Why is Jesus referred to by that term? Never made any sense to me.
Jesus, Son of Man
by startingover 9 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Chalam
I asked the same question about three years ago when I was getting into the bible.
Some good answers here
If Jesus was the Son of God, why did He call Himself the Son of ...
All the best,
Stephen
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Narkissos
Imo it is practically impossible to understand most of the Gospel references to "the Son of Man" (especially those who Jesus refers to him as a known heavenly figure, in 3rd person) if you ignore the construction of this title / character in Enochian literature, especially the "book of Parables" (1 Enoch 37--71). Playing "Bible only" with this one is playing blind.
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designs
Rabbi Hillel, Rabbi Gaon and other teachers in the Second Temple era began to develop themes on Man and particularly a Jew as being in the image of God and an acceptance of the biological and spiritual role he plays- the Golden Mean.
Pro life, pro joy, the pholosophy distanced Jewish thought on man's place in the big scheme of things from fatalism. God calling on a human for a special task was considerred the highest of blessings: Son of Man
The 7th Benediction: 'Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has created joy and gladness, bridegroom and bride, mirth and exaltation, pleasure and delight, love, brotherhood, peace, and fellowship.'
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JosephMalik
Son of Man simply means human being. In the OT texts humans of some importance such as prophets were called son of man, and prophetically it was used in Daniel to describe the humanity of our human Savior. In NT texts it is used of the human that will return to earth once again to destroy evil humanity and cleanse the earth much like the way the flood did. It is this very humanity, this flesh with the sacrificed sinless life it contained that makes our redemption as human beings possible, and it is just such a humanity without sin that the resurrection will restore to those worthy of it. It dispells the idea that humans will become non-humans in the kingdom of God as a non-human did not die for us.
Joseph
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OnTheWayOut
The writers of the Gospels, whoever they really were, were trying to do as much connecting to the OT as possible.
Daniel 7:13-14 refers to the "son of man" prophecy where this person comes with the clouds of heaven, approaches the Ancient of Days (God) and was given authority, glory and sovereign power so that men of every language worshiped him, and his kingdom never ended.Daniel was written post-David. Many of the OT writings about a ruler were refering to a king similar to David, whose rule would never end. They made David legendary, larger than life. I don't think the intent at the time was to refer to a king who would never die, but to a kingdom that would never end. It would be passed on to succeeding generations.
The establishment of Christianity took advantage of the many descriptions in the OT of a kingdom that will never end and insisted on a king that would never end. Maybe the OT meant that they would literally "worship" him or maybe they just meant that people would bow down to this king. Well, Christianity decided it was "worship." "Someone like a son of man" would need to be a god that was a son of human(s).
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Leolaia
The "must have" book on the subject is Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Book of Parables ed. by Gabriele Boccaccini (Eerdmans, 2007). Here is my own summary of the differences and similarities between Daniel, 1 Enoch, and the gospels....
The messianic title "Son of Man" derives ultimately from Daniel 7 but reflects the apocalyptic developments attested in the Book of Parables (1 Enoch 37-71), usually dated to the early first century AD. The original source of the Son of Man character is the collective personage in the throne vision in the Aramaic apocalypse of Daniel (written in the early second century BC, which possibly draws on third century BC material from the Book of Giants):
Daniel 7:9-10, 13, 21-22, 25-27: "Thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze. A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands attended him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court was seated, and the books were opened ... and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.... As I watched, this horn was waging war against the saints and defeating them, until the Ancient of Days came and pronounced judgment in favor of the saints of the Most High, and the time came when they possessed the kingdom.... He [the little horn] will speak against the Most High and oppress his saints and try to change the set times and the laws. The saints will be handed over to him for a time, times and half a time. But the court will sit, and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever. Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be handed over to the saints, the people of the Most High.His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him".
Here "Son of Man" is not a title but a description of the figure who receives the kingdom, he is "one like a son of man," i.e. he is human in appearance (he is also heavenly as he is "coming with the clouds of heaven", the descriptive language for the Ancient of Days and the "one like a son of man" draws on rather old Israelite motifs pertaining to El and Baal/Yahweh). The interpretation of the vision also identifies the "one like a son of man" with the "saints, the people of the Most High" whom the little horn (Antiochus Epiphanes) persecuted with war. The "one like a son of man" is thus a collective figure. The kingdom is taken away from the little horn and given to these saints who endured war and oppression. The Hebrew apocalypse of Daniel interprets this as referring to those who "fall by the sword or be burned or captured or plundered" during the tribulation who then "rise to receive their allotted inheritance" and "shine with the brightness of heaven like the stars forever and ever" (11:33-35, 12:1-3, 10, 13). Revelation follows this line of interpretation by construing the saints martyred in the great tribulation of the "Beast" (= the little horn of Daniel) as receiving the kingdom in the resurrection and ruling the earth. The "one like a son of man" is thus human in appearance because it represents collectively the "people of the Most High". Also it is important to note that the "one like a son of man" is not himself an eschatological judge. There is a collective court ("thrones") that will convene and judge the Beast as deserving of destruction; the "one like a son of man" does not receive his power and authority until after the power of the "little horn" is taken away and completely destroyed.
The Book of Parables (early first century AD) draws on Danielic material and transforms it as pertaining to a single messianic figure:
1 Enoch 38:2, 46:1-5, 47:3-4, 48:2-6, 10: "Where will be the dwelling place of the sinners and where will be the resting place of those who have denied the Lord of Spirits? It would have been better for them if they had not been born.... Then I saw one to whom belongs a head of days, and his head was like white wool. And with him was another, whose face was like the apperance of a man; and his face was full of graciousness like one of the holy angels. And I asked the angel of peace, who went with me and showed me all the hidden things, about that son of man, who he was and whence he was and why he went with the Head of Days. And he answered me and said, 'This is the Son of Man who has righteousness, and righteousness dwells with him. And all the treasuries of what is hidden he will reveal; for the Lord of Spirits has chosen him, and his lot has prevailed through truth in the presence of the Lord of Spirits forever. And this Son of Man whom you have seen, he will raise the kings and the mighty from their couches, and the strong from their thrones' .... In those days I saw the Head of Days as he took his seat on the throne of his glory, and the books of the living were opened in his presence, and all his host, which was in the heights of heaven, and his court, were standing in his presence, and the hearts of the saints were filled with joy, for the number of the righteous was at hand and the prayer of the righteous had been heard.... In that hour that Son of Man was named in the presence of the Lord of Spirits, and his name before the Head of Days. Even before the sun and the constellations were created, before the stars of heaven were made, his name was named before the Lord of Righteous. He will be a staff for the righteous, that they may lean on him and not fall, and he will be the light of the nations, and he will be a hope for those who grieve in their hearts.... For this reason he was chosen and hidden in his presence before the world was created and forever".
1 Enoch 49:2-4, 51:1-3, 52:4: "For the Chosen One has taken his stand in the presence of the Lord of Spirits and his glory is forever and ever and his might to all generations. And in him dwells the spirit of wisdom and the spirit of insight, and the spirit of instruction and might, and he will judge the things that are secret.... In those days the earth will restore what has been entrusted to it, and Sheol will restore what it has received, and destruction will restore what it owes. In those days my Chosen One will arise, and choose the righteous and holy from among them, for the day on which they will be saved has drawn near. And the Chosen One in those days will sit upon my throne, and all the secrets of wisdom will go forth from the counsel of his mouth, for the Lord of Spirits has given them to him and glorifiedhim.... All these things that you have seen will serve the authority of his Anointed One so that he may be powerful and mighty on the earth".
1 Enoch 61:8-9, 62:2-5, 69:27-29: "And the Lord of Spirits seated the Chosen One upon the throne of glory and he will judge all the works of the saints in the heights of heaven and in the balance he will weigh their deeds. And when he will lift up his face to judge their secret ways according to the word of the name of the Lord of Spirits, and their paths according to the way of the righteous judgment of the Lord of Spirits, they will all speak with one voice, and bless and glorify and exalt and sanctify the name of the Lord of Spirits....And the Lord of Spirits seated him upon the throne of his glory and the spirit of righteousness was poured upon him and the word of his mouth will slay all the sinners, and all the unrighteous will perish from his presence.... And pain will come upon them as upon a woman in labor, when the child enters the mouth of the womb, and she has difficulty in giving birth. And one group of them will look at the other, and they will be terrified and will cast down their faces, and pain will seize them when they see that Son of Man sitting on the throne of glory.... And he sat on the throne of his glory and all judgment was given to the Son of Man, and he will make sinners vanish and perish from the face of the earth... From then on there will be nothing that is corruptible for the Son of Man has appeared, and he sat down on the throne of his glory, and all evil will vanish from his presence".
1 Enoch 71:1, 5, 8, 13-14: "And after that, my spirit was taken away and it ascended to heaven... and he took my spirit, even me, Enoch, to the heaven of heavens and I saw there as it were a house built of hailstones and between those stones were tongues of living fire...And I saw angels that could not be counted, thousands of thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand, they were surrounding that house. And Michael and Raphael and Gabriel and Phanuel and the holy angels who are in the heights of heaven, were going in and out of that house. And out of that house came Michael and Raphael and Gabriel and Phanuel and many holy angels without number. And with them was the Head of Days and his head was white and pure as wool, and his apparel was indescribable. And I fell on my face and all my flesh was melted and my spirit was transformed....And that Head of Days came with Michael and Raphael and Gabriel and Phanuel and thousands and tens of thousands of angels without number. And that angel came to me and greeted me with his voice and said to me, 'You are that Son of Man who was born for righteousness, and righteousness dwells on you, and the righteousness of the Head of Days will not forsake you' ".
Here the Son of Man is a single figure who is chosen by the Head of Days (= the Lord of Spirits) and hidden until the time of judgment (= Judgment Day). Then the heavenly Son of Man will be revealed in an epiphany that shows him seated upon "his throne of glory" and all the sinners and kings of the earth experience excruciating pain and terror and shame. The sum of judgment is then given to the Son of Man and he judges the deeds of everyone, including those of the dead who are raised to life when the Son of Man is revealed. The Son of Man will choose those who are righteous and holy and will destroy those who are wicked from off the face of the earth. This is very different from the scheme in Daniel. In the Book of Parables, the "saints" are clearly distinguished from the Son of Man and are those who are saved by him. Daniel 7 does not depict the enthronement of the Son of Man per se on "his throne of glory", and it does not relate that an epiphany of the enthroned Son of Man (causing terror and fear among the sinners) is what announces the Son of Man's existence to those earth. Also in Daniel, it is the court that passes judgment on the nations and gives authority to the "one like a son of man", whereas in the Book of Parables the Son of Man was already chosen by God to serve as the eschatological Judge of every person on earth. In addition to his new judicial role, the Son of Man is pre-existent, named from eternity, is worthy of worship, and who is a source of hope for the righteous and a light to the Gentiles. As an "Anointed One", he is a fully-fledged messianic figure. And at least in the latest version of the text, the Son of Man is identified as Enoch.
We can readily see a similar figure in the synoptic gospels (c. AD 65-85):
Mark 8:38, 9:1, 13:26-27, 14:21, 62: "If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power.... At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.... But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.... And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven".
Matthew 13:41, 16:27-28, 19:28, 24:30-31, 25:31-34, 41, 46: "The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil....For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.... I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his throne of glory, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.... At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the heaven, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.... When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne of glory in heaven. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world'...Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels... Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life' ".
Unlike Daniel but very much like the Book of Parables, "Son of Man" is a messianic title of a non-collective figure who functions as an enthroned eschatological judge, who divides the righteous from the wicked and gives punishment to the latter and eternal reward to the righteous. The figure is also identified with a specific individual, namely, Jesus. He is revealed in a heavenly epiphany which causes the unsaved to mourn, and Matthew in particular emphasizes the image of the figure sitting on his throne of glory (indeed the wording in Matthew 19:28 and 25:31 is almost verbatim of 1 Enoch 69:27, 29, and cf. also the close parallel in Mark 14:21 and 1 Enoch 38:2). However the synoptic gospels also import imagery from Daniel missing in 1 Enoch to flesh out the epiphany, that the Son of Man "comes on the clouds of heaven". This emphasis on the coming of the Son of Man is motivated by the Christian expectation of the parousia of Jesus Christ. The Son of Man is also described with an angelic entourage, possibly reflecting influence from 1 Enoch 1:9 (cf. 1 Thessalonians 3:13 and Jude 14-15). Mark (and the other synoptics) however also uses the title "Son of Man" in Jesus' passion predictions, which emphasize his human suffering and utilize none of the apocalyptic language of the future-oriented Son of Man sayings. This use of the term may thus represent a cross-fertilization of the older Hebrew expression (which means something like "human" or "mortal man") and the more recent apocalyptic title.
John (dating to the end of the first century AD) takes the "Son of Man" figure in a new direction:
John 1:51, 3:13, 5:22-26, 6:27, 62, 12:23: "I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man...No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man....The Father judges no one, but he has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father....I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.... Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the the Son of Man will give you...What if you see the the Son of Man ascend to where he was before? ... The hour has come for the the Son of Man to be glorified".
There are traces of the original Danielic and Enochic schemes here. The "one like a son of man" is given authority by the Ancient of Days after the court convenes and punishes the wicked ruler(s) in Daniel 7, just as Jesus relates that the Father has given authority to the Son of Man. But this is an authority to judge, a motif found explicitly in 1 Enoch 61-69; there is indeed a close verbal similarity between John 5:22 and 1 Enoch 69:27. The epiphany of the Son of Man coming with the angels of heaven, found most explicitly in the synoptics, is only partially reflected in the image of heaven opening and the angels descending on the Son of Man. The theme of heavenly ascent also has a close parallel in 1 Enoch 71. But the future apocalyptic eschatology of Daniel, 1 Enoch and the synoptics is only weakly present here; the emphasis is on Jesus' earthly life as realizing the coming of the Son of Man at the expense of any future parousia. He is the heavenly figure who has already come to the earth and who has all the authority to judge. He thus has already begun to give eternal life to the righteous and even raise the dead ("the time has now come"). The Markan passion predictions of the Son of Man correspond to the emphasis in John of the glorification of the Son of Man on the cross (3:14, 8:28, 12:34). Jesus declares that "now is the time of the judgment of this world and now the prince of the world will be driven out" (12:31), and this corresponds to the Judgment Day of the synoptics, the Enochic depiction of the Son of Man judging the world, and the Danielic depiction of the fourth beast and the "little horn" (= the present ruler of the world) being judged and destroyed. The overthrow of the world ruler occurs via Jesus' passion, a theme also partly found in Revelation (cf. 5:9, 12:11). But the notion of the Son of Man judging the world itself is turned on its head: "As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it" (12:47, cf. 3:16). And the saving function of the Son of Man has further parallels in the Book of Parables: there he is described as "a staff for the righteous, that they may lean on him and not fall, and he will be the light of the nations (cf. Jesus as the "light of the world" in John 8:12), and he will be a hope for those who grieve in their hearts.... For in his name they are saved, and he is the vindicator of their lives" (1 Enoch 48:4-7). But John dispenses with much of the apocalyptic scenario that is prominent in the "Son of Man" material in 1 Enoch and the synoptics.
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startingover
Thanks everyone! Now my whole next week is taken up trying to absorb what Leolaia wrote.
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*lost*
bumped
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EndofMysteries
What is interesting is that in the hebrew bible, the english word translated to man and adam are identical. So it's the interpreter who decides if it's saying man or adam. With that being said, it could be saying Jesus son of Adam. This isn't my firm belief but is a possibility. Abel was the first one killed. The curse said emnity would be between both seeds. Abel was bruised in the head. And throughout the scriptures you have the sons of darkness and the sons of light, etc. If you are able to see the events of Adam and Eve on a heavenly/spiritual side, perhaps describing heavenly events, (much easier if looking at it in hebrew w/ interlinear to english), many possibilities arise and possible explanations you've never even imagined or heard of before. So could Jesus be Abel or a prehuman Abel, could that be what son of man means, actually son of Adam?