Here is where I read the Raschke's exegesis about Son of Man:
The significance of the term “Son of Man” in the Gospel
It has previously been mentioned that in the Gnostic doctrine the three principles of the universe were pneuma, psyche, and matter. In view of this, and of the fact that Mark’s Gospel is Gnostic in character, Raschke has given a very interesting and satisfactory explanation of the writer’s use of the term “Son of Man.” All Gnostics did not agree with regard to the nature of the body of Jesus, but the general opinion, which was held by Marcion, was that the body of Jesus was psyche, since he was of the same nature as the angels. Pneuma descended into him at his baptism in the Jordan ; he thus became—what he had not been before—the Son of God and of the Holy Spirit, since pneuma was the pure spirit of God. Now, the spirit of God could not die, nor could it be allowed to suffer indignity; hence the Gnostics maintained that only the visible body—the psyche of Jesus—suffered and died, but that the pneuma left him as soon as he fell into the hands of his enemies. This departure of the pneuma from the psyche gives the explanation of the young man having a linen cloth about his naked body, who was seized with Jesus, but fled, leaving the linen cloth in the hands of his captors. This linen cloth symbolizes the visible body of Jesus; the naked body which fled, the disembodied spirit. It was quite usual for ancient writers to speak of a disembodied spirit as naked. The Gnostic Paul does so in II Corinthians v, 3, where, writing of the heavenly body in which the spirit will in the future be clothed, he says : “ If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.”
Raschke, applying this Gnostic doctrine and symbolism, maintains that when Jesus says “I” he is speaking as pneuma, for it was the pneuma which was the real Christ, the Son of God; but when he uses the term “Son of Man” he is speaking of the psyche. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is never made to say “I” shall suffer, “I” shall be put to death, but always the “Son of Man” shall suffer. The term “Son of Man” is, of course, taken from the Jewish apocalyptic literature.
Raschke’s explanation gives the clue to the significance of the much-debated verse, Matthew xii, 32. The Son of Man, the visible form of Jesus, being psyche merely and not divine, to speak a word against him was not blasphemy. The Jews, however, had said that Jesus had an unclean spirit; therein they had spoken against the pneuma, the Holy Spirit, which was an emanation from God himself, and thus had incurred the guilt of blasphemy. It is rather remarkable that in Mark the corresponding verse to this is missing, and the antithesis between Son of Man and Holy Spirit is not sharply drawn, though it is there that one would particularly expect to find it. It may be that the manuscripts of Mark’s Gospel are corrupt at this point, and that the phrase “sons of rnen,” in chap, iii, 28, represents an original reading, “Son of Man.” Luke also has “Son of Man” in the corresponding passage. It is rather strange that in Matthew the unforgivableness of speech against the Holy Spirit is affirmed in two consecutive verses, one of which corresponds with Mark and one with Luke. One may suspect that there is here a re-duplication, and that Matthew xii, 32, and Luke xii, 10, give the original form of the verse. Otherwise one must suppose that Matthew understood and adopted the Marcan phrase, which is not likely, since that writer was not a Gnostic and is antagonistic to Mark on important matters of doctrine.
A probable solution of this little problem is that, since in this case the Gnostic implication of the phrase, “Son of Man,” was particularly obvious, an attempt was made to remove it. When, from motives of policy, the Catholic Church accepted Mark’s Gospel, the bishops doubtless removed, as far as was possible and as they considered necessary, its Gnostic characteristics. It was much less urgent to alter the corresponding verse in Matthew in this case, because the congregations which used Matthew’s Gospel were not in danger of being injured by it. It was, however, important to eradicate Gnostic doctrine in the communities in which Mark was read. The alteration may have been made in some manuscripts of Matthew’s Gospel—a supposition which would account for the fact that in that Gospel we now have both forms of the verse.
(L. G. Rylands,
Did Jesus ever live?, p. 206-209)
He does a good point about the distinction between who has to suffer (the Son of Man) and who not (the real Christ as distinct from the man Jesus).
In this separationist sense, the Son of Man = the man Jesus.
But against Rasckhe, even if he agrees with me that the divine Christ
“left him as soon as he fell into the hands of his enemies” - probably in Mark 14:62 - then
why in Mark 14:62 the evangelist is speaking about the exaltation (and therefore about the fugue from the death) of the Son of Man? Even worse, by citing the hated Daniel?
If Son of Man was found in Marcion (as another name for the man Jesus), then surely the quote from Daniel - note in particular the emphasis on the
descending of the Son of Man,
contra the fact that the man Jesus was
already on the earth from the his birth and was not descended - is a later anti-marcionite interpolation.
So, basically, your raft of assumptions is a better guide to reconstructing Marcion than the available evidence is. Got it.