. We s.aw· that the tent• (K}1il(K) 1~ itself is suJlicienlly well omel>ted in the (sti ll) 10eag.re sourtes from before the •ime or Jesus for us to be conn dent that it was io nom~ al usage. I ooted one example of its idiomatic use

as early a..~ 750 13CE.~'> For more details of this idiomatic usage, however. we need later sources bec.ause Lhey are comparatively extensive. The Yemshalmi alone has more than 280 examples of l11e-simple ( N)liiJ(N) 1~. ~u1 d the careful ust-or this aod othe-r later sources h a..~ enabled fne to find sorne 30 examples of its idiomatic use

with particular re.ference to the speaker or to whoever else is especially in mind. Accordingly. I make c.a~fu l use of lin er sources whe.never d1is is nece:;sory.' IIHirnatdy interwove.n with this pn)cess of reconstnlcting: :>a}'ings of Jesus is that of uncovering the work of the people who translated them into Greek. One major

result of the variety of problems which fac.e a normal translator is important at this point: they may adopt su

This is very important for understanding the whole of the synoptic tradition, for a translation strategy can onl)' be e.mployOO \Vhen extensive portions of the literature in which it is found are. in fact translated. This strategy alone enables us to infer .substantial translated .sources used by Matthew. ~·lark and Luke, whelher translated by them persooaJly. or by their sources, or by assistants. 1t pr<wides the geoeral

c.onte:u i n which we must view ge-nuine.Son of man sayings. 6. ~c t)tlllsagl." 20, pp. 67-& above. 1. Sec funhcr. pp. $6-9 above; CsJ~cy, Ammaic Smm:ts of MarkS Gospd. pp. 89- 93; Aramaic ApfJJ'(}(Itil to Q. pp. 56-60: 'Aramaic Idiom and the Soo of Man Pmbkm•. 8. H&lig. 'f-lohnc~· ..Mapping Theory"''. p. 85. For detailed d is.:.-ssioo. !\1CC pp. 2$3--66

below. 9.

Sec Pt,· 130- 1. 140-l. 254-5 bd o"'·


11 9

We are now in a position to outline the principles and procedures to be followed when reconstructing genui1le sayings of Je~us. Jo two previous books, I have :>Ought to lay down methodological principles for uncovering some written Aramaic sources or f>.·lark •s Gospel. and for approaching the Aramaic dimension of Q.1fl The Son of man sayings diseussed in this c.hapter were iocluded in these two bt)()k..1). I have offered reconstructions of other Son of man sayings in earlie-r publications, before the most fruitful methodology for reconstructing Aramaic versions of sayings of Jesus had bee.n c-ompletely worked out. I now om:r a modified version of the basic. principles of reconstn1cting sayings of Jesus with a \'iew to the discussion of Son of man sayings in the rest of this book. I . An artempt should be made to reconstruct all Son of man sayings in the four Gospels. This is because the very pre$ence of 0 v'u)t; ToG CtvOpc.)rrou is evidence or literal translation or an Aramaic expression, (K)iiJ(K) u . We.shall find that all the sayings discus.o;ed io Ch~ 4-8 c.an be sati~filcto ri ly reconstructed. This is becausein each case a genuine auempt has been made to translate the saying litemlly. in accordance-\Vith the- ~trategy discus..o;ed abtwe. In Ch. 9, I make a more comple-:< anempt h) roc.overone or more genuine predictions of .leSlLJ of.lt striking ' "ilh (K)i?J(K} , J itsell: a Ot)nnal tenn fo r 'tnao' \\'ith a geoeral leve.l M n\eaoing:, signifkamly ditlerent frol'n 6 u'1~ ToU O.v8p(.)rrou. a Christological title of Jesus alone. Again and again we. will see unexpected leve-ls of meaning appearing from strnightfonvard reconstruc.tions. Sometimes it is later exe.g erical tradition which has to be removed. For example, at Mt. 8.20//l k. 9.58, I have l>uggesred rJJ~ lOr Q•s KO TOOKfl V(.)ow ; . and discussed the alternative possibilities r77oo and j"11?l. u This permits consideration of the natuml provision of roosts for birds. instead of being hidebound by the traditional translation ' nests': in Aramaic this "'ould he f l?, which would have g:i\ren rise to the pi\."Cise Greek equivalent vooo 1C(I; . •~ The erroneous nature of traditional exegesis should howeve•· already h:;w e been c.Jear fron'l Q's KO TaOKI)vc.>o Et.:;. 5. We must go thrOllgh all the- •-econstruct i o•t.~ from the pe-rspec.tiveofan ancie.nt translator. lfs.'he was raced with the propl)Sed rec.OI\$truction, 111ight s/he reasonably have pUl what we have gO(? We must pay careful attention both to the overall sweep of the translation. and to all the small de-tails. In doing this, l,),·e must make use-both of research into the known habits of ancient translators. and modern insights into the nature of the.translation process itself. We shall feel happiest when our o-anslator could only have done what we posit. bm we must not impose this as a general sta1ldard ofjudgcrnellt, because the-re are 10any situations in whic.h tmnslators have a genuine choice. We u)USt be on the look-out both for c.onsistent habits aud 1\)r -strategies. but we must be c.areful not to invent either of them. We.have already seen that the-central strategy i1l translating Son M n1an sayings was to render (K)liiJ(K) 1~ wiiJt O ui~ TOU a vep(.)rrou when it refers to Je-sus. and to use something diffe-rent in both the singular and the plural whenever the reference was to other people. 6. We 1t1ust isolate as far as possible delibentte editing by the. Gospel writerS tiiCJ"selves. II is fortunme that this is not of great ir"portanc.e in dealing wit11 the majority of genuine sayings discussed in Chs 4- 8, because the Gospel \1/f'ite.rs did not feel a need to alte-r these sayings to any considerable degree. We sha.ll see that t2. 13. t4.

Cascy. •Jack:Jis'.p. ? : pp. t68. 11& bdaw. Casey, •Jacb ls'. pp. S. 20-t: pp. t?J-4 bdo\~. Sec.further. Olsl'y. Ammak Sowr.·es nfMmf's G(1spel, pp. 21. 50. 61. 69-71.

121


it does matter for a minority of s.ayings, which however suf\•ive in enough different fonns fOr us to be able to distinguish the. original sayi og..~ from the evangeli:,.ts' edjting. Detec.ting their editing is quite crucial to sorting out the predictions of Jesus• death and resurrection inCh. 9. We must also uncover the creativity of theevangelists in 1he-produc-tion or secondary sayings. This is crucial to Cbs 10- 12. 7. Finally. there.s:uhs must be w·riuen up in a way that is as reader-ffietldly a.~ possible. h should be obvious that this does not entail li.)IJowing the order of events in which the investigation wa.~ conducted. In this chapter, I have presented the recon.sm1ction of Son of man sayings at or near the beginning of eac.h section, n.-e.alliog the c.ontexl from previous disetlsSil)nS. I have folh)wed d1e-same basic order in Cbs 5-9, bur with 1he presentation of the \!/hole Clonte:tionity (JSNTSup 2M•. Londoo: T&T Clark l ntcrn~ui OMI. 2004).


123

Ovtlpc.)nwv S'fKo:o-t~ Cin elfllTi"); ¢.00ft:.ll; ~HiXV KO:l lJVpiWV f:v6uio; c:lv npOt; nlr, Ovoyxo:io:~ ,.oo (3,!ov xpo.lo:t; ¢pol:-'" SbOUI nO( lll31 C'USlOOl~.

Here the c.uhuml assumptions of the document are so strong that observant Jewish women in Arabia and Media can be referred to as Arabian women and Median women, and observant Jewish womeo as a whole as .O'R\ 7~. These example-S illustrate the basic fac.t that the le-vel of generality intended in gene.ral smteme.nts is limited by the cultural as \\'ell as the literary context It is this which restricts the refereoce.ofl\' in a general statement which refers particularly to lh-e speaker and a larger group of people-. h does nol, however, tell us whe-ther (x)iJJ(K) \1/<JS in the absolute Ol' emphatic state. for two reasons. First examples of the idiom in Aramaic texts show no difference in meaning ac-cording to the use of the absolute or emphatic state.111 IS.

Sec PI). 67- 81 abov-'".

124


Second. the behaviour of the translator c.ontinues to follow the strategy of using 0 v'•Q.; ToiJ O:v9pc.)nou whenever s/he thought that C-X'~~ j'1l!1K :i.'l7 .j'17~e.ng~r :md he

fb;j "ll ;"'

will t)r~re the way bcfotu

me ...

The same exegesis of t\•lnl. 3. I as a prediction of John the Baptist is found in the Q passage l\•h. I I. I 0//lk. 7.27.24 Sooner or later. lhis was bound to make Jesus think or Isa. 40.3, which he would interpre-t likewise of John the Bapt i ~ t. ;"1\i~ 1" u~ -.:.or.·~ ~'>,'\? 'np A voice Cl)'ing in 1hc wild..-mcs.i. ' Prcpart 1hc wsy of the lord ... '

The-n""rtlains or this e:<egesis is found in the c-OmpOsite quotation of Mal. 3. 1and Isa. 40.3 al Mk 1.2·3. Once Jesus had got to lsa. 40.3, he could hatdly fail to read 1he ~St Of the pa..'lsage. going past the.prophecy or JOhll'S S:uccessful ministry preparing the way of the Lord 10 a metaphorical presemation of the transitory nature of human life: ... ;;,w.; ;:·:.J ;•1on 'n~; -.-r:m +u-2, 7o All flesh (is) grass and aiiLIIciraels ofld odn..-ss like the ftowet o r the cOtmltyside.

lsa. 40.6-8 1nust thetll!ure.ty remiod him of the classic presentation or the sutfe.riug of man in Job 14. Job 14 begins with a blunt general statement about man: .;;., ;;~;;;1 U"n of his ful)'.

The rejection of the people io Jer. 6-7 is quite sulli eie-m lO j ustjfy the gene-ral statemeot '10Jn!\ ... (x)vll(~) 1J:. 10ade as an ioterpretation o r sctipture. It was this 2&. P. ~t. Casey, ·culture s nd 1-lis.oridty: the Clc:liiS.ing of the ic-mptc•. CBQ 59 ( 1997}. pp. 3()()-32.


129

rejection which required John the Baptjsfs death, and '''oold require Jesus' death also. with whoever would die with him. I have suggested 10Jil.'\ a.;; the word which Jesus -used to pic.k up O£, and which the translator reodered i~ou0wl)eij. It has the right semantic area. It oc.curs befOre- the time of Jesmo at 4Q542 I i 6, aod subsequently in several dialects. including Jewish Aramaic. We have-now rec.o ,1ered some of Jesus· biblical exegesis. Jle interpreted Mal 3 aod lsa. 40 of the successful ministry of Joh11 the Baptist; lsa. 40 aJld Job 14 or the death of mao; Job 14 M the sunering of man; and Jer. 6-7 of the n-jeclion of the Jewish people. We now have a second reason wh~· he should use the term (x)i7l(X) 'U io a ge11eral stateme-nt which had pa11icularrefhence to Jolul the Baptjst/ Elijah: his sullt ring aJld rejection is written in the scriptures in general statements. not in speciiic references. The idiomatic use of (x)~f:J(X) 1~ is the third reason. I lis Aramaic-speaking disciples Wt)ufd krtO\V as the)' listened that John the Baptisl was being paJ1icularly referred to, because he was the main ligure under discussion. At the same time, Jesus predicted his own dea th during the ministry.l'' Since the disciples' question retlectc; a scribal reaction 10 the position of Jesus at the-c.e ntre of a popular and successful Jesus movement, we should infer that he had already done so, as in the t'.•larc-an narmtive. He will therefore have included himself in this g.e1\eral state..ncnr, and his disciplel> could hardly fail to realize this. If the Marean narrative is in the righr order. this will have been especially obvious aner Pete-r 's objection (f\.fk 8.32·33). It would become eve1\ more.so after the djscussit)n or Jacob and John's request to sit on his riglu and len in his glory (Mk I0.35--45):)0 This passage is permeated by the perception thm some of the disciples would die. with him, and Jacob and John's imfnediate acc.eptance of their fine (Mk 10.39) shows that they had learnt nruch fmm something. surely including Jesus' re-buke of Pe-ter and the present incident. Jesus saw his own fate in the sc.ripwres in the same kind of way, in passages such as Pss 4 1: 118.22-23 referring to him individually (Mk 12.10· 11; 14. 18,20) and in general statemeots suc.h as Ps. 116.1 5 (d. Mk 14.2 1)." Verbal links with the passages just discus.o;ed iJlclude OIQ.l again at Ps. 118.22, moat Job 14.10,14 and Ps. 4 1.6: 116.3,15: 118.17·18, and OlP at Job 14.12 and Ps. 41.9,1 1. We must add Ps. I 16.15 to the gene-ral statements which helped Jes-us to understand the de.atb of Jt)bn the Baptist. Why then does Mk 9.12 not actually me-otion death? Be' at Mk 10.38-39; I2. 7-8; 14.8,2 1.24; lk. 13.32-33. Jesus' death was ::cerl by him as an importa.ru everu which would enable God to redeem Israel. Positive a.:;sessm.eot of his de-ath was always

nec.essary to the early church. doubly so when Gentiles entered the.churches without becoming Jews. and this explains both the preservation of his predictions and the extension i?1 ;;;;!;. iX ;;; ~., ... .~ 10.'ll'\'.l t ;l -c1 ~., $.\t.!:s? ·~1 .·:>7:~ ~ ·ro~ ;;;J 1:! ?nt /vThc (soo ot) ma.n goes as i1is wriucn conccming him., a1ld woe lo th31ll\llll by w~ h:ltld :11'1hc (son of} man is bctr.tycdlh:ltldcd over. ( It would b.:-) g01>d for him if lh31 ma.n had 001 been bom.

The fit st part of this saying can·ies JUnher lhe reference to .scripture. 11le Aramaic. word ; TN wa.;:; in nonnal use as a •neutphor for death. a.._, the Greek Urrciyc.l was not.. Like the usc:- M (~)1.9~ ~) '\J ito;e-lf, this is part of the evidence that it is right to recons truct ao Atarnaic sourc.e . The Aralllaic (K)WJ(~) "U cannot lose its level of

generality. though this is not the main point of the saying. Jesus expected ro suffer a humi liating death, but this was to have a fundamental redemptive function. He tJ1erefore llad good reason to state the prediction of his death in scripture. and the. doom awaiting the.traitor. by me-ans of a gene-ral statement. At the same rime, no one. will have been le-H io doubt that Jes-us' t)wn death was primarily refern:d lO. Ps. 4 1 is one sc.ripture clc:-arly in mind. Other:s l'nu.:;t have-included the second group on lallel psalrn.s. TI1ese include the clear general statement of Ps. I 16.15, •Glorious in 1he eye-s of the:- Lord is the death of his pious ones•. Surely none of them could sing that ven:e \1/ithout thinkin_g or the irnJ>Or1aoce of Jesus' death. They could also include

themselves. in so far as they formed any intention to die with him. Jesus himself will h.ii.'fC seen the gene-ral level of meaning in passages such as Job 14. 1 2 and Isa. 40.6-8, s ince he had already applic:-d these passagc:-s to John the Dapti.st. himself 4


136

aod others (Mk 9. 12-IJ).n Creath·e exegesis could lead to more precise referenc.es. Part of the final l lallel psalm. Ps. 118. 14-17, c.oufd easily be read like- this: 'T he LORD is In)' strength and song, and he is lOr me. for Jesus ... Th..:- risht ha11d of the LORD raise-s up ... I shall not d ie because I shall live.' The d oom pmnouuced oo the traitor was: also rnade by me-ans of general statefnents. Tile first is at one feye.t a condemnation of traitors, and hence universally acceptable. This made it feasible for Jesus to proc-eed with the condemnation of the traitor. This is in accordanc-e with

scriptural pa.~Jsages such as Ps. 40. 15-16; 41 .11 ; I 18.7f.

We must therefore conclude that this is another genuine saying of Jesus, wilh a double use of (N):zf:J(K)

1~.

TI1e

c i rcUinstance-~~

of Je="us• !Orthcoming betrayal and

dea th explain why he should use this idiom. The general level of meaning is essential h) the idiom. but it was not the point of the saying, whic.h \ 1/' I leave 1hese-mane-IS

aside here-. and disc.uss the substantive comparison, which include.s the Son of man saying. I number the verses as is C-Oil \1 entiOJ~al lOr Matthew. I present the proposed Aramaic source of this piece. an English translation of it and the single Greek translation of the Aramaic sourc.e which both evangelists used: .:'h ·n~ ;·;; :l'1i:Xl xm;! ~'?1 box x'7 i! rii' :UiK . I& ·l"'ilr.7l ro~'7 i~i .l\~:e it was: a normal Aramaic way of saying something indirectly in humiliating circumstances. For the idiom to be.effective, it is necessary for the rest of the statement to be. true of more. people than of Jesus. but not of e.veryone. The subje•t'tr.l7 ,~XllTilllliJ"'."i ,_.,._,, :.;;m .5

.JW p:;· ~·,~o "iO Jl:i":"T'Xl.6 ?JU'::!';~ j"";X l'X'n j1:1:N .iiJ"? . jl:i? 'WXl.ll.

?17:1110,s "7pd1 cry ;~:xiJ7 '~'> ,-~m v::m?x ""''.:7 ii~1 f'\\.11\

145

;-Ill\''""" ,01¥ .II

x;;?l61· r;:n Kij i.7:.i1 p:i;:l' 01j? j::! V~J1 KOtl' ~ 1".'l1 017 . 12

'And he entered Capt"maum agtUn after some days. And it was hc:ud th.:1t he was at home. :And m:~ny((>eopiC") g31.hcrOO to~ther, atld hC" was giving lhem a S(>ee. lie nmes that ·an episode of conversion is usually of short duration with sudden t)tLflet and resolution•.s lo discussing paralysis among 'disorde.rs of hysteric-al conversion', Tl>One notes thal hysterical weakness ' involves principally I he extremities, and the legs mo1-e than lhc arms·. Jl is ' usually n paralysis or rnovemerH ratl1er than a ' "eakness ofindi\•idual muscles•; in these cases, strength

is retained in the. muscles.' Hooker retails in anecdotal form the story of a woman who was paralysed fOr 1\11'0 yearS after seeiog a violent crime. ' Reassurance that she was in no way responsible for the crime resulted in a cure as instantaneous and dramatic as the paralysis.•, More. tightly controlled evidence is available from the occurrence and c.ure of hyste-l'ical paralysis in late-nine.leenth- and early twentieth-century Europe. Hysteria was a fashionable illness at tJ1e time. so il was a naturnl choice for people

who needed to be patients but who had nothing else wrong with them. Equally, hypnotism was a c-uhurnJiy acceptable form of manipulating people. Consequendy. we ha\'e a number of accounLo;; of hysterical paralysis,a some c.ases of which were curable under hypnosis. The culturally determined nature of these ca..:;es is especially well illustT'.Hed by those who could move their limbs under hypnosis. but who could no more do so afte-rwards than they had done before. All such ca.o;;es belong to the much larger phenomenon of somatized illness beba\~our. They should be c-arefully djstinguished from diseases, and their cure is not nec-essarily ace.ompanied by what western biomedicine would regard as a change in symptomatology! -1. A. l:lbk nsky, ·~ Concc1>1of Sonlalofoml Disorders: A Commcm on 1hc Mind·Body Problt.>m in Psyc-hiau y' in Y. Ooo t't al. (e~M. Somatofmm Di.sonias. A \\hrldwide- Pt>r.\'ptCiiw• (Tokyo: Spring..-r. 1999). pp. l--tO (7). 5. M. R. Murphy, ·ct.sssifi.cation o flhcSom;uorotm Oi~rders-'. in C. Bass(c.:I.)_.S.oma.fi:;:ution: Ph.vsim( S)7Jiplonu and Ps.w:hologirol Jllnt.~J (Oxford: Bbd:wcll. t990), pp. t0-39 (25). 6. B. K. Too~, ' Oisolxlcrs oHiystcrkal COil\'ct~il'lfl' . in B:tiS (cd.}. Somali;cttiml. PI)· 20734(2 11). 1. M. D. Ho.."'lkc1', Tlu• GoJJWI According lo-Sr Mark (BNTC. Loodoo: Black, 1991}. p. 85. 8. Cf. A. R. G. Owen, Hysfm·a, IIJPJtosis and llrolills: the wmt of J. ·M. Cllam11 (london: Dobs-on. 191 1). csp. pp-. 6S. 124tr. 9. Cf. E. M. Paujson, N. A. Lapins and li. A. Oocn·. •fsiLh Healing. A Smdy ofP..-rsonality snd Function·. J mtmal (}f NtJWISIS ami Mt-11/al Di:rtasc IS? ( t973), l)t>. 397-409~ A. Kleinman, P«titm.~ a11d H(·aln'J in the Crmte:a of Cllltw'l". An £rplormion of the Bmrledarnl btlll'f"tl1 :\Jiti!JvPQiog_v, MtdiciJie ami Ps.w:hiatiJ' (Bcrkclcy/ LA: Univ. of Califotnis, 1980). pp. 31 1- 74; R. Totman. Sod(l/ Cmt.ftJ tJj /1/tlt.f.> (l.oodoo: Souv~nir, 2nd cdn.. 19&7). pp. .l9-40. d!jng L Rose.• Faith Healing (Lonckm: Penguin. 1971).

The Heali11g ofa Paralyti)'Chosomatic illnesses followe.d. In the light of this, Micklem wrote a cJa.;;sie work in whic-h he suS2ested that the paralytic in Mk 2. 1-1 2 s uiTe~d from hysterical paralysis, which Jesus was able to cure.11 Whe-n the First World War was: over. instances of hysterical paralysis soon underwent a drastic decline. with Charcot's particular fonn Mhyste-ria disappearing within a dec.ade of his death. This further clarifie$ the cui rurally oriented nature M this illoess. It is 1latural that this has also led to some criticism of 'hysterical paralysis' as a diagnosis or au illness. II is acc.ordiogly \ ery imponant that it is only (he extent and elas..o;ification M this illness that are culture-specific 10 the late nineteenth and early t\\'entieth century. The illness itself is much more. ''~dely auested Shorter has a nice example-of psychogenic par.'tlysis fi'otn 1682.1:- Adetailed repon on se.veraJ recent c.as:es: studied toge-ther was published in 1987: it ioclude~J; 01le paralysed man who responded to llleil~uoct i orl ·get up'. u Attemp(s to exph1i11 Jww people with psychosommic illnesses mimic diseases which result from neurologic-al damage c.ontinue.._. I !'espoud 10 all this by IJ'e.atiog Mk 2.1-12 as a report of Jesus' he.aling a fnan whose paralysis wa.;: of psychosomatic origin: I do not use anything spec.ific to the late 1lit1e1eenth and early twentieth century.u 1

tO. E. Shon.,..r, Fmm ParalysiJ UJ Fatisue. A Hi:>lory (if Ps.w-Jrosomatk Jllm~ss in tile Mtxlmr Era (New Yo•k: Free- Prc-s..'l. 1992). 1.'SP.,."'eially Ch. S. · ~to£or Bys1c-ria': on p.I2S. heMs 1-he t~bo,•c qu(l(alion frofn W. Osltr. The Pri11xl. Tralrsla/i(m and Crmmtttllftl(\' (Sl~hol:us : AIJ:tnla. 1995). pp. 96-1 (A 15}. 112- B (837). 11. A. E. HatYcy.Je.ms and lht COIU'Iraim.~ of Hislmy (BsJ. 1980. londo,l: Dum :n:s ll"i' 1~1 napo).UEiqoav ol Xtip:t; liiJc:lv. 6).i~J~It; r;o-rioxw riPo:
lc, !Y::C P. M. Csscy. ' The Ol'iginal Ar:m~i c Foml of ll:llus' llncrprcu!ionuf thc Cup' ,fl:SNS41 ( t990). t>l>· 1- 12. 19.

J. L Rttd,

(Barri~burg:

15 1

The Heali11g ofa Paralytid's rorgivene-sf. ofthe. man's sins at the end or v. 5. If v. 7 is secondrobahty 1W>l jus1 3 di\•inc IK•ssivc in the M:.rksn comc:\t . .. the scribe~ imcqwt ' >·our ~i ns arc forgiven' 3~ a cl:.im th3t J c!ius hi m~tfh3s 1hc power of 11b!OOiu1ion~ s nd nn~·ily tcjcct 1his cbim . .. The Matknn Jesus docs 1101 dmw bscl: from the impticstioo of ncar-divinity 1ha1 gh·cs ri~ 10 Lhis obj t-clion.~'-'

The use of the Son of Man Concept has the funher problem that Jewish doc-uments whic.h use the term •s.o1l of rnan·of an exalted figure do uo t mention his forgiving sins. Scholars have frequently sought to meet this diOiculty by reiC1Ting h) Dao. 7.13.¥J But in this text 'one like a son of mao' is giveo authority as a symbol of God granting victory to the Jewish people and power over their enemies. There is nothing in it to c.ause Jesus 10 U.!:e the tenn (~)IV;(~) u in respect of the fOrgiveness of si1lS. If he had been so peculiar, no one would have caught the •-efere.nc.e, but as usual there is no sign of puzzlement as 10 what he said. This line of interpretation has also c.aused problems over the pOSition of this \'e.rse in the Gospel of Mark. It ha.:o ofteo boeo argued that it comes too e.arly in this Gl)Spel. This view pres1.1pposes that 'Soo of man' is a m e~ iani c title. II should therefore not be used before Pe.ter's coniCssioo at Caesarea Philippi, when some scholars believe that Jesus began to re.veaJ his mes..:oiahship to his disciples. It has also been argued that it is doubly problematic that Jesus uses the term here in public:- . Mk 2.28 is equally problenuuical for this view, and for the sarne-reasons. This view also generally presupposes tha• Peter's con fes.~io n was a real event. despite the problems which this entails for the use of 38. 39. 40.

Gnilk:.,McJrk11s. p. 101. M:.tculi:, Mark. pp. 2t6. 222. E.g. Gundry. Mart p. 119: M:ttcus. Mark, 1>1>. 22:2- l .

The Heali11g ofa Paralyti

,Olji . I I

The sayin_g C-1H1s with Je~o;;us' orders to the mao to ge-t up, take up his ntallrel\S and _go home. where he had recently been c.ared fot as a paralytic. It IOitows lhat tl~re is a sense in which v. I0 rerers to the power or Jesus in paJ1icular. At the same tjme, \\'C have-seen that this idiomatic. use of (~)\73(~) 1~ also has a general level of meaning. This has been at the c.enlre of uaditional objections to any Aramaic. e: (Oa1l. 5.12,16), a..~ well as ro 'dwell ', both literally ( IQapGen XXII,I 3)and melaphotie.ally (Dan. 2.22). II is abundantly aucs1ed in late-r Jewish Aramaic, whc1-e

its even bro;~der semantic area occasionally includes reference to the forgiveness of si1K For ex~un ple. at y. Shevi 4,2112 (35b) il is used twice with re. lerenc~- to R. Tarphon forgiving people who struck him. once when they a~k him to and once when he says be bas done so. 1t conti1lued in widespread use in Syriac. including

references to the absolution of sins. It will be evident rronl the above distribution of these l\\'0 \\rords d1at j1J :;.i is 1'1-rue.h the more likely word to have been used by Jesus in first-century Galilee. Its brood

semantic. area is of fundamental importance. How could a healer heal someone su!Tering from paralysis of P-">'Chosornatic origin? Only by doing son1ething

h)

relieve the psychosomatic c-ause of this illness. What then if the Explanatory Model 44.

Sec Pt).

ISl--4 3t)I)\'C.

The Heali11g ofa Paralyti.•lk 2. 10. I have already noted that the forgiveness of sins by God could be referred to in a context of this same Explanatory ~·lode! of illness with an actiw pa.1iciple in the pluraJ (b. Nt!d 41a).a$We now have a third attempt 10 express God's activity. with the idiomatic u.~e o f(:-:)1.9~~) -a. Tile-reason for puuing it this wa)' \\'as Jesus' central role in the healing e.vent, whic-h he \\'as about h) demonstrate. It gave vety po,verful reassurance to the man that he had done the. right thing. in coming to Jesus personally. since Jesus had the power to undo his sins himself, as he and the man must now demonstrate. The term~~ facilitates this way or puujng it, bec.ause of its broad semantic are~'!. It also penn its the general level of meaning which is an essential facet of this idiom. This genemJ leYe-1of meaning assumes that more people than JeslL~ should haYe. had the ability m undo the effects of sin in the case of psychosomatic illnesses for whic-h the Explanatory Model used here was appropriate. This must to some extent have been the case, because. as we.have seen. both Essenes and Therapeutae were involved in the healing of what we would call psychosomatic illness, and the. Explaoatory ~'1odel accordjng w \"hich illness was caused by lhe sick person•s; sins was a biblical and \\'ell-koown rnodel. I low \\'C-11 aware Jesus was of the detailed behaviour of other heaters we do not know. He may haYe been genernliling from his ow'n experience. In that ease. the agg,res.:;ive way he expressed himself wa.:;; due to his abilities be.ing denied by his opponents, and perhaps not generally ;.tccepted by other people. We know that he accepted the ability of other exorcists. even though he. \Vas the most able exorcist of his time. known to us. ~,; He rna)' \\•ell have delibe.rately sought todemonstr:ue that God enabled people to undo the effects of sin upon illness to a muc.h greater degree than people realiled. This is explicit in the editorial work of Matthew. who has the crowds glorify God because he had giwn such power to men (Tole; tiv9pc.inou;. ML 9.8). lloweve.r sec.ondary thjs editi1lg was at a literary level. it is cuhurally accurate in recognizing the geneml level of meaning implied by Mk 2. 10. It is alw implicit in seoding, the disciples out on a healing minilitry (Mk 6.7, 13,30), sinc.e cases of illne-ss fOr which the same Explanatory Model was approp1iare are likely to have been encour1tered. In due c~lur:ie the ro..,;·er to fOrgive sins was taken O\'er by the church. without any particular connection with the. healing of illness (Joho 20.23, cf. lk. 24.47). The. phrase En'1 11)c; y% has bee1l (roublesonle-. h is l)l\\itted by W b q, and it is in a di tl't1~nt place in dilferent manusc-ri pt~. so it rnig,ht be a gh).»S. I have follo\Ved the.order of words in f>R' :.: C 0 and several other manuscripts: i nl n)'; yijc; ci¢>uival 0:1JapTiac;. This is a good combination of ancient witnesses. Metzger prefers ciq11ivcn iQ.JapTiac; En'1Tiic; ~with B 0 pc. eommentjng: that this 'rtp•~se•1tS tl1e-prirnitive. 45. 46

Se-e 1,· 152: above. Casey; Aramaic Approodero Q. pp. t64- 13.


166

Aramaic order of words, which was re-arranged perhaps for subtle e:\:egeti(:al reasons. by copyists wlU) produc.ed the other re.adings.· ~ ? H e does not however specify reasons for regarding this a~ the primitive Aramaic order of words. nor does he explain the subtle exegetical reasons. It is in fac.t dinicuh to accouot fOr all the-scribal changes as deliberate. where.as they might all represem reasonable reactions to a marginal gloss the position of which \ !laS not obvious. I have I«es it I I times, both redactionally (l k. 11.45; 20.39) and in S)Je.cial lukal'l material (Lk. 3.1 2; 7.40; 12. 13; 19.39); one-example has probably beeo retaifled from Q (lk. 10 .25). He retains from Mark i1s u..;e b)' outside-rs (lk. 9.38; 18.18; 20.21.28), and alte-rs it h) i mot ciTa only when it is used by Jesus' disciples in general (Lk. 8-.24). or by Joho in par1iC\1lar (Lk. 9.49). Jle orllils it only at Lk. 18.21. abbteviating a s~ch b)' an outsider who has already used 61licioKaAE-al lk. 18. I8, and at Lk. 2 1.5, where he c.ornplelely removes unwanied direc1speech by a disciple. We should infer thai !he Q source.probably re,W pal3[31. h I'OIIows thal 1he Q opening edited by Manhew and luke probably read a.ll follo ws: Kc:it itc; ypaiJ~anUc; E1mv o:UT4 Pa:~l31, ciKoAouO~ow oo• Orrov iO-v &rripxn. l11e scribe's declaration is an ope.n profession of 'vould·be discipleship. h is significa1Hiy more 1han 1he ave-rage profe$Sion of discipleship to a rabbi as we lind

170


it in later rabbinic.al literature. Someone who decided to be a disciple of a particular rabbi, and \\'ho was accepted a.:; such, would expect (0 sit at •hm rabbi's J{>et, Je.aro

a great deal and pUl it into ac.tion. They would not however nonnaJiy expect to ha\•e to follow their rnbbi from p1ac.e to place. Here is the importance of the end of 1he sc-ribe's declar. 13.22; 34. I3; 43.20: llrnm. Narmul Hislory•. pp. &5, t10.

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example, Sam son is said to hrrot (II. A. IX,44.630a). which j ackals are not. Hence soggesl iOilS such as 'stoat', or 'cive,f .6 All this e\•idence fit~ together pe-rfectly: ci~c.lmKEr; was a good translation of ~·7!7n, and there was no reasonable alte.rnarjve-.

6. A. L Peck {cd. and trans.). Aris.tot/1!'. His.turicr Animalium (LC L .; vots.~ london/ Cambtidgc, Mass:.chusct~S;; 1-lcincm:mn/Harvard University. 1965), voL 2: pp. 377-8~ 0 . M. Balmc (cd. snd trllllS.}. Arislotle. Hi:>tOJ)' ofAnimals., Books VII- X (Cambridge. Mcm:nchtlS('IIS: Ha~·:ud Univcrsi1y, 1991}. p. 387.

173

The next creatures referred to are birds. They are a quite different class of

creature, massively common, and conventionally described with refere nce to where frol'l1 an eanhbound pe..s;pecLi\'e they c-~.)uld reasonably be pe.rceived t t) belong. Schwarz omits this \\'Ord, which is absent frOI\l Tilotnas 86. 10 give him a ' Zw eihe-ber ' appropriate 10 his 'K iagdied-Rhythmus ( 3 + 2 lle-bungen)'J This reasoning should not be accepted. Tile- term ~P~W has an exce.lleln Sit~ im U he11 ~'lliV,

here, where it prepares for the fact that this massive number of creamres who do not even live on the e.anh are still provided by nature with somewhere to go. The. absence of the term from a Coptic version of this saying written so much later is too weak as 1exrual evilk!nce to be of any real significance. The as..~crtioo 1hat we have a •Ktagelied·Rhydut)u.S (3 +- 2 llebungcn)' is quite atbitrary, and contrary to the 1cxt as it stands. We then c.ome to a quite c-ruciaJ word=KCXTaOKflvc.low ; in Greek= for whic-.h I have roooostructed l'lJihl io Aramaic. The major pOint which is ea.~y to \'eril)' is that Ka t aaKT)vc.la< are 1101 ' nests' . The Aramaic lOr 'nests' would be l'lP. for whic.h any reasonable translator would have put vooa 1cic;. using the standard and straig:luforwa.td Greek word lOr nests. It is therefore quite extnlordinar)' that

Bumey, Je.remias and Schwarz should all have used rrw, that l la.m pel should have continued with it live years after I had pointed this out, and that Smith, after quoting

reconstruction, should nonethe.les.s make the nesting of birds important for his interpretation.t(

Ill)'

r D:oh:l is exactly the. c.orrt."'(:t \VOrd to rec·OI'IStruct is subject to slight uncertainty, but makes no significant dillerence. h is a "'eJI.auestOO wt)rd both in biblical lle.brew and in later Ar.uuaic. At Ezra 7. 15 it refers h) God's d"'elling in Jerus.alen1, and it has been restored as pldo at I Eu. 89.36, " 'hC:J'e it refers ro the Tabemacle. In 1he Hebrew Bible, d1e singular p V.o is alrt\OSt always used or Gl)d's Wh edu~r

dweUing. but this is probably due to the content of the Hebrew Bible, that is to say. the reference of the word rather than its meaning in either Hebrew or Aramaic. The. same. fac.tor will have affected the usa~,e of the LXX. which nonnally renders it with OKflV~ or cm)vw~o:. both of which are from the same root as KaTO:OK~vwmc;. KO:TaCKflV6(.) in the LXX almost always renders the llebte\1/ p \if (mol'e than 50 times), and like\vise the Aramaic pit at Dan. 4.19 Theod. pldo is rendered with KO:TaaKrlvc.JOt~ at Ezek. 37.27 LXX, aod by Symruachus at Ps. 45(46).5 and Ps. 48(49). 12. Thus it seenB to me to be the best choice, and it-:: translation with Ko:t aoKr}vc.JOuc; in this context is sound and comprehensible.') It is bo,vever possible that pldo was too ch)Sely associated \1/ith God's: d\velling

and not in normal usage in a general sense, and it is not the only word which Jesus might have.used here. r ?7.m is used here at tvlt 8.20 by pesh sin c.ur, at Lk 9.58 pesh

cur. and suitably elsewhere in later Ammaic, and ~·leyer used it in his recons1ruction. 1. Schw3n, Menscllelrsclm. p. 190. 8. Burney. Ponry, pp. 132. 169: Jcrc-nl ias. New Tes/tWit'llt '111eolos:r. p. 23: li ~Ullt>el. MeiUCI!rosolrn. p. 227: Schwarz.. Memdrensohn. p. 191: Smjth, 'No Plac~·• csp. p. 89. 9. This .sc~Jil$ 10 b:.vc been acccp1;:d e.g. by Oavks :.nd Altiso.~L Maul!ew. vol. 2~ ~l. 42; Nolland. Luk~. ,,. 538.

174


The singular tt?u11 is used in the senlte of 'roM' in a documellt of 408 BCE. 111 The \'e.rb 7?1:' is round at Dan. 4.9, and the noun 77o (or possibly the verb) at l iQTg Job XXVI11.7 (Job 36.29) atld probably at I £11. 4. At Oa11. 4.9 Tileodotion rendered 77o with KaTaOKI)v0(.) (LXX oKu:i:~(..)). It is therefOre possible that ??ui'l Y.•as io use io

the Aramaic. of our period wilh lhe required meaning. and if this was the c.ase> the rendering KataOKflvc:.)ow; would have beetl sound. AtlOther pOSSibility is 1"'110. This is used a1 Dan. 2.11; 4.22,29; 5.2 1 and I IQTg Job XXXII.S (Job 39.6), \\'here it renders the l le-bre\1.' pii/i'l, as \\'ell as in later IlebrC\1/ and Targumic Aramaic. In this context a translator might have used kO:TOOKflvc.low; rather than the perhaps more likely KO:TOtKio:1 used by Theodotion (Dan. 2.11 ; 4 .22,29; 5.2 1: of these examples, the LXX translates the equivalent of our ~.oo Bi- oU6n..O; p{nOT•v. O:>J.. 'ciou(OI "a'• .Xvi6P'lTO• u£Tct -rikvwv rr).o~VTO I .::ai yuvattv (IX,5.828c). The wild bea.>~ rs whk h f(l3m over haly h:."c each of 1hcm a hole :llld ,,bee to lie dov.n and tl'lcy haw hidi.ng-,,l:.ccs. bur those who lighl :.nd die f.:tr l1aly have a shtu~ in a.ir :md Jighl bu1 nothing dsc:. but the)' v.·andc:r homdcs.sund unsculod with ( hildn:--n and women.

These two passages. in different language-s and from different cultural situations more than a century apart. do not constitute e\•idenceof a proverb. What the Plutarch passage does do, with a saying which may well have originated with Tiberius Gracd1uS, is to illustrate the fact that \llhen people's l iving conditiool> are harsh

enough for social rather than environmentaJ or climati' of "'tfatlbew ru l e~ 0\lt the argument that one is l'O underSland .l eS'lL~' ~te.reoce to "home l e~sness" in 8.20 in strictly literal terms'. In support of 1his, King:;bury cites passage$ of Matthew's Gospel in \Vhicb Jesus Jives in a re~i dence, ~Ianing with Nazareth (ML 2 .1 1,23) and moving to Gapemaum (ML 4.13). He particularly stres:.es that 'at 9.1. a passage in the imrnediate context of 8.20, Capernaum is eYen dC$Cribed as Jesus' '\)wn city'". He. then suggests that ' the house there in which he frequently stays is to be distinguished frorn that of Pe•c.r (8. 14) and regarded as belonging h) himself (9. 10.28; 13. 1,36; 17.25)'. u This is an example of using the study of one Gospel to remove the Jesus of histOI')'· h presupposes the study of this saying io the Greek language of ~:Ja tthew instead of the Arnmaic language. of Jesus, with the I J. 14. 15.

(o.bnson. Saying.f. p. 12. Munson. SayingJ. pp. ?2- J . J. D. King);bury. 'On Following Jcllull: 11tc "F.agcr" Sc1i be a.nd the "Rclucranl.. Disciple (Mntlhcw 8. JS-21)'•."-'T'S 34 ( 1988). pp. 45-59 (50).

m resuh that the general le.vel of meaning is ignored. KingsbUI)' the.n proceeds with the assumption that the question is whether Jesus ever lived in a house. a question which completely is.nores the context of the migratory ministry. When he argue-s that Je.sus had his own house in Capemaum. he. makes use of passages which are. either Matthean redaction or special ~·tatthean material. This is not a satisfactOI)' way of treating a Q passage which has an excellem Sit:; im Lebi'n in the ministry of the historical Jesus. With the situation in JeslL:;' rninis1ry l'e-llloved, so that Jesus' suppl)sed 'home-lessness' 'caonot s imply be understolxl lite-r ally', Kingsbur)' Je.ads into his cre.ative redaction criticism with his que:aioo 'whic-h shade ofmewphorical rt\eaning

suits il best?' To aoswer the question which he has irwented. he heads straigtu lOr the centre of his own frame of reference: ·~crut in y or Mauhew itself suggests that it makes allush)n 10 lsnlel's "repudiatit)n" of Jesus.· To supj)Ort this, Kingsbur)' cites passages from all over MauJ1ew \1,/hich relate-Je$uS' moving away from any kind of problel'n. beginning with Joseph taking him from Egypt (Ml. 2.13- 14)."'; None or lllese passages .nentil)ll eit1ler (~)1.91 {~) 1:l haviog •nowhe.re to lay his head'> t)l' Kir\gsbury's ' homelessness'. In short. having igoored the laoguage and setting of this saying in the ministry of Jesus, Kingsbury has created his own Manhean world. This does not tell u.s what e.ven Mauhew lhought of the fragme.ntary piece. which he fitted into part of the ministry when JeslL't was travelling about (Mt. 8. 18.23,28), before he rerums to ' his ow·n city' at 9.1. It employs a •nethodology which ca.n on I>' lead to serious distortion of the. life and teac.hing of Jesus. Both these suggestions illustrate how far we c.an get from the life and teaching of Jesus if we do not study his sayings in the. language in which he spoke them :.tgainst the background of his culture in geneml and his ministry in panicu1ar. Having done so, I lUnl finally to the-pn)Cess or transhlliOI\ rrom Aramaic ioto Greek, lOr this must be comprehensible if tJ1e proposed reconstruction is to stand. We have alre.ady seen that. despite-the s.hift in me.aning which took place. OAc.lm:KE~ was the only 1easonable pOssibility 1\) r ~·'nrn. TI1e \!JOrd .Jl(.)XEoUc; was equally cle.ar ror l'ilii, aod txouo1v is no more than idiomatic lOr n;1? ·n·~: sin'lilarly, rd m n tvd ro\i oUpcxvoU is an obviou.r; rendering o f ~"'"r.-ii 'i~S. The translator ruay have had a bit of a problem over l'JJiili'l, btH \\''e have seen thatKaraoKqvc.low; is a good solution. and it may not have take-n long 10 think of. As often, {~)tzi:(~) -a is pOtentially problernatic. because it h.a..;; a general level l)f meaning. refe-rring to the scribe and the disciples. as \Veil as a specific. reference to Jesm:. We. have seen that the translators responded to this by adopting a strategy, using 0 v"u)c; ro\i 0:v8pc.lrrou whenever {~)&J(K) "U refers to Jesus. This is a perfect e..'(ample of the shift in meaning which may result from this suategy. The.translators have used 0 vi~ ToG O:vepc.lrrou bec-ause there was a genuine.reference to Jesus. as he led a migratory phase of his ministry. This was the-best that they could do. and as proper bilinguals. they could still see the original idiom in the Greek version of the saying, for they could read dte-tirst artide in 0 v"u)~ ToU OvOpc.lrrO\I as generic. as 16.

Kingsbuty. ' FoUowing Jes-us' . 1,· 50.

178


we should all read 1he second in every ()CCUITC-llC-e. l n the finisl1ed Gospels, however, 0 ui(x; roU Cxvepc.lrrou Mtcn refers h) Jesus alone. It can be so read he.re, and in 1hat

case the general level of meaning is lost. This reduces the effectiveness of the saying as a direct response to the scribe. and removes the.general level of application to the disciples on the mig.ratt)ry ministry. 1l was still the best strategy that the traoslators c-ould tind, especially as it retained clear re lf1~nce 10 Jesus, the le-ader ofthe disciples

during the migratory ministry and the centre of the faith of the Christians for whom the Gospels were written. We shall see that this strategy was :.t central factor in the transilion fi'o m (~)lii:J(x.) u to the use of 0 ui6c; To\i O:vOpulnou ns a Christological tide. The rest of the saying was straightfOrward. Tile 1 was correctly rendered with Oi. placed af\er the tir3:t article. The negative N7 has the straightfOrward equivalent oU{K), l)(li• for :.7 ~n~{\ is the same idiomatic rendering as in the previous line, and noV isc.orrect fOr +lK nlv "KE¢aAftv is inevitable for ;;t'"\ KAivn is a sound rendering of l lOO' and correctly placed at the end of the sente.nce, and :1~ should be 01nitted

because it is redundant in Greek. Thus the. translation was an excellent piece of work. and it is fOrtunate that il was literal enough fOr us to reconstn.•ct Jesus' saying

and part of the introduction to it in its. original Aramaic. The following conclusions nK•)' therefore be drawn. This Q saying and pan of the introduction co it can be reconstructed from the Greek versions in Mauhew and luke. h was tra.Jtsmiued with the very small number of sayings \\•hich I"Ollow it, but otheJWise it was transmitted in isolation from the re.st of the Gospel traditions. While both evangelists edited their introductions to fi t it inro dim~tent parts M their narrative, paJ1l)f t11e introduction and the whole or Jesus• sayiog arc verbally identical in Greek. The same is true of the next saying. It fOllows that this patt Mthe

Qmaterial was transmiued to the evangelisrs in Greek. The translation was however lite.ral enou£,h for us to be able to n.~.onstruct the original Aramaic. What emerged was a genuine inc.ident from the tile or Jesus. Oo the verge of a mig.tah)ry phase M his ministry. Jesus was confronted with a potential disciple. who promised to follow

him wherever he went Jesus responded with a general statemem comparing the lot of human beings in such conditions. and therefore partic.ularly the situation of h.ifnself and his disciples, indudiog the scribe. if he jl)ined them, with that ofjackalsl fOxes and bird.;. This functioned as a wamiog to the scribe. It \\1liS sufficiently

memorable to be transm.itted. partJy OOcause of the dramatically parlous conditions of life on the migratory ministry. and perhaps also because il was written down at once or very soon thereafter.

Chapter Seven T HE S oN o F MAN JN THE H EAVENLY C ouRT ( L UKE

12.8-9// MAlTHEW I0.32-33; MARK 8.38)

The purpose of this chapter is to consider two or more sayings which have bee-n transmitted in more than one version. Two excant sayings use the term 0 viCe; ToU av6pc.\nou ( Lk. 12.8; Mk 8.38), and tlu-ee do '"" (Mt. 10.32-33; Lk. 12.9), but il is arguable 1hat hVU or three original sayings used the 1ern1(~)W'J(K) u. and thou tllt~ olhe-r versions are due to 1he lr.'lnsJation process aod the editing l)f the eYange-lisrs. I begin by suggesting a possible. Aramaic substratum for two origina1 sayings which were subsequently edited. These might be reconstructed as follows:

X.7 7K '1 ~,,_,.;:;. Q7ji ;;:: .,~ Y VJK -u "~ .4 EWI)'Oilc who coofcsscs nlc before (Lhc soos of) men, a/the son of man will cootCss him (/her) too bcf(I(C the angds \")f God. And whoc\';.' t denies me befOre- (the- sons of) me.,. 3fthc son of m:.n will deny him (/h~'f) bcf\'Jt'C 1hc angels of God.

I begin with 1he first saying, which I have rec.onstructed from Mt. I0.32// Lk. 12.8. In both Greek versions. there is one cleat and undisp-uted Aran1aism, 1he lt.~e- of Ev following all four occurrences of 61JoAoyE(.). This does not occur elsewhere in the. New· Tes!ament. notably not at !he closely related Rev. 3.5. where the heavenl)' Christ says of the victorious Christian from Sardis. 6tJoAoyr)oc:.:> TO Ovo~-ta aUroU ivC:mtov reV rraTp&; IJOU Kal ivc.lmov r~v ciyy€Ac:.:>v o:UroU. Nor is this Aramaism found in the alternative version of the Gospel saring at 2 Clem. 3.2: T6v 0~-toAoyr}oavTv civ9pc.ln(.)V, 6,.toAoyr)o(.) aUrOv i vilrr1ov ToU rraTpcit; pou. This underlines the-fact that this is a clear Armnaism. which implies a written source which c-aused such straightforward interference in the translators. The recon:-.Ltuction of ~ '1P ill line I is accordingly very straightfl)tward. Conventional scholarship has soog.Jn 10 establish from r-.~tt. 10.32//lk. 12.8 an original version of this saying ill Greek, to be a:;cribed to Q. I have previously sugge.sted that the versions of the. two evangelists make good se-nse as translation variants.' I the.reli)te explairl 1he saying frorn this perspoc1jve as a saying of the I.

Casey. s,m ofMall. pp. 193-4. 232.

180


historical Jesus, and poi1H out the-f.'tults of allemative suggestions. I have treated the

connecting links of each evangelist as their own editorial work. Matthew uses oUv 110 less than 57 l imes. and it cannot real.Ona.bly be regarded as a trunslation of an Aramaic \\·ord, so it n'HISI be excluded. Luke's ~iy(.) ~[ UJ,Jlv can be more reasonably defended, and Pesch went so fur as to suggest that it is an abbre\'iation of ciiJflV JJ.y.fMarf:O.GlJspd, ~l. 194. 6. Se-e cs1>ceially J. kremiall, Tl•e Pruy~rs ofJesliS {london: SC~t. 1967}. I. 'AbOO •• pp. 29- 35.44- 5.

182


which panially defealS the intention of introducing tJ1e angels.' This view is panty lxuoe.·lk 12 .24), and in many other ways, such as his re-ference. to God instiiUiing indissoluble marriages in th e process of creation ( Mk I 0.9). Moreover, .lesu::• use o f S..i7K could well have given rise also Lo the editorial use of ToU rraTp6t; in the paralle-l version of the-Se sayings {f\•l t 10.32-33: Mk 8.38). The cootext of Luke's occ-asil)nal additioo M a elatil'y iug ToG &EoU is his inheritance of the centrality of God in the teaching of Jesus. The angels howe.ver are not very common in theamhentic teaching of Jesus. and the complete-expres::ion x:1?:\ '1 ~ ~JK7ll makes an excelle-nt contrast with Kt:iJK ' JJ in the previous line. While absolute certainty cannot be obtained. the balance of probability is sHongly i1l favour of the Ol'iginality of K;i7X, \Vhich I have accordingly used in the proposed reconstructions. Vos proposed that the. original form of the e.nd of the saying was reserved at Rev. 3.5, i vWmov ToU rraTp&;- ~ou Kal (.vWn•ov Tc:lv 0iot of view was that be regarded the Son of man·s function as being that of the judge, whereas this saying implies lhat the Son of man i.s actiJlg llOt as the independerHjudge but a~ ao intercessor or guarantor befOre the assize. h The-re arc h !JO things \\>rong \!lith this. One is that if 0 ulCt;- ToG O:vE!pc.)rrou is kept as a Greek title of Jesus aJone, as Manhew often uses it with reference to the final events inclllding the final judgement (see notably Mt. 16 .27-28; 25.3 1-46), the saying docs lh)t tell u.s whether the Son l)f man is the judge-or an intercessor Ol' guaranh)r, because ancie1H judges might confess or deny people. befo re the c::oul'ts over which they had ch1). 212- 22. 230-39 b.:-lcw1. t4. T3dL, S()lt ofM1>. 89- 90, from Mtt~t.'ifhtlJsohn, pp. 83-4.

184


Argument~

for the originality of the Mauhe.an version have been equaJiy unsatisfactory. The. most e.xtensive is that of Hoffrnann.•s. In the first place, the

Kciyc.l is blatantly redactional, so Ih)ffmauo conjecture~o; that it is a n alteration of Ka'• Eyc..l.1r. Like t oU natp6c; J.!Ou toU iv oUpavoi~. K''Itncm'. ZN1l' (,o ( t969) p~l. 9- 20 ( 14- 15). 32. L Gaston. Nc1 Mcme Wf (mmlter. Steu/Je9 htlhe .tlftit!/iC(ltt~ t>flh~ fall fl{.lenr.•·tll~m l111he S.mopti< GJ(H!Is (NovTSup 23. lcidc-n: Bdll. 1970). pp. 403-4. 33. For t1 full ~'1i tiq uc of K.!l~mann. sec P. Berger~ ' Zu d..-n So.""~go:-n:.nntoo ~tzcn Hciligcn R..-etues' . .~TS 11 ( 1970-1 t). t>t>. I0-4-0: ' Di ~ sog.. "StiLu- hd l ig~'fl Rc..--ht~~.. im N.T. Jhr~ Funbion und ihr Si12 im Lcb.:-.n' , 7Z28 ( t972), t)J). 305- 30. 34. Edwards, 'E!Oehat ot~ct~l Corrcl:uivc', p. 14, quo1jng P.::rri1l. Rtdist·o~'trillS lht> Tf'(u·hiJ1g of Jl'.ms. p. 22. 35. K~m:mn. 'Scmcnc~-s·. J)J). 76-7.

71re Hea venly Court

189

n0\1/ would lOr that reason be supported by people witnessing at the final judgement before-the angels in God•s coon. Just as he was the most important person in tllehere and oow as the Je.aderofthe Je$US movement and the final messenger frorn God who called upon Israel to repent. so be would also be-the crucial wi tnes.~ a1nong many at the final judgeme-n t In the next saying. ML 10.33//lk. 12.9, the d i fn~•e-nces betwe.en tvlatthew aod l..AJke c-an again be accounted for by lhe work. of two translators, with the addition of some editing by the.evangelists. The reconstruction proposed above shows extensiYe. symmeli)' with the pre\'ious sa)~ng. Both evangelists have some form of 00. for which I have ree.o.--.~tJ1JCted the ubiquitous l. This gives an excellent link between the o•igi•lal connected sayings. and the Gree-k is a sound equivalent. ltl place of rrCic; in the-pn!vious saying. ror which I naturally recoo..•ttructed n. r-.•tanhew has OOT•c; ... O:v with the-subjunctive. where Luke has 0 with the paniciple cipvqod:l.mloc;. I have reconstructed 111l, which is the appJt)Ximate equivalent of both 'he who', and 'whoever' . It b.as dtus been correctly t.ranslated lwic.e, in both cases withio the parnmeters of the normal linguistic habits of eac.h evangelist. There is no serious difference fro m ., 7-:>, so this is ellOctively a stylistic wuiatioo which the tradition attributed to Jesus. As I noted in discussing the previous saying, luke now has ivt.)mov, as he does later in this w rse.. rnther than l1Jnpoa9w which both e.vangelists had in the previous verse. and Manhew continues with here. This is perfecdy sound Greek. and both words belong to normaJ Luknn Greek. where-as Matthew does not use &v~n1ov. A• the e1ld or the tirst half of the sayio_g. I have again rec.onstJucted ~1.9:. 611- 12. 38.. Milllcr. Ausdmck •.4lt!ll.f£'heruolm '. pp. 13 t-l: G. R. Bc:~lllcy-M ufray, ltsus and lhf' Kingdtmt of G(}d ( Grand Rapi(k Ec•'dman.ns. t986). t,· 225.

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191

witnessing on behalf of those who confess him, and change to God himself as the sole being who denies those who have denied Jesus. Secondly. there is the argume-nt of cumulative weight fonned by the explanation of both the saying itself ;.md of the. editorial behaviour of the C\•angelists a.~ 1 have jlL~t pn)pO~. Thirdly, there is theargume-nt from Mk 8.38. In its pre-$ent IOnn, Mk 8.38 reads as follows: &;- ycip f:&v i no:toxov&fi IJ~ Ko:i ToU.; tuoi.r; .Myouc: (v T1} ynn~? -rcuhn T6 uotxo).lbc~~:ai Ouo:pTc.».~. Ko:l 0 v'i Oe; ToU O:vEI~noo Eno:•oxv~~ono:c a'.hOv Cho:v il&n iv TO 6~o -roU liO:TpOt; oUToU 1-1ncX T~\1 ci:yy~).(..)\1 TGlv clytGlv.

At first :;ight, this looks very diffe:rent from. f\•11. 10.33//lk. 12.9, but it is intelligible as an edited version of an Aramaic. saying which differs by only one letter from the n.'Oioted out by Jeremias, and I carried it fo1ward. ;,-) I now a lTer an updated \'CI'sion or this hypothesis. beginning with a slightly rnodified reconstruction of a possible saying underlying Mk 8.38:

Here l\.Jatk has replaced lhe ubiquitous l with the-conoecting particle ycip. thereby integrating the saying into jg present Marc.an conte-xt. Otherwise. l\-tark's &; ... EO:v for 1 l::O is very similar to Matthew's Con; ... Civ, and we have already seen that Luke's 6 ... d:pvT)OciiJEVOt; is an entirely re-asonable ahemati\'e to this. The next diffe.rellCe is the flll">St important poi1H, with 1~n proposed behind i rra •o:xuv9fi where the proposed original behind l k. 12.9 has,~,. and the san1e diiTere.nce beh\'een the proposed versions in the next line. These words sound very similar, so that Jeremias was led to comment: 'The bifmx:.ation of the tradition ('be asharned'/'deny') lhU$t ha ...e take-n placed·uring the c.ou~e- oforl:ll tradition in an Aramaic-speaking milie-u. ' 40 This is an entirely plausible suggestjon, which I have accordingly used in producing the rest of the proposed reconstruction of the.Marc.an version. the remainder of which is identical to the proposed rcc.onstmction of the sayi11_g underlying lk. 12.9. I have accordingly s-uggested that the sirnple ""J was translated with ~E and e.xpanded with Kc£1 Tollstam~nl T11eo/ogy. ,,. 7, n. 2~ C:.11cy, Son of Man, pp. 161- 3. Jct\'mias. Nt>w Testamn11 71eeology. t,· 1, n. 2.


192

behiod t'>'l k 8.38 proposed above be lhought probable., this is a very stn)ng argume.Jlt. Finally. I have pwposed •hat the \\1hole of the last piece, 0Ta v EAOn iv Tfj ~~n Toll rra Tp6t; aVToU IJETle's alti(Udes to hil'n during the historic 10inistry would be decisive at the linal judgerne.•u, whe1l Jesus himself and other witnesses \\'(1-uld

deny or be ashamed of them as they had denied or been ashamed of him here on earth. In either case., Jesus used the tenn

(~)v.iJ( ~) 1J

in an idioma(iC way to

S:l)'

this. It follows 1hat \\'e can achieve 1he main purpose of this c.hapte.r io recons1ruc1ing

and interpre.ting two or three Son of man sayings in the teaching of Je.sus. even though uncertainty remains about the details of the Aramaic s.aying which lay behind Mk 8.38. There-should be oo doub1 that, in rwo or throe sayings, Jesus declared that people's a.tlihtde to him during the historic ministry would condition their tim: at the last j udge.ment. If they confessed him iu the here and ntw.·. Jesus and odle.r wimesses would confess them at the finalj udgement.lfthe.y denied him in the here and lu)w, Jesu;.~t and othe-r wiu~es..o;e,s would de.ny them at the final j1.1dgernent. He may also

have. said in somewhat more graphic tenns that if peopJe were ashamed of him in the here and uO\\', Je~~tus and other w i toes.~es Wl)uld be ashamed of the-m at the final j udgement In that case, he would also have made clear reference. to the eotning of God himself for d1e final judgeme!lt. 42.

SCi! Pt). t92 above: 242- 5 below.

194


Even with t.hi~ degree ofuncerhlinly, the genuine sayings \!Jhich I have rec.o,•ered are of central i•uporl' the firSt of which is Marcru~: KO:.I E-~EASc::.v £~1,· 85-6. This was rej.x1cd by ~tastin, who insi!:·~'l7 1\i;t!-r, which would mak~ non~'flSC of nly sugg_ession. Mastin's: i nsi~• encc th31 we ~houl d usc oo1y Qumran Aramaic 101'-"COilSU\Ie-1 souro::s f1001 fi rst-century Gsl il~ is howewr oonlplctd y ttnlla1is:faclo:uy (s:ce pp. 56- 9 above). •-rt nl3y be ti>llowcd by a 1>ankiplc- i.n. both later Jewish Ammaic and in Syriac. so it is entirely rcasonabk to posit it here. A diO'erent .AO: nmlfill .:ai O noOa.:t~ao&iivcu UnO T~V l'Tpl~uTipc.w .:ai Tilv apx~nnif\£, hc:llings to-day and tOOllliTOW. and ont.hc thil\i d3y I ttnl p.:rf.xlcd. »BUI I run goi.ng 10 pl\~ccd lO·day 3nd .·lk 8.3 1, Pete.r understood him immedialely and reac1ed memorably. Uy 10.3540, Jacob and Joho understand 1hat their request to sit on his righl and left in his glory entajls that they share h is de-ath. That in the meantime Jesus made another prediction of his death and resurrection. and none of the inner circle of three.nor any of the olhers understood him and were too afraid to ask, is not plausible. It lits very well. ht)\\ Cver. irno Mark's reg.reuable a11d inlluenlial view of lhe disciples' Jack or understanding. We must infer that ~·lark wished to present another pre.diclion by Jesus of his death and resurrection. bUl thm he rewrote the tradition because he did not have a prediclion othe.r lhan that underlying Mk 8.31 to present at that point. 11lis •es.ull is cort.linnOO at Mk 10 .33-34 : 1

'1000 civo:~iVOIJH" ti~ 'hpoo0Av1Jo , ~:a't 0 viC., TaU O:v&pc.)rrou napo:&&r}ona• Toir. cipxupnjotv Kai Toic; ypaiJpan-Uow, .:ai t::o:ToxpntOUotv a1hOv &ovch~ ..:a'• no:po&.>oouo•v oUTOv Toir. ~6wow .:ai i~mo:i~ouo•v aUT~ .:a't il.lntVoouo•v o:Vn:;:a ..:al IJO:OTtyc.XIovo•v aVrOv !::o:i dnoKttiiO'liow, .:a't IJHO: TpEit; ~!Jipcxt; civo:onlono t.

Here again, even more obviously than at Mk 9.31 , the~ is 110 possibility or reconstructing an adequate Aramaic original of the prediction as a whole. Moreover. we c.an see where the details have. come fro m. 0 v'tOc; Toli O:vOp(.)rrou is from Mk 8.3 1 and 9.31. rro:pacSo9rionat is an improwment on napacSicSoTa:l at 9.3 1. Tol.; cipxlepEOOtv.:o:1 Tole; ypa~pan\iotv replaces theSemitictk XEt pac; O:v6pc:.)rr'*lv at 9.3 1 in light ofUrrO Tilv npeo~rip(o)V 1L"ltive materia] of1his kind is covered by retaining 1he phtase 6 civaytw..)oK(.)V voElT(.). This is the simatiot~ fn)tn which Mauhew urges pe.t)ple io Judaea to llee.Heal.o;o expands the instruc.(ion to pray tllat their tlight does nm take place io winter, with JJTI~ oo:~JkiT:1cm i m~rptcL.'\tioo of0anicl 7. ~...x- Casey. StHI ofMan, Ch. 4.

214


We know from other e\'idence that this was a genuinely serious problem. For example. Josephus ha~ this account ofTheuda..s: Wh¢n Fadus was procurator of luduc.a. a certain impostor (y0rr,) called ihcudas pc-rsu:.dOO: most of d1c masse's to take up the.ir possc.ssions and follow him to the ri\•Cr Jordan. For he said h;:. was a prophcl. and that he v.X>Uid p:ltllhe river b)' his command and provide WI easy passuge for thcm. With these:.words hc:.doceivod muny poopk. FadUS-. however. did t101 allow 1hcm to benefit fmm 1hcir folly, bUl sent out ag.sin'-llhc-m a troop of cavalry, which tCII oo

them unc:tpcctcdty and killed man)'. and took many ali\'e. TI1c-y c.aplurcd Thcuda.~ him~lf. cut off his hc.11d tmd took it to JC'rusulem (Alii. XX. 97-8).

This has everything that Matthew was concerned about Like Josephus. who calls him yo!};. Mouhew would obviously regard Theudas os a >jl1]Tn~. He promised signs and wonders. deceived many. and took them into the wilderness. which Matth-ew wams against in the follo\\•ing Q passage (f\+h. 24.26). The resuh of this was disastrous fOr TI1eudas' follo"'ers, as \Veil as for him. f\•tauhcw's predictioo of fat~ Christ-.; and l~l l se pi'Ophets begins \1/ith a slighlly edited version of Mark's warning 001 to believe anyone who says " 'here the Christ is (MI. 24.23). Tilis neatly sets up1he opc-niog of the Q pas.c;age {t>.+lt. 24.26). The parallel h) ML 24.26-28 at lk. 17.23-24.37 is close enough for us 10 infer that ,~,~e are deaJing with common source material. ·The differences between rvtmthew and Luke are howe.\•er so great that we must recognize also that there has been hc.avy

editing. These.differences are of such a kind that they cannot possibly be explained as resulting from two Greek translations of a common Aramaic source. They have resulted from e.xre-nsive editing by the evangelists. Nowhere is this more. obvious than with rvtanhew·s e-: EOTtV, ~i) i~e:S not offel' the detailed discussioo necessary to justifY either his reading be 'idmk or his interpretation of this dinicull verse-. Accordingly, Black•s s-uggestion is methodologically and e.mpiric.all>' unsatisfactory. We must not proceed like this. Mmthew has also elaborated the li£)1tning saying from Q: o;omp yap 1\ Oorpam) i~ipxerot OrrOcivaroAc:lv Ka·· a1~TOl Ec,y; ¢uQllClV, OOre; ;orat ~ rrapouoia Toli ui.oU r oUcivOpi:JTTou. Lighming is always rapid and sometimes destruc.tive. The immediate conte~ t suggests that both features are in view. The mpidil)' of the Son t)f mall's appearaoce makes it painrle'Ss (0 look in the. deserl Ol' in i1llle-r room..:J l'or hirn. The ' "hole passage Mt. 24.23-27 makes sense only if \\'e assume that the Son of man is the Christ. a point which is meant to be.ob,rious by this stage.of the Gospel. and which was stated with especial clarity and emphasis in Matthew •l< versioo of Pcter•s oootes.~ i on (!\-1t. I6. 13-20}. Accotdingly. the l'uue1ion of this comment is to warn people that the pamusia wil l be so rapid and visible thm all the stories of the Messiah being somewhere to be found can be known to be false. in the meantime. The saying aJso looks forward to the description of the. parousia in the following ve.rses. where the sign of the Son of man ¢avr}ono:t ... Ev oUpavc;, (Mt. 24.30), another strong paralle-l \\1ith Jightoing. Mauhew has also retained from Q the sayiog, •where the C-OIJJSe is. there the vultures will gather' (ML 24.28). Tile use of citToi rather than the more. technical ylimCople lsracJ..S

Acco!'dingly, rvlatthe,v•s OTJIJ{i.ov tiL~ petli:'clly imo his Je''' ish culture and into tllt~ scriprural sources of his creative midrash. h is doubly remarkable that he ha..' d"it)stll to describe. it as TO Ofl!JE'Iov ToU u'•oU ToUO:vOpulnou. This further underlines the. importance of the title 0 uiOc; ToU OvepWnou to him. Aller this graphic picrure or dte second coming, f>.•tauhe'v re-produces Mark's C.Ollllllents t)u lhe nearness of the end, \Vilh very lilrle alteration (tvll. 24.32-36, editing Mk 13.28-32). He reinfOrces the warning lhat no one krt0\1/S the e-:' understaodable from within MaHhew's first-ceotury .lew·ish and Christian subculnu-e. Some Jewish sources also say that only God knows lhe time of the End. Fl)r example, Baruch prays to God: ' You alor-.e know che. eod of the limes befOre they (-t)Otc' (2 Bar. 21 .8). This \\'3..t;; very natural, because a lol of people had tried to \ 1.:ork out when the. End would come, but it did not come. The Qumran community were among those.disappointed. and one of them commented on Hab. 2.3: 'ffi1 lingers w:.it for it, for i1 will ~urely eome t~nd 1\01be buc' (H:.b . l .l b). hs imerp1\'1alion

concc:ms !he: men of truth who do lhe Luw. whose h:utds shall not rclux from the service of truth "''he:n the final :~..go:: is t>rolongtd Uf>OO them. For :.11 the :~..g.::s of GOO sh:l.ll come 10 dwir al>l)l>iJttcd .-.nd :.s he has dctf\.~d for the-m il\ 1hc mys1erics of his t)rudl.'n« ( I QpH~b V II. 9-14).

Matthew was in a very similar position to the author of this commetuary. The. parousia "'as a centnll itefn of his faith. 11 had bee-o expected lOr son1e ti1ue, Jonge.r than when Mark wrote his Gospel. but it had not come. The teaching of Jesus himself had no actual date fOr the coming of the kingdom or anything like that. beyond that re-peated at Mt. 24.34 lfom Mk 13.30, that everything wotdd be accotnplished within a generation, and one or two sayings sound suspiciously as if Jesus expected it much sooner. pe-rhaps ewn before his death. Matthew therefore accepted and ~ iolOroed Mark's c.ond usion: like everyone e.lse-, eYen the angels in he-aven. Jesus did not know the tinlf: of the End. complete with his parousia. Christian Christology had de\'eloped very rapidly, and was now \'ery high. as we can see from the titles in Manhew 24 alone. It had not ho\\•ever ye-t bec.ome doce.tic. enough ror people to imagine. Lhat Jesllc; must have known e.ve.rything. With this made clear. Mauhe.w now shifts back to the.same block of Qthat he had used befOre (MI. 24.37-4 1//lk. 17.26-27 ,34--35). Once again, dte parallel passages in the. two evangelists are close enough for us to infer that we are dealing with common source material. The differenc.es between Matd1ew and Luke are however a~,ain so great that we must recognize also that there has been he.avy editing. Here. 5. f(l( llw t~x1 :.nd transb1ion of 1M Eigluccn lknOOk li\'IOS. sec C. A. Eva1\S. Jt:nu and His CoJifempomritJ. Comparotirl! Stlt11ologiC';!II Ocvclot)I~OL~ in Ihe Pau l inc Chutrrov is sutlicienttt) indicate dependence on this text We have also seen that Matthew wa~ aware of using this tex:• when he edited Mk 13.26 to produce Mt. 24.30.10 There are. further paraJiels 4

4

tO.

Scc pt). 2t5--63I)I)\'C.

Oilier Synoptic Sayings

221

between the two le.xK O~a is ul>ed at LXX Dan. 7.1 4, a \Wtyward traoslatio11 in which 1\'C cannot be certain whether it represents t11e Aramaic t p\ h\ more geoeral terms, the whole.scene. is quire £,lorious. There are plural Op0vot (T\O,J) at Dan. 7.9. R. Aqiba s.aw here two thrones. one. for God and one for David. by which he may or may M l ha\•e. meant the Messiah (b. l~ag. 14ai/San. 38b). The virulent rejecti011 of his opinion is due to similar Christian use.oflhesame text. Matthew may accordingly ha"e seen the glorious throne already at Dao. 7.9. The. ac.c:ompan)'ing onge.ls rna>' also be seen round 1he throne-of God at Dan. 7.9· 10, and btingi11g the Son of man at Dan. 7.13- 14. rrcivTo Tci: Eevn at Mt 25.32 could also be taken ffom LXX DarL 7. 14 (where it translates 1\....D.':lli' ? J). Quite how mud! of this Matthe\lt saw in Dan. 7.9-14 must remain to some degree uncenain, btu his use of this text is not uncenain: it was the.basis for his picture of 0 u'16c; ToU O:vEipc.lrrou at the last judgement Otl1er texts may also have been used. whethe.r deliberately or simply through absorption in scriptural!)' based Je\\1ish tradition. We-have seen Matthew use Zech. 12.10-14 at Mt. 24.30: Zec.h. 14.5 has Kal ~~Et k'Up1o:; 0 0£&; pou Kat rrcivn.-1t. 12.28). 14 This also iits perfectly with an e-1Hirel)' feasible l ukan interpretation of r} ~o1AEia r oU StoiJ at Lk. 18. 16. 17. The Gree-k word ivTOt; ha.' a sernantic.are.a "'hid1 does stretch tt) 'within' and hence 'among• a social group. IS TiliS iS SUfliCient fl)t ~VT0:; UIJWVtO refer tOthe Whole. social group of which the Pharisees were :.t part. We should infer from the. word ivr6.;, whic.h Luke doe-..~ not use elsewhere and for which he might more-d early ha\'e preferred i.v pioc,> ( Lk. 2 .46: 8.7: 10.3; 21.21; 22.27: 24.36), that he took this part M the saying from the traditions available to him. His editing of it has C!'llSured that it l·i(S his needs perfectly. The introductioo of th-e tirst Son of man saying in lhis sectioo also fits Luke's editorial purpose perfeclly. The.audience is deliberately shifted to the disciples, who are to be instructed in what the church will need to know in fuwre years. •o.EUoovTal iwipa1 On hn6v1Jrlont

p(o v T~v ri~pWv ToV uiOO ToV

Cw6pt.lnou i&iv

Kat OOt::O~ofu (U. 17.22}.

This straightforwardly describes the. period during which the parousia was e.xpected and did Mt come. It is presented as a prediction of Jesus, S l) that Christians of Luke's tirne-c.ould be rea.o;sured d1at Jesus knew that the parousia would not haptJen as soon as they had hoped. and that their predecessors had been mistaken to expect it. The saying has no parallel in Matthew. and should be regarded as a Lukan 13. Cf. J. T. Cartoll, ' Luke's Ponray-al of the PMrisccs'. CBQ 50 ( 1988). pp. (!04-2t. 14. Soc tascy. ..\ramai< Appmad1 to(!, pp. 161- ?3. 15. J. Lcb01.uficr. •£ntos hymbn. lc scns":.u milieu dcvollS.. cst·il po~si blc'.''. Bib ?3 ( 1992), pp. 259- 62.

224


e.onstruction oo the basis of the tradition which luke ioherited. It is d ear frorn

the three Manhean parallels already discussed d1at the three following examples of 6 ui6c; ToiJ CtvOpcSrrou have come direnou from the pre\'IOUS verse. The plural Tc:)v ~}.Jtp~v at Lk. 17.22 has caused problems 10 somee.cHnmenl!uors, but it has a straightfOrward origitl in the foll owing passage from Q aod il fig in with

Lukan usage mud\ better than is usually thought The plural is used of the days of Noah in Q a1 Mt 24.37//Lk. 17.26, ond where rvtauhew .eters to Jesus in !he secood half of the .saying with~ rra pouala ToV vioiJ Toli O:vOpc.lrrou, Luke has ~v Talt; -.i~ipa1t; ToG u'uy:J Toli O:v9pc.lrrou, very precisely pam.llel to i v talt; -.;~£palt; NC>~ in his versioo of the same verSe. This is quite uarural, because the 'days' M a person's life was a common description of the tirnes ifl which lhey lived (e.g. Lk. I.S; 4.25). luke's expression iv talt; -.i~ipa1c; t oG uioU t oG O:vOpc.Jrrou (Lk. 17.26) looks lbr'''ard 10 a c.onsiderable period after the sec.ond c.oming. This \VOuld be a period of'blis.t: fOI' Je-sus' rollowers, and this is whatlhey are expected (0 look f(uward to at Lk. 17.22. Similar e-xpressions dl) nm occur earlier because e-arlier expechnion roc used on the moment of Jesus' return, as we have seen in discussiog Matthew's treatment of this is.:;ue-. Luke does this coo at Lk. 17.24,30; 2 1.27. The passage of time. c.ombined with the need for the.church not to be dismayed by the deh1y M the single day of the Son of man's rerun1, has Jed Luke to h)Ok at the whole or the later period in a dillerent way at lk. 17.26 and then in editi•l8 Lk. 17.22. The perceived problert\ at lk. 17.22 has led some liC.holars to propose ao Arrunaic sotmion. Tomy proposed that the Aramaic la~tdii' •very much', had been misunderstood and hence. mistranslated as the sign of the accusative te, followed by /J(i&i' ·one·. The original meant ·you will lo-ng very much to see the-days of ..: . TI1is explaoation wos ent1ltlsiascically tOIIow·ed by T. W. rvtansoo. 16 h should no! be accepted. It embl)dies a li\miliar errol' of method. The text has beet~ deemed unsatisfactory. so an attempt has been made. to alter i1 by guessing at the change of a single word. without even showing th.u the .saying ewr had an Aramaic original. SecondJy, the change of a single word without reconstructing the whole sentence means that objec.tions to an Ara1\laic t)riginal have not been raced. Another anempt was made by Black. though like Torre.y he did not work it fully through." He appears 10 suppose llt.al the original Aral'naic '''a$ -x~iJK -u; K'Dl' 10 iii. which he c.on.sidered to be-idiomatic Al'amaic fOI' •a cer1ain Day oafOI' the.Son of Man'. In the expressioo -x•m· ll'l iii, however, Aramaic is no! as dillerent f'rom G~e.k Ol' English as Black suggests. nor is his English translation. To establish the supposedly idiomatic use or the Aramaic li'l in, Dlac.k quotes Dan. 7. 16, where tn)\\'ever K"'.'ll\j::> 10 iii n..eans t6. C. C. Ton'Cy. Thf! F(lllf' Gruptls. A Nt>h'1iv.nslttriotl (loodoo/Ncw York: H:arpt'r. 19J3). p. 312. rollow ia. This reioforces the evide.nce of luke 17 that it ,...-as very itnponant

to him. as such. We can see him making one. change which was important to him.

229


the altetation of Mark's i v vt.jlEAa1c; to iv veq>~An. This fits in '"ith a very literal tutderstiAn suggests that Luke-was not aware of the Danielic reference. for it is such a straightforward move. away fro m the sacred text. lf this is so, luke will have believed that he \\las re,!lriljng f\•lark to make his picture of the second coming more. accun11e. and he will have accepted from "'lark the title 0 v'tO;- roU Ctvijpc.lnou i11 Greek as a true representmion of the te.aching of Jesus about his return. but nO£ as a scriptural reference in the way that Matthew and ~·lark saw it. In place of Matk's prediction that the-Soo of man will send out his angels aod gather I he eleci (Mark 13.27), luke has a prediction whichagain implies the paliSage ortinle before the final e.verns begitl (Lie 21.28).Tilis also refers to~ O: noAUTpU)ou; U~i:)v in such a way as w make clear thm it is the deliverance of Christian disciples which is robe expected. luke pn)Cceds \Vith the parabolic material frotu Mk I3.28.29, clarifying it by saying that whe-n these various eve.n l~ have happened. iyyVc; i oTtV ~ ~aatA&lo toU &oU. This is e-xactly what he has been m such pains to show was not due to have happened e.arlier. and should not have been expected thert. Jn this light. his retention or Mk 13.30 \\1ith ooly slight alteration has p-uzzled scholars: Ouiw My(.) UJJ.iv On oU

tn1

napiAI)o ~ ytv.:O: oiiTfl €; .Xv n.Xvta yivt}Tcu (Luke:

21.32).

If a 'generation' is interpre-ted chronologically as a period of some 25- 30 ye-ars. if we a.~sume tha1 I) yevtd aUTil rnusi be Jesus' own generatjon, and if we funher

assume perfect consistency between what Luke leaYes in and his editoriaJ aims, then this saying is dillicult to 111 into Luka.n theology. lleoce Nolland went so far a.o;; 10 claim., 'This verse is a standing etnba.rras.lltnent ro all attemp•s to see the deJay or the Parousia as a major l ukan preoc.cupatiOtl. •» The rest of the evidence. whic-h I have sorveyed on this rt\alte-r should not however be downgraded in this way. It is not S\trprising that some scholars have argue.d that y~v~a aliTT) has been interptt-led by Luke a.o;; luke's l)Wn generatjon, rather than the generation M Jesus.:• h is however dinicult to tit this iotetpretation into a s-peech by Jesus edited by Luke-, bec.ause he has been so careful elsewhere to distingtUsh between the time of the life. of Jesus and the time of the eschatological events. We should mther note what has hapJJened to the llebrew equivalem "'11 in the Qmuran comrnentary on Jlabakkuk. I have already pointed out lhe trouble caused to the community by the perceived delay in the cortling of the End. Nonetheless, they still desc:ribed llabakkuk's prophecies

n

20. 21.

Nolland, Lul:.t'. p. 1009. E.g. Filzmycr. Lul:.t', p. 1.353.

2JO


as aimed at ll1rH\:l 1 lT.1, 'the last

generatio•~'

( lQpl lab Vll,2). They evidently did

not interpret ll1iiXil '11i;'i chro•wlogically as a period of some 25-30 ye.ars. We lliUSt take the same view of luke's I) ~vt:cX alit11.:: The criticism o r his ' generatil)ll' by

Jesmo, and his threaB ofjudgement against them. has caused Luke to keep the term 'generation· for people. fi'Oil'l the time of Jesus right dowo to his 0 \1/n times. It is nor too long for some. people to have liwd through both. and for all we know such

people may have included l uke himself. luke omits the sayiog about the Son's ignorance-(Mk 13.32}. At Ac-ts 1.7, the

risen Jesus tells his apostles that it is not for them to know the limes which the Father has set, which again reflects the disappOinted expec(;Hions or e-arlier Christianity. Dy luke's time., the \!Jhole idea of the Son himself not kno\lling the time had become

insupportable. The shift into the Gentile world was a factor in this. as well as rising Christolo,g:y. Jo Second Temple Judaisrn, Je\\'ish people constantly revised their pred ic1ions or eschatological event-:;. \1/ithout finding fault with their predee.essors for expecti ng events whic-h had not take-11 place (yet). Greek.spe.aking Gentil~ \\'ere however more likely to suppose that predictions of e\'ents which did not take place as expected were mistakes by the pe.l)plc who made the predic1ions. Luke's editing

has carefully and consistentJy removed Je-~o;us from that group of people. Luke concludes his eschatological discourse with a warning to Christians to live properly and be on the- alert for the last tithes. and a waming that the j udgerncnt will be universaL Christians should hope to survive these things, Ko:l ota8~vcu t~.JTTpooet:v TOU uloU t OO a vepc..lnou. This is an additionaJ Son of man saying. referring to JestlS as the-eschatological j udge. The-re are no signs of Dan. 7 .13, as there were at Mt. 25.3 I. More simply, Luke has so completely ac.(:epled 0 uiOc; ToU O:v6pc..lrrou as a Gree.k tjtfe for Jesus in the last times that he has used it cre-atively as the last word.:; of 1he. eS(:h.atologic.al d isC-t}u~e-. In 1his ~spec.t he is j ust like

Manhew. We have now stl.ldied the maj or groups or Son of man l>ayings \\'hich do not go back to Jesus. and we have found that both ~·latthew and Luke inherited and used 0 uiO; ToU Ctv8pc.lnou as a major tjtle or Jesus ~een in his role in the final

eve-111s. We mlLo;t conside-r next the remaining secondary uses in each ofd1e synoptic evangelists. before proceeding in the next chapter to discuss the transition from Jesus' use of (x.}oiJ(x.) -u to each of 1he synoptic evangelists' Yiew of this Iitle as a

whole.

3. MmY! So11 t)_/ M all Sayiugs ill Mallhew

I n0\1/ proc.eed throt1gh the remaining sec.ondary Son of n\o'ln l\ayiogs in tv1auhcw. The firsl is pe-rhaps tl1e-s trange~t of all:

'22. Cf. E. Ui ws t3m. Jtsus a11d "This Gem~mlitm". A ."-1t'll' Te.\'tamenl Sludy (ConBN'T 25. S1ockholm: Ahnqvisl & Wikscll. 1995}. pp. S t- '7.


231

0Tav .S18tWI((.)OW viJae; £v Tfi rrO>..tt roUTo. ¢~Nyrn ti~ rr!Y hipav· O~n)v yelp ).fy(.) U~iv. 00 ~n) TU.{Ol)n Tdc; rrOM.t.-; ToO 'lopco)). (w.-; civ {Mo 0 uiOt; roU O:~pc.)nov f~ft. 10.2Jt

Thil< sayiog appears at firS-! sighl to be placed during lhe hiS-h)ric nliniSliY of Jesus. h is part of a l'nissionary discourse. ,~,~hen the 1wehre were sent out on a mission to Israel, men1ombly deti1led al Mt. 10.5-6: E!.-; OOOv ifh.Wv IJtl citTiAtrnn. ~:o't Elr. rrOAIV IaiJOPIT~V J11i tioik&rrn: rrop;:V.ofk &i IJci>.).ov n~ nl npci(3ou: ;c( cXrro>.wAO; a o'tt:ou 'lopo;JlA..

This is an excellen1definition of the scope of lhe historical ministry. and it has an e..'(cellent Sil:, im Leben where Matthew has placed it. The e-nd of the discourse is likewise set to perfect ion in the historic. ministry, and it appears to be a piece of deliberate Mauhean editing to this effect: Kat ~yivno On hd.£orv 0 'lnooiir. .StarOooG)V Toir; &.>.Stt:o IJ06f1Tair; o:U'l'OU, IJEri~ll it.ie; OTtiJEiov t rn' be reconstmcted a~ follows: rec.ord~

.i1X j1 K177 zr-n· ;x .rr~7 ;;:1\ ,1!:-> jl'!X An\cn I say 10 you. a:~ign will Cffl~i.nl y not be giwn 1o 1his gc-ncr:ui\'M'l !

h is this incideot which wa.~ fastened on by a midrashisL Frofn it eome$ the seeking ror a sign, .Jesus' critic.is1n of the gc•leration contemporary "'ith him. and his declaration that a sign will nO( be given, a passive which refers to God at least as much as to himself. The midrashisr has qualified this somewt1at with his rc iCn~nc.e to Jonah. We know that Mauhew took this from Q bec.ause he has so muc.h in common with Luke. Both of them have the foUowing: '(tVtcl fi0\n¥1c( . .. OTIIJli OV (f: nl)~nni. ICO:I OI'( IJEi0\1 oU &&r)o;Tal olfrfj ti J.lli T6 Ofl1J £{ov 'IG.lvO ... yOp ... 'twvW; . .. oiiT~ io-ta t 0 uiO; -rOO O:v&pc;)rrou ...

Thjs is more than enough ro show that there wns a Q version. which Matthew and Luke e;.tch inherited in one form or another. The midras.hist turned to the book of

234


Jonah. and produced a scripturally based piece which Manhew was happy to inherit. and whic.h Luke feh a need to alter. The following pan of the Matthean version is a straight quotation from LXX Jon. 2.1:

Thisisstrongevidence that the midrnshist was working in Greek. Moreover. the.whole midrashic comparison make$ excellem sense in Greek, provided thm we understand what the three-day interval means. I have alre-ady brought fC:uward evidence that it may refer to a short time.1" In rabbinical literarure it refers :unong other things to the period before the deliverance- of Israel by means of the re.surtt'ction of the dead.

This three-day iurerYal was supported from scriptures such as I los. 6.2, •oo the third day he-will raise us up'. Jon. 2. 1 is somc.timcs ll'led in the same midrashic.passages. f>.·loreover, }t!$uS himself used the l1uee~y interval with reference lO a relaljve.l y short tinle ( Lk. 13.32-33). l11e Q midr.:t.'lhist worked with a sifnilar concept of a

short time. This is what he meant by the three days and three nights, and he will not have thought that he. was contradicting the. teaching of Jesus. Rather. the midmshic comparison between Jonah and Jesus showed that the de.ath and resurrection of Jesus was the only sign his gene-ration would f!el. and from a Pharisaic perspective, that was not the sign from heaven for which they had asked. The next secondary sayings in Matthew are both in the inte.rpretation of the parable of the tares. It is generally agreed thal the interpretatiotl is completely secondary, and has been c-On1posed by Man hew. It has oo satisl3ctory Sil;. im Leben in the rninistry of Jesus. It presupposes that the parable is an allegory so obscure

that no one could understand it unless Jesus lOid them the interpre.tation. This is contrary to the aims and nature of l11e public teaching of Jesu..~. The interpretation has however a perfeclly good Sil~ im Leben in ~·latthew. who attached the greatest irnportanc.e to the final judgement, with the salvmioo or the e-lect and the punishme.nt

of sinners. The linguistic argument for Mauhe.an composition is especially strong. aod includes some poinl'l which are dillicuh to understand in Aramaic rather thM Greek..;" NO\\'he.re is this nlore obvious than in the first son of man sayi1lg. " 'hich identifies the origioal S0\\1er of the good seed in the field:

Here.me.Greek term 0 uiOc; ToU Crvepc.lrrov is a Greek title. considered by Mauhe\v be quite sufficient on its own to identify Jesus. This C< - luld not be done like this in Aramaic. fOr (K)~J(K) 1~ w·as a nonnal word for man. Consequently, it \VOuld have to be qualified to make refere-nce to M y pru1icular person. In the light of h)

Lhe other passage$ which we haYe already discussed. we must further infer that Matthew regarded 0 u'tOc;- ToiJ Ctv8pc.lrrov as especially appropriate here because of his eschatological role. This is expounded with the second occurrence of 0 u'u)c; ToU O:v6pc.lrrou at Mt. 13.4 1. Here the. Son of man sends out his angels. and the result 29.

Sec t>t). 207- 8 3bovc.

30.

&c csp.._'Ci:JU)' krcmias., Pamltlts, pp. 82- 5.


235

is the punishment of the wicked and the salvation of the righteous. points whkh we have seen to be central in the eschatoh)gical J>rCseotation or Mauhew 24. h is e.videm that Mauhe\\''S knowledge of the Aramaic origins of 0 u'1 6t; ToU Ov6pc..)rrou in no way inhibited his creative use of it as a Greek title. 1l is also significant that 0 uiOt; ToU O:v9pc.lrrou is associated with f!aoiAEia in this passage. especial!)' in v. 41. If Jesus had really taken ·son of (nan' fi'om Dan. 7.13-14, \\'here :zfJ~ 1D receives u7o, this association would have beeo uont1al in his teaching. Instead, \VI!'find this association only in an evangelist who certainly did make-midrashic. use of Dan. 7.13, and who found 6 u'u)c; ToG O:vSpc..)rrou as a ChristoJogicaJ title in this wry text. Mauhe\~J's next Son or man saying has been edited into his tvlarcarl St)urce.ln the inta)(Jucrion to Peter's c.oofes.~ i on at Caesarea Philippi (Mk 8.27}. the rvtarcau Jesus ao;ks his djsciples.

This introduces genuine material recording verdicts that Jesus was really John the. Baptist, Elijah or Tc..lV ohlvt(; oV ltit yEUoc..l\'TOI ao:vchoo (c..y,- O:v i&.>o1v TO\.o uiOv TOO civ&pc.)TTou ipxOIJtVOv i:v -qlj3.o:otMiQ: aVtoU.

llere again we have the collocmioo of 'Son or mao' and 'comiltg', the c:rucia1 indicators or the runhe-r inlluence of Dan. 7. 13. TI1is time we also have a refetenc,e to the kingdorn, which is given h) the •-nan-like figure-at Dan. 7 .14. We have seen lhat it is a standing weakness of the theory that the Gospel tenn 0 uiOt;- ToG O:v9p(o)nou is derived p•·irnarily frorn Dan. 7.13-14 lh.·tauhew nor Luke seems to have be-en satisfied w ith the introduction. whic-h we can 1'10 looger

recover. The ~·lauhean ve-rsion is as follows: 'Ap~v Myw UlJiv On UIJt~ o'a ciKok>u&Qoo:vtie; IJOt. ~v -qj na>.tyytvtoi'q:, O;av Ko:&ion 0 u'•O:;- ;oU Ov6pWnoo Etri &p0\10\J .S~I')C; aU;oO, t::a&iptofh: "o'aU~Jtl~ f:tri SW5n::o: epOvooc; t::pivovw; ;cil; .SW.Su a ¢'uAW;- ;o.:i lopa~A.

The iirst part of th is saying is remioiscent o ftvlt. 25.3 1, the onlyotherNewTestame.nt

text in which the Son of man sits on the throne of his glory. We have already seen that th is is secondary, and that it \1/.i\S paJ1ly fonn ed by c.ooscious use ofDan. 7.9-14. We must make the s.ame inference here. The introduction cannot be satisfactorily 1\.construc.ted in Aramaic, which has no proper equivalent for rro:A1yyEvt:oia. All this evidence is entirely cohere-nt. The spccilically Matthean iutroduelion ro a Q saying has a perl'ect Si~ im Leben in "'latthew. and cannot be reconstructed as part o f the teaching of Jesus. This is moretwer tvlatthew's dominant use of 0 u'16c; roU

O:v6p(.)rrou in sec-ondary sayings, with reference. to the-last times. This concludes our study of secondary Son of man sayings in Matthew. We have seen that Mauhew found the. term 0 viOc; ToU <XvOp(.)rrou in both scripture and tradition. He e-xpanded freely and creatively the usage which he found at Dan. 7.13, \\1he-re he Sil\1/ a picture of the second coming of Jesus. Jo the escharologic.al chapte-r s 24-25, the nou \\•a.r; tonsequendy seen in Dan. 7. 13, and used in 1Hidrasbic cornbinalion with otlle.r 1t~-xts ro por1ray Jesus' sec.oOO coming. another belief of central impOrtance to the early church. I c-<mside-•· the nature of this transition process more fully in the next chapter.

6. Cmrclushms

The major conclusions of Ibis chapter are extraordinal)', though they are well enough known. Despite its origin as an attempf to translate the idiomatic use of an Aramaic. phrnse into Greek. a language which contains no suc.h idiom, 6 uiOt; ToUO:v6pc..lnou was an important title of Jesus in Greek. and that for all lhree synoptic evangelists. Mark and Matthew also found it important that the term was to be. found in Dan. 7. 13, which they treated a.:;; a prophecy of1he second coming or Jesus. Dmh Mauhew and luke have a definably predominant use of the 1enn in Sect.)Jldary sayings: lhey use it with rdt-reoce to Je$uS' role in the eve n t"~) of1he last cimes, a usage ticc :.r~ also.--.dim:rcm: in trsnsl.mioo 1hcch,1icc is •pmgt:.mmed' by Lhc oom..-.u clf Lhc orig)nal. 'A'hc-reas in the- vtrNI acth·ity of a bilingunJ it is dC'temlined by the cxtcrn..1l conditiuns of lhc communka~h•e cw·.nt. 11

This may result in overliternl translation. For example. the LXX translator of Gen. 6. 14 put vooou:Xc; for Lny because it is usually the Greek equivalent lOr this llelu~w word. lie probably did not inlagine a pair of lions living in a bird's nest at the top M Noah's ark. but if he did, he put voootrt: ifl der TrtmslaJiort
_,

? --

Tra11.rlati,g and the U.te of Scripltm:

collective-. and as part of a very explicitative translation. they rendered h with the plural toi c; u'1 oic; ti:lv civepcSnwv.ZJ The third divergence from the agreed strategy was at MI. 10.32-33. Here. the 1ranslator l)pted fOr d1e firSt person pronoun iyi:> in place of 0 u'u).; toU O:vOprrou re-moves the general level of meaning for uninstructed monoglot Greeks. the use of the firSt person singular re-moves the general level of 1t1eaniog c.o mple-tely. We l"lll1.~t infer that the translator believed that Jesus would be the. only imponant witness for ot again~t people at the last judgement, whe-n he w-ould give deci.si,re testimony to God. It follows that these three divetgences from the ttall.SiatorS' strategy do not cast doubt on what that strateg)' was. On the contrary. they illustrate the above comments on the limitations of strategies in the dinlcuh c:ircumstar.ces which cause 1ranslators to adopt them. ll)e translators or Mk 3.28 and of tvlt. I0.32-33 are espec.ially likely to have been very pleased with themselves bec.ause their trans1ations include. explicitative alterations as a result of which the sayings mean very clearly exactly what their respective translators thought they ought to mean. The next point to discuss is why the translators should arrive at 11/is strategy, choosing 0 u'i.Ct;- TOU avepc.lrrou in particular as their fe!lderio.g of (K)t9J(K) , J when it refers to Jesus, as well as having a general level of 1Ueaning. 1 ha, e. noted the uncompre-hending criticisms of conventional scholarship at this point. with Wellhausen and A.Y. Collins among_ those who suppose that the translators should not have used uiOr;. and Hare and A.Y. Collins among those who suppose tJ1at they should oot have used the definite articles.!7 Neither verdict is justified. I begin with v'• Oc; in the Septuagint. The Septuagint was the Bible of Lhe early Christian c.hurches. It wa.:; lherel\)re a Bible with whic.h all the Gospel translators and e.vangelists were familiar, regardless of how well they also knew the Hebrew Bible and/or any available Targurns. Those entrusted with the translation or Gospel traditions from Aramaic. into Greek are likely to have had some knowledge of the Hebrew Bible. Any who may have undergone any kind of appre-nticeship or training, or who attempted to train themselves. are likely to have used the Se.piUagint as a model for seeing how to translate material from a Semitic language into Greek. They are likely to haw bee.n familiar with the stateme-nt of the problem by the grandson of Jesus son of Simch. and if they did not know this passage. they would soon en-counte.r the same problems: 1

1

napCO((.()..ofX o0v IJ£1', nivciiat; Ka'i npoooXJY. Tl)vcivciyvwcll\.' ltOIEio6o:tKO't ovyyvt..ip.f(V ixuv tq,' o\t; .iv 8oK~t.tv civSpc.lnc.:Jv. The 106e:«11llples of Lhe singularv'u:.; ciuepc.lrrou arc i1l ellOCt fewer tlu'ln the)' appear at li!St sight. because tlle-93 examples of the vocative u'•S O:vepc.)rrov in the book of Ezekiel re..suhed from a single decisio1l. In additiOil to this. hl)wever. there are still a dozen examples spread over six dilloreru books: Num. 23. 19; lsa. 5 1.12; Je.-. 49.18 (LXX 30. I2); 49.33 (LXX 30.28); 50.40 (LXX 27.40): 51.43 (LXX 28.43); Ps. 8.5; 80.18 (LXX 79. I6); Job 16.2 I; 25.6; 35.8; Dan. 8.17LXX and Tilet)(L. Tltere-i..;; ooe mioor adjustment in the additioo of ~ at Nu!'n. 2.1. 19 (some doubts about the text or Job 16.21 and 35.8 do nm all~t tlle rnain point at is.~ue). There i..:; also an aheration at Ps. 146.3, \\rhere the plural v'1oU«; O.vOpc.)rrou (LXX Ps. 145.3} has bee:n used: in this case o-n\ p is obviously c:ollective, and parallel to the-plural o•J•1llen rendered with u·,a.; ci:vOpc.'mov, by both LXX nnd Theod01ion. We should also nole. u'100 civGpc.lnou a1 Dan. 10.16 Theod.. where hov.-ever t11ere is a textual problertl in the MT: and lhe renderiog ofthe analogous 1.91::1\ pat Ps. 144.3 with u'10; Ov9pc.lrrou (LXX Ps. 143.3). The only genuine exception h) d1e normal ~ndering is OC:Cl)rdingly atlsa. 56.2, \!Jhere O'n\ p has been ~ndered \\'ith CivOpnts (Ti.ibingcn: Mohr (Sicbo.--cl". 1967), t>t). 55-I 04.

275 haYe two maj or fil ults. ~ In the first place, they arc allrnode-rn oonstruc.rs. Each supposed lll)'th oocurs nowhere. It is a conglomenne drown in small pieces

anempL~

from a wide range of text~, many of them from a tater period than the.Foun h Gospel. Secondly, no such theory led to a proper explanation as to why this Gospel uses the. term 0 ui6c; ToG O:v9p1). H --30 above. P. .\1. Cuse.y. IJ Jolm 'J GostJel Tmt'? (Loodoo: Rout!OO:gc, 1 996)~


276

in the synoptic Gospels on the one hand, and in the Fourth Gospel on the other. The authors of the FoUJ1h Gospel fully intended to rewrite the story of Jesus in accordance with the needs or the Johannint- cornmmlity at Ephe-s.us i11 the fate firSt

century. They hn\'e rewriuen sayings using 0 uiOc; ToU OvOpc.)rrou with everything else. They have rewriuen sayings usiog the od1er major C hristo logical titles with

everything else too.

Three other points from rec.ent scholarship are worthy or initial rncntiou. One is

the contention. associa1ed especially with the work of E. D. Freed. that 0 viOt;- ToU O:v6p(.)rrou is little more than a stylistic variation on other ways of writing about Jesus:' This is not lrue., but Freed's article was part of a process or clarifying some important points. It is notable that, with the exception M Jn 1.51, what is l1Aid of Jesus with the term 0 viO;- ToV O:v9p(o)nou is also said without it It fOII0\1/S that this docume11t does tu)t have a 'Sou or man Christology' which is separate frol'n the rest of its Christology. This is a great improvement on the various auempts in traditional scholarship to uncover a specific Son or man Christoh)g}' understood against a particular cultural background reconstructed from othe-r docurnents. h also follows thar we should not expec.t any particular distribution of the term 6 uiOc; ToU O:v6pc:.)rrou. This is good. because there is no obvious logic to its distribution. which is natural if this document was wriuen by poople who wrote thin~ about Jesus as naturally withom 6 u'u)t; ToV O:vSpc:.)nou as they did with it. A S\.~nd major point h.a.l:( been tl1e revival orthe traditional patristic view that 0 u'tO; ToUO:v9pc:.)rrou is a particular reference to Jesus' humaoity. ltiJ'CC.ent scholarship, the work of Moloney has been especiaJiy notable in prese.ming this v i ew.~ There is truth in this opinion too. Unlike AOyet; and uiO;-. 0 uiOt; toU Ctv9pc.)rrou is for the most part used \!Jith reference to the incanuue Jesus. Once again, however, \\ e must be careful not to exaggerate. At the c.limax of the prologue the A6yoc; becomes ocip~. not 6 u'uX· ToU CrvSpc.lrrou. and the (erm is not used once in the passion narrative. Moreover. Moloney geH into terrible tangle~.; at 3.13-14. whe-re. the term is used with refereoce to Jesus' pre~xistence, asceosil)n and subseque.nt pre-$ence io he.aven.7 Nonetheless. the way in which 0 u'•O;- ToG <XvOpc.lrrou is used for the most part is genuinely significant I shall conclude that it has its natural meaning, ' the son of humankind' and hence the most importam pe.rson there has ever been on earth. The third point is perhaps the most remarkable of aiL There has been hardly any work on the Ara•oaic.level of the tradition. I have shl)\\'11 elsewhere that largescale claims that this document was trunslated from Aramaic are spurious. I ah~l) noted that there. are problems with the. use of 0 u'16c; toV O:vOp

278

response of 'lopanhll'fll; Ev ~ .SOAo:;- oUK ionv (Jn 1.47), a striking contra.llt to Joseph Caiaphas, a.;; well as the better knl)Wn contrast ro Jacob/Israel (Gen. 27.35). AU these points. take-n together, form an overwhelming argument of cumulmive weight The Johannine. comnrunity re"'rote. tvll. 26.64. i1l light of the pmblen'ls

sum>tuldiug Mk 14.6 1-62 arid Mt. 24.30-311/Mk 13.26-27 (cf. Lk. 21.27; 22.67-70).

They had devastating rea..~ons for doing so. The midrashicalty constructed texts of f>.1). 222- 30,239-41 above. Casey. Is Juh1t's GoJpr:l Tm~?. pp. 151-4, with bihliogrsl>hy.

279 A( this point, we must cons ider also the other major synoptic pa$sage ir\ which the Son t)f man is as.:r;ociated \\'ith the- angels ( Mt. 16.27-28!/Mk 8.38- 9. li/Lk. 9.26-27). The Marean ver:-.iou is bad enough. This has the coming of the Son of

man with the holy angels in one verse, follo wed in the. next by the prophec.y that some people standing there would not see death until they had seen the kin£_dom of God come. in power. Everyone in the Johannine community knew that this had not happened. Onee agKa rO nv~UIJO: ~ou i n' alm5v. The Johannine conte:\:t also has furthe-r e.\tidence. of the midras.hic use of the Gene.o;is namltive. I have-noted Jesus' comment on Nalhanael at 1.47, ..Jbt ci:]..qSc:)c; 'lopanAI Tflr; i v ~ .SOAo:; oVK EoTiv. This is an obvious contrast with Jacob at Gen. 27.35. We should also note Joho dle-Baptist's double declaratil)n, Kci:y~ oUx l)&w aUrOv (Jn 1.31,33). This is strongly re-miniscent of Gen. 28. I6, where Jacobi Israel, having awoken from his drean1, declares. 'The LORD (LXX KVp•at;) is in Ibis place. and I did not know· (LXX iy~ 6~ oUK n.suv). This is further evideoce of the way in which our authors were inspired by the scriptural texts. After all this, \Vhat was Jn 1.51 actually intended to !'llean? The c.ofnrne-ntatorS are largely in agreement on one main point. which should be accepted. As R. H. Lighrfoot put it, •rne meaning of this important verse is like-that of 114 and Jl11; it is a description of the coming ministry in which His disciples will witness. their lt)rd's unbroke1l comnmnioo with the Father and will themselves partake in it. This uorestricted com1herce-(cf. S". 8!9) betwee-n the Father and 1he Sl)O of man is here pictured a.'l a never-ceasing activity..,,., This is not only correct in itself, it also fits this verse i1HO Ihe Gospel as a whole-. It enables us to se.e that, \VIiell properly undersmod. this verse is unique only in being a midrash: it~ meaning is perfectly

15. So .:.g. A. T. l·lsnson, 11ft' Prt>JJI!eric Gf).\'fJf!i. A Slruly of JuhJt a11d the Old 1~stament (Edinburgh: i&T Clarl:, 1991). p. 16. 16. R. 1-1. ligh!fMt ((d. C. F. E van~). Sr. l t1hJ1 's Gnspd. A Ctmll/I(JittJr'}; (0Xf(lf'd: Clarendon, 1956). 1). 99.

281

Johannine. The actual tenn 6 u·.ew; roG avep~TTOU clearly refers to Jesus during his e-arthly ministry. Many commentators have. endeavoured 10 draw much more out of this verse, with largely disastrous results. For example. Brown, arguing that the verse was originally an isolated saying, used as his fourth argt:unent, •1here is nmhing irl what follows 51 to indicare that its promise was ever fulfilled, if the-vision promised is to be taken literally.' Sanders and tvlastin infer that Jesus ' is 1he second Jacob, i.e-. the true Israel in his 0\1/n pe-rson •~ Burice.tt, headi•lf; fOr his vie\ll thal •J .SI para.! le-Is the Son or Man with the ladder', objects to the equation of the Son of man with Jacob, conunenting that •the Gospe-l p·uts Na1hanael and the other discip le~;:; in the place or Jac.ob as the recipients of the. vision, not the Sooof Mao'.11 No comments of this kind should be regarded as acceptable. Every one of them pre.supposes that Jn 1.5 1 and its background are piec-es of information fn)m which h)gically ordered deductions may be dra\VIl. It is nothing or the kind. II is an inspired nlidrash whic-h takes off li'om its sources and leaves them behilid. Its present ioterpre1a1ion must be inferred from its conte:tt. The problems which it sought to solve may be inferred from its backgrow1d, and we can find the texts fro1n which it took otf, but these texts do not control it. It remain_. Exn ~c.:~~v o:ic.lVIOV. What about T0v uiOv TOU avepc.lrrou? AI Jn 1.51, '"here it was preceded by ~o&, ltrac.ed il back to rvh. 26.64, \\'here the ultinuue source was Dan. 7.13. Jle1-e it is preceded b>• 0~1. This has rightly sent scholars to the major pas.~ ion prediction Mk 8.31//Lk. 9.22 (cJ: "-·It 16.21). ' vhich ah;l) ha.:; &II and T0v u'16v ToUO:vepc:.lnou. The ~·tauhean version. which has tie'i in the acrual prediction but T0v uiOv ToU O:vepc:.lrrou moved to 16.13, is in the same Matthean Ol)Uiext as Peter's conressioo and the problematic Son of l'nan sayings at Mt. 16.27-28. We ha"e seen that this passage. of Matthew was also important in the rewriting process which led to Jn 1.51 . We must inrer that this synoptic passion prediction was the sourte l)f &I T0v v'•Ov ToU O:v9pi:mou at Jn 3.14. The prediction was already a rewrinen version of a ge-nuine J> oUpavc;> was li.)utld to be too ditlkult by some scribes in the ancie-nt period. The other readjng is not even attested ill Greek. The 01d Latin aod some of the Syriac (cur pal) presuppose&; ~"' tv T~ oUpavc:;>. This is effectively the.same solution to the perceived problem. According to this reading too. the eanh1y Jesus 20. P. l t1mmxau. Jisus Fils d~ I'Homml' t't FiiJ de Dieu. Jtmt 1,23-3.36 tt Ia dou1J!e chri.\·to/(Jgit jolramtique (M omrCai/Pari ~: BdlannintCerf. 1993) p. 176 n. 155 addll Homer. lkiJrachomomyadtia. 81. and A r1 cmidoru~ II. 53, bu11hcsc arc 1)0 m(Jf\" 001\\'incing. 2 1. E.g. D. A Carson. Tl•e Go:.Jwl Auonlillb to John (LdeCS'.ct: IVP, 199 1). p. 203.

285

looks back to his descent from he.aven al his incarnation. the event which enabled him to be the Revealer. Accordingly, this is aJso perfec.tly Johannine. and will have satisfied the scribes responsible tOr it 11le pe.rc.eivcd proble-m with the longe-r' rcaditlg lies io Jesus' apparent referenceto his ascension as a past event. and his current presence in heaven, while he is still speaking here on eanh. This is already implied by the. usc of civa~E~flK~v earlier in this verse. In accordance with 1he classical usc of the Greek petf('(:l, this ought to mean that no one has gone up to hea\'en and is still the-re. except for the Son of man. The addition 6 ~v Ev T~ oUpavc::> then simply brings out what the text must mean in any case.. With the s.honer text in mind. but taking civa~i~T}KEV with its proper force. Burkett put the perceived problem of this verse as wrongly as. possible.: Asurtcct ioo asc~nsion. h was a slip of the Ev::mgd ist from who!IC ~rspo:•ctivc 11\C ascC1l~ion had altcady oocurcd. This explant~lion is 001 sal is fp-ciKO:J.JtVprepares the way for the presentation of him as the ReveaJer who reveals what he knows because he is fro m heaven. This is c-arried further in the following verse: •• , , ' ~ .... · - · · ' U•TO : myn a u9 nov \lj.IIV l"O:l,0\.1 fTIOTEUET€. nLo:l t; HW U ti(..) UIJ!V TO ~1i0Vpo;Vl 0: 1i

' 'n: IOTrUOE

This prepares for the prese-ntation of Jesus in Jn 3.13 as the only persoo fit h) reveal Tci: i rroupciv1a. for he alone has come from heave.n. There. is therefore no question of illl abrupt shill from Je-~~us' perSpective to the evaogelisfs perspective at 3.13: the pe.rspec.tive of the Johannine community has bee-n presented aJI along. and the pronouncement of 3. I3 has i>.'
288


aic.lvlov· 0 00 cim10~v

T~ ui4l oVK ~f,lncu ~t.ll)v, ci),'A •~ Opyi)

ToG &oU p(vu irr'

o.\m)v (3.35-36). This fu ll Christian witness is also the pe-rspective of the Johamtine

community. It folh)ws that 1Hany scholars, represented in the above quotation from Burkett, have C01Hpletel)' misconstrued the oature ofthis discourse. h is a prese-ntation oflhe pe-rspe-Ctive-of the Johannine community from beginning to end. In this pn)found sense, Ju 3.13 fiL~ into its context perfectly. when that conte-xt is properly appreciated. I therefOre proceed to more-de-tailed exegesis of Jn 3.13 aod its background io the C.Ollfl ict between the Johannine community and the Jewish comn1unit)'.

The ve.rse begins with the very strong smtenle-nt that 1!0-0ilt-has gone up to heaven

except for the Son of man. Scholars have naturally thought of Enoch and other sages who were widely believed to have gone up to he-aven and indeed to slill be there. So for example the book of Jubil~-s tells us that Enoch was with the.angels of God for six jubilees of ye-ars. 11ley showed hirn everylhing, and he wrote dow'fl e-.\'erythiog (Jub. 4.2 1-22}. I En. 14 has a graphic ac.counl of Enoch's ascenl to heaven, whe1'e he sees God. At I En. S1.5, a lle-r receiving re-velations, Enoch is brouglu to his house by the seve,n holy ones. and subseque-ntly he writes his revelations for 1\.·Jethuse.lah to preserve and pass l) l\ lo future generations. He is the central IX:\'e.latory figure in the whole of I Enoch, and at I En. 7 1 he is fi nally translated pe.nnanently h) heaven. Scholars have accordingly been right to associate- with the de.nial of Jn 3.13 the repeated comments, already noted above. that no one. has seen God. The prologue put it programmatically: 9£0v oUO~Ic; Ec.lpcuav rrc.lrron · povoywiJc; &Oc; 0 ono•oiJv.

290


Jesus' ret\Jm 10 the Father also pen·ueates the l'i nal discourses. h is S4>metimes stated strrugtuforwardly: vUv ¢£ Unciyc:.l rrpO:; rOv ni~I.J.'o:vTC( ~n (Jn 16.5). II iovolves more complex presentation of the Johann in e community's experie1lCe of God, iuclodi•l g his continued re.\ 1elations to therH. God's presence may be.pn::-sented as Jesus' continued pre.'lence with them. as at 14. I 8: OUiri: ci¢ulo(o) U~Cit; 6p$avoU. ici:v yOp 1.1~ cirriAO(.), 0 rrapciKAl)toc; oUK iAnjoetal rrpOt; U1..uic;· (civ Oi. rroptve~. nE)J~(.) a\m)v rrpOc; UIJ.cic;. AcentraJ fac.et of the role of the Parac1ete is his teaching function. This is clearly presented a1 Jn 14.26. where he. is also described as tO nvEli)Jo: tO

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