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(THE) SON of (THE) MAN, and JESUS Part One: the Meaning

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(THE) SON of (THE) MAN, and JESUS Part One: the Meaning APPENDIX II (THE) SON OF (THE) MAN, AND JESUS Part One: the Meaning and Application of the Aramaic Idiom A. Th e meaning of the Phrase An Aramaic idiom, ‘(the) son of (the) man’ (a rendering to be explained) has recently received renewed attention, as providing a possible ante- cedent of the characteristically dominical expression, ‘the son of the man’ (as a slavish translation of ho huios tou anthropou would have it). In Aramaic, the phrase essentially means ‘human being,’ and the issue which has emerged in the study of the Gospels centers on whether Jesus used the phrase with that broad, non-messianic refer- ence. Amongst recent contributors, Geza Vermes has perhaps been the most conspicuous exponent of the view that the Aramaic idiom is the only key necessary for understanding Jesus’ preaching in regard to ‘the son of man.’1 His own particular generalization, that the phrase is a circumlocution for ‘I,’ has rightly been attacked:2 the fact is that ‘(the) son of (the) man’ in Aramaic is generic, in the sense that, insofar as it is self-referential, the speaker is included in the class (or a class) of human beings, but the class normally refers to mortal humanity (or a group of people), not to one human being alone.3 1 See Vermes, Jesus the Jew. A Historian’s Reading of the Gospels (London: Collins, 1973) 160–191; ‘ “Th e Son of Man” Debate,’ JSNT 11 (1978) 19–32. 2 See J. A. Fitzmyer, ‘Another View of the “Son of Man” Debate,’ Journal for the Study of the New Testament 14 (1979) 58–68; ‘Th e New Testament Title “Son of Man” Philologically Considered,’ A Wandering Aramean. Collected Aramaic Essays 1: SBLMS 25 (Chico: Scholars, 1979) 143–160, 153–155. 3 See J. W. Bowker, ‘Th e Son of Man,’ Journal of Th eological Studies 28 (1977) 19–48; B. D. Chilton, Th e Isaiah Targum. Introduction, Translation, Apparatus, and Notes (Th e Aramaic Bible 11; Wilmington: Glazier and Edinburgh: Clark, 1987) lvi– lvii. Barnabas Lindars refers to ‘the idiomatic use of the generic article, in which the speaker refers to a class of persons, with whom he identifi es himself’ (Jesus, Son of Man. A fresh examination of the Son of Man sayings in the Gospels in the Light of Recent Research [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983] 24). I would prefer to describe the usage as ‘generic’ with or without the article, in order to refer to people globally or to certain people under some set of circumstances. See P. M. Casey, ‘General, Generic, 534 appendix ii One of the passages cited by Vermes, from the Talmud Yerushalmi (Shebiʿith 9:1), should have made the last point entirely plain to him: Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai made a hide-out in a cave thirteen years, in a cave of carobs and dates, until his fl esh came up mangy. At the end of thirteen years, he said, If I do not go forth to see (sic!) what the voice of the world is . He went forth and sat at the mouth of the cave. He saw one hunter, hunting birds, spreading his net. He heard a bath qol saying, Release, and the bird was saved. He said, A bird apart from heaven will not perish, how much less (the) son of (the) man! Quite evidently, the syllogism (such as it is) cannot function unless both ‘bird’ and ‘(the) son of (the) man’ are understood as classes of being, not particular entities. Th e point is that the divine care for ani- mals demonstrates by analogy that human beings are not left hopeless, and Simeon goes on to leave the cave. Th e genre of being which is described by ‘(the) son of (the) man’ obviously includes Simeon, since otherwise he could not reach the conclusion, and undertake the action, which he does. But the genre is no mere circumlocution for Simeon, since otherwise the class could not be compared to that of which the bird in the narrative is an instance, not the entire set.4 Th e generic quality of the phrase is even more apparent when an ordinary feature of Aramaic grammar is taken into account: the deter- mined state of ‘man’ was not held to equate to the usage of the defi - nite article in English. As it happens, bar nash (‘son of man’) and bar nasha (‘the son of the man’) are closely related in usage, and the line of demarcation between them is subject to dialectical variation;5 there was an increasing tendency for the determined state to be used with an indefi nite sense as the language developed. By the time of Jesus, the form was probably bar enasha: the prosthetic aleph (meaningless though it is) is more securely attested than is the usage or the precise meaning of the determined state.6 Th at is the reason for the parenthet- ical qualifi cation of ‘the’ in renderings from Aramaic here. Nonethe- less, the generic force in the usage to hand is obvious. If God cares for and Indefi nite: the Use of the Term “Son of Man” in Aramaic Sources and in the Teaching of Jesus,’ JSNT 29 (1987) 21–56. 4 See Casey, 25. 5 Casey, 30–31. 6 See Fitzmyer, ‘Another View,’ 62; ‘Th e New Testament Title,’ 149–151. For a char- acterization of the debate between Fitzmyer and Vermes, see J. R. Donahue, ‘Recent Studies in the Origin of “Son of Man” in the Gospels,’ CBQ 148 (1986) 484–498, 486–490..
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