Jesus is not the Son of Man

[robert j]

Regarding 1 Thess. 4:14 though, I'm wondering about the "through Jesus" part.

For since we declare to you that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

...will happen through the agency of Jesus.

Yes, it's an agency relationship in Paul’s system ---

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also, through Jesus, God will bring with him those having fallen asleep. For this we declare to you in the word of the Lord, that we the living, remaining unto the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those having fallen asleep, because the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we, the living remaining, will be caught away together with them in the clouds for the meeting of the Lord in the air; and so we will be always with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:14-17)

Behold, I tell to you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed … But thanks be to God, the one giving us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:51-57)

“… yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we to him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him.” (1 Corinthians 8:6)

[Michael BG]

It is strange that Paul does not have Jesus as the Son of Man but maybe this is because Paul has moved on from that title to “Christ” while the gospels have earlier traditions regarding what Jesus taught. Paul does not show much interest in the teachings of Jesus. I think the argument goes that the early Church was not very interested in the title Son of Man and this disinterest shows that it is not a creation of the early church like the title Christ.

Tertullian is plenty interested in it as he argues along the lines "the title Son of man proves Jesus is a man, proves he was born, proves Marcion was wrong because Jesus can't be a liar and he calls himself son of man, so he must be a real man with real flesh really born of at least one real human parent yada yada yada." Yes, it seems the early church had little interest in the phrase "son of man" except when it was useful for polemics against Marcion.

I don’t consider Tertullian early I think his Against Marcion was written about 208 CE. It is clearly later than the gospels and I think he misuses the usage of the Son of Man title in the gospels to say Jesus was human. The Son of Man in the gospels is not used in the sense of a human it is used as a title for Jesus.

It is interesting that it occurs only the in the gospels. But of course, the gospels are all written later than Paul. Also, there may be some reason for only having Jesus use the phrase which we cannot discern or not so easily anyway. Perhaps because testimony that Jesus is a real man is only useful against Marcion if it comes from Jesus' own mouth. Anyone else saying he's a man or son of man, Marcionites could dismiss it as misperception due to appearances, but Jesus alone calling himself "son of man" proves he was born. I think that's how the logic goes.

I don’t agree that Jesus uses the term in the gospels to call himself human, it is used as a title not in its older usage as a human.

Of course, son of man does occur later in the NT here: "But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man that thou visitest him?" (Hebrews 2:6) A proof that Jesus would not have used son of man the way the gospels pretend. "Son of man" simply means "a man", and is not a reference to the "one like unto a son of man" in Daniel.

The author of Hebrews is quoting Psalm 8:5-7

Septuaginta version Ps 8:5-7:

5 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him?
6 Thou madest him a little less than angels, thou hast crowned him with glory and honour;
7 and thou hast set him over the works of thy hands: thou hast put all things under his feet:

(http://www.christopherklitou.com/old_te ... s_1-25.htm)

The Greek in Hebrews 2:6b-8 is identical to that in the Septuagint Ps 8:5-6, 7b.

“Son of man” here means humanity. The author of Hebrews is talking about God giving the world to humanity. He states not that Jesus became man but that Jesus who is greater than the angels was “made lower than angels” (Heb. 2.9). I think I read an article by Earl Doherty that in Hebrews Jesus is not human because he never gets down to the plane of humanity.

Revelation 1:13 and Revelation 14:14 AMAZINGLY make a correct reference to Daniel by using the phrase "one like unto a son of man" rather than "the son of man"!!! Another proof Jesus wouldn't have run around saying "the son of man."

While the author of Revelation knows the language of Daniel I am not sure he presents the son of man as the author of Daniel presents him. For some strange reason he pictures him with hair white as snow (Rev. 1:13 Dan 7:9 where the ancient of days has hair white as snow). This implies that the son of man is God.

Why in the gospels did Jesus have to say "the son of man" and not the correct Daniel reference "one like unto a son of man"??????? Because "one like unto a son of man" would HELP Marcion rather than refute him!!!!! It could have been used to imply that Jesus only appeared to be a man!

The gospel writers see Jesus as the son of man who will come at the end of time. They are not using son of man to depict Jesus as human.

[DCHindley]

David wrote:

...there is no son of man in Paul. more proof the son of man concept is a later addition.

Where [does one] suppose Paul got the idea that Jesus would come down from heaven and meet people "in the clouds"? And the reference to the voice of the archangel also seems relevant because Daniel's Son of Man is arguably an archangel.

1 Thess. 4:16-17:

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

John2,

That's not so easy, as I don't think that the Parables of Enoch say folks would go meet the Son of God "in the air". The only passage that seems to get close is 62.15 "And the righteous and elect shall have risen from the earth, And ceased to be of downcast countenance. And they shall have been clothed with garments of glory." But I think this and several other passages that speak of the righteous rising up means resurrection onto the earth, while the evil do not resurrect, and the earth becomes fruitful and life becomes pleasant for all. However, for the evil hearted men who had previously oppressed the righteous who are alive at the turn of the age, well, the Son of Man will break their teeth, bones and torture them in gruesome ways, probably ending in a miserable death of nothingness, like those evil ones who had already died and were not resurrected with the dead righteous.

This talk of a trumpet call that will trigger the general resurrection of the dead and cause living believers to rise up to meet the Lord in the air, is just the expectation of the circles which wrote that passage (genuine or not). As Josephus gives nothing specific about how Pharisees expected the resurrection from the dead to work, we don't need the Parables/Similitudes of Enoch to explain it.

Apples and Oranges,

DCH

(Hindley, David C) Analysis of the Parables of 1 Enoch 37-71 (R H Charles, APOT v2, 2014-09-21, rev 2015-11-22).rtf

Behold! The Parables of Enoch color coded for the iggorunt (present company excepted)

(424.54 KiB) Downloaded 150 times

[spin]

Regarding 1 Thess. 4:14 though, I'm wondering about the "through Jesus" part.

For since we declare to you that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

Some have "with" instead of "through," but I see on the biblehub that it means "through, on account of; (a) gen: through, throughout, by the instrumentality of, (b) acc: through, on account of, by reason of, for the sake of, because of." (http://biblehub.com/greek/1223.htm), so it sounds to me like the same thing in Php. 3:20-21, that the "rapture" will happen through the agency of Jesus.

I think that notion is tendentious. As I've intimated, God is the subject of the verb "bring" in 1 Thes 4:14, not Jesus. God is doing the bringing. Note the position of Jesus in this:

ο θεος τους κοιμηθεντας [δια του ιησου] αξει συν αυτω
subj . . . obj . . . . . . . . . . . .. verb
God the fallen asleep .. through Jesus .will bring with him

A phrase ruled by δια tends to follow where it is applied:

● a body dead through sin (Rom 8:11)
● sent ... through Jesus (Gal 1:1)
● died to the law through the body of Christ (Rom 7:4)

In 1 Thes 4:14 the phrase follows "fallen asleep", which seems to be what takes it, "those who have fallen asleep through Christ". Christ cannot be the subject of the action "bring". God is doing the bringing. That should mean, when we arrive at 4:16, as God is bringing those who have fallen asleep through Jesus, he is the Lord who himself will come down from heaven.

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

[iskander]

..
Lets put it this way. Tertullian (AM4.10) makes a big deal about Jesus being called "the son of man" in Luke because it proves (according to Tertullian) two things: (1) a positive link to the OT since supposedly the title comes from Daniel, and (2) that Jesus was born of at least one human parent (i.e. the virgin) or he'd be lying to call himself "the son of man". So the title "the son of man" has perfect anti-marcionite usage, but would a Jew, a real one, not Judaism as redefined and made up by later Christianity have thought of Daniel's so-called son of man passage as creating such a title? No. Daniel does not say "THE son of man" but "one like a son of man." The son of man is NOT an OT title, therfore not an authentic messianic title, only a made up one invented in response to Marcion, one that to an ignorant person looks like it comes from Daniel and one that also can be used to imply birth. In other words, if Jesus was walking around talking about "the son of man" I do not believe Jews would have even thought he was referring to Daniel at all since "the son of man" does not occur in Daniel. Its just Christian bastardization of Daniel for anti-marcionite purposes.

..The son of man is NOT an OT title, therfore not an authentic messianic title,...

Rashi's note to Daniel 7:13. One like a man: That is the King Messiah

one like a man was coming: That is the King Messiah.
and… up to the Ancient of Days: Who was sitting in judgment and judging the nations.
came: arrived, reached.

http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo ... rashi=true