Jesus is not the Son of Man

[neilgodfrey]

The theory that tries to negate oral sources leaves only literary production of christian tradition, which is contrary to all evidence we have of religious development in other contexts.

Why not focus attention on the data itself (as distinct from a "theory") as it pertains to the "production of christian tradition" to which you refer?

(And, er, yes... a view that questions oral sources does indeed -- lo and behold, I can't explain why or how -- propose non-oral sources instead!)

[spin]

The theory that tries to negate oral sources leaves only literary production of christian tradition, which is contrary to all evidence we have of religious development in other contexts.

Why not focus attention on the data itself (as distinct from a "theory") as it pertains to the "production of christian tradition" to which you refer?

I like focusing on data. I do it a lot!

(And, er, yes... a view that questions oral sources does indeed -- lo and behold, I can't explain why or how -- propose non-oral sources instead!)

To talk of non-oral sources one also needs evidence to do so. The notion of there were no oral traditions implies that early christians didn't talk about their religion and that a predominantly illiterate population communicated only through texts.

[davidbrainerd]

Marcion's a fad

Q is a fad. Marcion has flesh, Q is a phantom body. If scholarship does jump off of Marcion back to Q it just shows them to be dishonest weasels. "Let's deal with a document we invented yesterday rather than one the church fathers all complained about. That will make the fundies happy and us rich and famous." So yeah, Marcion may be a fad because truth is a fad since it doesn't make one rich and famous.

[DCHindley]

Marcion's a fad

Q is a fad. Marcion has flesh, Q is a phantom body. If scholarship does jump off of Marcion back to Q it just shows them to be dishonest weasels. "Let's deal with a document we invented yesterday rather than one the church fathers all complained about. That will make the fundies happy and us rich and famous." So yeah, Marcion may be a fad because truth is a fad since it doesn't make one rich and famous.

Really? I think you've got this bass ackwards.

DCH

[davidbrainerd]

Marcion's a fad

Q is a fad. Marcion has flesh, Q is a phantom body. If scholarship does jump off of Marcion back to Q it just shows them to be dishonest weasels. "Let's deal with a document we invented yesterday rather than one the church fathers all complained about. That will make the fundies happy and us rich and famous." So yeah, Marcion may be a fad because truth is a fad since it doesn't make one rich and famous.

Really? I think you've got this bass ackwards.

DCH

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.

[DCHindley]

Q is a fad. Marcion has flesh, Q is a phantom body. If scholarship does jump off of Marcion back to Q it just shows them to be dishonest weasels. "Let's deal with a document we invented yesterday rather than one the church fathers all complained about. That will make the fundies happy and us rich and famous." So yeah, Marcion may be a fad because truth is a fad since it doesn't make one rich and famous.

I think you've got this bass ackwards.

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.

I'm talking about how the fad started, the fad being that Marcion created the NT (his Gospel which became gLuke, his 10 Letters of Paul adapted into the canonical letters with some additional pseudepigraphical pastoral letters) which I had not really seen expressed very widely until Mahar proposed "chrestos" for christos as if it went back to "Marcion's" original version, when it took off like a rocket. Prior to that, the most widely expressed opinion of critics was that Marcion had "corrupted" books he obtained from the canonical NT.

Since there is not a single surviving fragment of Marcion's "gospel" or letters of "Paul" (with one possible exception), we only have caricatures ("straw men") by his enemies, which are set up to be knocked down. I am not confident that Marcion ever published his own versions of the Gospel and the letters of Paul, only commented about how the church of Rome had allowed the true gospel he believed Paul preached to become mixed with ideas derived from Judeans, who followed the creator God of this world.

In his Antitheses Marcion cited the passages in the Christian NT of his day to show the differences between true statements from Jesus versus Judean corruptions. This is very similar to what the author's of the Clementine Recognitions/Homilies did: Explained that some statements in the OT were plainly corruptions of men mixed with the true statements inspired by God. Everything his opponents knew about what Marcion valued probably came from the Antithesis commentary and nothing else, despite what the opponents say in their mocking, derisive way. Of course, nothing of the Antitheses has survived either, unless we have not recognized them from the fragments of Christian literature that we have not been able to match to NT passages.

DCH

[neilgodfrey]

The notion of there were no oral traditions implies that early christians didn't talk about their religion and that a predominantly illiterate population communicated only through texts.

It has never crossed my mind that "there were no oral traditions". That's not the point I made. Are you just looking for ways to twist my words to play another round of your little ego game?

[spin]

The notion of there were no oral traditions implies that early christians didn't talk about their religion and that a predominantly illiterate population communicated only through texts.

It has never crossed my mind that "there were no oral traditions".

Thanks for the clarification.

That's not the point I made. Are you just looking for ways to twist my words to play another round of your little ego game?

No, Neil, and I'll ignore the rhetoric. (Be good. You may not be aware of your tendency to break Wheaton's law.) I was in no way attacking you or, as you impute, playing games.

I'm "looking for ways" to mute the negation of the notion of oral tradition from the discourse on the forum. There seems to be some a priori rejection of oral tradition among non-confessional posters given the misuse of the notion of oral tradition many christians are guilty of—the ahh oral tradition, so it goes back to reliable apostolic sources nonsense. While one cannot make any claims of veracity regarding oral traditions (given the impossibility of testing said veracity), they do indeed help to explain manifestations such as multiple traditions in text that hold similarities the text does not provide a literary trajectory for.

[neilgodfrey]

Some of us might find points of interest in the following. They are Lester Grabbe's conclusions in an article ""Son of Man: Its Origin and Meaning in Second Temple Judaism" in Enoch and the Synoptic Gospels: Reminiscences, Allusions, Intertextuality ed by Stuckenbruck and Boccaccini, 2016 -- pp 196-97 (my own bolding):

A number of new points of consensus have developed out of the continuing discussion:

1. The Aramaic expression בר אנש , and the expression אדם ‎ן‎ב ‎that is generally its Hebrew equivalent, is used to mean “man, human” (cf. also בנ ת אנש , “woman”). However, in Aramaic the singular undetermined form is rather infrequent, and the determined singular is even less frequent. The form normally seen is the determined plural בני אנשא , “men, people, humans.”

2. The figure of the “son of man” is a development from the figure referred to as “like a son of man” in Dan 7:13. However, it is also evident that the figure has developed, drawing on symbolism, imagery, and characteristics found in other biblical passages and even from nonbiblical traditions, including the Davidic king (Ps 2; Isa 11), the servant of Isa 42 and 49, and preexistent Wisdom (Prov 8:22-36; Sir 24:1-3), to create an important and defined figure within the Enochic tradition.

3. It is generally agreed (in spite of Vermes’s claim) that the Aramaic expression is not the equivalent of “I” in the first century CE, and my investigation supports that conclusion.

4. As a number of researchers have recently argued, there is no evidence that Son of Man was a widespread messianic title in first-century Judaism, as had once been argued.

5. On the other hand, “Son of Man” clearly functioned as a title or something similar to it in some circles of late Second Temple Judaism. Its employment in the Parables of Enoch and in the gospels shows that it wan so used by some groups within Judaism. The phrase “Son of Man” is one of four designations applied to a central figure in the Parables, along with “the Chosen One,” “the Anointed One,” and “the Righteous One.”

6. Some have argued that the expression “son of man” is not a title in the Parables, since demonstrative pronouns are used in many passage* in the Parables (such as “that son of man”). On the other hand, some of the other designations also have demonstrative or possessive pronoun* (“his Anointed”: 48:10; 54:6; “my Chosen One”: 45:3, 4; 51:5; 55:4). More important, the Head of Days, who can be none other than God himself, is called “that Head of Days” (71:12, 13) and “that Lord of Spirits” (62:10). Finally, “Son of Man” is the most frequent designation for the figure in the Parables, despite other titles for him. There seems no doubt that “son of man” has taken on a messianic identity In the Parables of Enoch.

7. “Son of Man” functions as a title for Jesus in the gospels and Acts. In addition, the argument that there is direct Influence of the Parables of Enoch on the Gospel of Matthew seems to be well based and indicates that the figure of the Son of Man is not just a borrowing from Daniel.

8. Yet it is also evident that “Son of Man” as a messianic title did not persist either in Judaism or in the Jewish sect that became Christianity with that meaning. For a time it influenced some groups among the Jews but then fell into disuse or even out of favor. Why this happened is unclear, but it might explain why the messianic figure in 4 Ezra 13:1 is referred to as “the man (from the sea)” rather than the Son of Man.

[neilgodfrey]

I'm "looking for ways" to mute the negation of the notion of oral tradition from the discourse on the forum. There seems to be some a priori rejection of oral tradition among non-confessional posters given the misuse of the notion of oral tradition many christians are guilty of—the ahh oral tradition, so it goes back to reliable apostolic sources nonsense. While one cannot make any claims of veracity regarding oral traditions (given the impossibility of testing said veracity), they do indeed help to explain manifestations such as multiple traditions in text that hold similarities the text does not provide a literary trajectory for.

I suggest you start your own thread then and stop assuming that I am assuming or arguing things I am not. You may not be aware of your habit of setting up and attacking straw men when you address my posts. You are certainly aware of your propensity for sarcasm and insults.