Simple question: JESUS WAS THE SON OF (which?) MAN

by Terry 42 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Terry

  Jesus had no DNA from Joseph.

  A case could be made that Jesus was the son of woMAN.

  But, seriously...folks.....

  Here is the real point:

  Within the Hebrew Bible, the first place one comes across the phrase son of man is in Book of Numbers 23:19:

  ?? ???? ?? ????? ??????? ?????? ???? ??? ??? ????? ???? ??? ??????

  God is not a man (??? : ['iysh]), that he should lie,

  Nor a son of man (??–??? : [ben-'adam]), that he should repent:

  Has he said, and will he not do it?

  Or has he spoken, and will he not make it good?

  The deity of Jesus would seem questionable.

  Personally, I think the scriptures have been tampered with over such a long period of time we have, today, a bible which includes 2 entirely different viewpoints about the personhood of Jesus.

  Jesus seemed to go out of his way to represent himself as entirely HUMAN (Son of Man).

  I think later accretions went back and doctored, where possible, the language to include deity.

  What's your opinion?
• 

  Narkissos

  Many Gospel "Son of Man" sayings are not meant to emphasise Jesus' humanity -- quite to the contrary. The Son of Man in Jewish "apocalyptical" literature (1 Enoch, Daniel) is primarily a heavenly character (especially when he "comes on the clouds of heaven").
• 

  BurnTheShips

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypostatic_union
• 

  snowbird

  The Son of Man in Jewish "apocalyptical" literature (1 Enoch, Daniel) is primarily a heavenly character (especially when he "comes on the clouds of heaven").

  That is why the High Priest at Jesus' "trial" became so agitated when Jesus referenced the Scripture below. He knew Jesus was no ordinary man!

  From The Message Bible:

  Daniel 7:13 -14 "I saw a human form, a son of man,
  arriving in a whirl of clouds. He came to The Old One
  and was presented to him. He was given power to rule—all the glory of royalty.
  Everyone—race, color, and creed—had to serve him. His rule would be forever, never ending.
  His kingly rule would never be replaced.

  Sylvia
• 

  Gregor

  I think later accretions went back and doctored, where possible, the language to include deity.

  Yes, Terry, in spades. Not just Jesus parentage, how about a few over the top "miracles"? I can't recall right now but I think it was something like 50 (?) years after his death before any pen was put to paper and even then I don't think it was by a contemporary of JC
• 

  DJ

  Hey Terry,

  Check out Psalm 49:7-9

  Jesus was the son of man.. yes, meaning born of a woman. He was also the son of God.. being born of God, not Joseph. Hence, Jesus was both God and man. That's what Christians have always taught. If you read the Psalm above.. you'll see that no mere man could die to save anyone else. Just as the verse you posted.. no mere son of man. I've yet to see a jw answer Ps 49.
• 

  BurnTheShips

  I can't recall right now but I think it was something like 50 (?) years after his death before any pen was put to paper and even then I don't think it was by a contemporary of JC

  Try closer to 40.

  The Pauline epistles were already in circulation before the sack of Jerusalem.

  BTS
• 

  Leolaia

  Yes, the apocalyptic passages referring to the Son of Man (you know, the ones mentioning angels, great glory, judgment, power, clouds, etc.) in the gospels have in view the figure known in post-Danielic literature (particularly those in the Essene branch of Judaism, especially the Book of Parables of 1 Enoch and 4 Ezra) who comes on Judgment Day to herald the resurrection and to bring reward to the saints and punishment to the wicked. This was fundamentally a heavenly figure, although in the case of the Book of Parables we have a more complex situation (the Son of Man being a glorified Enoch invested with divine Wisdom, cf. Enoch in 2 Enoch as the angel Metatron and in 3 Enoch as the "lesser YHWH"). The title derives from ch. 7 of Daniel and is meant to identify him with the figure who destroys the present reign of man and inaugurates the eternal kingdom.

  There are other passages in the gospels however which are non-apocalyptic and which use the same expression. It is generally thought that these simply use a Semitic expression for "human being" that was sometimes used as a circumlocution for referring to oneself, found in the OT and in Aramaic, and which are not at all messianic or eschatological in their sense. However there may be a difference between what these sayings meant in their original (oral) contexts and how they are appropriated in the gospels.
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  I don't always manage to understand everything that Terry, Narkissos, or Leolaia are saying.

  The problem with "the son of man" is that the Gospel accounts take advantage of the phrase.
  It is found in Daniel 7:13, 14 as

  13 I saw in the night-visions, and, behold, there came with the clouds of the sky one like a son of man, and he came even to the ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. 14 There was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and languages should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.

  Then the Gospels use the phrase when writing of Jesus:
  
  Matthew 8:20, Luke 9:58

  Jesus said to him, "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the sky have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head."

  Matthew 18:11 (KJV)

  For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.

  Mark 2:27-28, Matthew 12:8, Luke 6:5

  And he [Jesus] said unto them [the Pharisees], "The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: so that the Son of man is lord even of the sabbath."

  There are more, but that is sufficient. The problem lies in either the fact that the writers or the re-writers of
  the Gospels used the term deliberately. The Gospels are full of references to the OT to prove that Jesus
  was the reason for their existence. Christianity was so successful at doing this, that it is against the
  grain of most thinking to assume that the phrase was just meant to represent humble earthly man in the OT.

  The OT did lead them to believe that the Kingship of the Davidic line would be restored, so the Christians
  found a way to write that in.
• 

  Leolaia

  OTWO....The examples you gave from Matthew and Mark are representative of the "Son of Man" sayings that pertain to the Aramaic bar nasha idiom, meaning "person" or "human being", used in Matthew 8:20 and 18:11 almost as a circumlocution for referring to oneself, e.g. "I have nowhere to lay my head" and "I have come to save what has been lost". The sense of "human being" is quite clear in Mark 2:27-28, where "son of man" is in parallel with "man"; the point is that humans are master of the sabbath, with the needs of human beings taking precedence over the need for the commandment to be observed. It is possible however that the gospel writer has loaded this original sense of the expression with additional meaning by setting it alongside other circumlocutionary and apocalyptic uses of the expression. The apocalyptic use of the expression however has an entirely different set of distinctive motifs and connotations (cf. Matthew 13:41, 16:27-28, 19:28, 24:27-30, 37, 39, 44, 25:31, 26:64, etc.), and these are the ones influenced by Daniel and which relate to the Essene/Enochic use of "Son of Man" as a messianic title.