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The Son of Man in First-Century Judaism*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

John J. Collins
John J. Collins
Affiliation:
(The Divinity School, University of Chicago, 1025 East 58th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA)
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Extract

For much of this century the notion of a Menschensohn, or Son of Man figure, loomed large in scholarly reconstructions of Jewish eschatological expectations in the time of Jesus. The primary Jewish attestation of this figure was found, of course, in Dan 7.13, with complementary appearances in the Similitudes of Enoch and 4 Ezra 13. There was considerable diversity of opinion about the origin and precise nature of this figure. More imaginative scholars, like Sigmund Mowinckel, held that ‘Conceptions of a more or less divine Primordial Man were widespread in the ancient east. Apparently there is a historical connexion between the varying figures of this type, which seem to be derived, directly or indirectly, from Iranian or Indo-Iranian myths.’1 The Jewish conception of ‘the Son of Man’ was ‘a Jewish variant of this oriental, cosmological, eschatological myth of Anthropos’,2 influenced by a syncretistic fusion of Iranian and Mesopotamian concepts. At the least, the phrase ‘Son of Man’ was thought to be a well-known, readily recognizable title for a messiah of a heavenly type, in contrast to the national, earthly, Davidic messiah. As recently as 1974 Norman Perrin could claim that all the recent studies of the ‘Son of Man Problem’ he had reviewed agreed on one point: ‘there existed in ancient Judaism a defined concept of the apocalyptic Son of Man, the concept of a heavenly redeemer figure whose coming to earth as judge would be a feature of the drama of the End time.’

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Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 38 , Issue 3 , July 1992 , pp. 448 - 466
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

1 Mowinckel, Sigmund, He That Cometh (Nashville: Abingdon, 1955) 422.Google Scholar

2 Ibid., 425.

3 Perrin, Norman, A Modern Pilgrimage in New Testament Christology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974) 24.Google Scholar

4 ‘Der apokalyptische Menschensohn ein theologisches Phantom’, ASTI 6 (1967–1968) 49–109.Google Scholar

5 NTS 18 (1971–1972) 243–67.Google Scholar

6 A Modern Pilgrimage, 26.

7 Jesus and the World of Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) 96–8.Google Scholar

8 Jesus Son of Man (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983) 3.Google Scholar

9 Canaanite; Kearns, Rollin, Vorfragen zur Christologie (3 vols.; Tübingen: Mohr, 1978–1982)Google Scholar; Babylonian: Kvanvig, Helge, Roots of Apocalyptic (WMANT 61; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1988).Google Scholar

10 Collins, J. J., The Apocalyptic Vision of the Book of Daniel (HSM 16: Missoula: Scholars, 1977) 96–101.Google Scholar

11 See Day, John, God's Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1985).Google Scholar

12 Noth, Martin, ‘Zur Komposition des Buches Daniel’, TSK 98/99 (1926) 143–63Google Scholar; Kearns, Vorfragen zur Christologie, 2.16.

13 Niditch, S., The Symbolic Vision in Biblical Tradition (HSM 30: Chico, CA: Scholars, 1980) 190.Google Scholar

14 So Noth, Kearns claim that the author knew only Daniel's source. Müller, Karlheinz, ‘Beobachtungen zur Entwicklung der Menschensohnvorstellung in den Bilderreden des Henoch und im Buche Daniel’, in Wegzeichen. Fs. H. M. Biedermann (ed. Suttner, Ernst C. and Coelestin, Patock; Würzburg: Augustinus, 1971) 258Google Scholar posits a common written source for the Similitudes and Dan 7.9, 10, 13.

15 E.g. Theisohn, J., Der auserwählte Richter. Untersuchungen zum traditionsgeschicht-lichen Ort der Menschensohngestalt der Bilderreden des Aethiopischen Henoch (SUNT 12; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975), 26–7Google Scholar, argues that 1 Enoch 46.7 (‘And these are they who judge the stars of heaven’) depends on Dan 8.10. The case is stronger if one accepts the emendation of Charles, R. H., The Ethiopic Version of the Book of Enoch (Oxford: Clarendon, 1906) 88Google Scholar: ‘these are they who cast down the stars of heaven’. For other possible reminiscences see Casey, Maurice, Son of Man. The Interpretation and Influence of Daniel 7 (London: SPCK, 1979) 107–10.Google Scholar

16 So also Hampel, Volker, Menschensohn und historischer Jesus (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1990) 42Google Scholar. Hampel, however, takes the unusual position that Dan 7.13–14 are secondary in the Book of Daniel (ibid., 23).

17 The Apocalyptic Vision of the Book of Daniel, 141–6.

18 For a review of the debate see Suter, D. W., ‘Weighed in the Balance: The Similitudes of Enoch in Recent Discussion’, RelStudRev 7 (1981) 217–21.Google Scholar

19 Stone, M. E. and Greenfield, J. C., ‘The Enochic Pentateuch and the Date of the Similitudes’, HTR 70 (1977) 51–65.Google Scholar

20 Theisohn, Der auserwählte Richter, 149–82.

21 The parallels have often been laid out. See Theisohn, Der auserwählte Richter, 14–23; Beale, G. K., The Use of Daniel in Jewish Apocalyptic Literature and in the Revelation of St. John (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984) 97–100Google Scholar; Caragounis, Chrys C., The Son of Man (WUNT 38; Tübingen: Mohr, 1986) 101–2.Google Scholar

22 The Ethiopic demonstrative could, in principle, be a translation of the Greek definite article, but this is unlikely here, since the demonstrative is never found with the title ‘the Elect One’ in the Similitudes. See Casey, Son of Man, 100. Three different Ethiopic phrases are used for ‘Son of Man’ in the course of the Similitudes, but these may be only translation variants.

23 On the notion of an exalted angel in apocalyptic literature, see Rowland, Christopher, The Open Heaven (New York: Crossroad, 1983) 94–113.Google Scholar

24 Trans. Knibb, Michael A., The Ethiopic Book of Enoch (Oxford: Oxford University, 1978) 2.166.Google Scholar

25 Charles, APOT 2.237.

26 See Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, 151–3, and ‘The Heavenly Representative. The “Son of Man” in the Similitudes of Enoch’, Ideal Figures in Ancient Judaism (ed. George W. E. Nickelsburg and John J. Collins; Chico: Scholars, 1980) 111–33.Google Scholar

27 VanderKam, J. C., ‘Righteous One, Messiah, Chosen One, and Son of Man’ in The Messiah (ed. Charlesworth, J. H.; Minneapolis: Fortress, forthcoming)Google Scholar, following Sjöberg, E., Der Menschensohn im Äthiopischen Henochbuch (Lund: Gleerup, 1946) 164Google Scholar, argues for the unity of chaps. 71–2, but does not deal with the transition between vv. 2 and 3).

28 E.g. Casey, Son of Man, 105, appeals to ‘considerations of intrinsic probability’.

29 I follow the transliteration of Lambdin, T. O., Introduction to Classical Ethiopic (HSS 24; Chico: Scholars, 1978) 8.Google Scholar

30 See Knibb, M. A., The Ethiopic Book of Enoch (Oxford: Clarendon, 1978) 1.208.Google Scholar

31 See Casey, Maurice, ‘The Use of the Term “Son of Man” in the Similitudes of Enoch’, JSJ 7 (1976) 25–6Google Scholar; Son of Man, 105; A. Caquot, ‘Remarques sur les chap. 70 et 71 du livre éthiopien d'Hénoch’, Apocalypses et théologie de l'espirance (ed. H. Monloubou; Paris: Cerf, 1977) 113. One later manuscript (Abbadianus 197, W) has an identical reading, and another (Abbadianus 99, V) omits some further words but has the same sense. VanderKam, however, correctly notes that even the reading in MS U can be translated as ‘his name was raised to that son of man’.

32 Charles, R. H., ‘The Book of Enoch’, APOT 2.166.Google Scholar

33 Black, Matthew, The Book of Enoch or 1 Enoch (SVTP 7; Leiden: Brill, 1985) 250Google Scholar suggests that a Christian scribe may have altered the text, but does not explain why the scribe did not then change 71.14.

34 VanderKam, ‘Righteous One, Messiah’. VanderKam arrives at this conclusion because he is reluctant to admit an internal contradiction in chaps. 70–71.

35 Dillmann's lexicon offers 1) apud, juxta, penes; 2) ad, versus, in.

36 See further Schimanowski, Gottfried, Weisheit und Messias (WUNT 2/17; Tübingen: Mohr, 1985) 165–71.Google Scholar

37 Manson, T. W., ‘The Son of Man in Daniel, Enoch and the Gospels’, BJRL 32 (1949–1950) 183–5.Google Scholar

38 Trans. Smith, Jonathan Z., ‘Prayer of Joseph’, in OTP 2.713.Google Scholar Compare also GenR 68.12 where Jacob's features are said to exist in heaven while he is on earth.

39 See Alexander, P., ‘3 (Hebrew Apocalypse of) Enoch’, in OTP 1.258–63.Google Scholar

40 See Lambdin, Introduction to Classical Ethiopic, 29,

41 So also Mowinckel, He That Cometh, 442–3. Ephraim Isaac, ‘1 Enoch’, OTP 1.50, argues for the general sense ‘human being’ here on the grounds that the Ethiopic word is beʾesi but beʾesi is also used in 69.29, where Isaac capitalizes Son of Man.

42 Different Ethiopic phrases are used in the two passages, walda sabeʾ in 46.3 and walda beʾesi in 71.14 but these may be only translation variants.

43 Collins, ‘The Heavenly Representative’, 113. E.g. in 61.4 ‘the chosen will begin to live with the chosen’, i.e. the human chosen ones will begin to live with the heavenly ones.

44 In 1 Enoch 62.5 the figure enthroned in heaven is called ‘that Son of a Woman’ but this Ethiopic expression, walda beʾesit, is almost certainly a corruption of walda beʾesi, Son of Man.

45 See Urbach, Ephraim E., The Sages, Their Concepts and Beliefs (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1975) 1.684–5Google Scholar; 2.1005–6. Urbach notes that ‘there are no grounds … for a distinction between the pre-existence of his name and the pre-existence of his personality’.

46 For a summary of the roles of the Son of Man, see Caragounis, The Son of Man, 116–19.

47 This, at least is the most natural reading of 48.5: ‘All those who dwell upon the dry ground will fall down and worship before him …’ It is conceivable, however, that the implied antecedent is the Lord of Spirits.

48 So Sjöberg, especially, Der Menschensohn im äthiopischen Henochbuch (Lund: Gleerup, 1946) 190Google Scholar; compare already Bousset, Wilhelm, Die Religion des Judentums (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1903) 251.Google Scholar

49 See especially Theisohn, Der auserwählte Richter. Müller, Ulrich B., Messias und Menschensohn in jüdischen Apokalypsen und in der Offenbarung des Johannes (SNT 6: Gütersloh: Mohn, 1972) 36–51.Google Scholar

50 Theisohn, Der auserwählte Richter, 114–43. Compare also the motif of the light to the nations in 1 Enoch 48.4. See also Nickelsburg, George W. E., Resurrection, Immortality and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism (HTS 26; Cambridge: Harvard, 1972) 70–4Google Scholar on parallels between Isaiah 52–3 and 1 Enoch 62.

51 Ibid., 63.

52 In the light of these parallels, Casey's argument that the author does not attribute king-ship to the Son of Man, because Enoch was not a king, or because of deliberate rejection of the Davidic line, is unconvincing (Son of Man, 111).

53 See further Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, 142–54.

54 Ibid., 156.

55 Most scholars favour Hebrew, but Kvanvig, Roots of Apocalyptic, 521, offers a retroversion of chap. 13 into Aramaic.

56 Kvanvig, Roots of Apocalyptic, 517.

57 Caragounis, The Son of Man, 127–8. Compare the Similitudes, 1 Enoch 46.1, which initially refers to ‘another, whose face had the appearance of a man’.

58 Kvanvig, Roots of Apocalyptic, 517–20.

59 See Myers, Jacob M., I and II Esdras (AB 42; Garden City: Doubleday, 1974) 302Google Scholar; Stone, M. E., Fourth Ezra (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990) 381.Google Scholar

60 See Lacocque, André, ‘The Vision of the Eagle in 4 Esdras, a Rereading of Daniel 7 in the First Century C.E.’, SBLASP (1981) 237–58.Google Scholar

61 Kvanvig, Roots of Apocalyptic, 522–3. Kearns, Vorfragen zur Christologie, 2.52–93, also takes the 4 Ezra passage as a witness to the Son of Man figure (‘das apokalyptische Hoheitswesen’) that is independent of Daniel 7.

62 Kvanvig, Roots of Apocalyptic, 531.

63 For English translations of the ‘Vision’ see Kvanvig, Roots of Apocalyptic, 390–1; ANET 109–10.

64 Stone, Michael E., Features of the Eschatology of 4 Ezra (HSS 35; Atlanta: Scholars, 1989) 123–5Google Scholar: ‘The Concept of the Messiah in IV Ezra’, Religions in Antiquity, Essays in Memory of E. R. Goodenough (ed. Jacob Neusner; Leiden: Brill, 1968) 305–6Google Scholar; ‘The Messiah in 4 Ezra’, Judaisms and Their Messiahs (ed. Jacob Neusner; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1987) 213Google Scholar. Kearns, Vorfragen zur Christologie, 253–62, also isolates an independent vision, but his argument depends on imposing unwarranted standards of formal consistency on the material. See the critique of Kearns by Kvanvig, Roots of Apocalyptic, 527–9.

65 Stone, Features, 124.

66 For a contrary view, see Casey, Son of Man, 122–9. Casey shows that unity of authorship is not impossible, but the balance of probability favours Stone's arguments.

67 Stone, Features, 71–5; Fourth Ezra, 207. This argument was already formulated by Drummond, J., The Jewish Messiah (London: Longmans, Green, 1877) 285–9Google Scholar. So also Jeremias, J., ‘παῖς θεοῦ’, TDNT 5 (1967) 682Google Scholar. Stone admits that ‘the situation is, nonetheless, not unambiguous’ (Fourth Ezra, 207).

68 This is also noted by George W. E. Nickelsburg, ‘Son of Man’, Anchor Bible Dictionary (forthcoming).

69 Stone, ‘The Messiah in 4 Ezra’, 213.

70 Stone, Features, 131–2.

71 Theisohn, Der auserwählte Richter, 145 concludes that 4 Ezra 13 does not reflect the Similitudes in any way.

72 Casey, Son of Man, 81–3, claims to find the collective view in two late rabbinic passages, Midrash on Pss 21.5 and Tanhuma Toledoth 20, but even he admits that it is not obvious in either case. Casey's further claim that Porphyry held a collective interpretation which he had derived from Syrian tradition (Son of Man, 51–70) goes far beyond the evidence. Jerome, in his commentary at 7.14, challenges Porphyry to identify the figure (‘Let Porphyry answer the query of whom out of all mankind this language might apply to …’), thereby implying that Porphyry had failed to do so.

73 Sank 98a; NumR 13.14; Aggadat Bereshit 14.3; 23.1. It is probably implied in Akiba's explanation of the plural ‘thrones’ as one for God, one for David (b. Hag. 14a; Sanh. 38b. See Caragounis, The Son of Man, 131–6).

74 4 Ezra 13.26. Compare 7.28. Caragounis, The Son of Man, 129.

75 Stone, Features, 127–8.

76 Emerton, J. A., ‘The Origin of the Son of Man Imagery’, JTS 9 (1958) 231–2.Google Scholar

77 So also Nickelsburg, ‘Son of Man’.

78 See however 4Q286, the so-called ‘Son of God’ text, which contains the phrase ‘his sovereignty is an everlasting sovereignty’ (cf. Dan 7.14). It is possible that the ‘Son of God’ figure represents a messianic interpretation of Daniel's ‘one like a son of man’. See my discussion ‘The “Son of God” Text from Qumran’, From Jesus to John. Essays on Jesus and Christology in Honour of Marinus de Jonge (ed. M. de Boer; Sheffield: JSOT, forthcoming).

79 See further Horbury, W., ‘The Messianic Associations of “The Son of Man”’, JTS 36 (1985) 34–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Whether Sib Or 5.414–33 (‘For a blessed man came from the expanses of heaven …’) is based on Daniel 7, as Horbury maintains (p. 45) is uncertain. The main evidence for a connection lies in the reference to ‘holy ones’ in Sib Or 5.432.