cheenc03a.pdf

SON OF MAN
Jesus, nlre.,dy in the Gaii1arnn permi, claimed for himscif
a peculiar kind of Messiahship hy the Danielic title.
He deems it probable that Jcsur looked upon his
victory over Snrazr in Mt. 4 ~ as s a realisation of the
slaying of the beast in Dan. 7 ri 16. It is dimcult to see
what ethical content could have been given to a figure
whicheverybody understood tomean theestablishn~entof
the empire of the Jews that could not also have been
given to the current Messianic ideal. Clemen
(7'I.Z. 1899, col. 489) ask5 why docnliitZ cannot
have been a \lessianic title at the time of Jesur as >veil
LE later. Tlie answer is that there is no evidence
whntever that dor-ndid was ever used aE a Messianic
title. There is reason to believe that Jesus on some
occasions used it in the senre it commonly and exclusively
has in extant Aramaic literature. In these
instances it has ten wrongly translated in the Gk.
Gospels by a title not yet drawn from Dan. when Rev..
4 Ezra. and the interpolations in En. 31~71 were written
in the reign of Domitian.'
'The most serious objection of Krop (Lo jenrde dr
Jd$rr. 1807) is derived from the ~iesence of the title in
prediction; "f Jesus' death and resurrection. How was
the title brought from the eschatological series into no
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different a settine? It may be answered thnt when
once uttermcer concerning the Son of man had been
placed upon the lips of Jesus, and the expression consequently
vndcmtoorl ar a self-designation. it mryrerdily
have been subrtituted for 'I,' as the uacillnting tradition
ill many places indicates, and adopted in the creation of
new oracles. It is probable, however, that a genuine
utterance of Jesus iiw lnirunderrtood and made the
foundation of there login (see § 40).
(;enkel's opposition (li.) comer from his strong conviction
that ' the man' is a mythological figure.
A:, objection is raised by Rose (Rm. 6idL. =goo, pp.
169J): the close connection between the kingdom and
the Son of man render it probable that lesur. to whom
the former idea war of such important;. also occupied
himself with the latter. TWO facts. however. are not
suflichetitiy consirlered in this view. lntenrr speculatior,$
coclcernhg the kingdom and the world to come
are freqnenfly found withollt any allusion to n
hleiriah, and rhir 1s rcvdily accounted for by the hope
centring on God himself as the sole deliverer of his
people and judge of the buorld. When Drumnlond
(LC) appeals to the independent tradition of Jn. and to
the f&~ct that 'the apostles must hare known whether
their Muster sooke of hinlself in the wnv recorded in the
~~~
gospels or not,' it is to be said that acquaintance with
the synoptic5 an the part of the Fourth Evangelist can
rcnrcelv be doubted, thnr the ~eculiar use of the term in
SON OF MAN
this, what the nposr1t.s must have kr>oirn, as Dmmmond
himself would no doubt admlt. Hir weightiest objection
is that the Church would have preferred to invent
some higher title. Rut the impiession left upon at,
ancient reader of Dan, i r3 was not that of a frail mortal.
but rather that of n resplendent celestial being; and
the title was not invented, it grew. Driver (1.r.) recognises
that all such considerations would have to yleld.
'if if irere philologicvlly certain that " the son of man"
cordd not have been an erprersion used by our Lord.'
That dornliili should not have been understood as
'man ' in Galilee in the first cenmrv, althoueh it was m
-,
that for emphasis Jrrus was obliged to use the term
rreh dt-ndii, ~nennit~g 'the Son of man.' But this
Christian translation of d uldr TOO dv@odrau. , inteliieible "
only as a product of dogmatic necessity, r0uld not
have been understood as ' the Son of man' but as 'the
son of the Man.' Realirine " the oreczriousllerr .
even of
this assumption. he finally quotes with approval
Sanday'r opinion that.Jerus may have introduced the
term ulmn some occasion when he war addressing hi
Aramaic-speaking fellmv-men in-Greek I It is not easy
to believe that this Son of man who went forth to seek
and to save that which was lost presented to his
Galilean fishermen riddles concernina himself in a
foreign tongue.
Evcn the suggestion uf jansen quoted by Weiir (Pndkf
/mu 1 155) that Jesus uredthc Hebrevrrrmbt,-iida,!l, rhough
i s I , 1 I bhili. It is not npprrcnt why he
should thavc translated 6or-nzie into Am-RdRsu. whlch was not
a lMerrirnic title rnd could not possibly suggest Urn. 7.3.
The keenest criticism of the new interoretation has
been made by Schmledel IProf. dlonnlrh., 1x98, DD.
-
. ..
34, ~~~~~~d~~~ 252s 1918. 1901. P P 333s).
He is unquestionably right m paying
criticism, down the urincide that 'absolute
credibility should be ~ccordei to ihat xhich cntlnot
have been invented by a tradition repiete nith veneration
for Jesus because contradicting it. and mart cirnriy
in instances where, among the erangrlists themselvrs,
one or another has actually effected a transfurmation
out of reverence for Jesus.' Strangely enough, this
acute critic has faded to perceive thnt, if the interpretation
based on the Ammnic is admitted, the passages is
question furnish most valuable illustrations of hi5
priucipie. Has a man the right to assure his fellownlon
that his sins are pardoned? The Pharisees assert
that God alone can oardon sin. Teru affirms that man
has the right to do ;o. Thir thdught rvas too bold for
the Church to grasp. She wked, 'Who ir the man
that ci~n oardon sins?' and her answer war. 'the
Christ.' It was no doubt because the translator.
following the cu~torn of the Alexandrian version.
rendered the phrase literally d vlbr roc dvOpdrov rather
than in good idiomatic Greek d KvOpwror that the saying
was preserved at all.
It 15 not neceruryio arrume that the queption debated was
nriginnlly connected with a care of healing, and quiteirrelevant
Loask whether Jerur thought that all mencould exers~re herhng
power, nor ir it,~f a11 cerrr.in lhht Jew would have answered
such rquertion m the ncwtlue. Jerur declarer that the ubbath
wa5 made for man's rake, therefore man is six, lord of the
inbbith, and the added remarks show that he regarded the
whole cult as or les7 importance thrn the principle of lpre
violated in the charge made again* his disciplci. nut vlcw
>f rhrrabhath that put it wholly into the hand, or man, war too
radical for the Church. By the mirlending, ,haugh probphli
uni~,tcnriunal, turn given to the expression in reek, rhr gained
the comforting assurance that the Chriir war lord of thc rrbhstii,
rnd woilid no douhr, lend his rurhorirg tomy change made in
his honour: The morein harmony with the growing veneration
[or Jesus rhir thought is, the more value mrtrr be attached to
the errller and ro markedly diffeienr form rcreded bya trrnslation
ofthe raying brck inro the original Aramaic.
In 3lr. 8za leius wed what rounds like r cuncnt epigmm m
indicrtc the jicirrituder of hunlan life. He thought of man',
lor, the Church instantly thoub.ht of his; and the greater the
lirrancc between her meditation npon the humiliation of her
herrenly lord from the geilerrl ourlook upon human life rug.