I just heard it claimed — by Dr. Ali Ataie on “Blogging Theology” — that Jesus’ prediction of an imminent ‘coming of the Son of Man’ is something Mark put into Jesus’ mouth, and not something that Jesus himself said.
The claim was that Paul came up with the idea of an imminent return of Jesus, and Mark borrowed it from Paul and put it in Jesus’ mouth. Thus, we can absolve Jesus of making a false prophecy.
What do you all think of this explanation?
Here is the video in which I heard this explanation, by the way:
I don’t recall exactly where this idea came up, though.
Omar6741
I just heard it claimed — by Dr. Ali Ataie on “Blogging Theology” — that Jesus’ prediction of an imminent ‘coming of the Son of Man’ is something Mark put into Jesus’ mouth, and not something that Jesus himself said.
The claim was that Paul came up with the idea of an imminent return of Jesus, and Mark borrowed it from Paul and put it in Jesus’ mouth. Thus, we can absolve Jesus of making a false prophecy.
What do you all think of this explanation?
Steve Campbell, Author of Historical Accuracy
Omar,
1) Did Jesus make a prophecy about Tribulation in Jerusalem: armies surrounding Jerusalem?
By knocking out the coming of the Son of Man are you saying the following?
2) Jesus made a true prophecy about Tribulation in Jerusalem.
3) Jesus did not say the Son of Man was coming after the Tribulation.
4a) John the Baptist also did not say prepare for judgment
4b) Jesus did not say there would be judgment as to who would enter the new kingdom after the Tribulation.
4c) Jesus did not get baptized by John the Baptist because there was not going to be apocalyptic Judgment, just Judgment when one dies
5) Jesus did not say there would be a new kingdom on earth just the kingdom after death.
6) Wherever Jesus says he is the Son of Man and the Kingdom of Heaven is not coming but is already present is true but if it is coming after the Jerusalem Tribulation it is false.
I got an answer from Bart which I found very satisfying, so I will copy and paste it here:
I don’t think it works. The odd and important thing about the imminent arrival of the son of man in Mark is that in *those* son of many sayings (see, ** you do not have permission to see this link **, e.g) there is no suggestion that Jesus is talking about himself. If Mark were to invent them and put them on his lips, he would have made the matter clear: these are self-referential! Moreover, he woldn’t have gotten them from Paul because Paul never uses the phrase “son of man” — not once!
For whoever is ashamed of me
and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation,
of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed
when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
Bart D.E.
There is no suggestion that Jesus is talking about himself.
Steefen
I totally disagree.
If you are ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of you when I come back in glory, with angels.
Second, “in the glory of his Father” refers to the son of the father who is Jesus. The gospels and all of Christianity speak only of the father-son relationship of God and Jesus, not a third person Son of Man and his Father. In your interpretation, is the third person Son of Man supposed to be the brother of Jesus who is going to be ashamed of someone because that person was ashamed of his brother?
Steefen said
For whoever is ashamed of meand of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation,
of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed
when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
Bart D.E.
There is no suggestion that Jesus is talking about himself.
Steefen
I totally disagree.
If you are ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of you when I come back in glory, with angels.
Second, “in the glory of his Father” refers to the son of the father who is Jesus. The gospels and all of Christianity speak only of the father-son relationship of God and Jesus, not a third person Son of Man and his Father. In your interpretation, is the third person Son of Man supposed to be the brother of Jesus who is going to be ashamed of someone because that person was ashamed of his brother?
The language in your quote is characteristic of a person referring to someone else, for an implicit contrast is drawn between ‘me’ and ‘the Son of Man’. This is why a number of scholars (including Ehrman, Bultmann, Adela Yarbro Collins, and others) have proposed that Jesus was referring to someone else when he spoke of the future ‘Son of Man’.
Obviously, all Christians –including the authors of the Gospels– have identified Jesus with the Son of Man. But they have transmitted materials which indicates that Jesus himself may not have identified himself with the Son of Man. That is what your quote shows to me.
Steve Campbell, Author of Historical Accuracy
Bart suggested Mark chapter 8 and you agree that Jesus was not saying he was the Son of Man.
Look at March chapter 8, verse 31 since you insist on misreading verse 38.
Then He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and that He must be killed and after three days rise again.
Before the reader gets to verse 38, the reader, at verse 31, is told the Son of Man is Jesus because Jesus would be rejected, killed, and rise again.
Steefen said
Steve Campbell, Author of Historical AccuracyBart suggested Mark chapter 8 and you agree that Jesus was not saying he was the Son of Man.
Look at March chapter 8, verse 31 since you insist on misreading verse 38.
Then He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and that He must be killed and after three days rise again.
Before the reader gets to verse 38, the reader, at verse 31, is told the Son of Man is Jesus because Jesus would be rejected, killed, and rise again.
I am aware that there are passages which use language indicating that Jesus is the Son of Man.
There are also passages indictaing that Jesus was not the Son of Man.
The latter are likely authentic, according to standard criteria of evidence.
mzejum said
That is not the only false prophesy put in the Mouth of Jesus by biblical scribes! Also the 3 days and 3 nights death and resurrection is another false prophesy put on the mouth of Jesus that not came true. and by standards of Deuteronomy 18:21-22 its surely a false Prophecy.
When it comes to the return of the Son of Man in the generation to whom Jesus preached, the consensus among critical scholars seems pretty solid that this is authentic.
omar6741
I am aware that there are passages which use language indicating that Jesus is the Son of Man.
There are also passages indictaing that Jesus was not the Son of Man.
The latter are likely authentic, according to standard criteria of evidence.
Steefen, Argumentation Specialist
The only conclusion is not the Jesus was not the Son of Man.
At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, he was the Son of Man.
At the end of Jesus’ ministry, he was not the Son of Man because
1) given the Wicked Tenants Parable, he communicated that he would be killed. A dead man cannot continue in the role.
2) God, the Father, failed to protect the Son of Man (as Jesus) and did not groom him to be accepted by Temple Authorities.
If, big IF, the Son of Man role was to go forward, it would have to be filled by a third person.
It seems remarkable to me that there are sayings of Jesus which strongly suggest he was thinking of someone other than himself when talking about the ‘Son of Man’.
By the criterion of dissimilarity, I judge these to be probably authentic (along with many before me, of course). And then the question becomes: who was being spoken of as ‘the Son of Man’?
The Son of Man is non-contraversially known to be the figure in Dan 7:13 who will be given everlasting power and dominion in the new kingdom of heaven.
In the gospels Jesus quite clearly claims to be this figure.
Scholarship claims that these are real words spoken by the historical Jesus about a heavenly figure coming soon to usher in the endtimes. Words which get repurposed by later gospel writers to suggest Jesus is speaking about himself, but that thankfully a remnant of the historic reality of the words remains in the gospels. This claim is not credible.
brenmcg said
The Son of Man is non-contraversially known to be the figure in Dan 7:13 who will be given everlasting power and dominion in the new kingdom of heaven.
Actually, there is a long history of controverting *that* claim. I am persuaded that the figure in Dan 7:13 is not meant to represent a specific figure at all, but functions purely as a symbol of the ‘people of God/saints of the Most High’, in much the same way that the fourth beast is a symbol of a kingdom.
brenmcg said
The Son of Man is non-contraversially known to be the figure in Dan 7:13 who will be given everlasting power and dominion in the new kingdom of heaven.In the gospels Jesus quite clearly claims to be this figure.
Scholarship claims that these are real words spoken by the historical Jesus about a heavenly figure coming soon to usher in the endtimes. Words which get repurposed by later gospel writers to suggest Jesus is speaking about himself, but that thankfully a remnant of the historic reality of the words remains in the gospels. This claim is not credible.
Can you say more about why you do not find this claim to be credible? Thanks.
Omar6741 said
Actually, there is a long history of controverting *that* claim. I am persuaded that the figure in Dan 7:13 is not meant to represent a specific figure at all, but functions purely as a symbol of the ‘people of God/saints of the Most High’, in much the same way that the fourth beast is a symbol of a kingdom.
What Daniel himself mean by the Son of Man might be up for discussion. But not what was mean by it in the gospels.
Can you say more about why you do not find this claim to be credible? Thanks.
Paul without mentioning the son of man understands Jesus as this Lord of the end times who will come on the clouds of heaven. Paul who spoke to Peter and Jesus’ brother. It is not credible that the historical Jesus taught his disciples about a future son of man other than himself and that these disciples taught Paul this figure was Jesus himself.
It is not credible that the historical words “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” would be carried faithfully through oral tradition simultaneously to the meaning of these words being radical converted to be about Jesus himself.
The idea is that the writers of the gospels are faithfully preserving the actual words of Jesus without themselves knowing he meant something completely different. That they would faithfully maintain the awkwardness of constructions, with Jesus referring to himself in the third person. And that happily for us, and unbeknownst to the gospel writers, we get real historical information about Jesus which they themselves did not know.
brenmcg said
What Daniel himself mean by the Son of Man might be up for discussion. But not what was mean by it in the gospels.
Just to be clear, Daniel did not mention “the Son of Man.” He wrote about a vision concerning “one like a son of man” (Dan 7:13; Aramaic, כְּבַר אֱנָשׁ kəḇar ʾĕnāš). It is indefinite, not a title, which would be בַּר אֱנָשָׁא bar ʾĕnāšaʾ “the son of man,” and it would lack the “like” element (כְּ־ kə- “like”). What Daniel said was that the thing he saw in his vision, whether it was an angel or something else, looked to him like a human. He also gives an interpretation of his prophecy, and in the interpretation the “one like a son of man” was “the people of the saints of the Most High” (Dan 7:27; Aramaic, עַם קַדִּישֵׁי עֶלְיוֹנִין ʿam qaddîšê ʿelyônîn).
I don’t think it’s unclear what Daniel meant (whoever “Daniel” was that actually wrote the book), but it became more complicated later on with interpretations of the text, which went well beyond what the pseudonymous author meant when he penned the text—which is clear from the text itself.
brenmcg said
Omar6741 said
Actually, there is a long history of controverting *that* claim. I am persuaded that the figure in Dan 7:13 is not meant to represent a specific figure at all, but functions purely as a symbol of the ‘people of God/saints of the Most High’, in much the same way that the fourth beast is a symbol of a kingdom.
What Daniel himself mean by the Son of Man might be up for discussion. But not what was mean by it in the gospels.
Can you say more about why you do not find this claim to be credible? Thanks.
Paul without mentioning the son of man understands Jesus as this Lord of the end times who will come on the clouds of heaven. Paul who spoke to Peter and Jesus’ brother. It is not credible that the historical Jesus taught his disciples about a future son of man other than himself and that these disciples taught Paul this figure was Jesus himself.
I am prepared to accept this reasoning, except for the very possibility that the disciples re-interpreted the statements of their master after seeing visions of him resurrected; the identification of Jesus with the Son of Man may have been a by-product of these resurrection appearances.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
1 Guest(s)