Review of “Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?” in Maurice Casey, Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian’s Account of His Life and Teaching. London and New York: T&T Clark (Continuum), 2010.
Part 5: Did Jesus consider himself to be “The Son of Man”?
According to Casey, belief in the resurrection of Jesus was one of the earliest aspects of the Christian faith, and was based on appearances witnessed by his earliest followers. But the manner in which these visions were experienced and interpreted by Jesus’ followers was determined by Jesus’ own prediction that he would die and subsequently be raised to life again (p. 456). In a series of sayings which Casey concludes originates with the historical Jesus, Jesus, speaking of himself as “the son of man” (ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου), predicts that he will rise again after three days (Mark 8.31; 9.31; 10.33-34). Furthermore, as Casey argues, in addition to Jesus’ prediction of his death, Jesus deliberately provoked his own crucifixion. His journey to Jerusalem and challenge to the temple authorities should be viewed as a deliberate attempt to effect his own martyrdom. In short, Jesus was on a suicide mission. Therefore, concludes Casey, the nature of the post-resurrection visions is a reflection of Jesus’ own teaching about his future death and resurrection; they are not just the Church’s invention, not – for example – an ad hoc explanation why their hero had met with an untimely death. Instead, Casey holds that, Jesus deliberately followed in the steps of the Jewish prophets and more recent Maccabean rebels, inviting his own martyrdom. Moreover, following the Maccabean belief in the post-mortem vindication of righteous martyrs, Jesus believed that following his death, he too would be given eternal life.
Did Jesus imagine he would be transformed into The Son of Man who would come back to Earth on the clouds of Heaven?
If Jesus made these predictions about himself, we might ask: is this all that Jesus claimed for himself? Did he not also claim for himself a special role in the coming eschatological Kingdom, in particular the role of a semi-divine intermediary like Elijah or the archangel Michael … or like the figure who become known as “the Son of Man”? Casey acknowledges that a passage such as Mark 10.40 envisages a central role for Jesus in his heavenly glory. In Mark 10.35-45, two of Jesus’ disciples, John and his brother James, ask Jesus if they can have pride of position when Jesus is exalted to heavenly glory. Jesus denies this to them, claiming that only God can grant such things. Then, in a private word to all the disciples, which may or may not be an original part of the same tradition, Jesus explains that the Kingdom of God does not involve lording it over others like tyrants, but requires serving others. Jesus concludes, in v. 45, by saying, “The [or “a”?] son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
From this passage, we learn that Jesus and his disciples viewed Jesus as having a special role in Heaven – higher than the disciples and other worthy recipients of heavenly life, but subject to God. Jesus thought that one day he would be a “second power in Heaven”, just under God! This strange belief makes sense of Jesus’ choosing twelve disciples, for in this act, Jesus was reconstituting a new Israel, each disciple a leader of the twelve tribes which made up the idealized Old Testament concept of Israel, with Jesus as their David-like, kingly head. If Jesus believed in a Kingdom of God, it was one in which Jesus was king, and only his followers were truly Israel! But, Jesus also expected hardship while on Earth; he expected that in order to become great in the afterlife, to become first among all people in eternity, they would have to serve as slaves, and be subject to the possibility of martyrdom. In this, Jesus adhered to the idea that earthly suffering and righteousness led to heavenly reward, which was a Jewish belief invented probably only as late as the second century BC (see, e.g., Daniel 12.3; 2 Maccabees 7) – although never a belief which was accepted by all Jews.
Jesus: when he said bar (e)nash(a) did he mean a singular figure or a general figure?
Clearly Jesus thought that he held a special role in this coming kingdom. But what of his statement that “The [or “a”?] son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many”? The Greek phrase ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου (lit. “the son of the man”) is not normal, native Greek, but is translation Greek, behind which we can detect the clear signs of an Aramaic Vorlage, bar (e)nash(a). In general usage, bar (e)nash(a) is a circumlocution which simply means “a person”. So, by saying, for example, “a son of man is like a worm”, all one would be saying is that “a man/human is like a worm” (cf. Job 25.6). This saying does not mean that Jesus in particular is like a worm! Casey also notes that the term bar (e)nash(a) is sometimes used, as it is by Jesus, to speak of oneself in the third person. So when Jesus says “the son of man is going to die”, it is possible that he might only be saying, “I am going to die”. Casey explains that Jesus might have a reason to speak of his impending death in the third person, because such things are humiliating or difficult to face (p. 368). The context of Mark 10.35-45 does not help us distinguish whether Jesus is referring to a specific, titular Son of Man or just “son of man” (i.e. a person). For in the context of this passage, Jesus is saying that his personal example, in which he predicts that he will serve on Earth and later become a kingly figure in Heaven, is the rule also for John and James and every one of his followers. So bar (e)nash(a) could refer either to Jesus himself as a specific person (“the Son of Man”) or to everybody (“a son of man”, i.e. “a person”).
Jesus said, "everyone who acknowledges me before others, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God." Jesus appears to have had a somewhat overinflated estimation of his own self-importance within the cosmic scheme of things.
There is a fundamental dilemma then in interpreting the “son of man” sayings (or at least in respect of the earliest son of man sayings that go back to the historical Jesus, because in later usage ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου becomes more clearly a title for Jesus). The unusual phrase is, however, very distinctive of Jesus, and is found directly on his lips, not in the narrator’s sections in Mark. Casey provides careful reasons to interpret every one of the genuine bar (e)nash(a) sayings which go back to the historical Jesus as having a general usage, that is, as applying to all people generally. Casey’s discussion of the “son of man” passages here and recently in The Solution to the “Son of Man” Problem (2007) is extremely comprehensive, and even if you ultimately disagree with his conclusions, the clarity of his argument and breadth of knowledge demands engagement. Casey’s discussion of the scholarship on bar (e)nash(a), the few dozen non-Christian usages of bar (e)nash(a), and the use of bar (e)nash(a) by Jesus is unmatched in contemporary scholarship. Moreover, Casey is right to maintain that the titular sense of bar (e)nash(a) (“Son of Man”) simply does not occur in the unequivocal manner of its Christian use before the Gospels. It does not occur in Daniel, where instead the heavenly figure is described as “one like a son of man/human” in appearance, which is not a title, whether it refers symbolically to Israel or, as I favour, to a divine intermediary such as Michael, among other options. It does not occur as a title in the Similitudes of Enoch, although it is used fairly singularly to refer to an individual man who is eventually transformed into the eschatological judge. In the Similitudes, the phrase “son of man” gains a specific association with Enoch and his heavenly counterpart the eschatological judge, because the term is used repeatedly of him. Moreover, it is coloured from the beginning by the clear use of imagery from Daniel 7 (Similitudes 46.1-4). So, while “son of man” is not technically titular in the Similitudes, the term has gathered a specific connotation of the divine intermediary responsible for the eschatological judgement. As many authors in the volume published the same year as Casey’s Son of Man (Gabriele Boccaccini’s Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man) argue, despite the inherent uncertainty, there is a good case to be made for a 20 B.C. dating of the Similitudes. On this basis, the phrase “son of man” was an established address for an individual person, moreover a glorified transformed divine intermediary figure, before the birth of Jesus, and before the floruit of the apocalyptic figure who taught Jesus, John the Baptist.
For Casey, while the historical Jesus believed he would have a special place in Heaven, and believed and predicted that he would have to suffer a martyr’s death to attain it, he did not historically term his heavenly counterpart “The Son of Man”. It is certainly possible to interpret each of the genuine “son of man” sayings of Jesus in a general rather than titular sense, although a full discussion of each case would take us a long way from the present book, into many of Casey’s other publications on this interpretive problem. While I’m not convinced by his conclusion that every reference by the historical Jesus to ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου / bar (e)nash(a) is general; i.e. that none are titular with the meaning “The Son of Man”, the question is admittedly very difficult to determine, not least because – and this is Casey’s (as well as Vermes’) insight – we must first retrovert Mark’s Aramaic-derived Greek Jesus-sayings into their hypothetical Vorlagen before even beginning to consider whether the phrase is titular or generic. Lurking in the background to this issue, also, is the odd fact that the term ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου is almost entirely restricted to the Gospels, and is not included for example in any of the earlier Pauline epistles – although plausibly because the epistles lack the direct speech of Jesus and are composed in native not translation Greek. So was “Son of Man” a title used by Jesus himself, or developed only by Mark and followed by the other Gospels? Mark 14.62 clearly links – similar to the author of the Similitudes before him – the “son of man” sayings with imagery drawn from Daniel 7.13-14, which speaks of “one like a son of man” (i.e. somebody in human form) who “comes with the clouds of Heaven”, puts an end to evil, is “given dominion and glory and kingship”, which lasts for all eternity. For Mark, it seems clear that ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου has become a title of the divine intermediary who will act as eschatological judge and second in power to God in Heaven. As Casey argues, the historical Jesus accepted this heavenly role, so could the title “Son of Man” which Mark employs to describe it also go back to the historical Jesus?
Casey not only argues for the general meaning of bar (e)nash(a) in each of the specific general uses by Jesus by detailed analysis of text and translation technique, but he raises a further argument which he considers makes the general meaning necessarily present whenever bar (e)nash(a) is employed. Casey argues that “the general level of meaning… cannot be avoided in the original Aramaic” (p. 363). Now it is one thing to argue from the meaning of specific passages that Jesus does not employ the title “Son of Man”; but this goes further and appears to assert that Jesus could not have used the term bar (e)nash(a) without also including its general sense (i.e. “a man”). If true, it would effectively rule out the possibility that Jesus could have used the Aramaic expression bar (e)nash(a) in a titular sense. But is this correct? Can a very general word – even as general a word which simply means “a man” in general use – not have been used by Jesus in a sense which excludes this general level of meaning? A word used very generally can indeed lose its general sense in certain technical usages. Take the word “man” in English, to begin with an analogy. Although it has just the same level of generality, extending to all “humankind”, it can also be restricted to certain people. If I say, “I’ve got to work for the man“, the term “the man” refers only to a white, upper-class man, and excludes the general level of “man”. In this example, although I am a man, I am not “the man”; the specific, technical usage excludes the general use. Closer to home, in Hebrew, the corresponding term ‘ish (“man”/”human”) has a very general semantic range. But now and again it is used restrictively, to refer to a special class of men, to heroes, to mighty men. Take Numbers 13.3b, which refers to the list of spies as ‘ishim (“men”), and uses the term in apposition to roshey beney-yisra’el (“chiefs of the sons of Israel”). Here, the general extent of the term “men” is erased, as it is used to describe the spies with the phrase “all of them men”. The author is not retaining the whole generality of the semantic range (obviously the spies are “men”!), but referring to each of the spies as a special type of man: a hero; a great warrior.
Can a very general word - even as general a word as simply means "a man" - also be used in an exclusive sense?
Moving from these analogies to Jesus’ use of “son of man”: how might we conclude that the historical Jesus may have employed this Aramaic phrase – which in most circumstances has a very general sense – in a very specific way, in fact, to refer to himself as the divine intermediary understood as the eschatological judge of humankind? The first thing to note is that the circumlocutory form “son of man” would easily attract such a specific secondary, technical, titular meaning – much more easily than the term “man”. Casey only locates 50-odd usages of “son of man” in a millennium of Aramaic usage, as opposed to the many thousands of uses of “man”. In addition, this rare phrase “son of man” would have easily evoked the passage in Daniel for Jesus and his followers, given (1) the highly apocalyptic nature of the earliest Jesus movement, (2) Jesus’ own similar delusion that he was destined to take up the top spot in Heaven under The Power Himself (God), (3) the favouring of this precise circumlocutory phrase to apply to a glorified divine intermediary in the Similitudes by an apocalyptic author exhibiting notable similarities to the Jesus Movement, and (4) the apparent importance of Daniel on Jesus and his followers as evident from the extent and significance of its use in the New Testament. For Jesus, then, bar (e)nash(a) would most probably have had this strong connotation of a divine intermediary figure who wielded divinely instituted power. It is this precise persona that Jesus took on, perhaps as a result of his own visionary experiences (as at his baptism, in the desert, and his transfiguration, etc). Jesus considered himself to be this Son of Man, which provided him with power and authority while on Earth (e.g. regarding the Sabbath law), stimulated his intent to invite death and martyrdom as had the Maccabean martyrs who were transformed into heavenly beings, and formed the basis for his belief in his eschatological role as judge of the living and the dead. So while it is possible that the historical Jesus used bar (e)nash(a) only in a general sense, there is no necessary reason why the Aramaic phrase bar (e)nash(a) could not in a certain context have an exclusive sense. Moreover, this exclusive, titular sense in fact corresponds precisely with Jesus’ conception of himself as deserving of a special role in Heaven as eschatological judge and second power under God.
For example, in Luke 12.8-9, a passage discussed by Casey as a translation of an Aramaic saying originating with the historical Jesus (and which he reconstructs with some significant difference to the Greek translation which follows), Jesus tells his disciples,
And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before others, the Son of Man [or, a son of man] also will acknowledge before the angels of God; but whoever denies me before others will be denied before the angels of God.
As Casey affirms, “[t]here should be no doubt that, in two or three sayings, Jesus declared that people’s attitude to him during the historic ministry would condition their fate at the last judgement” (Son of Man, p. 193). Jesus set himself up as the new measure of Jewish exclusivity, the measure of “true Israel” within “Israel”. Jesus appears to have had a somewhat overinflated estimation of his own self-importance within the cosmic scheme of things (readers will recall that the imminent, apocalyptic end-of-the-world scenario which he predicted never in fact came to pass). We might also then conclude that Jesus’ exclusive demand for his follower’s allegiance to him as the sine qua non of attaining eternal life has significant continuity with Paul’s demand for belief “in” Christ as the key to salvation. Far from being the exemplar of the possibility of a new universalism-to-come – as in the creative but ultimately futile romantic fantasies of Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek – Paul was adhering to Jesus’ own exclusivism when he reconstituted the old lines of exclusion (Israelite versus Gentile exclusivity) in an analogical fashion, setting followers of Jesus against non-followers of Jesus (as Daniel Boyarin already observes brilliantly in A Radical Jew, 1997).
Moreover, if “son of man” is titular here, this passage assumes a preeminent position of Jesus on the day of judgment, as judge of the living and the dead. This is consistent with the preeminent heavenly position Jesus saw for himself in his discussion with John and James, and of which his disciples were well aware. The role of Jesus as the judge of the whole earth on the Day of Judgment, and the imminence of this eschatological finale, can be found throughout the New Testament (e.g. Rom. 8.34; Eph. 1.19-23; 2.6-7; Col. 3.1-4; Phil. 2.8-9). This authentic saying of Jesus in Luke 12.8-9 also shows that the belief in a unique apocalyptic role goes back to the historical Jesus. By contrast, Casey argues is that “son of man” merely refers to “a man”, that is, that those who confess Jesus on Earth will find somebody-or-another giving them a favourable report in Heaven – not the Son of Man figure. Conversely, when in Luke 12.9, Jesus notes that those who deny Jesus “will be denied”, Casey claims that the denial is by God himself, not by Jesus in his judgment role as “Son of Man”. While, as noted, Casey’s interpretations are possible, they do not seem to offer the better interpretation, and this is so in particular because of the very close match between the “Son of Man” figure here in Luke 12.8-9 and the other New Testament passages in which the figure doing the judging of the living and the dead is Jesus. The most economic explanation must be that in claiming this particular role of eschatological judge and preeminent heavenly power, Jesus is claiming precisely the role of the Son of Man. Casey accepts that Jesus predicted his death; he accepts that Jesus predicted his preeminent position in Heaven; but he does not consider that the “Son of Man” sayings which tell of both Jesus’ earthly suffering and heavenly exaltation refer exclusively to Jesus. But for the reasons given, I would go that extra step.
Jesus understood himself as having an important, even singular role in the entire cosmos. He understood himself as the successor to the lost Davidic kingship in Israel, the eschatological judge of all humanity, destined to be the second power in Heaven under only God himself. Although Casey disagrees, I conclude that Jesus, not just his followers, described this particular role of power and judgment with the term the “Son of Man”. The term Son of Man, so distinctive on the lips of Jesus, was learned by Jesus through instruction by John the Baptist and appropriated through Jesus’ own visionary experiences. Following two centuries of speculation concerning the intriguing description of the principal heavenly angel and harbinger of the eschaton as being “one like a (son of) man” in Daniel 7.13-14, the concept of the Son of Man was developed, and this in particular provided Jesus with his self-understanding as eschatological judge of all humankind, both a transformed man and leading power in Heaven. While the Jesus Seminar and other nineteenth-century liberals like to present Jesus as a cuddly wind-up toy whose string you can pull and make him recite any of a few dozen comforting aphorisms (to borrow an image from Joseph Hoffmeier), the historical Jesus turns out to be more of a David Koresh-type demagogue with an overinflated estimation of himself than some harmless Cynic philosopher.
Next part: (6) Women Witnesses to the Empty Tomb and Their Significance
Previous part: (4) Inconsistencies and Deliberate Changes in the Gospel Post-Resurrection Accounts
Deane, good post. I bet you don’t hear this often, but some might classify you as one of the very conservative scholars and bloggers 🙂 After all, you accept the historical Jesus envisioned his future role as Davidic king, divine intermediator son of man and second power in heaven (Paul is in continuity with this), viewed his death in the tradition of atoning martyrdom and expected vindication by resurrection, and had visionary experiences in his baptism/temptation/transfiguration. I wonder how similar your position is to some articles in the recent volume by Owen and Hurtado, Who is this Son of Man (http://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/page/2/). A few questions. First, what convinces you most on the early dating of the Similitudes since this is the one section absent from Qumran and might the identification of Enoch with a son of man in 1 Enoch 71.17 be a later interpolation? Second, if Casey is right on the general meaning that may also be specific to the speaker and one like a son of man represents Israel (Dan 7:18), is it possible to follow Morna Hooker’s line in “The Son of Man in Mark” that Jesus saw himself and his disciples as corporately embodying Israel, both in suffering under the beasts and hoped for vindication and enthronement? Finally, about the disciples as conditioned to interpret their “experiences” as a resurrection, I still wonder if the very specific passion predictions in Mark are ex eventu and part of his redactional theme of secrecy and blindness of the disciples to Jesus as a suffering messiah – the arrest and execution seems to take them quite by surprise and they scatter and likely that would be the end if not for an Easter event? Sorry, lots of questions but thanks for this thought provoking series.
Hi Mike,
Ha! – yes, I suppose you could call me a biblical maximalist… although I don’t know about the dating the Gospel of Mark to AD 40 which I hear is vogue up your way. For your amusement, I have recently been immersed in the Book of Numbers (which was a natural progression from apocalyptic visions in Daniel literature), and I’m arguing that a key passage in diachronic theories of the composition of the Pentateuch (Num 13-14) is more-or-less a unified composition. So, the conservative tag might be right!
You’re right also to query, so kindly, my dating of the Similitudes – as is the case with almost any literature in this period there is of course a huge range of possible dates, and little if anything that is decisive. It’s a cumulative case of possible historical allusions and possible trajectory of the history of religious traditions that leads me to place it a decade or two after the Parthian invasion of 40 BC. And yes, I’m not sure this isn’t all just a topos (although, there is really only the Sybilline Oracles that mentions the Parthians in particular, isn’t there?). If the expectation of the Similitudes is that it is pre-destruction of Jerusalem (again, arguably), we hit the invasion of 40 BC as the previous historical war against Parthians, who have only been associated with the Medes for a century or so. As Josephus nicely records for us somewhere, it involved a sack of Jerusalem. The “bad landowners” motif in the Similitudes is interesting here, because (although, obviously, it could also merely be a topos also, stereotypical), Charlesworth draws attention to a major Herodian upheaval in which the arable land (the “dry land” of the Similitudes) passes from local to Roman hands, and coincides with a concentration of extreme wealth in a few hands. As for its absence at Qumran, I don’t think any conclusion can be drawn from it at all. In addition, Qumran was shut down from 40-1 BC, and while the Enoch traditions turn up all over the place in ancient Judaism (they are probably scripture in much of Judaism, certainly in Christianity of the first two centuries), they are more important at Qumran only in the early period, up to about 100 BC. Also, it is (significantly for Jesus), probably a Galilean document. As a conservative scholar, of course I don’t see any reason to count any part of the last bits of the Similitudes as an interpolation, and indeed the section fits well enough even if the identification of the son of man is a new development in the story.
Yes, I think there is great fluidity between individuals and groups in the symbolism in Daniel – that’s a good point to remember, and about the nature of apocalyptic language. Even Michael in 7.13 would represent the righteous of Israel, etc. There really are, in the imagination of these authors and readers, exalted individuals, however – a Son of Man (in the Gospels), Michael (in Daniel). But they easily become interchangeable with groups.
Yes the three-day element in the “prediction” in particular has me wavering on whether it is ex eventu. (Although, it may be a general motif of the distance between the Earth and the afterlife.) I think there is a stronger case that it is simply Jesus’ more basic teaching that he will be exalted to a preeminent Heaven after death, where he intervenes for other righteous followers, who will share his destiny to some extent, is what generates the visionary experiences. As for the presentation in Mark of the male disciples fleeing and later (implicitly in Mark) being bold witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection, the depiction of the despondency of the disciples is plausibly exaggerated after the fact as well – to emphasise faith in the resurrection, both its absence and presence. In historical fact, the disciples seem to have attempted to escape from Jerusalem to avoid getting tried as well (which is not really much to do with faith than quite pragmatic self-preservation), to have returned to Galilee and their homes, where some seem to have “doubted”, and some (especially the visionary ones like Peter) continued enthusiastically. Was there always a difference of opinion about Jesus’ claims, even during his lifetime – so Peter’s speaking up to say he was the Messiah, and the range of other answers from the other disciples, couched in the “some say” manner of speaking? But when Jesus continues and speaks plainly about the fate of the Son of Man, is this an invention that hides the fact that he never mentioned this to them, and hence the messianic secrecy? It’s obviously been argued well, but I don’t think it’s right, now. Although, that line in Life of Brian (“Only the true Messiah…”) gives me some doubts.
Hey Deane, thanks for the thorough response and I too am a big fan of the Life of Brian. I am not sure what I think about the date of Mark either – right now I might speak about a terminus a quo as the Caligula crisis behind 13:14 and a terminus ad quem around 70 CE (Mark not accurately describing the temple destruction, some from the first generation still alive). What I really like about Jame’s thesis is its argument that the evangelist was a Jewish Jesus follower engaged in halakhic debates, rather than just some incompetent Gentile who bungled it all up.
Thanks for the thorough explanation on the dating of the Similitudes. I am pretty open to everything you are saying about the Son of Man may have been a divine second power type figure in Second Temple Judaism. That would sure explain not only the Synoptic passages but also some part of the rise of Christian binitarianism. It is such a perennial difficult issue that though I remember writing my senior BA paper on the Son of Man I would never be in the same league as Maurice or James to debate it in print (maybe in a informal setting like a pub lol). And I tend to agree that Jesus expected his death as a martyr in line with Daniel and 2 Maccabees (as well as Maurice Casey’s excellent treatment, I liked Scott McKnight’s “Jesus and His Death” on this one as well) and may have expected the future vindication as the Son of Man in glory at the end of the age which was drastically reworked into an individual resurrection by what the disciples encountered on the third day (maybe I will debate the merits of the empty tomb story with you another time 🙂 ). But the three passion predictions seem to me to be part of Mark’s theological theme of glory & suffering and the disciples initially being partially blind, but what you say about the distance between the Earth and the afterlife makes sense too, and there is that Hosea passage on the restoration of Israel on the third day and the recurring tradition of Jesus rebuilding the temple in three days (Mk 14:58; 15:29; Jn 2:19-22) so who knows.
Thanks for your engaging comments, Mike!
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