Judging the Son of Man - the Synoptic Sayings

In the case of "the son of man," appearance and silence have led to allegations that have assumed an aura of facticity simply because of their frequent repetition. As such impressions are open to conflicting interpretations, however, it is dangerous to make them the basis for deciding the fate of the subject.

1.1. The alleged absence of "the son of man" in Jewish speculation

Justified reaction to overblown and insufficiently critical modern discussions of the origin and influence of "the son of man myth" in early Judaism has led to the opposite extreme of emphatic denials that any such speculation existed among first century Jews. But failure to prove existence is not to prove non-existence./6/ It is true that neither in Daniel nor his later Jewish interpreters was "son of man" used as the name or title of a specific person. But the fact that the authors of 1 Enoch 46-71 and 4 Ezra 13 independently sought to identify and explain the role of the man-like figure in Daniel's vision does indicate that interest in this passage was not limited to Christian evangelists Yet, there is still no proof that these ostensibly novel revelations were in circulation prior to 70 CE. References to "that son of man" in 1 Enoch clearly introduce a single scribe's exegetical reflections on a specific text (Dan 7:13) and, therefore, cannot be cited as evidence of general practice./7/ The so-called "two powers controversy" at the beginning of the next century is evidence of a widespread Jewish interest in biblical texts that portrayed an exalted man-like figure as exercising dominion over the whole cosmos./8/ But there the term "son of man" did not figure even in speculation based on Dan 7. The targum of Ps 8 twice identifies the agent to whom God entrusts the cosmic order as "the son of man."/9/ But it is not clear that this represents anything more than a generic ideal. R. Abbahu's ironic (late 3rd century) warning, "if someone tells you 'I am ben adam (“son of Man”),' he will regret his end" (yTa'an 2.1), does presuppose some current (Jewish?) speculation in which "son of man" was an epithet that one might claim for oneself. Yet, none of this evidence of Jewish speculation shows that either in Jesus' day or later "the son of man" was used in oral statements to designate a person other than oneself.

1.2. The alleged role of Dan 7:13 as source of "the son of man"

Although scholars generally recognize that in Jewish apocalypses "son of man" (without articles) is meant to describe rather than name the figure envisioned in an eschatological context, proponents of options (a) and (c) insist that Dan 7:13 is the source, not only of Greek references to ὁ υἵος τοῦ ἀνθρώπου (“the son of the man” with two articles), but of the use of this designation for the subject of sayings with no clear link to the material in Daniel. The reasoning runs: the Danielic "son of man" was first identified with Jesus, so eventually anything about Jesus could be predicated of "the son of man." This is more an intellectual residue from old theories of the Jewish son of man myth than the product of a critical examination of the Christian sources.

(a) To be sure, the dependence of the author of Mark 13:26 and 14:62 on Daniel's description of one "like a son of man" must not be minimized. But the only instance of imagery in other "son of man" sayings that can be traced to a possible indirect influence of Daniel is the association of this subject with a parousia motif in:

(1) a secondary qualifying phrase in Mark 8:38c and parallels;
(2) a non-descriptive call for eschatological preparedness in Q (Matt 24:44 //Luke 12:40);
(3) Matthew's version of other Q sayings (Matt 24:27,37,39) and a logion that he alone records (Matt 10:23)./10/

Thus, one must certainly recognize an influence of Daniel on Mark and probably on Matthew. But unless one is prepared to defend Matthew as a more literal reporter of Q than Luke, the case for the influence of Dan 7:13 on "son of man" sayings earlier than Mark must be made to rest on Luke 12:40. One finds here, however, a non-Danielic emphasis on the "unexpected hour" of the coming---a theme attested elsewhere in NT passages that refer neither to Daniel nor to "the son of man."/11/ In fact, apart from this epithet, Luke 12:40 is closer to general eschatological expectation of the coming of "the Lord" than to Dan 7.

(b) Clearly at some point Dan 7:13 was drawn into Christian messianic exegesis. But without firm support from Q, the claim that this was the ultimate source of the awkward Greek technical term, is weakened. And it is all but undermined when proponents of this explanation claim that the eschatological "son of man" predictions of Q rather than those of Mark are original!/12/ Moreover, the fact that early Greek Christian writers regularly used υἵος ἀνθρώπου (without any article) in citing Dan 7:13, even when identifying this figure with Jesus, calls in question the claim that the emphatic designation, "the son of man" (with two articles in Greek) originated in references to this text./13/

1.3. The alleged use of "the son of man" as a christological title

For more than a century scholars have considered "Son of Man" to be a (messianic) title, whether as an ideal with which Jesus himself identified or as a label pinned on him by others. Its prominence in the logia tradition has been attributed, on the one hand, to Jesus' own use of the term to counter popular Jewish "son of David" messianism or, on the other, to the urgent apocalyptic eschatology of the primitive Christian church. It has long been presented as the original christology of Jewish Christianity and is still widely viewed as the sole title used to refer to Jesus in the Hellenistic Q community./14/ Even some scholars who have denied a titular use of this idiom among non-Christian Jews seem compelled to regard it as a title in at least some NT logia./15/

(a) This opinion is based on three impressions:

(1) the two Greek articles focus the nouns on a specific figure;
(2) many of the sayings describe the subject so designated as functioning in an official capacity;
(3) the subject of the sayings is presented objectively in the third person and so seems to be distinct from the speaker.

It is these impressions that provide the primary support for options (a) and (c). If a saying is traced to Jesus, then it seems he was referring to someone other than himself. If the details of the saying obviously describe Jesus, then it seems to have been spoken by someone else. The problem is that neither of these conclusions is supported by external evidence. As the failure to find a Jewish reference to "the son of man" as an apocalyptic title makes the claim that Jesus used it this way questionable, so the absence of ὁ υἵος τοῦ ἀνθρώπου (with two articles) in Hellenistic christological formulas from Paul through the apostolic fathers renders suspect the theory that early Christians used this phrase to affirm their faith in Jesus. Its limitation to Jesus' speech in the gospels, where attested titles are regularly invoked both by other characters and by the narrator, weakens the claim that this term served as a title at any stage in its development./16/

(b) True, the report of Stephen's dying vision (Acts 7:56) has been regarded as a key witness to or even source of the titular use of this term in the confessional activity of the Jerusalem church./17/ But it is debatable whether this sole canonical record of the Greek definite "son of man" formula outside the sayings of Jesus can bear the test of historical reliability. Though Luke is rightly regarded as a cautious historian, he is also an apologist who demonstrably does not shrink from revising the wording of even written sources to serve his own theology of history. If he regularly corrects Mark's version of Jesus' logia and reports speeches for Paul that are out of sync with the logic of the apostle's own letters, how is it certain that his report of the first martyr's last words is anything more than a literary echo of predictions of such visions attributed elsewhere in the tradition to Jesus?/18/

Eusebius' quote of Hegesippus' account of James' last words is clearly of this order./19/ Apart from these hagiographic legends there is no written record of "the son of man" ever being used by either Aramaic or Greek speaking Christians as a third person designation for Jesus or anyone else. And accounts of a gnostic hypostasis named "Son of Man" are unrelated to the synoptic logia tradition./20/

(c) It is often noted that none of the apostolic fathers---neither pseudo-Barnabas nor Ignatius nor Justin Martyr---, authors who had some familiarity with the thought of Palestinian Jewish Christianity, regarded "son of man" as an apocalyptic title but, instead, regularly took the term as a claim of Jesus' generic humanity./21/ We were taught that this indicates how soon the "original" titular sense of this term was lost to view. But is it not, rather, an indication that "son of man" was never originally used as a title? If there is no evidence of a titular use in Jewish sources; if there is no confirmed instance of a titular use in our records of early Christian communities; if in the gospels it is used only by Jesus in statements that usually point to the speaker himself, where is there clear evidence that "son of man" was ever regarded as a title at any stage in the development of the NT "son of man" trajectory? There are a few sayings where the focus of the formula is not so clearly reflexive./22/ But it is not certain that such fuzziness comes from the fact that Jesus was indicating a figure other than himself. Neither the evangelists nor anyone else before the rise of the historical quest took these sayings to be other than self-references by Jesus. Thus, the idea that "the son of man" originated and circulated as a christological title has no firm material support. Rather, the titular use of this term---like "the son of man myth" of which it is an essential part---is a modern academic motif.

1.4. The alleged Greek misunderstanding of Jesus' use of "the son of man"

The evangelists clearly understood "the son of man" to be Jesus' own characteristic term for saying something about himself. This alone is able to account for the care of Greek-speaking Christians to use it only to present logia ascribed to Jesus. And ultimately this points to a basis in Jesus' own patterns of speech. Every language gives speakers the option of describing themselves objectively through the use of circumlocutions. In such cases the term selected has some reflection on the author of the statement, though not everyone will always perceive this. Some circumlocutions are less obvious than others because they do not focus exclusively on the speaker. Thus, the real question is not whether the Greek-speaking church was correct in thinking that Jesus intended reference to himself in speaking of "the son of man" but, rather, whether the sayings in which this subject seems to indicate Jesus alone employed the idiom as he would have used it.

(a) Generalization?: It is generally agreed that technical use of the otherwise unprecedented Greek epithet in Jesus' sayings originates in the awkward translation of an underlying Semitic idiom, probably Aramaic בר אנשא [bar (e)naš (a)]. The absolute form of this expression (without the final alef) is attested as subject of generalizations intended to apply to any (male?) human person and, in a more abstract indefinite sense, in statements where the subject could be any individual without discrimination. In either case, assuming the speaker is human, the author of the statement is meant to be covered by what is predicated, but not to the exclusion of others. Thus, it has been suggested that only those sayings that can be interpreted or reconstructed to apply to persons other than Jesus can be considered genuine. There are, however, several problems with this approach.

(1) A statement is not necessarily general just because its subject is "generic". Observations about particular individuals may identify the subject by a common name without intending to infer that the predicate applies to any other member of that species. In reporting an accident one may say "A man is dead," implying that only one human has died. Aramaic, like most ancient languages lacks an indefinite article; so such a thought would be phrased: "Man (is) dead!" As in all languages, generalizations intended to apply indiscriminately to several persons normally use the plural "men", which in Aramaic is בני [benei], not בר [bar], אנש [(e)naš].

(2)Examples of the absolute singular בר אנש [bar enaš] in pre-Targumic Aramaic are too rare and scattered to say definitively just how common the idiom was in Jesus' world and what range of uses it may have had there. To date, linguists have been able to cull only five examples from texts ranging over more than eight centuries of Aramaic usage in greater Syria (including Israel)!/23/ Although the documentation of Aramaic itself during this period is admittedly slim, the instances of בר אנש [bar enaš] are proportionately small and not illustrative of everyday discourse in first century Galilee./24/ There is only one properly secular example of indefinite usage, and that is in a formal treaty proclamation from northern Syria seven hundred years before Jesus! Otherwise, the idiom is found once in Jewish scripture to describe the appearance of a figure envisioned as a unique individual (Dan 7:13) and three times in commentaries found at Qumran. In two of these (11QtgJob and 26.3) it translates the equally rare Hebrew בן אדם [ben adam] in poetic assessments of the human condition (Job 25:6 and 35:8). While these appear applicable to any member of the human species, in context they are part of pointed criticism of one man: Job.

These statements were hardly formulated as generalizations or with the subject left indefinite. This means that in three out of the five cases where we have evidence of the use of בר אנש [bar enaš] prior to the composition of the NT, the idiom is used to relate the particular person in view to the generic idea of what it means to be human rather than to say anything about other persons of the same genus.

(3) It is improbable that the absolute form, בר אנש [bar (e)naš], whatever its range of meanings, is the point of origin of the sayings tradition attributed to Jesus. בר אנש [Bar (e)naš] regularly was translated literally into Greek, by Jews and Christians alike, as υἵος ἀνθρώπου ("son of man" without any article) or simply as ("human" again, without an article). Thus, it is the regular use of the two definite articles in the evangelists' awkward neologism, ὁ υἵος τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, that needs to be explained. And the explanation proposed by some Aramaic scholars are not altogether convincing.

(i) Though Aramaic lacks a separate article, in pre-Christian usage the emphatic suffix (alef) functions much as the article does in Hebrew or Greek to give the noun a more definite focus than the absolute form. In the rabbinic dialect of third-fourth century Galilee, however, this distinction had broken down, so that the emphatic form was used in general statements where the subject was not defined as a particular individual. Some have claimed that this process was already underway in the first century, so that sometimes Jesus may have used בר אנשא [bar enaša]---or בר נשא [bar naša], since later Galilean Jews and Christians regularly dropped initial alefs---in sayings that were meant to apply generally to any human./25/ This hypothesis sounds plausible; but as there is no data on the use of this Aramaic idiom by first century Galileans it is unverifiable./26/ And it becomes tenuous when it is recognized to rest on two questionable assumptions: (a) that languages develop at a uniform rate within a given region, and (b) that Jesus' speech is in direct line with that of tannaitic scribes. This theory presupposes that scholars two centuries after Jesus, who did not follow his teaching, preserved his usage and meaning better than the bilingual students of his thought who translated his sayings into Greek within decades of his death. If Jesus had used the emphatic בר אנשא [bar enaša] in a general sense, without intending to define the person, there would have been no need to create a new Greek idiom using two definite articles, as this would certainly be seen to obscure the original meaning, even by those who admittedly did not speak the best Greek. For the diarthous neologism, ὁ υἵος τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, to be synthesized for translation purposes there must have been at least one Aramaic saying that was already understood to refer to a definite subject. But this contradicts the claim that the emphatic בר אנשא [bar enaša] had already lost any ability to identify or define a particular individual. And this, in turn, calls into question the validity of ascribing to Jesus only those sayings which generally apply to persons other than himself.

(ii) The uniformity of the double article in the Greek version of "son of man" sayings in all strands of the tradition is hard to explain without presupposing that a core of authentic sayings regularly employed the emphatic בר נשא [bar naša], which makes it seem less likely that an indefinite or general sense was intended. Such uniformity has been credited to a secondary harmonization of the sources./27/ But this is not supported by either manuscript evidence or the redaction history of the tradition. The only evangelist to preserve an anarthous "son of man" is John (5:28), even though he obviously interprets the saying as describing Jesus' role exclusively! On the other hand, the only place where the diarthous idiom "the son of the man" is taken in a general sense is Matthew's secondary comment (9:8) on a passage drawn from Mark (2:10). Unless one is prepared to argue for the priority of the first gospel, here the tradition displays a tendency of at least one later writer to generalize a reference that in the original pericope clearly focused exclusively on Jesus. And there is no manuscript evidence to show that any "son of man" saying in Mark or Q ever had an anarthous subject. So there is no pattern of originally anarthous general statements being particularized by translators adding articles to limit their application to Jesus.

(b) Circumlocution?: The simplest explanation of the presence of "the son of man" at every level of every independent source in sayings where Jesus speaks of himself is that ὁ υἵος τοῦ ἀνθρώπου was invented as a literal translation of a term that was generally understood to focus on a particular "son of man," who was recognized as none other than the speaker. Presuming an Aramaic substratum, the sayings being translated probably had בר אנשא [bar enaša], rather than the less definite בר אנש [bar enaš], as their subject. Like the article in Greek, the emphatic alef suffix in Aramaic traditionally functioned as a weak demonstrative. So both idioms would have been taken by native speakers to mean something like "this (son of) man," i.e., the man in question. Here the subject is identified as human without implying that his particular predicament is shared by others of that species.

(1) Absence of direct evidence: Demonstration that בר נשא [bar naša] was used in the first century by Aramaic speakers to refer to themselves is difficult. There are no recorded instances of the emphatic ending in uses of this idiom prior to the third century CE, when distinction between the emphatic and absolute forms of Aramaic nouns in general was no longer strictly observed. Moreover, only a few of the instances where בר נשא [bar naša] may be taken to refer to the speaker actually have the final alef./28/ And even these have been read as general statements. The claim by G. Vermes that in certain situations "son of man" functioned merely as a substitute for "I" might explain variant versions of the same NT logion./29/ But the Aramaic evidence he cites does not demonstrate this beyond dispute. Likewise, B. Lindars' suggestion that the Aramaic emphatic suffix grammatically paralleled the Hebrew generic article---so that "the (son of) man" meant "a man in my position"---appears to rest more on his exegesis of NT than Jewish texts./30/ Thus, both interpretations of the linguistic data have been challenged by other competent Aramaicists./31/ Yet such critiques show only that hypotheses based on nuances of the limited Aramaic evidence remain unproven and perhaps forever unproveable. They do not show that a person who spoke of "the son of man" in statements that are apparently self-referential had anyone in mind other than himself.

(2) Circumstantial clues: In all the furor over the current philological phase of the "son of man" debate a few things have been lost to view. While none of these guarantee that Jesus used בר נשא [bar naša] as a self-designation, taken together they make this explanation of the origin of "the son of man" in the sayings of Jesus more probable than others.

(i) There is ample evidence in the extant Greek versions of Jesus' logia that statements about "the son of man" were taken in the first century as self-references by the speaker. Whether the individual logia are correctly ascribed to Jesus or not, ὁ υἵος τοῦ ἀνθρώπου itself was virtually restricted to reflexive statements. So, unless one has decided a priori that this represents a misinterpretation of Jesus' usage, there should be little difficulty in tracing the origin of "the son of man" to his own use of this idiom in speaking of himself.

(ii) The names one chooses to identify oneself are used quite differently than those invoked to indicate others. When a person makes a statement about "birds," it may be taken to apply indifferently to any avian within his range of knowledge. Not so with names for the human being, for here the presumption of direct knowledge may lead one to say things about "man" on the basis of personal image alone. Everyday logic, though scientifically and syllogistically suspect, runs: if I am human, then what is true about me is true about the human being. While much of what a person learns about being human comes first from observing others, once one accepts the name as one's own, one can say things about "man" without consideration of others.

(iii) It is easy to distinguish oneself from others who bear the same name by using an appropriate demonstrative. Thus, if I said something about "this author" or even "the author," it should be evident to readers that I meant to speak only about myself---unless, of course, I happened to be reviewing the work of another writer. Likewise, statements about "the (son of) man" would readily be recognized as reflecting upon the speaker, unless the context made it clear that someone else was intended.

(iv) There is no evidence that the emphatic had already lost its demonstrative force in first-century Aramaic./32/ Thus, the subject designated "the son of man" would be readily recognized as a definite figure. While there was always an implicit reference to the idea of generic man, the emphatic ending clearly pointed to the particular individual in view. The survival of this twofold reference in even later Aramaic is evident from two of the texts cited by Vermes and Lindars./33/ In one (yKet 35a) Judah ha Nasi gives instructions that he be buried in a single sheet, since the condition of בר נשא [bar naša] (emphatic) at his demise does not mirror that of his return. Appended to this logion, however, is a (traditional?) tannaitic aphorism to the contrary: בר נש [bar nas] (absolute) comes as he goes. Rabbi's burial request was memorable because it contradicted the norm. Theבר נשא [bar naša] whose resurrected appearance is claimed to differ from that of his corpse is not just any man but rather the prince who asked not to be distinguished in death from paupers. Similarly, Simeon ben Yohai was recalled (yBer 3b) to have claimed that he would have asked God to make two mouths for בר נשא [bar naša]---one for reciting Torah and one for eating---, if he had been on Mount Sinai when the Torah was revealed to Israel. This curious request makes sense only if the speaker envisioned himself as filling Moses' shoes and not as just another man among those who heard the original proclamation of the covenant. Any man might eat as he listened, but the human need to ingest orally limits the one called to act as God's mouthpiece. In both of these cases
בר נשא [bar naša] serves, on the one hand, to identify the speaker as sharing the common human condition and, on the other, to predicate of him circumstances that set him apart from other men.

(v) In Jewish tradition names indicated roles performed by a person rather than categories circumscribing a genus. While the Hebrew scriptures provided various names for the human persona, in Aramaic בר אנשא [bar (e)nas(a)] increasingly became the name that could represent all others./34/ So for Jews who depended primarily on scripture rehearsed in Aramaic, the role assigned to the "son of man" was dramatically larger than in the original Hebrew. These scattered appearances in scenes portraying election, exaltation, degradation and vindication, though hardly synthesized into a coherent myth, presented a broad range of settings within which any pious Jew who sought to play “the man" could improvise his own dialogue.

/1/ For summaries of recent scholarship see W. O. Walker, "Some Recent Developments," 589-598 and J. R. Donahue, "Recent Studies on the Origin of 'Son of Man' in the Gospels," 484-496.

/2/ See Bultmann, Theology of the NT 1, 29-32; Colpe, TDNT 8, 433-441; Tödt, Son of Man in the Synoptic Tradition, 224-227; Higgins, Son of Man in the Teaching of Jesus, 123-125; A. Y. Collins, "Origin of the Designation of Jesus as 'Son of Man'," 4O2-403.

/3/ See Vermes, Jesus the Jew, 185-186; Lindars, Jesus Son of Man, 27-29; Casey, "General, Generic and Indefinite," 36-49.

/4/ See Perrin, IDB Supplement, 833-835; Modern Pilgrimage in NT Christology, 58-66; Walker, "Origin of the Son of Man Concept as Applied to Jesus," 487; " Some Recent Developments," 595-606.

/5/ E.g., Leivestad, "Exit the Apocalyptic Son of Man," 244-246 and Lindars, "Reenter the Apocalyptic Son of Man," 54,72. More recently, against: Walker "Some Recent Developments," 585,589, 607; Lindars, Jesus Son of Man, 3-8; and for: Horbury, "Messianic Associations," 36,53; A. Y. Collins, "Origin of the Designation of Jesus," 403, 406.

/6/ So, Collins, "Origins," 404.

/7/ Compare 1 Enoch 46 and 62 with Dan 7:9-16,26-27.

/8/ A. Segal (Two Powers in Heaven, x-xi) suggests a relationship of the rabbinic dispute to NT christological problems. P. S. Alexander (in Charlesworth, OT Pseudepigrapha 1, 246-247) and C. Rowland (Open Heaven 347-348, and "John 1:51, Jewish Apocalyptic and Targum," 498) also indicate points where NT christology ties into the trajectory linking apocalyptic speculation to later Jewish mystical exegesis.

/9/ See Moloney, "Reinterpretation," 660-661.

/10/ See Casey's meticulous review of possible echoes of Daniel 7:13 in the NT (Son of Man, 202-206).

/11/ E.g., Mark 13:32-37 par; 1 Thess 5:1-2; 2 Thess 2:1-3; Rev 3:3.

/12/ E.g., Collins, "Origin," 402-403; Walker, "Recent Developments," 607.

/13/ E.g., Rev 1:13, 14:4; and Justin Martyr, DialTryph 31.1, 32.1, 76.1, 100.3 and 126.1. The next to last is particularly significant as Justin quotes Jesus as using two definite articles, but follows with an anarthous "son of man" in his interpretation. See Borsch, Christian and Gnostic Son of Man, 36-48.

/14/ E.g., Bousset, Kyrios Christos, 36-37, 49-54; Bultmann, Theology of the NT 1, 33-52; Walker, "Recent Developments," 605-607.

/15/ E.g., Fitzmyer, "New Testament Title," 153-154; Walker, "Recent Developments," 585, 589; Lindars, Jesus Son of Man, 27, 65-66; but Vermes denies that "son of man" functioned as a title even in the NT (Jesus the Jew, 185).

/16/ John 12:34 is no exception. The crowd here merely claims to echo Jesus' words and asks for clarification: "how is it you say ὁ υἵος τοῦ ἀνθρώπου must be lifted up?' Who is this ' ὁ υἵος τοῦ ἀνθρώπου'?" The Greek clearly represents Jesus' audience as being confused by Jesus' terminology rather than seeking to discover the personal name of a messianic claimant.

/17/ See Walker, "Origin," 489-490.

/18/ Compare Mark 13:26 par and 14:62 par. Though in both cases Luke departs from the Markan wording, it is virtually certain that he knew the version of the logia recorded in the second gospel.

/19/ "Why do you ask me about the son of man? He is sitting in heaven at the right hand of the great Power and will come on the clouds of heaven" (Ecclesiastical History 2.23.13; compare Mark 14:62). It is unclear at what level 'ὁ υἵος τοῦ ἀνθρώπου' came into this report. But as a distant echo, the Greek is unreliable evidence of the vocabulary of Jesus' brother or that of any other member of the Jerusalem church.

/20/ Borsch, Christian and Gnostic Son of Man, 111. Most quotations by Greek heresiologists use the anarthous υἵος ἀνθρώπου. The exceptions in Hippolytus' descriptions of the teachings of the Peratae and Monoimus (Menahem) are obviously based on John or Paul. The article in Coptic texts may reflect the influence of the Greek NT idiom on translation. But these betray no direct dependence on the logia of any gospel (see also, Christian and Gnostic, 59-110).

/21/ Barn 12:10; Ignatius Eph 20:2; Justin Dial 100.3.

/22/ Mark 8:38 par, 13:26 par; Luke 11:30 par, 12:8 par, 12:40 par, 17:24,26 par and 17.28-30

/23/ Sf III.16; Dan 7:13; 1QapGen 31.13; 11QtgJob 9.9 and 26.3; cf. Fitzmyer, Wandering Aramaean, 147-148; Casey, "General, Generic, and Indefinite," 22-23.

/24/ So, Fitzmyer, Wandering Aramaean, 147, 153; Casey considers them "quite sufficient" ("General, Generic, and Indefinite," 22).

/25/ See Casey, "General, Generic and Indefinite," 31; but Fitzmyer argues that first-century evidence does not prove that the emphatic state was no longer determinate (Wandering Aramaean, 154).

/26/ See Casey's admission ("General, Generic and Indefinite," 28).

/27/ Casey, "General, Generic and Indefinite," 32; Son of Man, 230-231.

/28/ Judah ha Nasi's burial request (yKet 35a) and two remarks by Simeon ben Yohai (yBer 3b and ySheb 38d); see analysis in (iv) below.

/29/ Vermes, Jesus the Jew, 163, 181-182.

/30/ Lindars, Jesus Son of Man, 23; "Response," 35-38.

/31/ E.g., Fitzmyer, Wandering Aramaean, 154; Bauckham, "Son of Man," 24ff; Casey,Son of Man, 224-227; "General, Generic and Indefinite," 28-36.

/32/ So, Fitzmyer, Wandering Aramaean, 155.

/33/ Lindars, Jesus Son of Man, 31-32; Vermes, Jesus the Jew 165-166.

/34/ While targums are no guarantee of first-century oral translation of particular verses, they do indicate something of the range of the בר אנשא [bar (e)naš(a)] idiom. As a replacement for בן אדם [ben adam] (Ps 8:5, 80:18, 146:3; Job 25:6, 35:8) and בן אנוש [ben enoš] (Ps 144:3) it was a natural choice. But it was also used for אנוש [enoš] (Ps 8:5; Job 25:6), גבר [geber] (Job 16:21), יש [iš] (Exod 19:13; Deut 34:6), and especially אדם [adam] (Gen1:26f, 2:18, 8:21, 9:5; Deut 5:21, 20:19; Ps 144:4; Job 34:29). See Fitzmyer, Wandering Aramaean, 151-152.

/35/ Lindars, Jesus Son of Man, 68, 74.

/36/ Lindars, Jesus Son of Man, 75-76.

/37/ John's version of healing of the paralytic focuses on the command to carry the pallet (5:8-12) without relating it to Jesus' authority to forgive; and the debate over the violation of sabbath restrictions by the disciples (not Jesus!) is better resolved by the pronouncement in Mark 2:27 than by reference to "the son of man."

/38/ The various locations of ἐν τῇ γῇ in the manuscripts indicate that early scribes found this phrase problematic.

/39/ John 20:23; Matt 16:19, 18:18. See also Acts 2:38, 10:43, 13:38, Col 3:13, and Eph 4:32 where forgiveness is linked directly to Jesus' name and example.

/40/ E.g., Perrin, Rediscovering, 173-181; Lindars, Jesus Son of Man, 108-112; Higgins, Teaching of Jesus, 77-80; Vermes, Jesus the Jew, 182-183; J. Collins, Apocalyptic Imagination, 209-210.

/41/ E.g., Bultmann, NT Theology 1, 29-30; J. Knox, Death of Christ, 58.

/42/ For fuller discussion see Smith, "No Place for a Son of Man." See also, Vaage, "Q1 and the Historical Jesus," 166-167.

/43/ See also Vaage, "Q1 and the Historical Jesus," 165-166; Cotter ("Children Sitting in the Agora," 76-77) admits the historicity of the accusation, but declines to trace this saying to Jesus. [These papers appeared after this essay was written].

/44/ See Lindars, Jesus Son of Man, 35-38. He reconstructs the original Aramaic as:
we-kol di yomar millah le-bar enasha, yishtebeq leh;
we-kol di yomar le-rucha de-qudsha, la yishtebeq leh.

/45/ Lindars, Jesus Son of Man, 51-53.

/46/ Lindars, Jesus Son of Man, 54-57.

/47/ So Tödt, Synoptic Tradition, 211-213. But Perrin argues that this is an artificial link between two independent dominical sayings produced at some unspecified point in the "developing Christian exegetical tradition" (Rediscovering, 192-195).

/48/ Lindars suggests that Jonah was mentioned to point to the extraordinary popular response to Jesus' preaching (Jesus Son of Man, 41). But see Matt 11:16-24//Luke 7:31-35, 10:13-15.

/49/ Notably, p75 (third century), codex Vaticanus (fourth century), and codex Cantabrigiensis (sixth century) and early Latin and Coptic translations.

/50/ Perrin cites Bar 53:9 as evidence that lightning was "a commonplace of apocalyptic" (Rediscovering, 196).

/51/ Lindars attributes the strangeness of this verse to Luke's “difficulty in integrating the material" (Jesus Son of Man, 94). One could believe that of Mark or even Matthew, but hardly of Luke! For full examination of this passage see M. H. Smith, "Missing the Son of Man."

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