(15 votes, average: 4.73 out of 5)
Loading...I was recently asked about my claim that Jesus never calls himself God/a divine being in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Some people have asked me about what they think might be an exception: his trial before the Sanhedrin headed by the high priest Caiaphas in Mark 14, where he is accused of blasphemy. Isn’t the accusation proof that he claimed to be God? In our *first* Gospel, Mark?
There’s a lot to say about this most intriguing of passages (Mark 14:53-62; if you’re a real blog nerd: read it!), but here are the key points.
- The first point to stress is that the question is not whether Jesus in the passage claims to be a divine being, but whether Jesus himself did, the actual man in history.
- There is no question that Jesus in the Gospels claims to be divine. You don’t need Mark 14 for that – just read the Gospel of John (John 8:58; 10:30; 14:5; etc. etc.) The fact that the Gospels claim that Jesus called himself a divine being doesn’t mean the historical Jesus himself did. For that you need to engage in historical (not literary) analysis. Literary analysis can show that in our sources written decades later by people who weren’t there, who never knew Jesus, who lived in different parts of the world from Jesus, who almost certainly never talked to an eyewitness of Jesus, who spoke a different language from Jesus, but who believed he was a divine being, sometimes portray him making divine claims for himself. Historical analysis works to establish whether those claims (or any other of his sayings; or which of his deeds) go back to the man himself.
- To that end, many readers who want to be historically responsible and who know that John may be theologically rich and powerful, but not always accurate historically, appeal to our earliest Gospel, Mark, in order to show what Jesus really historically, said and did. But since William Wrede’s book The Messianic Secret (1901), followed by Schweitzer’s Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906) scholars have realized it’s not that easy. Mark too, just like John, is heavily influenced by later theological developments that affirmed the divinity of Jesus; it is not, therefore, some kind of straightforward nuts-and-bolts description of what really happened in Jesus’ life.
- And so the question is whether any scene in Mark (or in any of the Gospels) – such as the trial before the Sanhedrin in Mark 14 – is being reported accurately, describing what really happened. And to assume so is problematic, for a number of important reasons.
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Is there any historical strata in the Gospel of John that are relevant to the historical Jesus that aren’t necessarily found in the synoptic gospels? Or, is it for the most part, barren of anything historically plausible to the historic Jesus?
I wouldn’t say there’s a stratum per se: there are individual episodes that need to be considered as to whether they are historical; it’s rare to find one in John that is not also attested in the Synoptics. (But, e.g., the idea that Jesus’ brothers didn’t believe in him and that Jesus himself performed baptisms are worth considering carefully; I think they’re both probably historical)
I’m curious about your impression of Michael Goulder’s assertion regarding the Son of Man, which he makes in his book “St. Peter vs St. Paul: A Tale of Two Missions”. Whereas most folks today trace the title to Daniel 7, and it is clear that the Daniel passage greatly influenced Christians early on, that the use of the term by Mark was more directly related to Paul’s championing the view that Jesus Christ was a single entity, instead of a common early view that a man named Jesus was possessed by a spirit called Christ. Psalms 8 talks about humanity in terms of “a son of man” having dominion over creation. Early Paulines thought the scripture was a good reference for Jesus Christ, to show that he was really human, but that he had universal dominion. Once that connection was made, and Jesus Christ was now known as “The Son of Man”, the Daniel association was the natural next step. I know Goulder’s conclusions were not commonly shared by his peers, but I am curious what you think.
I don’t see anything to suggest that Paul was countering a kind of dualistic understanding that Jesus had a Christ-spirit within him; that sort of view does emerge much later among the Gnostics. Neither Paul nor any other early Christian was wrestling with whether Jesus was human OR with the idea that he had been given lordship over th eeath.
Wow, it is long, but it is so important. This gives me a greater understanding of the the first century Jew versus the twenty-first century Christian. Yes, I am (woops did I just call myself God) ready to have a broad smile and a shut mouth at the fundamental Sunday school that’s next door,
There is one connection that still fails me and it has to do with Moses descending to the people of Isreal with the name of God. 1st or 3rd person of the pronoun? Did he say ‘I am’ or ‘ He is’? Coming down the hill and saying ‘I am’ might cause a ruckus.
The text doesn’t say. It simly indicats that he is to tell the Israelites that “I am” has sent him.
Bart, once again I’m asking about Gold Q & A’s. I usually find them in the audio section of the blog, but after the April Q & A, no more appear. There is a May Q & A in the May archive, but it does not show up in the audio section. Nothing appears for June or July. Were those two ever recorded? Did they fail to appear in the manner of some earlier Q & A’s? Am I hopeless at navigating the Ehrman Blog maze?
Thanks for checking.
OK, I’ll look into it. It does appear that July never happened. Arg. The others were done and should be available, but I’ll check. The problem is/was a bigger one that we think we have resolved. We had some probems getting audio posts loaded up for a few months, but now we have a Volunteer doing it with his sole responsibility and it appears that it’s all getting better as a result. If you have further problems, do let me know. (And again, I’ll deal with this one.)
God the Father should have spoken up during the trial with His, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” It might have made a difference.
Unless God had already told him in a vision: “you’re on your own here, son” after the whole pleading for passing of the bitter cup thing at Gethsemane.
All joking aside, what I think may have happened, if there’s any historicity to his famous cry of dereliction, is that perhaps, miraculously, he was hoping to avoid death and in his climactic entry into Jerusalem, perhaps after preaching in the temple and causing a stir, and knowing he had the people on his side, he would have come out triumphant as the new non-dead/resurrected king. He had felt that God had been on his side while he was performing exorcisms in Galilee, and had gained enough of a following to accept the possibility that he was the messiah (especially if he actually did ride in on a donkey).
Maybe he did, rather than going in intently as the sacrificial lamb, and maybe he still knew that it was a bit of a gamble. I have a feeling it might’ve been the latter.
Hi Bart,
My friend and I were discussing the difference between Paul and the forgeries and this question came up.
Is there a difference in syntax among Paul and the forgeries?
For example if Paul always said “dancing is my favorite thing” and the forgeries said “My favorite thing is dancing”
Yup. I give full explanations in my book Forgery and Counterforgery, for each of the books in question in detail. they are more significant even than the example you give.
Yup. I give full explanations in my book Forgery and Counterforgery, for each of the books in question in detail. they are more significant even than the example you give.
In Mark 8:38 “the son of man will come in his *father’s* glory” – there’s nothing pre-christian which says the “son of man” is in any special sense the “son of god”. Mark 8:38, like all other “son of man” sayings in the gospels, can only be understood from a christian orthodox perspective.
The point of the “I Am” sayings in Mark is that all 3 of them occur in settings which are clearly intended to indicate divine claims
1. Jesus walking on water says “fear not ego eimi”
2. Jesus speaking of the end-times says many will come in my name saying “ego eimi” … you will be hated by all because of my name but the one who remains steadfast til the end will be saved.
3. In his trial Jesus asked if he is the “son of blessed one says” says “ego eimi”
So we have all 4 biographies written within living memory, and 7 letters of a person who spoke to Peter and James which have Jesus claim to be divine.
Christians tend to think that Jesus was so special?
I ask why do humans think they are so special that we got our own person god that serve us, that makes all suffering fair, god gets revenge for us lol
Blasphemy or not, I don’t know how we could know the all the historical truth without a Time Machine, if the whole trail was true, I can imagine some pretty heated words being said in anger against Jesus for his actions in the temple, if someone came into our homes and started making a mess and telling us we are doing things wrong, we would call them all kinds of bad things. Just because Jewish people had rules, laws, and understanding of the text, don’t mean they always follow the rules.
the church I grew up in from 4th grade claimed Jesus was 100% man & 100% God. OK
but God is divine & man is the creature.
My thoughts: if Jesus died on the cross, that is his humanity, not his divinity. because if God died the universe would cease, rather than those tearing of the temple veil & darkening of the skies- symbolic
https://biblehub.com/matthew/27-51.htm
People don’t understand the Bible, so Jesus is special. I never understood Jesus- as part of the divinity. & 20+ years ago, always prayed that my obedience shines
So even if Jesus in Mark is claiming to be a divine judge or divine (= some kind of angelic) being, that’s a long way from claiming he *is* God/Yahweh, which is what a lot of Christians assume he’s saying. And even if that’s what you think he’s saying during his trial, you have to take into account the places where he appears to *deny* he’s God, e.g. Mark 10:18; Mark 15:34, etc. People wave these away as just clever rhetorical questions or whatever, but it’s not that simple.
I wonder what you think of Paula Fredriksens analysis of these events? What I take from her writing was the priests and Pilate weren’t really all that concerned about what Jesus was saying, however they were quite concerned about the unpredictable crowds and the potential for a riot for which they would be held accountable. So she says Jesus was arrested at night by Roman soldiers and the temple police, away from the crowds, sent to Annas house for questioning and then taker to the fixer Pilate who took care of the problem of a riot by executing Jesus.
Yes, I think something like that is plausible. They thought if they tried to snatch him away when people were around them it could lead to trouble. They may have rounded up the other two guys the same way.
I’m a big fan, love your work, but I have opposition to the above.
1: This happened. You admitted it was a divine claim. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EeO8zRtFus
2. You believe the designation that Jesus uses for himself almost 80 times in the gospels, and over 15 times in Mark alone, is not in reference to himself. But when we look at Mark 10:45, Mark 10:33, among others, it can only logically be inferred that he is talking about himself and not “another” figure. This is not logical or in the sake of coherent literature, acceptable to make such a strange conclusion.
3. We can even turn to 1: Corinthians 8:6 so show early church divinity, which is accepted among almost all NT scholars today. So, is Mark or Paul inventing the deity of Christ?
4. “who almost certainly never talked to an eyewitness of Jesus,”
Both Papias and Irenaeus both stated that Mark wrote down what was given to him by Peter. Was Peter not an eyewitness?
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT1Wn8-8t_E
start this at the 1:45 mark. As Dr. Craig states virtually NO one takes the “Son of Man” claim to ref. to another person.
I think you misunderstand my position in major ways. Of course Jesus *frequently* uses the term Son of Man for himself in the Gospels. I’m asking what Jesus himself said and meant decades earlier, ont what his earlier followers said he said. They also have him claim to be equal with God — but that doesn’t mean Jesus actually made that claim. If you want to see how I understand the term, and what Jesus himself meant by “son of man” (as opposed to how the Gospel writers understood it), you might look either at my book Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium or How Jesus Became God. (Among other things, I show why I don’t think we can use the testimony of Papias — Irenaeus is not an independent witness – to establish the authorship of our Gospel of Mark; and of course Paul and the other early Christians believed Jesus was divine). And if Craig says that, then I’m afraid he’s either just ignorant, intentionally deceptive, or accidently misspeaking. Probably the latter?
Why would Mark invent Mark 14:62. Not just Jesus saying he was the Son of Man, but also using both Psalm 110 and Daniel 7?
Let us examine each verse:
Psalm 110:
1. Being seated at the right hand implies co-regency with God.
2. this psalm also states that that the Mesiah is “begotten” by the Lord from the very dawn of creation. That the messiah is the pre-existent Son of God. “from the womb of the dawn” “having been begotten.”
3. Jesus quotes the “Son of Man” from Daniel 7. and Psalm 110 in Mark 14:62. Let us now look at Daniel 7. The Son of Man ascends to the heavenly throne to sit next to the Ancient of Days. Psalm 110 the Son of Man sits at the right hand. In Daniel 7 he also comes on the clouds of heaven. Something only God does in the Old Testament.
Daniel 7 states that it is “Like a son of man.” He appears to be human, but is heavenly/divine in nature. According to Daniel Boyarin, a Jewish scholar, he states “he is a second divine figure…who will be given eternal dominion of the world.” A human/divine person.
So, who would have been around to take notes? I think none of the accounts of the trial can be taken as reliable. All made up, in other words. Pious fiction written long after the fact. An early example of telling lies to promote the Jesus movement (cult).
Sitting at the right side of Power is to be equal to God.What is meant by *Power*?.”Power” is Gevurah( the aggressive,violent aspect of God) and also Khail(the military God,the God of war,like the God of Hosts. Khail in modern Hebrew is a section of the military.Khaial is soldier).These are names for YHVH.
The only thing that could be blasphemous was to disrespect YHVH’s name.Sitting at the right side of Power,being “the Son of Man” *and*coming with the clouds of Heaven-as Daniel prophesized-was a promise of war and an impersonation of God.Since YHVH has no physical presence,there could be ground for blasphemy there as well.
I’m fascinated by the use of *Power*by Mark.I never read any explanation of why *Power*is used.
But:since none of this happened-in addition to the impediments for a trial you mention,Bart,there was the fact that trials were held in the Temple,not in private houses-,the discussion is interesting for its conjectures and possibilities,but not for historical value.
The question still is,though,how was Jesus brought to Pilate without a trial or a formal accusation of blasphemy?
Perhaps rather than blasphemy,what the priests saw was someone thinking himself divine or God himself ,who could stir the people at that momentous time?
In short,something Pilate would pay attention to?
Power is often thought of as a euphemism. You may be interested in the book Two Powers in Heaven, by a very fine scholar of Judaism and Christianity both, Alan Segal, who taught at Columbia University (prior to his untimely death), who shows that they idea of Yahweh having a second God beside him had currency in parts of Judaism at the time.
Jesus wasn’t accused of blasphemy before Pilate, so far as we can tell. He was charged with claiming to be the future king of Judea.
It’s just that “power” is a translation,and so is the Greek word translated as power. Jesus didn’t speak Greek.The first time this story was told,it was told in a Semitic language,with the terms carrying the meaning they intrinsically had,in whichever way it was possible to say them in those languages.It’s possible to glimpse what the thought was from the expressions found in Aramaic and/or Hebrew. These,rather than a generic “ power”,were idiosyncratically Judaic.
I’m misunderstood about “blasphemy”.
I’m suggesting the opposite.Once the trial is understood as fiction,”blasphemy” is moot.Of course the Priests didn’t go to Pilate with a “blasphemy” complaint!
Pilate couldn’t care less.
What I propose is that the Priests went to Pilate directly charging that Jesus said he was a king.Is there another way to see this?
Thanks for the book suggestion.Will surely read.Having said that,Israel was often idolatrous.Gods male and female.Baal, Ashera.The prophets were livid.
But:if YHVH was the one seen as God,I would find it very hard to believe they conceived of a second YHVH.That makes Jesus’ Daniel quote alarming.
Now,of course,for every existing Jew,there has always been a different opinion….so there may have been two Jews courageous enough to clone “the Blessed One”,but it would have been a fringe bunch.
I found these Hebrew terms- G’vurah and Khayil-, one or the other, in every Aramaic version of the Gospels, and also contemporary translations into Hebrew, in place of the “Power” term.
Regarding the blasphemy charge. Surely a statement or action can be blasphemous if it is disrespectful to God or holy things. E.g drawing Mohammed is blasphemous to Muslims… it isnt making a claim of divinity. So for Jesus to say he was God’s messiah when he wasnt, even if there no notion of divinity attached to it, could this not be also blasphemous?
The only evidence about it, I suppose, would come from other instances in which people thought of themselves as a future messiah or were declared it by others, and there’s on instance of that in which a charge of blasphemy was made, that I’m aware of.
If the trial never happened- it’s interesting to read relevant and occasionally accurate info regarding Jewish rules at trials,though-, and the entire scene is made up,”blasphemy” and all, then the reality was that Jesus was taken straight to Pilate on the charge ,by the priests, of thinking himself ” King of the Jews”- “divine” ,”blasphemy”or even “God himself” would not have rung a bell with the pagan Pilate-,wherever the priests got that info from.
I personally don’t believe it was from Judas,who might be an invented character just as well,and find the conjecture that Judas Über-betrayed Jesus,giving away not only the apparently requested info on Jesus’ planned whereabouts, but also “inner circle” claims of kingship on Jesus’ part,to be unfair.
Was there anyone present when the meeting between Judas and the Priests took place who would have told what was spoken there?
Moreover,the “betrayal” was worthless. The priests knew exactly what Jesus looked like, and for all we know, Jesus hid at various times in the Gospel narratives. He could have done so again.
The entire story of the arrest itself has quite a few problems.
But I digress.
Simply put,If we skip the trial,we need an alternative link to Pilate’s involvement.
Still:
wouldn’t the same reasoning that nixes the Priests involvement with Jesus on the eve of Shabbat and Passover need to be applied to the trial in front of Pilate?
The Priests were not supposed to be anywhere but either in the Temple or with their families. So how do we fit the scene with Pilate into this schedule?
All I can think of is that, if ANY of this happened as we are told,at the very least the trial by Pilate, there must have been a true sense of urgency and fear of Roman brutality to warrant an extraordinary meeting at the time.
Shabbat could be superseded by any action that would save life. I learned this as a child from my grandfather. Thus, healing on Shabbat would not have been such a big deal, as the laws regarding this specific issue- saving a life, Pikuakh Nephesh- may not even have been codified yet.
Same for the washing of hands and utensils, a mighty good idea that saved Jews through the ages from the more catastrophic results of plagues,but that perhaps was also not entirely legislated yet at the time of Jesus.
I just finished watching a documentary about the greatest cockamamie conspiracy theory about JFK’s death, namely, that he faked his death. It just goes to show how much inventiveness can be achieved in the telling of stories. And the tales only grow in their incredibleness and fantasy. So, here we are.
Yes, the trial before Pilate as portrayed in teh Gospels is also problematic. But that wouldn’t mean that Pilate was uninvolved, just that it seems unlikely that high priest was. It’s an interesting question: some have thought that in fact the jewish involvement was fabricated by Christian story tellers at the outsdet….
Did Jesus say that he was THE son of God?
If he said that everyone should consider God as their father then he was A son of God the same as everyone else.
Hi Bart,
I understand that you reject that Jesus used illeism while referring to the cosmic son of man. Nonetheless, please indulge me with the following what-if hypothetical.
What if Jesus had referred to himself as the cosmic son of god, some type of combination of a divine being and a human being?
Could that have been interpreted as heresy on the grounds that Jesus spoke sacrilegiously of the associated Danielic vision?
Cheers,
James
Yes, I’d say that if Jesus portrayed himself as a divine being that would be a blasphemy. But in the trial he doesn’t say that he’s the son of man, only that the high priest will see the son of man. He does call himself the son of God, but that wasn’t a blasphemy.
A compelling argument for those not predisposed to look at the texts with theological blinders. One point I’d disagree with with is that I think it’s plausible that a high priest would interpret Jesus claiming to the “son of God” as blasphemous, especially if the priest was predisposed against him. Being a Sadducee, he was unlikely to accept scriptural references to the messiah as “son of God” and it may very well have seemed to such a person that Jesus was claiming to be an angel – of the bene elohim. Too bad Mark wrote in Greek.
Hi Bart,
I thought of a proposal for the charge of blasphemy in Mark.
First, I clarify that blasphemy includes any verbal sacrilegious statement is a type of blasphemy.
Second, I agree with you that Jesus referring to himself as the King of Israel (or synonymous terms, such as the messiah or son of David) by itself would not warrant the charge of blasphemy.
Third, I know you reject that Jesus used illeism and referred to himself as the cosmic son of man. But if he did, then that by itself would not warrant the charge of blasphemy.
Fourth, Jesus prophesying the destruction of the Temple as a judgment from God was sacrilegious and therefore blasphemy.
Fifth, combining the judgment of the Temple with messianic self-reference upped the blasphemy about the destruction of the Temple.
Sixth, the Sanhedrin knew that Pontius Pilate had no concern about Jewish sacrilege, but the Sanhedrin shrewdly presented Pilate with Jesus admitting he declared himself the King of Jews, which implied sedation worthy of the death penalty.
Do you disagree with any of my above six points?
Do you know of anyone who made a similar proposal and of course in more detail?
I’d say the problem is that the temple incident is not mentioned in the account, so in the *account* we have, it isn’t the reason for the blasphemy charge. And in this investigation we are not asking what *actually* happened at the Sanhedrin trial (if there was one), but what Mark is trying to say. I don’t see how he can be trying to say that the blasphemy charged is connected to the temple incident — since he doesn’t say it…
Seems like Jesus to me.
So when you mix both Daniel 7 with Psalm 110, you get a very clear picture that the Son of Man, to Daniel is pretty darn close to God(as close as you can get.) In Psalm 110, he is begotten of God. Wow.
Did Mark take 2 different verses and smash them together to show divinity for Christ. Yes. Did Jesus say these words. Likely. If Jesus is using the Son of Man, which you stated he did, than this Son of Man is clearly divine. The Son of Man also, literarily makes sense when applied to Jesus throughout the 15 times Jesus uses it in the Gospel of Mark. And if Jesus stated Mark 14:62 than there is no question what he was claiming, in conjunction with many other references to him being divine in the earlier chapters.
There is a reason why the high priest tore his garments. There is a reason why Jesus was put to death? Why was he put to death? It seems pretty straightforward to me. Not just the theological reason, but the historical reason.
NT scholarship seems to clearly agree.
I used my 3 comments. 🙁 Wish I had more.
The problem is that the high priest hears Jesus say that he, the priest, will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven. He says nothing about himself being that one.
Disappointing…
You have admitted that Mark 8:31 refers to Jesus. So, a designation that is used 80 times in the NT, and you have admitted to 4 attestations on this blog alone.
Mark 10:33 “We are going up to Jerusalem,” he said, “and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and…. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles”
Mark 10: 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Mark 14:21 The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.”
Mark 13: 41 Returning the third time,.., “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. 42 Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”
Yes, he clearly is talking about someone else. Dr. Craig is correct, almost ALL NT scholars would disagree.
Are you referring to William Craig or Craig Evans? If the former, almost all critical NT scholars disagree with Craig’s apologetic claims. Does he count that as evidence against his views?
The view that goes back to the greatest NT scholar of the 20th century (and probalby before him? I haven’t traced it) is that there are different kinds of Son of Man sayings in the Gospels and we have to decide which ones go back to the historical Jesus. It is striking that SOME of them — precisely ones that refer to a future Son of Man coming from heaven (as opposed to those about a future suffering or about a present status) — give no indication (unlike the others) that Jesus is talking about himself, but when carefully suggest a differentiation between Jesus and the Son of Man. In Mark 8:38, if you didn’t already think that Jesus was the Son of Man, you would certainly not think he was talking about himself when he uses the term. “Whoever is ashamed of ME of that person the SON OF MAN will be ashamed.” He moves from first person to third person. Bultmann and others argued on the grounds of dissimilarity that *those* are the Son of Man sayings that would not have been invented by later story tellers/Gospel writers and placed on Jesus’ lips. they are there fore the ones that we can be relatively certain he said. So the ones he relatively certain said appear to be referring to a figure known from Daniel 7 who was soon to come on judgment on the earth. Jesus was expecting a future son of man, soon to come. That is also th eview most consonant with the broader proclamatoin of Jesus that can be established by a thorough investigation of his proclamation in view of the various criteria one follows in estalbishing historically authentic material.
I didn’t invent this argument. It has been around for a very long time and held by very fine scholar. I find it convincing still. But there’s no reason you need to! Most conservative Christian scholars (whichever Craig you have in mind would qualify) don’t buy it. And CAN’T buy it, while maintaining their other views about Jesus. For my part, it doesn’t matter a twit to me personally whether Jesus himself thought he was soon to descend from heaven as the judge of the earth, a divine figure sent from heaven. If he did, I’d say, Wow. Really? (Since it didn’t happen). But it wouldn’t affect me at all otherwise.
1. I call this Ehrman’s Last Stand.
I designate this title because Christians do not need Mark 14:62 to show divinity in the gospel of Mark, but if Mark 14:62 is a divine claim, than many secular arguments about Jesus fall apart. You’re very defensive on this point because you are backed into a MAJOR corner.
2. Dr. William Lane Craig 🙂 address’ Bultmann’s view and discards it as almost all NT scholars disagree with it today.
3. 14 of 15 Son of Man statements in Mark clearly relate to Jesus. I would strongly argue all 15, but let us continue…
4. Authentic sayings by Jesus- Matthew 8:20, and you agree with this in-Part 31 in page 2 on your lectures of the historical Jesus. MATTHEW 19:25. You also agree on this one too, where Jesus clearly shows that he is the King of Israel. And neither are a passion verse.
5. Why did they put Jesus to death if Christ did not commit a blasphemy, not for calling himself the Messiah, but God. In your own words, as the below shows, you can not make sense of it.
The short link below disputes everything that you said.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT1Wn8-8t_E
“darn close”
here are the texts
I saw one like a human being[e]
coming with the clouds of heaven.
And he came to the Ancient One[f]
and was presented before him.
14 To him was given dominion
says nothing about this being being “darn close”
or identical to god. god is the one enpowering this one like a son of man.
meaning there is NOTHING inherent in this one like a human being which has identical powers with god.
psalm :
“Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies your footstool.”
again, nothing in the text implies that the one who sits @ the right hand has inherent powers identical to god.
Hi Bart,
What did Mark try to say in his account of Jesus before the Sanhedrin (14:53-65)?
First, Mark intended to show that the Sanhedrin believed and declared that Jesus committed blasphemy, for example, 14:63-64.
Second, we can evaluate the Sanhedrin trial scene and determine if Mark’s account of blasphemy was coherent or incoherent.
Third, the first accusations mentioned in the trial involved conflicting false testimonies that said Jesus would destroy the Temple (Mark 14:58-59), which sounded sacrilegious (i.e., blasphemous) to the Sanhedrin.
And previously, insiders heard the Olivet discourse (Mark 13) that predicted the judgment and destruction of the Temple. Perhaps, this discourse led to rumors about Jesus destroying the Temple.
Fourth, the accusations of destroying the Temple segued to the High Priest asking Jesus if he was “the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One” (Mark 14:61). Then, Jesus agreed and added that the Sanhedrin would see the cosmic Son of Man. And that statement prompted the accusation of blasphemy.
Contrary to yours and similar critical research, tradition and other critical research say that Jesus used illeism while referring to the Danielic Son of Man. This implied a divine being, created or not.
The scene looks to me like a coherent blasphemy trial.
Do you agree? disagree?
Disagree. For reasons I’ve explained.
Bart, thanks for your enlightening explanation of the two ways in which “Son of Man” is used by and about Jesus. It’s taken me further than I’ve previously gotten in comprehending the Christian re-definition and misuse of this phrase.
With my 12 years of yeshiva education, the use of “Son of Man” as the designation of a godlike being has always struck me as weird. With the one exception of Daniel’s vision of “one _like_” a son of man — please note the distinction! — when used in colloquial Hebrew or Aramaic a “ben Adam” is nothing more than an ordinary “son of Adam,” a generic human being. Something like our nameless “man in the street.” I have to think that at least some of the time that’s all that Jesus means by it.
It may be. Then again, Yeshiva was different 2000 years ago. 🙂
I should add that the phrase “ben Adam”=“son of Adam”≈“son of man”=“human” is used scores of times in the Tanach (full Hebrew Bible).
Sometimes God uses it when directly addressing one of his prophets. For example, to Ezekiel, “Son of man, set thy face against the Ammonites, and prophesy against them.” [Ezekiel 25:2] Odd that not once in the Christian sequel does He address Jesus that way!
Sometimes He uses it in the most generic sense: “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.” [Psalms 146:3]
Now there’s a verse the Gospel authors weren’t going to quote!
Yup! But it *is* clera that the “coming” son of man sayings derive from Daniel 7 (despite the difference of “one like” a son of man). And it’s important to note how Son of Man gets used in 1 Enoch as a reference to a heavenly messianic being.
I read 1 Enoch a couple of days ago. In Enoch, the son of man is a divine being. Would it be plausible, given the similar pronouncements in Daniel, that the High Priest may have understood that this son of man was Enoch’s rather than Daniel’s?.
The book of Enoch was considered a heretical,dangerous book. And it was plain enough that Jesus referred to himself as the son of man.
All this is under a suspension of disbelief if the Sanhedrin trial never happened.
When the High Priest in Mark asks ” are you the Messiah” and then reportedly continues: “THE son of the Blessed One”
it seems that something was lost in translation.
The word “ben”in Hebrew is not only “son”.It also denotes the possession of a characteristic,one’s age and much more.A child will say ” Ani ben Khamesh”, literally, I am the son of five, but meaning ” I am five (years old)”.
Knowing this,it appears that the Priest may have asked ” are you the Messiah
*of * (ben)the Blessed One”, and not “son” as a father/son relation.
There was no Judaic notion of ” THE Son of God”. It was meaningless, and very likely later modelled by an early Christology.
Yes, the high priest may have understood the Son of Man as a divine being; but since Jesus wasn’t claiming to be that being, he wasn’t committing a blasphemy. Only if someone already thinks he *did* think he was that being — as the reader of Mark would, but the high priest, historically, if this is a historical incident, would definitely not — then would it be a blasphemy. The author of 1 Enoch, e.g., was not speaking of a blasphemy when he spoke about the divine Son of Man.
Were the gospel writers ignorant of customs they were misrepresenting, or did they know and not worry about it on the basis of whom they were writing for?
I’m afraid we don’t know what they knew or didn’t know, other than what they wrote.
Here, you make it clear that you don’t believe that the historical Jesus believed himself to be the Son of Man.
But you have also said that you believe that Matt 19:28 (no parallells in Mark and Luke) really goes back to the historical Jesus, because later Christians would never claim that Jesus said that the Twelve would rule the twelve tribes of Israel, since this certainly would be false for one of the Twelve: Judas Iscariot (applying the criterion of dissimilarity).
But clearly, in Matt 19:28, Jesus must mean himself when he talks about the Son of Man, who will rule them all. It wouldn’t make sense otherwise. So, if Jesus really said that, he believed he was the Son of Man.
So, it seems that you contradict yourself about what you believe that the historical Jesus believed…
I don’t think the verse is that simple to interpret. Jesus doesn’t call himself the son of man in it, but refers to someone else he calls the son of man. He says the disciples will also be seated on thrones ruling the twelve tribes. He doesn’t say what he’ll be doing. My sense is that the son of man will make Jesus the messiah and so he will be sitting on a throne over the twelve otehrs just as the son of many will be sitting on a throne over him, and just as God will be sitting on a throne over *him*.
Ok, but it seems a little strange that Jesus didn’t mention his own role when he mentioned the Son of Man above him and the disciples below him.
Should we infer that Jesus originally did mentioned himself, but that someone on the way from an eyewitness to Matthew (inclusive) did remove a reference to Jesus himself from the quote, intentionally or unintentionally?
I don’t think we can reliably trace the history of the statement, and what else he said at the time. Too much guess work. But if I were guessing, I’d suppose he explained things more fully in a way that makes sense of the other kinds of probably authentic sayings of his that do survive.