Mark and the Historical Jesus III: the Coming of the Son of Man

Clip from movie on Mark (I think this project was abandoned) and passage from Mk 13:25-26.  Sadly, Mark is the only gospel of the 4 not to get the movie treatment

Rudolf Bultmann (Theology of the New Testament, 30) spoke of 3 types of Son of Man sayings: present ministry (Mk 2:10, 28), dying/rising (Mk 8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34) and future coming (Mk 13:26; 14:62).  Against Wright’s view on the Son of Man’s ascent to Heaven and vindication at the fall of the Temple in 70 CE, I have argued for the traditional reading of his descent at the end of the age here (Mark uses the participle form of erchomai [coming], but Matthew seems to interpret it this way by substituting the technical term parousia in 24:3, 27, 37, 39).  Further, regardless of the Aramaic idiom possibly underlying it, it seems to me that for Mark the Son of (the) Man has become a christological title (ho huios tou anthropou, a gender neutral translation might be “The Human One”) and the Danielic background primary though some contest this (cf. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, 290-306 argues it was not a title but the double articular constructionbhas the emphatic force designating this particular human [i.e. Jesus] and Daniel only part of the background of divine theophany imagery).  Finally, if we are to ask how a first century reader like Mark read Daniel 7,  I think the evangelist updated the oracle to address his time so the end is at hand, the current oppressor is Rome and Jesus is the son of man representing the saints of Israel who will triumph over the beast.  Repeated references to suffering and persecutions (Mk 4:17; 8:34-38; 10:30b, 38; 13:9-13) and injunctions to self-denial and taking up the cross may be the cost of following Jesus in the present evil age, but Mark reassures the reader of the good news that the kingdom (1:15; 9:1) ruled over by the Human One will soon come in full power.  But that is Mark, so what of the historical Jesus?

The Positive Evidence :

1.  The future sayings are multiply attested all over the tradition (Ehrman, Apocalyptic Prophet, 146):  Mark (13:26, 14:62), Q (Matt 24:27, 37-39/Luke 17:24, 26-27, 30), M (Matt 13:40-43), L (Luke 21:34-36), Paul (1 Thess 4:16) and possibly John  (1:51).  Ehrman follows the older scholarly line that the historical Jesus’ references to the Son of Man in the 3rd person is to a future apocalyptic judge distinct from himself, while Dale Allison has changed his earlier opinion from Millenial Prophet on the collective interpretation of the son of man as Jesus and his followers as the vindicated saints to the son of man as Jesus’ heavenly double or celestial alter ego (e.g., Enoch identified with the heavenly son of man in 1 Enoch 71:14, the church who believes they are being visited by Peter’s “angel” in Acts 12:12-15, Judas as the human alter ego of the demon Iadoboth in the Gospel of Judas, the angel Michael as the angelic double of Joseph in Joseph and Asenath, etc) (cf. Constructing Jesus, 292-303).

2. Double dissimilarity:  the one like a son of man in Daniel has been interpreted as representing the saints of Israel (Casey), an angelic representative of Israel (Collins) or a messianic figure (Horbury).  Dan 7 seems to have influence the Similitudes of Enoch (1 Enoch 37-71, that son of man identified as Enoch in 71:14) and the man from the sea in 4 Ezra 13, but there are issues of dating the Similitudes and textual uncertainties in the post-70 work 4 Ezra.  However, the biggest argument against it as an established title in Second Temple Judaism is that it is never a title the Son of Man (even Revelation has “one like a son of man”) and no one is shocked at the use of Son of Man itself as a self-referent as one might expect if it was a known exalted title.  In Christian literature, it is far most often on Jesus’ lips and quickly replaced by terms like Lord (kyrios) or Son of God, appearing outside the gospels only  in Acts 7:56, Heb 2:6, Rev 1:13 & 14:14.  However, there are major problems with this criteria as it has Jesus operate in a cultural vacuum not influenced by his Jewish context (it fits a context where scholars were trying to prove Jesus`uniqueness and superiority visa-vie Judaism) nor influencing later followers, assumes we know enough about first-century Judaism to declare something unparalleled (what if Deane Galbraith is right on the dating and influence of the Similitudes and Enochic Judaism?) and neglects the evangelists own theologies.  Yet the tradition consistently remember this as a distinctive usage of Jesus while it had no meaning for Gentile audiences so it drops out.

3. Embarrassment:   the Son of Man or kingdom would come before the completed ministry to Israel (Matt 10:23), before they all tasted death (Mark 9:1) or soon after Romans destroyed the temple (Mark 13:30) may have embarrassed later Christians.  Already in Mark a saying one such saying (9:1) may perhaps be slightly reinterpreted as at least partially fulfilled in the transfiguration six days later (9:2).

4. Coherence:  If fits with Jesus is an apocalyptic prophet.  And Jesus did not issue a call to take up arms yet was executed as a would-be messianic pretender, might the expectation to be enthroned as Son of Man by divine power in the age to come explain some of this tension?

The Negative Evidence

1. Many see the Greek title as an attempt to translate the Aramaic bar (^e)nash(a) which was an idiomatic expression that could be rendered “human being”, “someone”, “one”, etc.  For Vermes it is simply a circumlocution for “I” and that might fit a saying such as Mk 2:10 “the Son of Man (“I”) has authority to forgive sins” (note Matt 9:8 where God has given such authority to humans).  Casey make a strong case that it has a general level of meaning about humanity in general, though with particular reference to the speaker (RBL reviews here and here).  This seems to make good sense of Mk 2:27-28 (and note that Matthew and Luke omit the generalizing reference of Mk 2:27) that “the Sabbath was made for [the son of] man, not [the son of] man for the Sabbath, therefore the son of man is Lord of the Sabbath.”  The fact that this might be an ordinary idiomatic usage along with the fact that there was no pre-christian evidence for the Son of Man as a title may indicate this was a later christological development among Greek speaking Christians who didn’t understand the Aramaic idiom, though perhaps one way out might be with Hooker to see Jesus as using the general level of meaning yet also embracing the role of the one like a son of man who suffers under the beast but receives divine vindication?

2. The Son of Man produced from early Christian exegesis:  Psalm 110 (the second Lord sitting at the right hand now understood as Jesus exaltation to heaven) combined with Daniel 7:13 for ascension and then with Zechariah 12:10 (looking on one whom they pierced) to make the parousia (Perrin, Rediscovering the Teachings of Jesus, 180-182).  Some see this as an obvious reference to the later Christian belief in the second coming to fully inaugurate the kingdom, which was demanded when the Christians believed that Jesus’ resurrection/exalted to heaven vindicated their belief in him as the annointed messiah and yet the expected messianic kingdom had not yet materialized.

3. Scholars who accept the literary stratification of Q where apocalyptic Son of Man sayings are in a later stratum (Q2) when the Q people now declare apocalyptic judgment on this generation for rejecting their message in Q1.  Crossan also makes the interesting argument that the theme may be multiply attested, but in 18 complexes of apocalyptic Son of Man sayings the phrase itself is not multiply attested (phrase “son of man” itself only multiply attested in “foxes have holes” – Thomas 86, Matt 8:20/Luke 9:58) (Crossan, Historical Jesus, 238-256).

So do you think the coming Son of Man sayings go back to Jesus?  For more resources:

• Allison, Dale.  Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet.  Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998; Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History.  Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010.
• Bird, Michael.  Are You the One Who is to Come?  The Historical Jesus and the Messianic Question.  Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009.
• Casey, Maurice.  The Solution to the Son of Man Problem. London: T&T Clark, 2007; Jesus of Nazareth.  London and New York: T&T Clark International, 2010.
• Collins, John J.  ”The Son of Man in First-Century Judaism” NTS 38 (1992): 448-466.
• Crossan, John Dominic.  The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant.  San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991.
• Erhman, Bart.  Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium.  Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1999.
• Hooker, Morna.  The Son of Man in Mark. London: SPCK, 1967.
• Horbury, William.  Jewish Messianism and the Cult of the Christ.  SCM Press, 1998.
• Marshall, I.H. “Son of Man” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels.  Edited by Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight and I. Howard Marshall; Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1992.
• Perriman, Andrew.  The Coming of the Son of Man:  New Testament Eschatology for an Emerging Church.  Paternoster, 2006.
• Perrin, Norman.  Rediscovering the Teachings of Jesus.  London: SCM, 1967.
• Vermes, Geza.  The Authentic Gospel of Jesus.  London: Penguin Books, 2003.
• Witherington, Ben.  Jesus, Paul and the End of the World. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1992.
• Wright, N.T.  Jesus and the Victory of God.  Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996

Who is the Abomination of Desolation?

In the last post I argued that in the eschatological discourse all of the preliminary signs were in the process of being fulfilled in Mark’s generation, leading the author to believe the end of the present age could not be too far away, but I left one of the most enigmatic signs unexplained.  One of the most puzzling passages is the evangelist’s aside to the reader that at the appearance of the “abomination of desolation” (τὸ βδέλυγμα τῆς ἐρημώσεως), those in Judaea must flee to the mountains (Mark 13:14).  A few things to note that the neuter βδέλυγμα is modified by the masculine participle “standing” (ἑστηκότα, from ἵστημι), seemingly to imply that it is a someone rather than a something.  Second, the allusion is to Daniel 9:27, 11:31 and 12:11 which originally referred to some attempt to set up a foreign cult involving an idol or desecrating sacrilege in the Temple under Antiochus IV “Epiphanes” (1 Macc 1:57; 4:38; 2 Macc 6:2ff).  Third, the implied audience is in the know with regards to Mark’s cryptic description, for their immediate response at the sight of it is to be flight.  So who is this desecrator?

• Gaius Caligula attempting to set up his statue in the Temple in 40 CE, a plan that could have been disastrous had it not failed to be carried out due to Caligula’s assasination (Josephus, Ant. 18.257-309; Tacitus, Ann. 12.54.1).  Note other examples of the sensitivity towards Roman standards or defilement of the Holy City or Temple as when Pilate brought his shields with Roman inscriptions into Herod’s palace and the mob offered up their necks rather than see their laws defiled (War 2.169-174; Ant 18.55-59; Philo, Gaium 299-305), or when Pilate’s stealing of Temple funds to build an aqueduct resulted in a clash with protesters (War. 2.175; Ant. 18.60-62) or when Judas and Matthias zealous for the Law encouraged their followers to tear down the golden eagle Herod erected over the temple and were executed (War 1.648-655; Ant. 17.151-162)
• The occupation by the Temple by the Zealot leader Eleazar son of Simon in the winter of 67-68, filling the Temple with violence and turning it away from its function as a “house of prayer for all nations” to a “brigands den” (cf. Mark 11:17).
• A genuine future prediction (by Jesus, some Christian prophet or the evangelist) of a future antichrist figure who will attempt to defile the Temple and this time (unlike Caligula) will succeed.
• Luke explicitly interprets Mark’s cryptic abomination of desolation as the Roman armies surrounding Jerusalem (21.20-21).
• Roman soldiers bringing their standards into the “Eastern Court” of the Temple and sacrificing to them (War 6.316).  Titus also entered the sanctuary with his troops, though Josephus ”conveniently” has him on the scene only after a fire started so as not to implicate Titus in an act of impiety (War. 6.254-283).
• Hadrian’s plans to turn Jerusalem into the Greco-Roman polis Aelia Capitolina and construct a temple for Jupiter, which may have precipated the revolt under the messianic leader Simon Bar Cochba (132-35 CE) (but note that Cassius Dio Hist. 66.12.1 and Eusebius H.E. 4.6.4 seem to disagree on whether building of this temple began before or after the Bar Cochba revolt).
• Nicolae Carpathia, the antichrist and Satan incarnate, riding a pig into Jerusalem and sacrificing it on the alter, breaking a seven-year treaty with Israel as reported in the Left Behind Series (please don’t take this last option seriously ).

In my opinion, Hadrian is much too late to be the referent as knowledge of Mark by Matthew, Luke, probably John, Papias (likely ca. 110 CE), Justin Martyr (Dial. 106.3, citing Mark 3:17) as well as the implication in Mark 9:1 that some of Jesus’ original followers are still alive points to a first century date.  I am inclined to the option that this is for Mark a genuine future oracle influenced by the Caligula crisis of a final desecration of Temple  immediately preceding the return of the Son of Man (which makes Mark pre-70 CE).  For other sources consulted (besides major commentaries on Mark which will also cover all the options), see:

• Beasley-Murray, George.  Jesus and the Last Days.  Peabody: Hendrickson, 1993.
• Crossley, James.  The Date of Mark’s Gospel:  Insight from the Law in Earliest Christianity.  JSNTSS 266; London: T & T Clark, 2004.
• Detering, Herman.  “The Synoptic Apocalypse (Mark 13 Par): A Document from the Time of Bar Kochba.”  The Journal of Higher Criticism 7/2 (2000): 161-210.
• Hengel, Martin.  Studies in the Gospel of Mark.  Fortress: Philadelphia, 1985.
• Incigneri, Brian J.  The Gospel to the Romans: The Setting and Rhetoric of Mark’s Gospel. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill, 2003.
• Marcus, Joel.  “The Jewish War and the Sitz Im Leben of Mark.”  Journal of Biblical Literature 111/3 (1992): 441-462.
• Theissen, Gerd.  The Gospels in Context:  Social and Political History in the Synoptic Tradition. Translated by Linda M. Maloney. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991.

Against Apocalyptic Timetables

There is a powerful motivation to reinterpret the cosmic imagery (darkness, stars falling from the sky) and literal coming of the Son of Man into the realm of metaphor: it avoids the problem of the “delay of the parousia” and opposes the apocalyptic timetables and crude literalism of modern fundamentalist movements (i.e. for anyone anticipating October 21 2011 as the new date for the apocalypse, you should probably not place any bets on it ).  However, in the last post I argued against Wright that Mark 13:26 expected a literal descent of the Son of Man in the near future.  However, Mark did not set an exact deadline for the Son of Man’s return.  13:30 uses the solemn formula “amen I say to you” (ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν) to assure readers that ”all these things” (ταῦτα πάντα) will take place in ”this generation” (γενεὰ αὕτη).  But does all “these things” include the coming of the Son of Man with the cosmic imagery (13:24-27)?  I would say no for two reasons.  First,  in the fig tree analogy in 13:28-29, just as when leaves start sprouting you know summer is near, so when the disciples see “these things” (ταῦτα) they know “he/it is near” (ἐγγύς ἐστιν).  Second, unless Mark is a careless redactor and 13:32 contradicts 13:30, then 13:32 denies even the Son knows “that day or hour.”  Accordingly, ”these things” (wars, famines, natural disasters, persecutions, the spread of the gospel throughout the Empire, the enigmatic abomination of desolation) are signs that the end is soon and were all to occur in Mark’s generation, but the evangelist remains ignorant on the timing of the Son of Man’s return.

Now, I know this might sound like apologetic special pleading, but I honestly think exegesis warrants these conclusions.  The fact that Mark believed all the preliminary signs were to be fulfilled in his generation implies imminence and he could not have expected a 2000 year delay.  The implications for theologians is to either admit the timing is off but keep the traditional belief in the Second Coming, or reinterpret or “demythologize” the first-century language of eschatology to decide what it should mean for the 21st century.  There may be canonical warrant for both options.  Already in the New Testament we see the imminent expectation of Mark or Paul (1 Thess 4:13-18, but note Paul is already making provisions for the unexpected reality that some believers have died before the parousia) give way to an allowance for a longer interim as, for instance,  Luke-Acts inserts an extended “time of the Gentiles” (Lk 21:24) or has the risen Jesus tell the disciples to not worry about dates but get on with the mission (Acts 1:7-8), or 2 Peter as likely the latest book of the NT famously responds to the scoffers by claiming a day for the Lord equals a thousand years and thus there is more time for repentance (3:8-9).  Alternatively, we can see parts of the NT already in the process of reinterpreting traditional eschatological expectations (e.g. the literal expectation of an eschatological Temple in Ezek 40-48 interpreted christologically in John 2:20-22; 7:37-39; Rev 21:22; cf. 1 Cor 3:16; 6:19) so perhaps this gives license for modern Christians to not feel bound to the exact same literal first-century worldview of a Paul or a Mark.  But that is my lame attempt to offer some pastoral advice, so I welcome feedback in the comments.

N.T. Wright on Mark 13

To continue the discussion here on the ”coming of the Son of Man”, the following is an edited repost from my older blog on Mk 13:26.  The original post was particularly in response to Wright,  so a full study must interact with the views of France, Hatina (article online) and Perriman (bibliography below)  as well as their differences (e.g. France, pp 541-6, agrees with Wright up to Mk 13:32, but then sees a shift signalled by περὶ  δὲ  and change in subject from the temple destruction & vindication of the Son of Man in a generation to a future “that day or that hour” which includes the parousia though the timing is unknown) 

N.T. Wright has both devoted followers and sharp critics throughout the blogosphere.  I believe Wright deserves credit for his major scholarly contributions to the “New (or Fresh) Perspective on Paul” and what he coined as “Third Quest for the Historical Jesus” (but I have doubts that Jesus scholarship can be so neatly categorized into “quests”).  Nevertheless, I have my disagreements, much more with his reconstruction of the historical Jesus than Paul, and one of those is his interpretation of the coming of the Son of Man.  In his book Jesus and the Victory of God, Wright makes the case for the cosmic imagery of Mark 13:24-27 as metaphorical of the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE and the vindication of the Son of Man.  He argues that cosmic imagery is used for the historical downfall of nations such as Babylon (Isa 13:6, 9-11; 14:4, 12-15; Jer 50:6, 8, 28; 51:6-10, 45-6, 50-1, 57; Zech 14:2-5, 9), Edom (Isa 34:4-6) or Egypt (Ezek 32:5-8) (Victory, 354-358).  For Wright, Jerusalem and the temple establishment play the role of Babylon, the disciples are the faithful Israel and Rome is the instrument of divine judgment (Victory, 358-60).  Second, opposition to the Temple elites is central in Mark and the disciples exclamation about the temple followed by Jesus’ response that every stone will be thrown down in13:1-2 seems to frame the discourse around the Temple destruction:  “Jesus staked his prophetic reputation on his prediction of the Temple’s fall within a generation; if and when it fell, he would thereby be vindicated” (Victory, 363). Finally, Daniel 7:9 describes the vindication of the Son of Man over the beasts, which can be plausibly read as symbolizing the collective vindication of Israel over foreign empires (cf. the interpretation of the vision in Dan 7:17-18), and thus the “coming” (note Mark does not use the usual word for Jesus’ return, parousia, but the participle erchomenon [from erchomai]) of the Son of Man in 13:26 is his ascent to the Ancient of Days as he is vindicated by the historical events of 70 CE (Victory, 361).

However, there are some good criticisms of Wright’s view. First, there are strong arguments that Jewish (cf. intertestamental and pseudepigraphic literature), Christian (cf. Heb 12:25–28; 2 Pet 3:5–13; Rev 6:12–17; 21:1; Barn. 15:8) and Greco-Roman (Stoic, Epicurean) authors took such cosmic imagery quite literally as collected by Dale Allison, Millenarian Prophet, pp. 153-171; ”Victory of Apocalyptic“, pp 130-34; Edward Adams, The Stars will Fall From Heaven, pp. 52-126.  This is natural as the ancients were as familiar as we are with solar eclipses and “falling stars.”  Second, the earliest Christians seem to understand the tradition underlying Mark 13:26 as referring to the second coming:  Paul has the Lord descend on clouds (1 Thess 4:15-17), Revelation 1:7 has the descent of ”one like a son of man” and Matthew’s eschatological discourse uses the technical terminology parousia (24:3, 27, 37, 39; cf. 1 Cor 15:23; 1 Thess 2:19; 3:13; 4:14-17; 5:23; 2 Thess 2:1; Jas 5:7-8; 2 Pet 3:4; 1 John 2:28 in reference to Christ’s predicted coming, thus I am less convinced by Wright’s attempt on p. 341 to downplay the significance by stating that the term itself only denotes “presence” as opposed to “absence”).   Note also the “thief in the night” metaphor in the ”Q” eschatological discourse interpreted elsewhere in the NT for the “second coming” (Matt 24:43-44/Luke 12:39-40; 1 Thess 5:2; 2 Pet 3:10; Rev 3:3).  Third, the coming of the Son of Man with the angels to usher in the eschaton in 13:26-27 seems to be spectacularly visible and have universal implications:  clouds could be used for human (e.g. Moses, Abraham, the church) and divine transport (for divine theophanies see Exod 16:10; 19:9; 34:5; Ps 18:11-12; 97:2-5; 104:3; Isa 19:1; Nah 1:3) and 13:27 seems to envision the gathering of the elect throughout all the nations (I am not convinced by the argument that the angeloi of 13:27 are human messengers involved in the missionary spread of the gospel).  Ironically, I think this gives better support to one of Wright’s main points that the (Markan) Jesus announced the “end of exile,” which would have been understood by the first hearers as the literal re-gathering of the dispersed tribes throughout the diaspora (cf. Deut 30:3-4; Isa 11:12; Jer 32:37-38; Ezek 34:11-16; Zech 2:6-10; Tobit 14:7; 2 Bar 78:1-7) and the righteous of the nations streaming to a renewed Zion in the last days.  Finally, in the context of Mark 13, he warns of false Christs and false prophets who would claim “I am he” (ego eimi) and try to deceive with signs and wonders (13:5-6, 21-22), so would not a spectacular return of the Son of Man clear up who is the real Messiah and who are the messianic pretenders? So do you think Wright is right on Mark 13?

For more sources, see:

• Adams, Edward.  “The Coming of the Son of Man in Mark’s Gospel” Tyndale Bulletin 56.1 (2005): 39-61
•                              .  The Stars will Fall From Heaven: Cosmic Catastrophe in the New Testament and Its World.  London: T&T Clark, 2007.
• Allison, Dale.  Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet.  Minneapolis: Fortress,  1998.
•                          .  “Jesus and the Victory of Apocalyptic” pp 126-141 in Jesus & the Restoration of Israel.  Edited by Carey C. Newman; Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1999.
• France, R.T.  The Gospel of Mark.  The New International Greek Testament Commentary.  Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002.
• Hatina, Thomas R.  “The Focus of Mark 13:24-27 – The Parousia, or the Destruction of the Temple?”  Bulletin for Biblical Research 6 (1996): 43-66.
• Perriman, Andrew.  The Coming of the Son of Man:  New Testament Eschatology for an Emerging Church.  Paternoster, 2006.
• Wright, N.T.  Jesus and the Victory of God.  Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996