Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Michael BG wrote:

Ben C. Smith wrote:

From Jesus’ usage of the term in this way - as a distinct heavenly figure, Christians applied the term to Jesus after he became a heavenly figure after his resurrection. This is slightly different from your point 6.

In what way? This is the second time it feels like you are paraphrasing my point but then pronouncing the paraphrase as a separate point which is substantially different in some way.

The emphasis is different you stating that it was because they saw Jesus as the figure to bring the Kingdom of God, while I am saying it is because they believed he was a heavenly being.

My point #6 is not as textured as you are making it out to. It is no more and no less than that people identified Jesus with the figure in Daniel 7.13. When modern exegetes identify the previous monsters with certain nations, they say things like, "The leopard [in Daniel] is Greece." I am saying that Jesus as "the" son of man may have begun in much the same way: "The son of man [in Daniel] is Jesus."

I don’t find your use of the word “dominical” as being useful.

The term "dominical sayings" means exactly that it is a saying supposedly uttered by Jesus. It is a holdover on my part from having read many rather old treatments of the sayings tradition. I still cannot get over that more modern readers no longer know what to make of it. I will have to start avoiding the term so as not to cause confusion. (It does not mean that the saying itself has anything to do with lordship; it is all about the saying being on Jesus' lips.) Consult Google Books for a quick survey on how the term is used, even in more modern scholarship.

In another thread there was a discussion of the meaning of this word which I thought concluded that one of its meaning is relating to Jesus Christ as Lord. I think you might mean some sayings that refer to Jesus as the son of man (nothing to do with his lordship). This just brings another problem why would these early Christians use the term “Son of Man” rather than “Son of God”, “Christ Jesus” or “Jesus Christ”?

That is what I am trying to explain, apparently unsuccessfully. I think that Jesus came to be called "Lord" because certain scriptures about the Lord were thought to apply to him. I think that Jesus came to be called "Christ" because certain scriptures about the Messiah were thought to have predicted him. And I think that Jesus came to be called Son of Man because Daniel 7.13 was thought to be about him.

Furthermore, there are a lot more scriptures about the Lord and (at least allegedly) about the Messiah than there are about the Son of Man, so those two former terms are a lot more common. The Christians who started calling him the Son of Man (as a title) were probably fewer in number, and apparently pretty much all of their extant thought on the topic got absorbed into the gospels.

Not all the son of man sayings apply the term to Jesus and these do not seem to fit your chain of development.

If they are really not about Jesus, and they are apocalyptic in nature, they come in at #5. If not, they probably come in at #1. (Which saying would not line up with those two?)

I would be very happy if you could convince me that all son of man sayings that do not refer to a separate being are the creation of early Christians.

I am not sure I can prove such a thing, but it makes sense, right? A saying about Abraham Lincoln in the third person probably does not originate from Lincoln. So a saying about Jesus in the third person, as the Son of Man, probably does not originate with Jesus. The only question is why "the Son of Man" was not changed to "I", but that can be explained by the convenient juxtaposition of other sayings which used the term "son of man" generically about human beings. Once it became a "thing" that Jesus regularly spoke about the Son of Man (that is, once these sayings were no longer thought to apply to a generic human being, but were applied to Jesus himself), Jesus was now speaking about himself in the third person. The sequence would go like this:

1. Jesus (allegedly) said, "The son of man [= the generic human being] has no place to lay his head." (I make no claim as to whether the saying really goes back to Jesus; the claim is that it was attributed to him.)
2. Jesus (allegedly) said, "The Son of Man [= Jesus himself] has no place to lay his head." (By now the saying is part of the landscape, but now what "son of man" means has changed. As a consequence, Jesus is now thought to have referred to himself in the third person.)
3. Jesus (allegedly) said, "They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds." (Now, in this same community or circle of Christians, it becomes natural to create sayings which follow this same pattern of Jesus referring to himself in the third person.)

Ben.

Among the early Church Fathers (Irenaeus, Adamantius) Daniel 7:13 is equated with the second advent of Christ when Jesup would no longer appear meek form but in full glory. Yet that's a hop skip and jump from saying the Son of Man was another person entirely

It is also interesting to note that most scholars see Daniel as borrowing from Ezekiel 1 in terms of the glorious anthropomorphic figure - https://books.google.com/books?id=_ICO0 ... ta&f=false. As such the one who has

I am suggesting, not that the author of Daniel 7 simply copied from Ezekiel's merkabah, but that he interpreted it. As he understood it, the sequence of Ezekiel's description hinted at a historical sequence in which a human-like entity, emerges supreme over four bestial ones.

But still, we are in a literary equilibrium where the one who looks like a human is a glorious divine being. The interpretation of this figure as the messiah is much later and demonstrates a pattern which is interesting for the study of early Christianity. All evidence for the 'two powers' understanding - i.e. a young man and an old man (the one like a son of man and the man ancient of days) was systematically reinterpreted in terms of God and his messiah. This is especially true in later Christianity. But clearly again, in its original form, Christianity saw the 'son of Man' divine figure as a divine figure, even in early 'Catholic' Christianity.

And to follow up on the author's suggestion let us ask where the four living creatures derived its origin? Clearly it is the cardinal points on the zodiac.



So once we have the source it is easy to see why Ezekiel and Daniel come to two different interpretations of the same image.



So I am not as sure as the author that Ezekiel itself stands behind Daniel 7 but rather a common astrological understanding of the solar charioteer (the one like a human) and the four 'living ones' = astrological cardinal points.

So once again I am left wondering why anyone should understand that the "one like a son of man" was anything or anyone other than the second (young) god of the traditional Jewish cosmogeny. What other possibilities are there? What else makes sense given the state of the evidence? Baffling how powerful inherited presuppositions are. Jess is saying "that Son god"

So in my mind at least this whole issue is settled. I don't know what is left to discuss. The original understanding, the understanding which influenced the gospel is that there was a DIVINE being who looked 'like a son of man' and this is the figure who sat on the throne/chariot in the middle of the zodiac and who influenced Ezekiel, Daniel and then Mark. If there are any INFORMED dissenting voices please rise up by all means and tell me there is something still unclear here.

What I find far more interesting (and this is why my posts always go off in digressions; I have the unfortunate need to be interesting) is that this leads to a bigger point in the Common Era - viz. the replacement of the 'second young god' concept with the messiah. It seems counter-intuitive to think that the Imperial government allowed and preferred Jews to venerate a fully human messiah in the place of the one like a son of man. After all we have Einhorn and countless other people at this forum (Eisenman, Atwill and their guises) all arguing that Christianity was a seditious revolutionary movement with a real human messiah at the helm all arguing that THIS model was subverted because it was too subversive for the Roman government. There is an intuitive 'yes' when you first hear this, but now I am starting to side with Godfrey. What is the actual evidence that Jews venerated the messiah in the period?

The messiah is famously unmentioned in the Pentateuch (alongside other later additions to the religion - the resurrection of the dead and something else, I forget right now) Indeed when you look at Josephus's history there isn't even a messianic leader of the rebels. They just seem like a bunch of retards running around thinking that the time is right and that God is going to let them defeat the Romans. But where is the messiah? Nowhere.

Of course those who support the 'subverted messianic origins' for Christianity will argue that Josephus can't be honest because he is close to the government. But surely if Josephus was a traitor he had nothing to hide any more. He was living and writing in his summer home. Why not tell the truth that the Jews had a messiah and he wasn't the real messiah and life now goes on for him having seen the light.

I am now leaning in favor of the proposition that the Jews always expected GOD to come to earth - i.e. the second youthful god, the one like a son of man - to lead them in battle. There is evidence to support this. Look at Exodus. Look at the War Scroll. It was this model which led to religious militaristic fanaticism and it was this model that had to be rooted out of Judaism and later Christianity. Jesus call to the coming of Daniel's one like a Son of Man happens to be linked in earliest Christian exegesis to a second advent figure who was a triumphant militaristic deity (probably Exodus's man of war).

The Imperial monarchian interest then (i.e. the systematic assault on all religious forms that did not emphasize a sole rule/ruler to the universe) might well have been prompted by the binary godhead of traditional Judaism. One which culminated in (the original text of) Exodus showing the second (young) god displayed on Sinai while the old man ancient of days speaking from heaven.

While the Romans might well have managed to subvert Judaism through that Imperial traitor R Judah the Prince sitting naked in his Roman bath engaged in bavardage with his gentile friends in the Imperial court Christianity maintained the original understanding and took longer to overcome.

In terms of 'mythicism' too, the traditional argument among old thinkers is that it makes little sense why the Romans would prefer equating Jesus with a messiah (i.e. a revolutionary figure) as opposed to a god. But now I am not so sure. If Jesus was identified with the second youthful warrior god of the Jewish god (see Tertullian/Irenaeus make the connection even among the Marcionites in AM 4 dealing with Jesus walking on the war) one can start to see at least tentatively why this might have been problematic for the Romans.

First of all a god can't die. So when this god is hung up on the stauros it is clearly meant to be a kind of victory banner. Those who follow the god are equally undead. They participate in his victory, they too become living banners of victory representing the eventual triumph of the god over his enemies the Romans.

If the Jewish War didn't actually end with the destruction of the temple in 70 CE (which it clearly didn't) then the Christian martyrs are just as much his instruments as those militants who were crucified in the Jewish War. If, as we continue to follow Godfrey's suggestion, there was no 'human messiah' figure in the period the militants thought that god would join them in battle or was actively assisting them in battle along with his angels. How much of a leap is there to the martyrdom of Polycarp or other martyrologies where Christ is embodied in the martyr?

Of course one argument is that the crucified Jewish militants were soldiers actively killing the Roman soldiers whereas the crucified Christians were passive participants in holy jihad. But is this necessarily true? Indeed Josephus does not actually say that most of the crucified Jews in the Jewish War were actively involved in military operations. They were just captured and crucified Jews. They were crucified because they were Jews or associated with Jerusalem and the revolutionary activity there. No trial took place. They were convicted of war crimes. They were just believers in the (second) god of Israel.

To this end, if the crucified Jews were also passive participants in this struggle with Rome the differences with the Christian martyrs of the later period start to disappear too. The crime that Christians were like guilty of becomes more or less identical with the Jews of the Jewish War - active belief and expectation associated with the second youth warrior god of Israel.

To this end I wonder whether the war crime of the Jewish War was not active belief in a human messiah (i.e. adhering to a particular HUMAN BEING as the true king in juxtaposition to Caesar) but an active faith in a DIVINE figure as the true king as opposed to Caesar, a divine figure who was 'like a son of Man' who would come to earth and help his instruments defeat the Romans. When Jesus says 'soon you will see this human-like divinity' he is clearly saying, see him on the battlefield where this divinity will slaughter all the wicked (i.e. the Romans and their supporters).

This model might actually help the puzzling description of Jesus as a passive messiah (or earlier a passive second youthful warrior god). The gospel was written after the defeat of the Jews in 70 CE. We all know the story. Mark was wrestling with how God could have allowed for this tragedy. Why was the temple destroyed etc. But maybe the gospel was an embrace of history. Mark may have learned (perhaps first or second hand) that the Romans were crucifying Jews who had only a passive involvement with the revolution (i.e. for the crime of believing in the one like a Son of Man from Daniel). Instead of seeing this as a travesty of justice he turns this around as the 'divine plan' for victory over the Romans - even having the youthful warrior god come down to earth to establish himself as the paradigm for this para-military activity an appointed period before the actual events.

The Jews who die innocently as martyrs become instruments for the eventual defeat of the Romans. The demons know who he is so he silences them. He has to maintain a messianic secret so as to allow for the divine plan to unfold. He is the second youthful warrior god disguised as a pathetic loser in order to establish the passive aggressive activity which will lead to the overcoming of the Roman Empire. History already proved that the plan was working. Passive Jews were crucified and the Hellenistic temple of Herod (the Samaritans describe it as an 'acropolis' in one of their earliest writings) was smashed. Soon the Empire too would follow.

Excuse my intrusion in this interesting thread but I see here a clue for a correct interpretation of Mark 15:39 (the centurion who recognizes Jesus, the Son of Man, as real Son of God). Josephus (the Romans) says that the Star Prophecy is about "men coming from Judaea". Mere mortals. The centurion contradicts directly Josephus: that man on the cross is the (Son of) God. And so the prophecy about the Son of Man " in glory" is realized on the cross. The true Son of God is been able of make to seem as victorious a mere son of man, by making him appear as himself on the cross (even if really he was not him because the Son of God abandoned the Son of Man on the cross).