Wondering if this has been covered before… when Jesus exorcises the demon named legion in the region of the Gerasenes…. The description of the man is as follows: “For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.” Jesus then exorcises a demon named Legion from the man, and the demon enters the pigs, who subsequently drown themselves.
In my interpretation, the man who is “chained hand and foot…” represents Israel suffering under Roman dominion. The Son of Man (Jesus in this telling) casts out the Roman “Legion,” or army and casts them into the realm of the unclean (swine), where they are destroyed. Over time, this could have evolved into a miracle story as opposed to an apocalyptic parable.
Jesus talks about the Son of Man in the 3rd person in other places. Maybe this was a story that Jesus told as a metaphor for what the coming Son of Man would be. Any thoughts on this?
My opinion is that your opinion is sensible considering how symbolic the language can be. However, I don’t see any way to prove it one way or the other. With a multilayered meaning both a literal and symbolic interpretation may be correct.
We know as fact that there was messiah groups who wanted to escape the Roman Empire. To do this the Jewish people must have their own sovereign King. The demon named Legion calls Jesus the Son of the Most High in Mark 5:7 like in Daniel 7:18. Son of the Most High could also be translated as Son of God.
The interpretation I accept is that a Son of God is an expression for the King of Israel, such as how King David was a sovereign king of the united kingdoms of Israel and Judea. As a result of the language the concept of the messiah was using the phrase as another expression that means messiah. Another translation could suggest that Son of God was a synonymous expression of the holy people of the Most High. Here we begin to have the conflict between an expression that could be interpreted grammatically in the singular or plural tense, such as the word Elohim being both singular and plural. And then the grammar conflict begins to show when distinguishing a difference between the Son of Man and Son of God.
Semantics and linguistics. In the development of Trinity doctrine, these conflicts and resolutions between the semantics and linguistics of Son of Man and Son of God when used as descriptions of Jesus are taken to the extremes when trying to find the words to explain the nature of this Trinity. The solution is that the nature cannot be understood because of paradoxes and what was declared to be heretical.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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