You may fire when ready, Gridley.  🙂

This is your idea of a butthurting rejoinder?  You have led a very sheltered life.  🙂

I am not qualified to speak to grammatical issues of languages I don’t know, except to refer to the statements of qualified people.  (Nor am I qualified to comment on whether you are qualified, and I don’t think you know Aramaic or Hebrew, which complicates matters of translation somewhat–with Jesus, there’s often as many as three languages in the mix–four if count Latin–even if he personally only knew one).

My impression that Jesus blurred the lines comes from reading general overviews of the topic.  I mean, if it was absolutely clear when Jesus is speaking of himself and when he’s speaking of a celestial entity, then that would constitute scholarly consensus, which doesn’t currently exist on this topic.  So yes, there is plenty of room for doubt, but that would be true no matter which explanation you were talking about.  We just don’t know.  So we guess.  This is my guess.  And nobody should feel concerned for my feelings if they try to poke holes in it.  People shouldn’t bring their feelings to an online discussion, in my experience.  But they usually do anyway.  🙄

At the present time I think either my suggestion is the answer or Jesus used the term only to refer to himself as a Son of Man, not the Son of Man–basically just an honorific that refers to a mortal who does God’s will, no matter what the cost.  

The link between the two would be Jesus later changing his understanding of the term under the pressures of an increasingly hazardous and difficult mission he believed he had been given, but had no means of carrying out.  He had to believe God wouldn’t ask this of him if it could not be achieved somehow.  But clearly the mortal being he was could not be equal to the task.  And nothing of any value is achieved without sacrifice (this is true whether you believe in God or not).  He would be the sacrifice.  And in making that sacrifice, he would, like a few others in his religious tradition, be transformed into a celestial being, who would bring about the Kingdom, but not be part of it–as Moses never saw the promised land, except from a distance.

I don’t know this is true.  I just know it could be.   I respect Bart’s opinion, and his expertise, but I don’t believe Jesus thought he could just change the whole world through a heavenly agent, then live happily ever after on an earthly throne.  And that is another little-accepted opinion, as Bart has told us, but at least he knows all three languages.    

I’m going to ignore the personal stuff, which is boring.  If you told me you know Aramaic and Hebrew, I apologize for forgetting.  I remembered you studied Greek.  I do not have any way of knowing how fluent you are, and Bart has made it abundantly clear that people can know the languages and still make mistakes in terms of understanding how to apply them to NT study.  I don’t understand how the grammatical points you made prove Jesus couldn’t have used the term as I suggest, since after all, we can’t have his original wording, which would have been in Aramaic.  I get the impression the Aramaic and Hebrew often translate very badly into Greek, and much is lost in translation, but Greek is all we have.  

I shouldn’t have said there’s a strong consensus that Jesus blurred the lines.  That was putting it badly, which is going to happen sometimes when you’re typing stuff into the internet.  I can’t possibly read all the scholarship on this subject, and I doubt very much you have either.  Scholarship is all over the place here.  Some scholars don’t believe Jesus ever used the term Son of Man.  Others believe he used the term in several different ways.

This is probably a decent-enough summation of the problems inherent to this subject.

** you do not have permission to see this link **

Jesus was a Jew.  Therefore he almost certainly began with the conventional Jewish interpretation of this term, which refers to a mortal being, and there can be more than one Son of Man in this context.  I don’t believe he set out to glorify himself.  

However, Jesus was not a conventional Jew, and repeatedly reinterpreted Jewish ideas to fit his own rapidly evolving understanding of God, the world, and his own role in changing that world at God’s behest.  Therefore, he might have decided he was Son of Man in an additional sense that was unique to himself.  

After all Son of God was also an honorific that could be applled to any upright Jewish male without meaning he was divine (learned that from Jesus: An Historian’s Review of the Gospels by Robert Grant, who was an eminent classicist kibitzing in gospel study, and i recommend it highly), but you seem to concur that Jesus might have believed he was God’s adopted son, dating back to his baptism by John.  

The terms are inherently muddy, imprecise, and one meaning can slip into another.  To me, that seems too self-evident to even have to explain.  How else could it be?  We know full well how slippery language can be in our daily lives.  

I am not a scholar, I don’t pretend to be one, and I don’t intend to write in scholar-ese.  Partly because it would be pretentious, and partly because it makes me wince to even try.  

Robert, you seriously don’t understand that reopening the discussion with the word ‘butthurt’ was personal?  And in the way one normally associates with adolescent males?  I don’t take offense at all, but don’t expect me to take you seriously when you do that.  This can be the end of our discussion of this unpleasantness between us–if you’re willing.  Don’t put it all on me.  I didn’t bring ‘butthurt’ into this.  A term I have always found distasteful, even on forums devoted to discussing Marvel Comics.  This ain’t that.  🙂

My concept of Jesus believing he was God’s adopted son is more derived from Ehrman than Grant–obviously we only know Jesus through intermiediaries, but adoptionism came earlier, and we may allow the very serious possibility that Jesus did think of himself in this way, albeit differently than those who came after him.  Grant was the one who introduced me to the notion that Son of God could just be a term of respect, with no supernatural connotation.  Do you really need to check the book before you agree with that?  

Great at memorizing.  Understanding?  Ehhhhh…..

Have fun with Bren.  You two make a great couple.  😀

Not insulting.  UNDERSTANDING.  I’m sorry you don’t know the difference.

And I’m sorry I’m terrible at learning languages.  But then again, you’ve admitted you’re not much of a writer in any of them.  Robert, please.  I’m letting it go.  You do the same.  Plenty of room here for both of us.  And if the conversations continue to be this boring, I’ll probably just let my subscription lapse next year.  I’ve learned most of what I came here to learn.  Just want to stick around long enough to discuss Bart’s next book.

You’re not a bad guy, and I don’t dislike you.

But I don’t find you terribly insightful or perceptive.  And there’s nothing to be done about that.  You can think what you like about me.  Many have.  But in real life, I’m considered a pretty decent guy.  I’m sure that’s true of you as well.  For the very last time.  BYE.  🙂