Jesus in the Talmud

108 Chapter 9If a man tells you:I am God (el ani)—he is a liar;I am (the) Son of Man (ben adam)—he will regret it;I go up to the heavens—he has said, but he shall not do it. 45This midrash is an interpretation of Balaam’s oracle in Numbers 23:18–24:“God is not a man, that he should lie; nor a son of man, that he should repent.Has he said, and shall he not do it? Or has he spoken, and shall henot fulfill it?” In the original context of the Balaam oracle, this means thatdespite Balak’s order to curse Israel, Balaam must follow God’s commandto bless Israel, a command that cannot be revoked. I have highlighted therelevant terms in the Bible verse and in R. Abbahu’s interpretation, and wecan easily see how well they correspond to each other (Bible : midrash):(1) God is not a man who lies : a man who tells you that he is God is aliar;(2) God is not a Son of man who repents (= revokes his decree) : aman who tells you that he is the Son of Man will regret it;(3) God does what he says : a man who tells you that he goes up toheaven will not perform what he has promised. 46Maier has meticulously collected all the biblical and midrashic parallelsto this text and wants to prove that in its original context it refers to thekings of the nations (most prominently Hiram), who elevated themselvesto gods and were punished for their hubris. 47 This is no doubt correct. Butis it equally correct that in the “original” midrash the term “son of man”does not represent a title but simply refers to a human being? True, inEzekiel 28:2 Hiram, the king of Tyre, claims to be a god and is rebukedfor this hubris (“yet you are a man [adam] and no god”)—but what iswrong with claiming that he is a “son of man,” and why will he regret