WHAT IS THE SON OF MAN IN JOHN: THE SON OF MAN LOGIA IN JOHN AND IN THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS IN THE LIGHT OF SECOND TEMPLE JUDAISM TRADITIONS by Jay Harold Ellens A dissertation submitted in partial fulfullment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Near Eastern Studies) in the University of Michigan 2009 Doctoral Committee: Professor Gabriele Boccaccini, Chair Professor Phillip B. Munoa, III Professor Brian B. Schmidt Professor Raymond H. Van Dam i DEDICATION This work is dedicated to Nicholas Robert Kwantes Ellens, My eldest grandson, Who encouraged me to persist When I was at the moment of being Most ready to abandon this project. He insisted that I remember well What I had told him in College: ʺNever Give Up!ʺ He had me! What could I do but carry on. I am pleased that I did and thank him heartily. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Now that I have reached the point of completing this major scholarly endeavor in graduate study, I am aware of my deep indebtedness to more colleagues, friends, and family than it is possible to name here. However, there are a number of key persons and institutions that have made this accomplishment possible. First and foremost I wish to express my appreciation and palpable gratitude to my Advisor, Professor Gabriele Boccaccini. His patience, wisdom, creativity, and scholarship have inspired, encouraged, and led me in this work. His imaginative ideas and illumining insights regarding Second Temple Judaism and a wide range of broader interests, enriched my research, guided its trajectory, and led me to a fruitful outcome. I first met Professor Boccaccini in 1990 when he lectured at the Gregorian University in Rome. It was an interesting and stimulating experience at that august institution to have the riches of Second Temple Judaism scholarship opened before me in a manner I had hitherto not encountered. It was particularly gratifying, therefore, to discover in the years that followed that he was to be iii Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan, Department of Near Eastern Studies, where I had undertaken the PhD program. That offered us the opportunity to deepen our scholarly relationship. It has subsequently given rise to a close collegial friendship. We have, with genuine satisfaction, shared the work of a great number of scholarly endeavors. Some of the richest experiences under the tutelage of and as assistant to Professor Boccaccini were the development and execution of the biennial International Enoch Studies Conferences in Italy and the co‐editing of the scholarly papers of those conferences, so proficiently published by Zamorani in 2003 and by Eerdmans in 2005, 2007, and 2009, as well as the launching of the new series of the Journal HENOCH in 2005. We traveled together widely through Europe to attend international conferences of the Learned Societies, including the University of Michigan NES Summer Program on Jews and Christians in the Roman World (Rome 2003). Moreover, together we established The Michigan Center for Early Christian Studies which vigorously supports the work of the division of Christian Studies in our department. We developed in partnership a comprehensive bibliography of Enoch Scholarship. I was privileged to share for a number of years and to my great profit, the experiences of Professor Boccacciniʹs numerous seminars in methodology, history of ideas, and trajectories of traditions in Second Temple Judaism. It was iv in this context that I had the good fortune to receive his inspired and inspiring suggestion that important work could be and needed to be done on the special Second Temple Judaism subject of this dissertation, The Son of Man in Johnʹs Gospel. Pursuing that suggestion has proven to be a demanding but enormously enriching scholarly undertaking that has enhanced my understanding of the ancient world, 300 BCE ‐ 300 CE, beyond anything I could have anticipated. My odyssey in pursuit of this second PhD has been a long and demanding journey. When I finished my MDiv at Calvin Seminary fifty three years ago, I did not anticipate further graduate work. However, after many years as an Army Chaplain I realized that I would feel much more gratification in my work if I could acquire extensive additional training in both biblical studies and in counseling. Therefore, I left active army duty to take a ThM in New Testament and Intertestamental Studies under Professor Bruce M. Metzger at Princeton Theological Seminary. I followed that with a PhD in the Psychology of Human Communications (1970) at Wayne State University. There followed years of professional work in church ministry, university and seminary teaching, presenting papers at Learned Societies conferences, and conducting a private practice in psychotherapy. In 1990 I was pleased with the opportunity to build further on my work under Metzger as a result of being invited by Professor Jarl Fossum to pursue this present PhD in Second Temple v Judaism and Christian Origins. Fossum provoked me to study at the University of Michigan by his severe critique of my paper on ʺZoroastrian Influences in Jewish Apocalypticismʺ at the SBL in 1990. In consequence, I read his meticulous book, The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord (Mohr‐Siebeck, 1985). That volume and Professor Boccacciniʹs early work, Middle Judaism, Jewish Thought 300 BCE to 200 CE (Fortress, 1991), set me on a more sophisticated course in pursuit of my interests in Second Temple Judaism studies. Fossumʹs and Boccacciniʹs lectures were always substantive and interesting and advanced my research significantly. When Fossum left the university, Professor Boccaccini picked up the pieces of the program, reoriented my project, and guided me through this work to its fruition. It is not possible to express adequate gratitude for my development under such signal scholars. During this long and arduous process many colleagues shared with me the vicissitudes and gratifications of graduate work. Among those closest to me in this project were Grant Shafer, Mark S. Kinzer, James Waddell, Jason Van Ehrenkrook, Ronald Ruark, and in more recent years, Isaac Oliver and Pierpaolo Bertalotto. They were humorful, inspiring companions and illumining fellow scholars throughout the years. In the many superb graduate seminars conducted by Professor Boccaccini during our years of work together, these friends and fellow pilgrims in the quest for understanding and scholarly maturity always vi proved to be generatively instructive in their rich contributions. I will count them as more than colleagues, indeed, as permanent friends for my remaining years. As fellow Graduate Student Instructors we struggled together to measure up to the high performance necessary to match the erudition of Professor Boccaccini and handle the enormous enrollments of students flocking in to hear his lectures. I am sure we will always remember this as a time of demanding and gratifying pilgrimage together. It is imperative that I also recognize here, with deep gratitude, the financial support for my work in research and writing that was afforded me by the Department of Near Eastern Studies, The Michigan Center for Early Christian Studies, The Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, and the Rackham Graduate School. Without their help and encouragement I could not have completed this challenging undertaking. Through every year of my work at the University of Michigan the efficiency of its administrative processes and student support seems to me to have increased markedly. With special appreciation, I wish to thank the members of my doctoral committee. In addition to the enormous help, care, and kindness of my Advisor, I am greatly indebted to Professor Phillip B. Munoa III of the Religious Studies Department of Hope College, Professor Raymond H. Van Dam of the History Department at the University of Michigan, and Professor Brian B. Schmidt of the vii Department of Near Eastern Studies of the University of Michigan. Consequent to a number of key personnel changes at the university during my research and matriculation, these gentlemen were called upon relatively late in the process and immediately rose to the demands of the committee work, carefully studying my dissertation, providing an appropriate and useful critique, and executing their response to my defense of it with skill, precision, sophisticated erudition, and grace. I shall always be grateful and joyful about that. Finally, I thank Mary Jo Lewis Ellens for flagging but not failing in her faith that this project was worthwhile, despite the decade of our lives that it consumed. She encouraged me to the very end with more confidence in the importance and potential gratification of the undertaking, than I often felt myself. Moreover, I am painfully aware of how long and how much my time, energy, and presence was drawn away from my entire family because of the seemingly endless years of my preoccupation with this work. I wish now to express my empathy and gratitude to Deborah, Jacqueline, Daniel, Rebecca, Rocky, Brenda, and Brett; as well as my eight grandchildren and one great grandchild. I cannot make up to them the hours, potential memories, family fun, and just plain relaxed intimacies this endeavor has cost us all. I hope they can forgive, forget, and feel some of the celebrative gratification I now have for a task thoughtfully undertaken, carefully seen through to the finish, and done well. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION .............................................................................................................................