So what, if anything, is the real (or main, or most substantive) difference between these two concepts (or characters)?
Do they overlap, or do their edges get fuzzy and blur together somewhat?
“Christ,” after all, simply (and literally) means “Messiah.” And most Christians today, I suspect, would affirm that Jesus is “THE Messiah.”
On the other hand, the gospels (and, reportedly, Jesus himself) frequently refer to the “Son of Man” (whom Professor Ehrman often describes as “a cosmic judge of the earth”).
Just curious as to the history, and proper usage, of these two terms or categories.
In earliest Christianity, was the historical Jesus originally thought of narrowly as just this “Son of Man” figure (from Daniel, presumably), and then this later blended with the broader Jewish “Messiah” concept? Or what?
In other words, should they be distinguished from each other as two different things? Did they subsequently merge later? Et cetera.
(And then, of course, it’s also interesting that “the Son of Man” eventually evolved, in Christian theology, into “the Son of God”; but that’s perhaps a whole ‘nother topic.)
Matthew 16:16
Simon Peter answered: you are the Messiah, Son of the living God.
Son of Man makes me think of Enoch I and Enoch II.
Son of Man makes me think of Jesus sayng you will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds.
Messiah makes me think of Savior.
Once there is the Son of Man coming, the time for saving is over
The Son of Man comes like a thief in the night.
The Messiah does not come like a thief in the night.
Simon Peter thought Jesus was the Messiah and Son of God based on the first half of Jesus’ mission, not the second half where tragedy struck Jesus’ mission: he was rejected and a plot was launched for his [agony and] crucifixion.
Son of Man is a human being.
Daniel 7:13-14 mentions one “like” a son of man. Such as an angel that has the physical appearance of a human being.
The angel or spirit was made into a King.
Son of God is a King of Israel.
The people of a kingdom serve the King, hence a King is also called a Lord.
Because this prophecy of a new King of Israel was expected to defeat the four beasts mentioned in Daniel 7, the Son of Man is the Messiah who would bring about an eternal Kingdom of Israel.
In Christianity all these expressions become synonymous with Jesus and the Kingdon of Heaven.
I hope that makes sense.
said
So what, if anything, is the real (or main, or most substantive) difference between these two concepts (or characters)?
…
(And then, of course, it’s also interesting that “the Son of Man” eventually evolved, in Christian theology, into “the Son of God”; but that’s perhaps a whole ‘nother topic.)
Holy thread resurrection! But this intrigued me, so please excuse me if I go on a bit. IDK if anyone will “bite”.
I think that historically, people thought about these things in a different context. Remember, they didn’t have the modern tech we have, nor modern physics. As the biblical historians are always trying to tell us, their thought-process was often different, more meta-physics and metaphorical/allegorical. The God or gods impact on, say, the weather or crop yields. Why things happen, and who ticked off what-being. The spiritual realm was just as real to them as the physical universe, and the two realms interact. Dr. Ehrman has commented on these ideas many times.
I say this since I’m a Dualist, and thus when I read these things, I see that duality interacting, and progressing over time. Therefore, from Gen 1:1 onward, the text addresses this duality, this progression, this evolution, as “God’s will” unfolds. This is what *I* understand and glean from the ancient texts. I can only assume at least some others did as well. YMMV.
Ad[a]m, in Hebrew is used as “mankind” in Gen 1:26 and has an individual first-being in Gen 2:19 as Ha Adm. (Man). This is a dual-being with the Aleph representing either some universal spiritual energy/life-force, or perhaps the individual soul, or whatever non-tangible thing the mystics can attribute to it, and the Dalet-Mem (Dam in Hebrew) meaning blood or physical energy/life-force. There’s that spiritual/physical duality again.
“Ben” is the prefix for “son of”, and implies a further-generation/evolution….descendants….the generations evolve.
IMHO, Elohim is as much a verb/actor as in is a “name for God” and when I read it, I think “God’s will unfolding”.
Thus, Jesus was referring to himself by his manifest duality as the result of the evolved version of a physical being with a soul (Ben-Adm) and also as his divine role as God’s son (Ben-Elohim), Gods will FOR HIM specifically to be the Messiah unfolding and his being a product of being subject to that will. One can view him as being “swept along” in the current of Elohim’s will (presumably willingly, not just some automaton).
So “Son of God” didn’t “eventually evolve”, although Christology did, as to when and how he became such. Ben Elohim is probably more of a generic concept (evolved child of God’s will), and Jesus being its specific special purpose incarnation/manifestation as Messiah. Jesus stated his son-ship explicitly, see John 8:42 onward assuming you believe Jesus spoke as such, and implied that some others, ostensibly linked to God (Chosen?), can hear his words too. Others are supposedly not able to, or refuse to. See also Mat 26:63-64.
As Dr. Ehrman points out, the Christology debates center on how/when he became God’s son, and/or co-equal with God, if you subscribe to such; the Western orthodox view being co-equality from the start, as I understand it. I’m sure there’s factions/opinions to the contrary, as Dr. Ehrman points out in his “How Jesus became God” book, although in this post we’re discussing the SON OF God designation, not necessarily co-equality.
Note that there were various anointed ones … as Priests were anointed as well Kings … and indeed some texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls indicate some “messianic” Jews were looking forward to a time of Two Messiahs, one the new High Priest and the other a new King as a branch from the “root” or “stump” of the house of David.
One could wonder whether in the period that John appears to indicate was fairly substantial, which the synoptics may be glossing over, that Jesus was a part of the John the Baptizer movement, whether there was leaning into the already existing Two Messiahs concept with John as the priestly Messiah and Jesus as a scion of a reputed side branch of Davidic descent.
Son of Man
The “son of man” and “son of God” duality seems to stem from (a) phrase(s) of Ugaritic El? There he’s both Father of man (in offering a kingdom) and gods. And Ugaritic El has paralells, if not an origin with Ea, the water ablution deity. If so, it’s only in Syrio-Canaan that a possible interpretio of Ea becomes God Most High, interpretio’d into a role name.
This seems to be a continuation of an antiquarian movement that originates in what is now southern Iraq which has received anthropogenic change like a lot. Particularly what is now Nasoriyah (named after the Nasoraeans, the guardians of knowledge (endonym), also known as the Mandayya (Gnosis of Life is how I read their exonym, the ‘ayya’ is life in Eblaite.)
He & they are proving that people don’t know the original character of their God Most High (kind, affectionate, wise, helper) and instead, their values maybe seem to align more with a Lord of armies or something.
Messiah
“Anointed one” appears in nowhere else but Hebrew. My guess it seems to be a rightful rather than a usurper sovereign, and someone above them is making that determination because Syrio-Canaan was claimed by hegemons for a couple millennia-ish before Hebrew exists as a language.
My best guess is that it’s some deified-claiming person like The Good God Kings, God’s Wife of Amun, Augustus Caesar or Gaius Caesar, someone like making that determination. The interesting thing is you can be declared this, that, or the other far before you are officialized as so, by your supporters. It’s a loyalty attestation.
Best Guess Wrapup –
• Son of Man might be related to some ancestry where you have an El blessing, like Jacob. Son of [insert god here] is pretty common in the ANE in a few slightly different uses (vassal, emissary, living image of their theonym), so I’m not sure there.
• Messiah – the rights to the second claim, in the First Century, might mean that an Augustus or a Gaius Caesar or someone like that is choosing you for their lineup
– again present tense, “You ARE the Messiah” is just an oath of loyalty, Jesus does not ascend to actual kingship in Judaea before he is crowned, but people call him Messiah before that. The narrative also seems to be about freeing people from an unwanted foreign over-ruler, and Herod the Great administered several kingdoms as a patrilineal Edomite.
– And it may not originally be specific to a region, as the original Israelites are a tribe not a place. As noted above, many Semetic-speaking kingdoms had rulers not of their tribe.
In Mark, which supports (although does not necessarily demand) a low Christology, “You are my son” at the Baptism by John the Baptizer may be read as the consequence his being filled by the Holy Spirit, and later passages may be read as Jesus claiming to be a possessor of the Divine Name, so in a sense an “avatar” of God.
References in the Tanakh to specific angels “appearing as a son of man” can easily be read as simply saying that they look “like” humans, so that the Markan reference to the Son of Man can be read as emphasizing that he is a human possessed of the Divine Name, and not originally a divine being, while the three references to Jesus as the Son of God are connecting possession of the divine name to being a Sovereign Messiah rather than a Priestly Messiah. In that reading, the “anointing” could well be read as being at the baptism with the infilling by the Holy Dove following the Baptism by John the Baptizer, understood as a Levite, rather than application of oil by a Levitic Priest.
However, as higher and higher Christologies developed, it seems possible to read into the Messianic Secret in Mark an accompanying Divinity Secret, that Jesus is an already existing Divine being incarnated as a “Son of Man”. A first lift of level of the Christology may be an incarnate Divine being, with his divine side “awakened” as a result of receiving the Holy Dove, and then in the Crucifixion elevated to the right hand of God in the Counsel of the Divine Ones. In a sense, the first of the divine beings to pass this ultimate test and thereby bring the divine plan to a new phase.
And then in a still higher one he is the first born son of God, so originally the “Prima Inter Pares” of the Divine Counsel and so appearing in action throughout the Tanakh (as might be read in the anonymous Letter to the Hebrews, and as was explicitly the dogma of the Arian Christology).
And then finally as a member of the Holy Trinity, from all time and for all time, which would seem to be be highest Christology you can have that, if you look at it at an angle, can be claimed to still be monotheistic.
I think the higher and higher Christologies possibly come from Jesus just advancing in his life after Judaea (in a physics-based hypothesis for a person reappearing after an event.)
Like there’s a person claiming godship historically that’s best friends with Agrippa (the epitomy of the Prodigal Son parable). I’d start there. Agrippa then starts receiving endorsements of his own godship in Acts 12:20-23.
This person gets damnatio memoraed just like Akhenaten does, but it explains why certain Roman emperors and not others would adopt the Christianity ‘ancestor cult’.
Luke 22:66–71 is especially illuminating for this question. When Jesus is asked directly, “If you are the Christ, tell us,” he does not answer affirmatively. Instead, he reframes the issue eschatologically: “From now on the Son of Man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God.”
Only after this claim do the interrogators respond, “Are you the Son of God, then?”—treating “Son of God” as the implication of the Son of Man’s exaltation rather than as a separate or prior identity. Jesus’ reply (“You say that I am”) accepts the inference without redefining the term.
This narrative sequence suggests that, in Luke’s conceptual world, “Son of God” functions primarily as a royal title conferred upon enthronement, not as a statement about biological origin or inherent divinity. The logic aligns closely with Psalm 110 (“Sit at my right hand”) and Psalm 2 (“You are my son; today I have begotten you”), where divine sonship is associated with coronation and kingship rather than literal descent.
On this reading, “Son of Man” designates the figure who is vindicated and enthroned, while “Son of God” names the status he assumes as a result of that enthronement. Luke’s trial scene preserves this distinction with unusual clarity, pointing to an early royal-messianic framework rather than a fully developed ontological Christology.
Yes, that fits in with Dr. Tabor’s work on the writings of the Dead Sea Scrolls community and the idea that preceded Jesus by perhaps a century or more of the “Two Messiahs” … one the Priestly Messiah, the anointing of a priest, and the other the Royal Messiah, the anointing of a King.
Of course, the execution of John the Baptist would mess up John the Baptist as the Priestly Messiah and Jesus of Nazereth from an obscure branch of the line of David as the Royal Messiah.
One way to resolve that is the path chosen by the mysterious anonymous author of the Letter to the Hebrews, with Jesus as a High Priest in the Order of Melchizedek, which recalls a time before the Tribe of Levi and Jesse’s line from the Tribe of Judah were distinct, and allows for the Priestly Messiah and Royal Messiah to be one and the same. And, of course, with an immortal High Priest, you save the inconvenience of staff turnover in the position.
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FreedomBen
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