Jesus, Disciple of the Kingdom. Osvaldo D. Vena
in the NT
In chapter 4 of the present work, I explore in depth Mark’s unique appropriation of the term “Son of Man.” Nevertheless, I believe it is important at this point to attempt to explain its usage in the NT. Even so, our investigation will be brief, given the massive amount of work already done on the subject.86 Scholars still continue to debate the meaning of the expression “Son of Man,” but it is not my intention, nor is this the place, to discuss the intricacies of such debate. I will limit myself to mention the most common ways of explaining the term and opt for one of them as my working hypothesis.
The expression “Son of Man” (ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου) occurs almost exclusively in the Synoptic Gospels and John,87 and is practically missing in the rest of the NT. It occurs twice in Revelation (1:13; 14:14), once in Hebrews 2:6, and once in Acts 7:56. In each one of these last four instances, there is an inter-textual connection with either the Hebrew Bible or the Synoptic Gospels, which shows the secondary nature of its use. Revelation 1:13 and 14:14 allude to Daniel 7:13, Hebrews 2:6 is part of a quotation from Psalm 8, and Acts 7:56 refers back to Luke 22:69. Strangely enough, Paul never uses the expression “Son of Man,” although he makes a reference to the παρουσία of Jesus Christ in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 in ways that point unmistakably to Daniel 7:13.88
In terms of chronology, we can be fairly certain that all of these non-Synoptic occurrences come from after 70 CE and, therefore, are later than Mark. I suggest that the chronological order would first be Mark, followed by Matthew, Luke, Acts, Hebrews, and Revelation. Of course, Mathew and Luke use the logia source Q and therefore some of their Son of Man sayings have to be traced back to that source rather than Mark.89 But at least with the evidence that we have in the NT, it is important to notice that Mark seems to be the first author who introduces the expression “Son of Man” and who puts it on Jesus’ lips. He also introduces the word “disciple,” as we said above, but unlike “Son of Man,” this word is never found on Jesus’ lips. These two expressions are innovative ways of talking about both Jesus and the believers, different at least from the way Paul refers to them. In and of itself, this makes Mark a very creative Christologist.
The fact that the Son of Man sayings appear in other independent sources such as Q, the Gospel of Thomas, and the Gospel of the Hebrews90 seems to suggest that this tradition was pretty strong. We have three independent witnesses to the use of this expression in the Jesus tradition. Because of this evidence, many scholars agree that the historical Jesus probably used this expression himself. Now, which of the sayings ought to be traced back to Jesus, and which to the early church, is still a matter of contention. We will not attempt to solve this conundrum here, but rather, take all of the sayings as they appear in the Gospel of Mark and try to make sense out of them as part of the evangelist’s story. That is to say that, in Mark’s story world, Jesus is the Son of Man. Why was it necessary for Mark to stress this aspect of Jesus? Why wasn’t Paul interested in it? Why is this tradition relegated almost exclusively to the Gospels? What does it tell us about the Christology of the evangelists as opposed to that of other NT writers such as Paul, for example? These are some of the questions this book seeks to address.
The fact that the expression “Son of Man” is limited to the Gospels and their sources and to a few other instances in the NT (see above), but is completely missing in Paul’s letters, bespeaks of the Christological diversity of the early church. By that I mean the different and creative ways by which the followers of Jesus of Nazareth tried to explain to themselves and to the world the impact this person had on their communities. In order to do so, they deploy a number of expressions, some of which became later “Christological titles,” for example, Son of God, Son of Man, Lord, etc., whose function was originally descriptive. Relying on the traditions available to them but also on their ethnic and cultural background (Greek, Aramaic, Jewish), these communities appropriated the Jesus traditions so as to suit their need for identity and survival in a world of confusion, dislocation, and death.
But even among the gospel writers, there is Christological diversity. If we assume the Markan priority theory as one way of assessing this diversity, especially when it comes to a particular tradition such as the Son of Man tradition, we must list those passages that parallel Mark and notice any editorial changes made by Matthew and Luke. And we must do the same with those passages that do not parallel Mark, those that come from their common source Q or from their particular materials, and notice how they modify—or not—Mark’s picture.
Uses of Son of Man in Mark and in Parallels
1. The earthly Son of Man.
Mark’s depiction of the Son of Man as one who is to suffer, die, and rise finds an appropriate correlation in Matthew and Luke’s account, which also refer this image to the historical Jesus. The pertinent passages are:
• Mark 8:31 (Luke 9:22)
• Mark 9:9 (Matt 17:9)
• Mark 9:12 (Matt 17:12)
• Mark 9:31 (Matt 17:22; Luke 9:44)
• Mark 10:33 (Matt 20:18; Luke 18:31)
• Mark 10:45 (Matt 20:28)
• Mark 14:21 (Matt 26:24; Luke 22:22)
• Mark 14:41 (Matt 26:45)
In all of these instances, Matthew and Luke follow Mark not only when the context clearly points towards Jesus as the Son of Man, (for example, Mark 14:17–21/Matt 26:20–25; Luke 22:21–23), but also when the link between the Son of Man and the historical Jesus is not so clear (the rest of the examples above). And at least once, Matthew adds the personal pronoun “he” to Mark’s account (Mark 8:31/Matt 16:21), thus equating the Son of Man with the Messiah and with the historical Jesus, a theological move that the other evangelists seem to imply but not offer explicitly.
“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” . . . Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah. From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem. (Matt 16:13–21)
Mark’s use of Son of Man meaning “human being” is found in 2:10 (/Matt 9:6; Luke 5:24) and in 2:28 (/Matt 12:8; Luke 6:5). In the first instance, the Son of Man is said to have authority on earth to forgive sins. In the second the Son of Man is declared as being Lord of the Sabbath. In both examples, Jesus is the immediate textual referent to the Son of Man. He is the one who expropriates the scribes’ right to interpret who mediates God’s forgiveness—it is God who forgives, not Jesus, as the Greek passive verb ἀφίενται denotes—for even though the priests in the temple are agents of God’s forgiveness, they do not forgive sins: God does.
But the evangelist seems to think differently. In verse 10, he affirms that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.91 He seems to be not solely an agent, but the generator of the forgiveness. But probably this is not the case, especially if Mark is recalling here the imagery of Daniel 7, where one like a son of man is given authority by the Ancient of Days (God) to rule earthly nations at the eschaton. So, as Joel Marcus reminds us, “[the] heavenly God remains the ultimate forgiver, but at the climax of history he has delegated his power of absolution to a ‘Son of Man’ who carries out his gracious will in the earthly sphere.”92 But the difference with the Danielic figure is that this Son of Man exercises his authority through forgiveness of sins, not through the overcoming of his enemies, as is the case in Daniel 7. In that sense, this may represent a novelty on the part of the evangelist, who is bent on counteracting the messianic ideology of the Jewish revolutionaries.93
Now, if the Son of Man is a communal symbol representing God’s people, as we will propose throughout this work, then the forgiveness of sins is enacted by the community he represents. Soteriology then is linked to a people, not to an individual savior (see chapter 6 of this work). We can see this idea surfacing in Mark 2:27–28, when Jesus says “The Sabbath was made for humankind (ὁ ἂνθρωπος) and not humankind for the Sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.” Interestingly enough, neither Matthew nor Luke includes this affirmation, thus making the lordship of the Son of Man more of an individual feat than a communal responsibility. But, if according to Mark, Jesus is the representative of the community,