Simple answer for “the most complex, convoluted, and confounding questions confronting scholars of the historical Jesus”. Maybe too simple?
Did Jesus call himself the son of man?
If so, what did he mean?
And if not, what did he mean?
“The “coming” of the “Son of Man” in his “power and glory” will be accomplished before the current generation “passes away.” This event will coincide with the destruction of the Temple and, indeed, the Jewish Revolt itself, which is fairly well described in Jesus’s apocalyptic prophecy, including the calamitous misery, hardships, famine and tribulations that war would bring. All of these events happened within the lifetime of people from Jesus’s time just as predicted. The Flavian historian Josephus was recording his history of those same events, which he had personally witnessed at Titus’s side, during approximately the same time Jesus’s prophecies were being written down in the Gospels. The plain meaning of what Jesus is quoted as saying, especially given that it was written after the war, is that his glorious Second Coming would transpire with the victory of Titus. Either that or Jesus made a big mistake. And it increasingly appears that he did not.” (from “Creating Christ: How Roman Emperors Invented Christianity” by James S. Valliant, C. W. Fahy)
BTW. For all ancient art lovers – old collection of Christian rings ** you do not have permission to see this link **
Robert,
I really don’t know. Mark is dated after 70AD War. But there is for me a tricky deal with Little Apocalypse.
H.Detering’s (r.i.p.) essay is presenting in very persuasive way (for me) that it is a document from Bar Kochba time. An Mark’s version is based on Mathew’s version. See ** you do not have permission to see this link **.
I am trying to collect other opinions – my is still not ready.
Jesus died maybe 30 AD. That is long before a Titus or Vespasian would have been in a line to become emperor.
So are you suggesting Jesus predicted these things or are you suggesting that the author of Mark thought Jesus was predicting these things.
Also, the Hebrew Bible is full of kings being mocked for thinking they were like gods. Even the “morning star” is brought down. And Titus and Vespasian had very short reigns. If one believed in prophecy, One would think the prophecy would get more details right. Besides, the Son of Man was going to set things right for Israel centered around Jerusalem, going back to Daniel an earlier basis for the Son of Man concept. Neither Titus nor Vespasian do that at all.
Hi Focus,
Dating of all the books in NT is closer to the Jewish War then to the ministry of Jesus. Some of them – letters of Paul, James are written before the war. All 4 gospels are written after the war.
In Mark 13, in all synoptics we have 2 Jesus’s prophecies.
- Fall of Jerusalem – “true” prophecy, confirmed
- Coming of the Son of Man – based on Daniel prophecy – ?????
If Jesus = Son Of Man it is a “false” prophecy, because the Second Coming didn’t happen. About Jesus and the Son of Man thera a few posts from Bart. Now, gospel is written after the war. Why we have “false” Jesus’s prophecy? Or maybe our interpretation is wrong.
Josephus is using the same Daniel’s prophecy to present Titus and Vespasianus as a Jewish messiahs.
Messiah was a man, a political ruler, high priest, Big Boss the Winner who will elevate Israel.
Not only a Jew. Cyrus The Great, uncircumsized pagan Persian king is named messiah in the Bible .
Jewish rullers are messiahs which is seen on coins.
On one side you have words in koine BASILEOS + NAME. On second side usually there is a messianic star and KING or HIGH PRIEST in paleo-hebrew.
Vespasian and Titus were called a Jewish messiahs by Flavius Josephus, Yohannan Ben Zakkai, Suetonius and Tacitus. That was the same propagandistic claim similar to the claims presented on the Herodians coins.
Jesus message is that Israel will be elevated after the war in non-Jewish way. The Temple must be destroyed, judgement must be done by the Son of Man. Judgement was done by Titus and his father Vespasian.
This interpretation is of course, up side down to the all others existing in biblical scholarship.
But is simple and cogent compare to the rest.
Paul’s writings date back to as early as 50AD, which means there’s as much time between the start of Jesus’ ministry and the earliest epistle as there is between that epistle and the start of the war with Rome.
One really weird aspect of this theory is that it propounds that Christian writings are all Roman propaganda, but then why do these writings contradict each other so much? And why do Christian evangelists keep getting executed by Rome?
Really deep cover.
😀
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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