1987 - P. Maurice Casey - General, Generic and Indefinite. The Use of the Term ‘Son of Man’ in...

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DOI: 10.1177/0142064X8700902902

1987 9: 21Journal for the Study of the New TestamentP. Maurice Casey

Man' in Aramaic Sources and in the Teaching of JesusGeneral, Generic and Indefinite: the Use of the Term 'Son of

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GENERAL, GENERICAND INDEFINITE:THE USE OF THE TERM SON OF MAN IN

ARAMAIC SOURCESAND IN THE TEACHING OF JESUS

P. Maurice Casey

Department of Theology, University of Nottingham

University Park, NottinghamNG7 2RD

Recent attempts to unravel Jesus use of the term son ofman havelargely concentrated on theAramaic (m)v3m 7D. In particular, therehave now been four attempts to describe an idiom by means of whichanAramaic speaker used (m)v3t4 7D as a reference to himself 1. In hisseminal paper on the use of this term, Vermes argued that it was asimple substitute for the first person pronoun r. 2. The presentauthor has argued that all the proposed examples of this idiom are infact general statements, which were used byAramaic speakers withreference to themselves, and that this idiom is the key to understand-ing Jesus use of the term son of man. 3. In an important book,

Lindars has argued that the idiom was much more precise than this.He describes the idiomatic use of the generic article, in which thespeaker refers to a class of persons, with whom he identifieshimself... It is this idiom, properly requiring bar (e)nasha ratherthan bar (e)nash, which provides the best guidance to the use of theSon of Man in the sayings of Jesus. 4. In a recent article in thisjournal, reviewing Lindarss book, Bauckham has suggested that

Jesus used bar enash (probably, rather than bar enasha) in theindefinite sense (a man, someone), which is itself a very commonusage, but used it as a form of deliberately oblique or ambiguous selfreference.1 The purpose of this article is to discuss the issues raisedin this debate, and to clarify the nature and usage of this idiom in ourAramaic sources and in the teaching of Jesus.

1.Aramaic Sources and the Date of This IdiomThe general use of WIN 7D as an ordinary term for man, so

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abundantly attested in later Aramaic, is quite sufficiently wellattested in the very meagreAramaic sources of the Second Temple

period (lQapGen 21.13; llQTgJob 9.9 [Job 25.6]; 26.3 [Job 35.8]:and in the plural Dan. 2.38; 5.21; 1 En. 7.3; 22.3; 77.3 [4QEnastrbb

23]; 1 QapGen 19.15; 11 QTgJob 28.2 [Job 36.25]; cf. also Sefire 3.16;Dan. 7.13). It follows that general statements using the term VIN 13were normal inAramaic at the time ofJesus. LaterAramaic sourcesprovide examples of people using such general statements ratherthan speaking of themselves directly. The circumstances in which

they do so were correctly defined by Vermes: In most instances thesentence contains an allusion to humiliation, danger or death, butthere are also examples where reference to the self in the third personis dictated by humility or modesty.2 If therefore we find that someson of man sayings attributed toJesus emerge inAramaic reconstruc-tions as general statements referred by the speaker to himself incircumstances of this kind, we must conclude that these sayings arein accordance with normalAramaic

idiom,on

analyticaland

empiricalgrounds. The analytical ground is the slightness ofthe shift from theuse of general statements to the use of such statements by a speakerwith special reference to himself Once the use ofgeneral statementsis established in a social group of speakers of any given language, theymay apply them to themselves at any time in much the same way asthey may use proverbs. The empirical ground is that laterAramaicsources show that someAramaic speakers in fact did so.The common assumption that there is no earlier example of this

idiom is moreover misleading. More than 700 years before the time ofJesus, the king of Krt was the effective author of a treaty betweenhimself and the king ofArpadAfter repeatedly mentioning himself,his son, grandson and descendants in lengthy formulae, he used ageneral statement with VIN 12 at the point where he contemplatedthe killing ofhimself or his descendants as a result of action taken bythe king ofArpad or his descendants: If you think of killing me andyou put forward such a plan, and if your sons son thinks of killingmy sons son and puts forward such a plan, or if your descendantsthink of killing my descendants and put forward such a plan, and ifthe kings ofArpad think of it, in any case that a son of man dies(ty3M 13 nu:)~ ~t ~n55~), you have been false to all the gods of thetreaty which is in this inscription (Sefire 3.14-17). Here the generalstatement covers the king and his descendants, and this is partly whyit is used: it is nonetheless significant that it is a general statement,



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using the term v3N :1, used of a speaker to include himself withreference to the

humiliatingevent of his own death, similar circum-

stances to those indicated by Vermes in his study of laterAramaic. Iftherefore we find that straightforward retroversions of sayings ofJesus produce general statements which he evidently intended toapply to himself, we must conclude that the absence of this idiomfrom contemporaryAramaic sources is simply due to the smallquantity ofAramaic surviving from our period.

It should in any case be quite clear that so littleAramaic survivesthat such a conclusion is inevitable in the case of straightforwardlexical items, let alone more subtle idioms. For instance, 7DD, whichis frequently said to be theAramaic behind nupaU)CJ,1t in thepassion predictions, is not found inAramaic documents of ourperiod, nor is o5nt~t~ extant in the right dialect in the sense requiredbehind zE7v,wou~av at Lk. 13.32. Scholars do not however concludefrom these facts that the passion predictions are not authentic, nor

should we do so. If we confine ourselves to words extant in theminuscule corpus ofAramaic literature of the right period, it ispatently clear that we have too little of the language to express eitherday-to-day conversations in normal life or a broad range of seriousreligious teaching. Nor should we be deterred from reconstructingsayings ofJesus by too rigid a classification ofAramaic into differentphases. While it is clear that some changes such as the dropping of t4at the

beginningof v3m and the decline of the use of the absolute state

of the noun did take place, it is equally clear that the basic vocabularyand structure ofthe language did not alter over a period of centuries.The semantic area of common words such as ,0tC, :1tC and Dipcontinued to include all the basic uses attested in earlierAramaic,and idiomatic features such as the construct state of the noun and theuses of participles as finite verbs are also found in many differentdialects over a long period oftime. Since the general use of v3m 7D isfound before as well as after the time of Jesus, including an earlyexample of a general statement used by an author ofhimself and hisdescendants, we should not refuse to interpret sayings ofJesus asgeneral statements applied by the speaker to himself, ifthey emergelike that from retroversion intoAramaic.33

2. General Statements in theAramaic Sources

All extant examples of this idiom are best described as general



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statements used by a speaker in order to say something abouthimself, or occasionally himself and a group of associates. Bygeneral statements I do not mean only statements which are true ofall people, for general statements are widely used in many languagesand cultures in a much less general and more subtle way. Thepragmatic factors which lead people to want to speak indirectly takeprecedence over the surface logic of sentences as these might beliterally interpreted, so that generalizations are frequently usedwhich are not remotely true ofeveryone, still less of all people at all

times and in all circumstances. In a previous article in this journal, Inoted particularly the studies by Sacks and Wales of the Englishterms everyone, you, we and one.4 Sackss study ofeveryone isespecially striking because of the evidence that a term whose surfacelogic in isolation necessarily does refer to all people is used in such away that he can summarize its meaning as anyone in such asituation as I or anyone in such a situation where what thatsituation is is

characterizable,a

descriptionwhich

approximatesto

Lindarss description of the generic use of mr3m 7D as equivalent to aman in my position. What is so fruitful about investigations likethose of Sacks and Wales is the complexity of their analytical mode.These scholars do not treat language as a closed logical system whichcan be fully described in terms of its surface logic, but as a mode ofcommunication between human beings who normally and conven-tionally make statements for social and emotional reasons whichwould not be correct if they were analysed only in terms of theirsurface logic. We must analyse the idiomatic use of wiN 13 in thisway because, as Vermes made clear in his first description of it, this isan idiom where pragmatic factors are fimdamental both in our

Aramaic sources and in the teaching of Jesus, who used it in anumber ofextreme circumstances including predictions of his death.I shall therefore discuss threeAramaic examples in order to illustrate

the variation in the degree of generality which may be found in thisidiom.1.At Gen. R. 79.6, we find R Simeon ben Yohai in a cave,

wondering whether it was safe to come out. He saw some birds beinghunted: some were captured, while others escaped, and the fate of allof them depended on the judgment of a heavenly voice which heheard. He declared:

t~m3n,n ~c5 Moty 7>bDD 71Li~) 131 VLi ~M1 ?M 7fi



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-A bird is not caught without the will of heaven: how much less thesoul of a son of man. R Simeon then

emergedfrom the cave. It

follows that he intended to apply the statement to himself, but it doesnot follow that V3 13 is nothing more than a substitute for the firstperson pronoun. On the contrary, the first sentence, A bird is not

caught without the will of heaven, is quite clearly a generalstatement: the second must be interpreted in the same way, becausewe already know that ~) 7D was a general term for man, and thisensures that how much less the soul of a son of man balances and

follows from the general statement about birds. Further, it is quiteclear from the content of this saying that it is intended to be true ofeveryone at all times. Indeed, the general level of meaning wouldhave been accepted by everyone in R Simeons culture. It istherefore clear that in this idiom V3 13 is not a simple substitute for,r. Both V03 and v3 13 are in the absolute state, so that the use of a

general statement with reference to a speaker clearly does not dependon the generic use of the definite state. The reference ofthe saying toR Simeon is quite clear, so that the idiom should not be described asambiguous.5 In this version ofthe story, R Simeon had his son withhim. The saying therefore necessarily refers to him as welL This isalways liable to happen simply because of the general level ofmeaning of sayings used in this idiom. In a practical situation thismay be very functional, because anyone who recognizes the truth ofthe

sayingas

appliedto himself is more

likelyto

acceptthat it is true

of the speaker as welL We may compare Sefire 3.16, where we haveseen a general statement deliberately used to include the authorsdescendants with himself, an analytically similar usage in somewhatdifferent circumstances.

2.As an example of a saying which is true of a restricted social sub-group we may consider the saying ofR Hiyya barAdda at j. Ber.2.8.5b. This is adduced to explain why he left his valuables to RLevi: iI&dquo;~~ iI&dquo;&dquo;,V m,nm t4v~ 7D7 7Dbn -The disciple ofa son of man isas dear to him as his son. This cannot be interpreted as true ofeveryone, because most people do not have disciples and some do nothave sons, but this is not relevant to the use of this idiom. This

limitation to a social sub-group causes no trouble in comprehensionbecause it is obvious from the context.All that is required for thesuccess ofthe saying is that other rabbis felt that their ties with their

disciples were strong enough for the general level of meaning to beplausible. Provided this is true, the statement is an acceptable way of



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explaining how R Hiyya barAdda came to leave his valuables to RLevi. Consequently, it should not be treated as ambiguous.

3. The minimum degree of generality necessary in the use of thisidiom may be illustrated by the saying of R Zeira at j. Ber. 2.8.5c,which is a false generalization from his own experience. This sayingoccurs in one of a group of stories about rabbis who immigrated toIsrael from Babylon, a situation in which anyone is liable to beunaware of local customs. R Zeira went to buy a pound of meatfrom a butcher. When he asked the price, he was told $0 minas and a

lash. He offered more and more money to get his pound of meatwithout suffering a lash, but when his offer of 100 minas was stillrefused, he gave in with the words, Do according to your custom(1.1iUO:J ~t~w). That evening he said to his colleagues:

Nmp7 H&dquo;&dquo;I~~&dquo; ~~ 13 brN Nb7 i1:Ji1, mnjo tU:1 i10 7~:1&dquo;onp 7n i1~&dquo; mnn 7>

-Rabbis,how evil is the custom of this

land,that a son of man

cannot eat a pound of meat until they have given him a lash. Hiscolleagues did not accept that this was the custom, but madeenquiries as a result of which it emerged that the butcher was alreadydead. R Zeira refuted any idea that he was responsible for divinevengeance on his behalf by saying that he was not really angry with thebutcher because I thought the custom was like that ()5 N>niD7 n.,:1o).It is clear from the reactions ofR Zeiras colleagues, and from hisown final admission, that he was in fact the only person who waslashed by the butcher when he bought his pound of meat, but eventhis does not justify Vermess view that v: 13 is a simple substitutefor I. This is clear for two reasons. First, V3 13 is elsewhere a normalterm for man and makes perfect sense like that here. In relating ahumiliating incident, R Zeira used a general statement in order toavoid referring directly to himself Secondly, his three references to

local custom show beyond doubt that he did not believe that he wasthe only person to be treated like this. Since however he was wrongabout the custom in a place with which he was not familiar, it is clearthat he felt able to use a general statement by generalizing from hisown experience. This example is barely a successful use of the idiombecause R Zeira was mistaken about local custom. We mustconclude that, to be used successfully, the sentence containing a

generalstatement with

(m)v3(m)13 must have a

generallevel of

meaning which appears plausible to the social sub-group of the



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speaker and his audience. Finally, it will be noted that in thisexample v~ 12 is in the absolute state. This

againshows that

(N)v3(m)12 in this idiom may be in either the absolute or the definite state.One further point should be made about this idiom: the general

level of meaning may be functional rather than substantive. This isclear in all these three examples. R Zeira is the extreme case,because he found his own personal experience so humiliating that hemade up a generalization on the basis of it so that he couldunderstand it and communicate it to his colleagues. Both R Simeon

ben Yohai and R Hiyya barAdda also have their general statementsrecorded because of the application to themselves rather thanbecause of interest in the general statements. This is not essential,but it is likely to be normative in the lives of actual people rather thanin literary sources. There are two or three examples in ourAramaicsources where some interest seems to be taken in the general level ofmeaning for its own sake. The most obvious is j. Kil. 9.6.32b (1/ j.

Ket. 12.3.35a // Gen. R. 100.2), where Rabbi is recorded to have beenburied wrapped in a single sheet on the ground of his saying.l&dquo;W Nin btN VIN 121 l~tl~5 ~

-It is not as a son ofman goes that he will come again. This is oneof a number of sayings about burial, and our sources show so great aninterest in the general level ofmeaning that they contradict it: Butthe rabbis say,As a son of man goes, so will he come

again.Such an

interest is not however necessary, and appears to be absent frommost ofourAramaic sources and from most of the sayings ofJesus.

3. Generic, Indefinite and the Articles

We must now considerAramaic aspects of the proposals of Lindarsand Bauckham, and the effects which they have on our understandingof the articles in the Gospel expression 6 uio5 zou av6pci~nou. First,some general points about the description ofAramaic nouns. Theyhave three states, usually described in English as the definite oremphatic state, the absolute or indefinite state, and the constructstate. Several definite and indefinite forms, including both thedefinite m. sg., and the indefinite sg., are characterized by theirending in some form of long a, so that the difference between these

states is not as simple as the presence or absence of an independentarticle. The difference between the definite and indefinite states



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gradually broke down, and this breakdown took the form of increasinguse of the definite state. This

processhad

evidently begunbefore the

time ofJesus, but we do not know how far it had gone by that time,still less how far it had gone in the Galilean dialect, of which we haveno contemporary evidence at all. The definite state inAramaicshould thus be clearly distinguished from the Hebrew article, whichwas distinctively sounded before the noun and has never lost itsforce, and from the independent definite article in Greek. Conse-quently, information about Hebrew usage, though it may be useful

because it comes from the same culture and may be more generallyilluminating like comparative material from any other language,cannot be considered as evidence ofAramaic usage. Nor should we

rely on the formulated grammatical rules of nineteenth-centurygrammarians, which are frequently too complex and too subject tothe influence ofmodern cultural assumptions to be accurate descrip-tions of the habits of ancient speakers.6 This means that Lindarss

description of this idiom, learned and ingenious though it be, iswithout real foundation in the primary sources. We may not infer theuse, let alone the interpretation, of the definite state in this idiomfrom the use of the definite state in expressions like ~c~5~5 7 M1tM:J(Dan. 2.19).The crucial factor is therefore the empirical data: do examples of

this idiom use the definite state or not? The answer to this questionwas

clearlylaid out

byVermes in his

original papersome

examplesdo have the definite state mv3 7D while others have the indefiniteWi 12 (WIN 13 at Sefire 3.16). The fact that some examples have theindefinite state is sufficient to show that Lindarss description of theidiom is unsatisfactory. The simplest example is the saying of RZeira at j. Ber. 2.8.5c, discussed above.A second example is found atGen. R. 7.2 (// Num. R. 19.3 // Pes. 4.30), where Jacob of KefarNiburayya, ordered by R Haggai to come and be beaten for rulingthat fish should be ritually slaughtered, replied

toCi1t:)ntoC ~~5 NnuiN7 ~5~0 ~nrr V3 13

-A son of man who interprets the word of Torah is beaten! I amamazed. Lindars tries to explain the use of the indefinite state here:In this case bar nash is defined by the relative clause, and theanarthrous form is required to denote a single member of the class so

specified.~ This is not consistent with Lindarss usual description ofthis idiom, in accordance with which we should have the generic



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article to denote a particular member of the class, and he offers nojustification for his opinion that the anarthrous form could berequired inAramaic of this period. It is of course true that V3 7D isdefined by the relative clause. In a situation of implied humiliation,Jacob identified himself with a group of people by describing himselfas a son of man who interprets the word of Torah. In hisenvironment, this was not the sort of person who ought to behumiliated The idiom works because there was a group of peoplewho interpreted the Law and who were highly thought of for thereason: it does not need the definite state of (t4)v3 in.A furtherexample, with the same son of man saying, follows in the samesources.

A fourth example of the use of the indefinite state in this idiom isfound in a Geniza fragment of a Targum to Gen. 4.14, where one ofCains statements about himself is replaced with a general statementwhich refers to him equally clearly:

n7DiDb V17Db 7wLN rn5 17N 10i 10

-and from before you, Lord, it is not possible for a son ofman tohide. We have already noted a fifth example at Gen. R. 79.6, whereR Simeon emerged from his cave after declaring, A bird is notcaught without the will of heaven; how much less the soul of a son ofman (v3 7D7 vn3). Lindarss comments on this example are notwholly clear, but he appears to believe that the versions of Gen. R.79.6 and Eccl. R. 10.8 deliberately have a general statement referringto both R Simeon and his son.At j. Sheb. 9.1.38d, which readsxv3 7D, the generic article singles out a particular man who mightfind himself in the same situation as the birds. Seeing that what issaid can be taken to be a general ruling, some texts take it as such(e.g. Gen. R. 79.6). But the use of the generic article adds to thecomment the sense of discovery, true in every case, no doubt, buttrue in his own case too. 8 Then final sentence of this description goesfar beyond the verifiable use of the definite state, but the real faultsare more fundamental First, the differentiation between the versionswith the definite and indefinite state is quite arbitrary and notproperly related to the use of these states elsewhere. Secondly, thegeneral ruling of Gen. R. 79.6 // Eccl. R. 10.8 still refers to thespeaker. If therefore Lindarss description of the version at j. Sheb.

9.1.38d were admitted, it would mean that there were in fact twotypes of the idiom, one corresponding to my description and the



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other corresponding to his. This is not very likely when the differen-tiation between the use of the definite and indefinite states was

breaking down. This is presumably why Lindars believes that theversion ofj. Sheb. 9.1.38d best explains the variants, but we have noreason to believe that it was the original form, not least because thetransmission of rabbinical literature is at this level too unreliable for

us to have any confidence in the originality of any reading. Thirdly,Lindars regards the use of the generic article in this idiom as thereason for the presence of the articles in the Gospel expression 6 v16grox v8pcmou. If this were right, and ifthe reason for the use of theindefinite state at Gen. R. 79.6 // Eccl. R. 10.8 were the use of a

general statement referring to both Simeon and Eleazar his son, weshould have vio5 av6pwnov without the articles in sayings ofJesus,such as Mk 10.45 and Mt. 8.20 // Lk 9.58, where the general level ofmeaning originally applied to other people in the audience as well asto Jesus himself

These faults appear more clearly in Lindarss longest discussion ofasaying extant in more than one form, the saying of Rabbi at j. KiL 9.6-32b(// j. Ket. 12.3-35a // Gen. R. 100.2): Inm H~i1 5~it~ vi,t4 131 7n5 t~5-It is not as a son of man goes that he will come again. Lindars beginsfrom the version of j. Ket. 12.3-35a, where he reads NVi 12 andsuggests that this is a proverb, or proverbial type of sentence, andthat the indefinite ~J 7D in other texts turns it into a general rule, asin the opinion of the rabbis which follows: As a son ofman (v3

13)goes, so will he come again!9 However, Lindars offers no evidencethat Rabbis statement is a proverb. He does not show that the use ofthe generic article is appropriate to a proverbial type of sentence, it isdifficult to envisage a situation in which proverbs and general rulingswould use different states of the noun, and proverbs and generalrulings do not follow such a distinction. Finally, if this saying were aproverb, it occurs in other texts with vi 7D in the absolute state,which shows empirically that this sentence in its context does notrequire the definite state. Thus Lindarss distinction between proverb-ial sentence and general ruling is too artificiaL He also ignores thetextual question. The two talmudic versions of this saying effectivelycome from two textually insecure copies of the same lengthy passage,and variants at this level are so frequent that no text is reliable (theWilna edn of j. Ket. 12.3-35a in fact reads Wi :1).We must therefore conclude on the ground of the empirical datathat examples of this idiom may use (t4)vi(t4) 13 in either the definite



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or indefinite state. From the theoretical point ofview, there are twopoints to make. First, general statements are intelligible, and arefound, with the indefinite state (e.g. Zaire 3.16). The gradual spreadof the definite state means that they may also use the definite state.This idiom is likely to have been one of the first in which variationoccurred, because such variation could not affect the meaning anduse ofthe idiom. Secondly, Lindarss comments should highlight forus the fact that in many examples (m)v3 13 is used in such a generalway that the definite state might be used in a generic sense as this is

normally understood, that is, as a reference to mankind as such. Thesignificant point about this usage is that it too was optional. Forexample, Daniels first beast was given the heart ofa man (v3m, Dan.7.4), but the little hom had eyes like the eyes of a man (mv3m, Dan.7.8). This gives us a second theoretical reason for my originalcontention that the variation in state found in examples ofthis idiomin ourAramaic sources will also have been found in examples at the

time of Jesus. Thus, whilewe

have no access to his idiolect, it is veryprobable that some examples in the teaching ofJesus had (m)v3t4 :1in the definite state, while others had the indefinite state.How then do we explain the consistency with which all our Gospel

writers put both articles in the expression 6 v16g rob dv0pknov?Lindars effectively argues that this must be due to consistent use ofthe definite state in the underlyingAramaic and to this extent he

alignshimself with traditional

scholarship.This

pointhas however

caused a lot of trouble, leading our most outstanding scholars tomake some quite extraordinary conjectures. Thus Hengel deducedfrom it a fixed place for the translation of the Jesus tradition, aconjecture which Lindars regards as probable. For the same reasonMoule was led to conjecture xuD>7 n7D or some equally hair-raisingSyriac translationese as the expression used by Jesus, though theterm could exist in naturalAramaic only if there were a particularHi:1,., for Jesus to be in some clear sense the son of, it cannot in itselfcarry a reference to Dan. 7.13, and 6 ui rou v8pW7TOU is not afeasible translation of it.l We have moreover already seen thatLindarss view cannot in fact explain the use of the articles becausethere are several examples of theAramaic idiom which use theindefinite state. I have however already supplied a more sophisticatedexplanation of the presence of the articles in 6 uio5 rou 6v0pknov

which takes account of the predictable variation in state of theunderlying (m)v3(t4) 12. Lindars attacks this not merely as unnecessary



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in the light of his proposedAramaic substratum but as in itself

improbable,so it must now be restated and defended.ll The

translators had very little choice.Any given translator must havebeen bilingual and on general grounds he is very likely to have donemore than one passage. It is therefore certain that he was aware thatthe definite state might be used in this idiom, and probable that hehad to translate examples with NVI(N) 7D, so in some cases the articlesresult merely from a literal rendering.At least some translators willhowever have been faced with examples of the idiom using ~~(t~) 13in the absolute state, and here any translator naturally used thearticles, as he knew he did in other examples, to make clear that aparticular person was referred to. The reference to Jesus will havebeen important to him as a Christian, and unlike people who are notbilingual or well-informed aboutAramaic idiom he will still havebeen able to read his native idiom in the translation which he

produced, because the Greek article, like the emphatic state in

Aramaic, could be used generically. The second article in 6 ui6~q rouav9pci~nou is an example of this, and the translator will have treatedthe first in the same way. He could not have done better. Further, itis in fact probable on general grounds that the number ofsources oftranslated sayings was limited, and we know that the evangelistsedited them. If, for example, Luke were faced with a source whichread Li1llan u!6v b.v9pci~nou napa616wg (cm Lk. 22.48), it is likelythat he would edit it to conform with the title he used so

often, justas

he edited psrd rpsig 1i~pa and removed pappL Sayings whichoriginated in Greek necessarily use the same title that Greek-speaking Christians found in the tradition. Thus the consistency ofour Gospels is the result ofa process in several stages: the first stage,the translation of our idiom, would normally produce 6 v16g zoudLvOp6)nou, and the subsequent stages would go for consistency onthe same model.

Lindarss first objection is that it is doubtful if ho huios touanthropou would be recognized as generic in Greek, so that all thegospel sayings do in fact treat it as an exclusive circumlocution forthe first person. This is misleading because it proceeds from ourfinished Gospels rather than from the situation faced by the translators.Nothing a translator could do would enable him to produce a versionwhich accurately and literally represented the text without beingliable to some degree ofmisinterpretation, because natural Greek didnot have the expression (6) uioS rou 6v0p


14/37

33

idiomatic use of it. Many Gospel sayings are irrelevant because theyare not derived from this idiom, while those which are could be seenas an example of this idiom by the bilingual people who ourtranslators must have been. Whether our evangelists knew thiscannot be deduced from our Gospels. The fact that 6 v16g rouv9p


15/37

34

for every individual case. Lindars makes the further point that thetranslators may have been guided by the LXX and thus provided an

interpretative translation which makes deliberate reference to Dan.7.13. Like more traditional scholarship, this suggestion fails to takeseriously the mundane nature of the bare expression VIN 1:1. Thisexpression and its literal rendering v16g av6pwrrou were not specificenough for this reference to be carried merely by the article.Translators and members ofan audience who knew their LXX would

require contextual indicators to direct their attention to Dan. 7.13,

and this requirement is satisfied by, for example, Mk 14.62 but not byMt. 11.19 // Lk. 7.34. In his reply to Bauckham, Lindars goes evenfurther, arguing that 6 ui zov av6pwnou as a rendering of theabsolute t~t 1:1 is inconceivable, as bar enash is always translatedhuios anthropou in the few places where we have bothAramaic andGreek version. There are in fact only two examples, Dan. 7.13 LXXand Theod. The Hebrew D7N 1:1 more obviously lacks an article, buteven so the

pluralDIM ~J:1

maybe rendered with oi uioi zw

v8pcmffiv (e.g. Pss 11.4; 12.2, 9) or oi dv0p(onot (Isa. 52.14;Prov. 15.11), and even anarthrous D7N may be rendered oi dv0pwnoi(Hab. 1.14; Ps. 17.4). Lindarss argument is thus too crude. Thetranslators ofGospel sayings had in this case to render an idiom, notjust a word for man, and in rendering examples with the indefinitevi 12 with 6 v16g iou dvOp6)nou they went no further away from themost literal rendering possible than translators of D7N >>5 (and even

DIM) sometimes did in contexts where the expression was equallygeneric, as that term is usually understood. This was necessary tomake clear the reference to Jesus, a contextual factor absent from allLXX examples but consistently present in NT examples and formingthe reason for the largely consistent behaviour ofGospel translators.

Lindarss criticisms should therefore be rejected. The articles in 6ui rob 6v0pknov arose so naturally from the translation processthat independent translators are likely to have reached the samesolution to the problem ofrendering an idiom which did not have anexact equivalent in Greek. The generic use of the Greek articlemeans that bilinguals will have been able to perceive theAramaicidiom in Greek, and the development of NT Christology provides thecultural context in which the production of a perceived title by thetranslation process will not have been unwelcome among Greek-

speakingChristians.

We must now turn toAramaic aspects of Bauckhams proposal,



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35

that Jesus used bar enash (probably, rather than bar enasha) in theindefinite sense (a man, someone), which is itself a very commonusage, but used it as a form of deliberately oblique or ambiguous selfreference. Bauckham believes that this proposal cannot appeal toparallels in later JewishAramaic.13 This might at first sight appearto be a simple weakness, but it is complicated because severalAramaic examples of this idiom can to some extent be described asBauckham describes sayings of Jesus. Some examples use v~ 13 inthe indefinite sense, they are deliberately oblique, but they are not

ambiguous. We must recall again R Simeon ben Yohai at Gen. R.79.6: A bird is not caught without the will of heaven: how much lessthe soul of a son ofman (v3 7D7 s~~~). This is clearly indefinite, sothere is no difficulty in finding an example of the grammaticallyindefinite use of vi ,:1 referring to the speaker. Secondly, we havenoted R Zeiras saying at j. Ber. 2.8.Sc, a son of man cannot eat apound of meat until they have given him a lash. Here again, at the

opposite end of the spectrum of generalization foundin this

idiom,v3 13 is quite indefinite but it easily and naturally refers to a definite,though unidentified person, namely R Zeira, and it does so muchmore easily than someone in English. It should be clear that allexamples of this idiom which use the indefinite state also necessarilyuse it in an indefinite sense (a man, someone). However, in no casedoes this idiom refer to one person only. Further, all theAramaicexamples are oblique but they are mostly not ambiguous. There isone example of deliberate ambiguity, and it is instructive.At j. Ber.2.8.5c R Kahana, to ask R Johanan whether he should return fromIsrael to Babylon, asked him the quite obscure question:

:75 ~1&dquo; J~5 nb mpio Trotyl 1nnI~il nb n7DDD nDN7 V) 12

-A son ofman whose mother despises him, and a wife of his fatherhonours him, where shall he go? This really is a deceptive statement,and the ambiguity is produced by the allegorical concealment ofIsrael by mother, and of Babylon by a wife of his father, ratherthan by the use ofson ofman. The result is quite different from theresult ofany son ofman statement spoken in the Gospels. R Johanananswered the question at the level of a purely general statement, andwhen R Kahana acted by applying this to himself and going to

Babylon, Johanan made it clear that he did not understand why he

had gone. Johanans disciples then explained the self-referenceto

him. This is the necessary result of the kind of ambiguous sentence



17/37

36

that this idiom can be used to produce, and it is not a reaction foundin the Gospels. It is the only ambiguous example so far known in ourAramaic sources and we shall see that the Gospel evidence also doesnot imply ambiguity in the usage of Jesus, which therefore doescorrespond to normalAramaic usage.

4. Sayings ofJesus

Gospel sayings which use the term 6 vioS iov vePW1TOU, but do not

correspond to anyAramaic idiom, cannot be authentic Son ofmansayings spoken by the historical Jesus. In theory, this does not meanthat only examples of this particular idiom may be authentic, but inpractice there are very few examples of Son of man sayings which usethis term in a satisfactory way but are not examples of this idiom, andmost of these can be shown to be inauthentic on other grounds.14Asexamples of sayings which must be considered inauthentic because

theiruse

of son of man does not correspondto

anyuse

of theAramaic Vi 7D, we may cite Lk. 17.22, Mt 24.27 // Lk. 17.24, Mt24.37 // Lk. 17.26, Mt. 24.39, Lk. 17.30. This group ofsayings havean excellent Sitz im Leben in the early church. There is abundantevidence from Acts, the Epistles and Revelation that the earlyChristians did believe that Jesus would shortly return and that manyof them regarded that belief as of fundamental importance. Further,this belief slots neatly into the culture ofSecond Temple Jews, someofwhom hoped to be delivered by a messianic figure of some kind.The coincidence of these criteria is significant because they are quiteindependent of each other, and that makes them a very strongcombination. Finally, it is to be noted that it is a helpful consequenceofmy understanding of this idiom that it can be used to distinguishauthentic from inauthentic sayings in this way, as Vermess under-standing of it cannot.

We may now proceed to authentic sayings ofJesus which do usethis idiom.A full discussion would require a further monograph: Ipropose therefore to do no more than illustrate the different levels of

generality which are to be found in examples of this idiom in thesayings of Jesus, to deal with the passion predictions and to try toclarify those aspects of this hypothesis which have caused the mostmisunderstanding. We may begin with Mt. 12.32 // Lk. 12.10 (c Mk

3.28-29), which illustrates the most general level of meaning. Thefollowing reconstruction may be suggested:



18/37

37

n7 p~n~ NWIN 1~~ n7o 11t -I ~~1.n? i&dquo;:1MrI&dquo; H? NV71p7 rcrnn5 n70 nnc~ n -31

Everyone who speaks a word against a son of man, it shall beforgiven him, and everyone who speaks a word against the spirit ofholiness, it shall not be forgiven him. The first part of this sayingdeclares forgiveness for everyone who speaks against another person:this general statement is intended to refer particularly to Jesushhnselfi and to concede that opposition to him personally is forgivable.This then sets up the second

h4in which

oppositionto his

divinelyinspired ministry by scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem, whospoke against the Holy Spirit by suggesting for example that he castout demons by Beelzebub, is said to be an unforgivable sin. Thegeneral statement, used because of the humiliating situation in whichJesus found himself of being opposed by such important Jews andbecause ofthe implication that it was all right to speak against him,has the broadest possible general level of meaning. In accordancewith Jesus preaching of forgiveness to the repentant sinner, it isbeing assumed that all men at all times and in all circumstances whospeak against their fellow men will be forgiven (that they repent is acultural assumption which need not be expounded in the sayingitself).15sSomewhat less general is Mt. 8.20 // Lk. 9.58, discussed in detail in

a previous article in this joumal&dquo; The following reconstruction was

suggested:r~5run wnw n~y5> >n~n pn5 MH H?lM?.n:1 n~rn T)OD1 JH n7 nc~ c~ r~~r~ 13)

The jackals have holes and the birds of the air have roosts, and a sonof man has nowhere to lay his head. It was shown that we canperceive a very general level ofmeaning in this saying, at which thedivine provision of resting-places for jackals and birds is contrastedwith the lack ofsuch provision for men, who have to build houses tohave anywhere to stay. However, I also noted that this perceptionwas not inevitable, not least because all men are not usually on themove, and consequently the lack of divine provision of resting-placesfor them is not usually relevant to their needs. This was not howeverrelevant to the function of the saying in its original context, just asthe fact that most people do not have disciples is not relevant to the

effectiveness of R Hiyya barAddas saying at j. Ber. 2.8.5b. Since thesaying was spoken in a context in which the point was that neither



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38

Jesus nor his disciples could expect reasonable accommodationduring a migratory ministry, the contrast with jackals and birds willhave operated at the level of their social sub-group, and the mostgeneral level of meaning need not have occurred to most, or evenany, of his audience.

A more serious restriction of the social group to which the generallevel of meaning refers is found at Mk 2.28. This saying is closelyrelated to Mk 2.27, which is important partly because it guaranteesthe general level of meaning in 2.28. The two verses may be

reconstructed as follows:,Mn:1t ~:1 rcvr~rc ~c5~ n~wn~c ~cvr~t~ ~:1 Mn:1r/ ,7M ~n~ci

.Mn:1r/:1 rM r~~rc 13 Kin MJ n~5~r

And he said to them, &dquo;The Sabbath was made for man, and not manfor the Sabbath. So, you see, a son ofman is master of the Sabbathtoo. 29 1~ This was the main defence of disciples who had been going

along (:11,misread ,:11 and rendered

literally 7TOlEtV)a

pathand

plucking grain on the Sabbath, an action to be expected 6fpoor andhungry people taking Peah. The first point made is the divinepurpose in creating the Sabbath for the beisefit ofman. From this isdeduced mans lordship over the Sabbath, a deduction which must beseen in the context of mans lordship over creation as a whole (cf.Gen. 1.26, 28; Ps. 8.6; 2 Bar. 14.18; 4 Ezr. 6.54). It follows that Jesushas the authority to ward off unwanted Pharisaic halakhah whichwould have prevented poor and hungry people from taking Peah tofeed themselves on the Sabbath, so the general statement does applyto the speaker. It also applies to the disciples, who were entitled totake advantage ofthe Laws provisions for the poor on the day whichGod had made for them to rest on and be joyful on. The sayingsgeneral level ofmeaning might appear to apply to everyone, and in asense it does, for creation was for the benefit of all people. However,

lordship over the creation is dependent on obedience to God: by andlarge, it was Jews who obeyed the Law and Jews who observed theSabbath. In practice, therefore, only pious and faithful Jews aremasters over the Sabbath. This was not however relevant to theeffectiveness ofthe idiom because it was not relevant to the situational

context, for Jesus and the people criticized pass Jesus standards forbeing masters of the Sabbath, and there were no Gentiles present,nor

any Jewswho wanted

deliberatelyto

disobeythe divine command-

ment.



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39

We move near to the limits of the use of the idiom at Lk. 22.48,though even this is more effective than the saying of R Zeira (j. Ber.

2.8.5c). The following reconstruction may be suggested: ~:1&dquo; pv3 ,7~rt~~nrDDm WIN. This might be rendered literally: Judah, kissing a son ofman and you betray him! Mark records the historical fact of the kiss(Mk 14.45): it is not probable that Lukes saying is secondary when itconforms both to historical fact and to anAramaic idiom unknown in

the native Greek of this Gentile author. It also provides one of thetwo genuine sayings from which 7DD/napa616wpi entered passion

predictions from which it was originally absent. The use of vim ,:1 isindefinite, as we have seen it to be in someAramaic examples of theidiom, but this does not mean that it is not generalized or that it is inany way ambiguous. Like R Zeira, Jesus generalized from his ownexperience in this saying, but unlike him he got the custom right. Thefeeling that one should not betray ones friends and colleagues isvirtually universal and it is this that the general level of meaningrelies on.

The point of using!y3K12 rather than ~ or nv,~~&dquo; is to

speakindirectly in a very fraught situation, and this is achieved by thegeneralized level of meaning. For the saying to function properly,there do not have to be lots of people betrayed byJudas with a kiss: itis enough that the thought of kissing any person and therebybetraying them should be generally repugnant.With the limits of the idiom set out in the sayings of Jesus in

approximately the same way as in ourAramaic sources, we can nowreconsider Mt. 11.19 // Lk. 7.34, where Lindarss exegesis has beenseriously misrepresented and vigorously criticized, though in myview it is on the right hnes.18 The most important part of the passagefor present purposes may be reconstructed as follows:

,7~~N nnv xbi 55rc Nb 7)n~ nnN

,7~~N nnvl 5~c~ v~t4 ,:1 nnN .75 n,t4 Mity

.7~t:)n&dquo; 7~C;:~&dquo; :1n ,N:1C 7~it v3t4 Nun

John came not eating or drinking, and they say, &dquo;He has a demon.&dquo;A son of man comes eating and drinking and they say, &dquo;Look!Aglutton and a drunkard, an associate oftax-collectors and sinners.&dquo;The context makes it quite clear that at one level Jesus classifiedhimself and John the Baptist together as prophets sent from God (cf.Mk 1.9-11; 9.11-13; 11.27-33; Mt. 11.7-10 // Lk. 7.24-27): he thencriticized his

contemporariesfor

rejectingthe message of both of



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40

them, as we know that the conservative wing ofJudaism and theauthorities did. The image of children who will not join in dancing or

wailing is drawn out by reference to the baptists known asceticismand Jesus more normal social habits, so that at this level the twoprophetic figures are contrasted with each other. The sentence aboutJohn the Baptist is quite straightforward: mentioning him by namemakes for clarity and there was no reason to do otherwise. Jesus thenavoided both a direct claim to prophetic authority and the directhumiliation of saying how he had been criticized by using the

generalizing expression v3m 12. For its plausibility, this sayingdepends on there being people (not non-ascetic evangelists) who alsoate and drank among tax-collectors and sinners, but that is soobvious that we could deduce it from the general level of the sayingagainst the background of Jesus ministry as a whole (cf e.g. Mk 2.15-17). Further, it depends on the condemnation of such people byconservative Jews being a perceptibly normal event. This againshould not be in

doubt,because there was from OT times a tradition

ofcondemnation ofbeing a glutton and a drunkard (cf. Deut. 21.20;Prov. 23.20, 21; T. Jud. 14; Philo, De Spec. Leg. 4.97-104; De Ebr.206-24; Jos. ContraAp. 2.195). This gives us a cultural backgroundagainst which Jesus generalization from his own experience of beingcriticized by conservativeJews will have made excellent sense amonga social sub-group of people accustomed to similar criticism from thesame quarters.

5. The Passion Predictions

The passion predictions have caused difficulties for many differentviews ofJesus use of the term son of man. Lindars argues for brieforiginal sayings behind Mk 10.45; 14.21a, and from Mk 8.31; 9.31;10.33; 14.21b; 14.44 he reconstructs one partial prediction -...

tJH 12 7DDnN-which he translates, A man may be deliveredup ... 19 This prediction is however too incomplete to be useful; themodal may is a feature of his translation, not of theAramaic: andthe argument in its favour depends too much on the use ofother NTtexts which do not contain the term son of man, and which, if givenreal force, would rather show that the predictions had their Sitz imLeben in the early church, a radical view which cannot explain the

presence of the term son of man in them. We may begin with Mk14.21, a prediction which should be regarded as wholly genuine:



22/37

41

~~ov 3&dquo;n3 ~~~ 5rt~ VIN 12n7D 7DDnD Vim 7D7 Min mv3m~ IN

.~c m3j ~~5~ M? 1n n~ sn

A son ofman goes as it is written ofhim. Woe to that man by whosehand a son of man is betrayed! It would have been good for that manif he had not been born! In the first son ofman saying here, 5tt~ is aeuphemism for death.At its most general level, therefore, the sayinginvolves scriptural justification for the mere fact of death.At thislevel, there are many OT passages that could be in mind-among themore obvious are Gen. 2.17; 3.19; Isa. 40.6-8; Eccl. 12.5-7. This levelof meaning should not be dismissed as banal.2 Its function is tomake the saying obviously true, and when the saying is obviouslytrue it becomes difficult to disagree with its application to thespeaker. This does not however exhaust the obviousness of thegeneral level of meaning. It also makes perfect sense as a reference tothe differing fates of the righteous and the wicked written in

Scripture.Again, many passages could be called upon. For example,after the Last Supper, Jesus and the disciples sang, Glorious in theeyes of the Lord is the death of his pious ones (Ps. 116.15), and it is atthis level that he might have had in mind part of Isa. 52-53. 21Equally, the fate of the wicked might be found e.g. at Isa. 66.24, orDan. 12.2. This further refinement ensures that the saying is

obviously true, and it is in no way inconsistent with Jesus seeing hisown death

especiallyreferred to in

general passages of Scriptureor

very precisely foretold in others. For example, he might have seenGods support and vindication of him in this understanding of theHebrew text of Ps. 118.14-17: The Lord is my strength and song,and he is for me, for Jesus ... The right hand of the Lord raisesup ... I shall not die because I shall live. That could readily beapplied directly to the speaker of Mk 14.21a when it was sung afterthe Last Supper. These different ways of understanding Mk 14.21amean in practice that the general level ofmeaning and the applicationto the speaker will both have been obvious when he said it. It was anatural moment to use this idiom because he was in the humiliatingsituation of being about to be betrayed by one of the inner circle oftwelve disciples, and he believed that he held the exalted function ofbeing the final harbinger ofthe kingdom ofGod which God would beenabled by his atoning death to bring.The second line of Mk 14.21 is another son of man saying with a

good general level of meaning, true of a sort of social sub-group,



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42

namely traitors.At a general level it condemns traitors, and declaresthat they will have a very unpleasant fate. The idiom was functional

because this sentiment is virtually universaL The obviousness of thegeneral level of meaning will have combined with the disciples beliefthat anyone who betrayed Jesus was indeed exceptionally wicked toensure that the saying was remembered in its original form. We nowcertainly have a genuine prediction containing 7DDnD vit4 :1, and ifthe above reconstruction is correct in all details, we also have a line inwhich the collective understanding of n7D ... t~t~c could lead to the

translation Ei XFIpaq dv9pMn


24/37

43

other members of the inner circle were annoyed withJacob and John,Jesus gave very straightforward teaching on the need for service. Mk10.45 summarizes both these aspects of teaching, and puts forwardJesus himselfas an example. The requirement of service follows verystraightforwardly from the teaching to all twelve: the need for peopleto give their lives for others is directly appropriate to the social sub-group of the inner circle of the disciples, two of whom had justaccepted his challenge to die with him. Woe may find the general levelof meaning a bit much, but it is perfectly goodAramaic and has a

perfectly good Sitz im Leben in Jesus teaching of the twelve. In thisinstance therefore, we have two reasons for Jesus use of this idiom:he needed to give the general teaching about service to the point ofdeath, as well as to speak indirectly ofhis own fate. We may compareSefire 3.16, where the king of Krt needed to lay down the seriouseffects of action by subsequent kings of Arpad against his descendants,as well as to speak indirectly ofthe possibility that he might himselfdie as a result of such action

againsthim

Thus the Gospels contain several predictions ofJesus death, andfour genuine Son of man sayings which deal with aspects of it (Mk10.45; 14.21 bis; Lk. 22.48). With these in mind, we can deal with Mk8.31. This cannot be authentic in its present form because it cannotbe reconstructed in feasibleAramaic in such a way that it has a

general level ofmeaning. On the other hand, Jesus rebuke of Peterhas no satisfactory Sitz im Leben in the early church, but it makesexcellent sense as it stands. Peters attempt to dissuade Jesus frommartyrdom is as natural as it is clear, and could follow only from aprediction of his death. In Mark as it stands, the impression is giventhat the prediction was immediately comprehensible. The problemfor us is therefore to see whether we can reconstruct from Mk 8.31 a

genuine prediction which conforms toAramaic idiom and has asatisfactory Sitz im Leben in the teaching ofJesus. I have suggested

something on the following lines::nip, 7~C~ ~n5n 7nDi wiN 13 mD

A son of man will die, and after three days he will rise.A previousversion of this suggestion has been severely criticized: I propose todefend 1t.23

First, this reconstruction makes an excellent general statement. Itis

certainlyand

obviouslytrue that all

people die,and the

generalresurrection ofthe dead was a beliefsufficiently widely held by some



25/37

44

Jews, including Jesus and his disciples, for the reference to it tofunction equally effectively in a general statement. The reference toresurrection is essential for a combination of emotional, linguisticand theological reasons. From Jesus point ofview, his first attemptto explain to his disciples that he would have to die was not onlydifficult enough to require an indirect idiom, but also made lessdifficult to contemplate by the immediate mention of divinevindication. From a linguistic point of view, the removal ofreferenceto the resurrection makes the proposed original saying too short, and

the fact that the most important ofthe secondary additions conformsto the original idiom would be extraordinarily coincidentaL From thetheological point of view, Jesus death would be meaningfiil if andonly if it was part of Gods purpose, and this is affirmed with clarity(though again indirectly) by reference to the resurrection by whichJesus would be vindicated. The interpretation ofroi&dquo; nnbn 1n:J maybe deduced from evidence of midrashic sayings which declare that

Israel,or the

righteous,will not be

leftin distress for more than three

days, a view buttressed with several passages of scripture (includingJonah 2.1; Hos. 6.2).24 One such occasion is the last days, whendeliverance will be by means of the resurrection. If three days betaken in a metaphorical sense like this, the general resurrection couldbe expected after three days. We have three other sayings of Jesus inwhich the three-day interval is used in a similar metaphorical sense:two of these (Lk. 13.32, 33) should certainly be regarded as genuine,and the third (Mk 14.58; c Mt. 26.60-60; Mk 15.29 // Mt. 27.40)probably reflects a genuine saying which used the three-day intervalwith reference to eschatological events. We must conclude that theproposed reconstruction would be understood to mean that theresurrection, in which Jesus would be vindicated, would take placeafter a short intervaL Further, these words do not have a satisfactorySitz im Leben in the early church. They must belong to theAramaic

layer ofthe tradition, because psrd -rpg fi ppag appears to contradictthe stories of the resurrection of Jesus. TheAramaic-speaking churchwill not have been motivated to develop an existing reference to thegeneral resurrection of the dead, but the addition of a phrasereferring to Jesus alone would be difficult inAramaic because ofthegeneralizing effect of WIN &dquo;0. If it were done, taking v3m 12 as areference to an undefined single individual to give us a possiblesentence whose potential obscurity would be removed by the context-ual knowledge ofthe social sub-group producing it, then inAramaic



26/37

45

as in Greek someone adding in freely a precise reference to theresurrection of Jesus would have done so precisely, not using a phrasewhich could be naturally translated psrd rpsig hptpaq.The most common criticism of this suggested original has been

that it is banal, but the whole saying is not in the least banal becauseresurrection from the dead is a powerful symbol ofdivine vindication.To make the saying banal it has to be chopped in half, an inadequatecritical mode far too common in NT scholarship. That the opening ofthe saying is obvious is an advantage of it, because it makes it so

difficult to disagree with. Lindarss criticisms are more specific. Hefirst objects to the anarthrous v3m 13. We have seen that this is inaccord with ourAramaic sources, not least vim 7D ritd, at Sefire 3.16,though it is certainly true that Jesus may have said NVIN 13. Lindarsthen argues that a general statement of this kind is extremelyimprobable, because it has left no trace on the rest of the NewTestament. The idea is never applied to anyone except Jesus himselfThis true fact should not be held

against myreconstruction. The

general statement in this instance was functional rather thansubstantive, and the early church had good reason to rememberJesus predictions of his own death and resurrection, but very littlereason to recall in purely generalized form the precise metaphors heused for this purpose. None of the other predictions of his deathsurvived elsewhere either, even though the assumptions on whichthey were based did survive (cf Lk. 13.33 with 1 Thess. 2.15: at thislevel 1 Cor. 15.51-52 supplies the resurrection of all men used at Mk8.31 and precludes their death only because ofthe expectation oftheparousia). More generally, few of Jesus sayings have left traceselsewhere in the NT, and this one was not likely to survive in itsoriginal form in the Gospels precisely because it was developed into aprediction of the death and resurrection ofJesus alone. Lindars goeson to argue that the reconstructed saying does not make a convincingstatement on the part of Jesus. It remains a floating item, with noknown context. For, of course, if the saying is a general statement itloses the ironical reference to the situation of Jesus himsel The

saying has however a very firm context as the cause of the incidentrelated in Mk 8.32-33, and from this context it should not beremoved. We have seen that theAramaic evidence shows that

general statements are as a matter of fact used with reference to the

speaker, and the situation at R4k8.31

isso

extreme,with the

speakerpredicting his own death, that the need for an indirect mode of



27/37

46

speech is exceptionally great. Lindars further objects to the use ofnity on the ground that 1TOevtlcrKElv does not occur in any of the

passion predictions. This objection is too rigid. When me is appliedto someone who will be put to death, a translator may render it with averb meaning kill, as in the Lxx with both 1TOK-cElVC (e.g. Deut.22.22, 25) and Oava-u6w (e.g. Exod. 21.14; 1 Sam. 14.45). Theseexamples illustrate not only the same shift of meaning in translation,but also the use ofnin of someone who is in fact to be killed, the sameusage as is found with reference to deliberate killing at Sefire 3.16,

which illustrates how easy it was inAramaic to slip from the generallevel of meaning in the proposed original saying behind Mk 8.31 tothe specific application to Jesus.These criticisms of the proposed original saying should therefore

be rejected. We cannot of course be certain that it represents theipsissima verba of Jesus. It is possible that 8Ei really translated 7n> orzlri, or that 1TOM 1TueElv... Ypanuarecov is an interpretative

expansionof a

phrasewhich we can no

longerrecover,

perhapsbecause it might be taken in a sense unwelcome to the early church(cf. Mk 3.28). It is not difficult to make up conceivable sayings, and itmay be useful to illustrate this:

:mp, 7~Q~ ~n5n ~nt~t nin,1 oxnnx7 xwix 7rb 7,v

It is decreed concerning a son of man that he is rejected and will dieand after three days he will rise. The general level of meaning refersto the fall of man (c Gen. 3.19; 4 E,zr. 3.7; 7.11-16, 78): theapplication to Jesus is conceivable as an explanation of the divinedecision to require his death before the kingdom came, and Dxnnx isuncomfortable enough to be one cause of the safe interpretativeexpansion now found at Mk 8.31. This is however extremelyconjectural.All we can be sure of is thatJesus predicted his death andresurrection with a saying on the proposed lines, a general statement

including a reference to the general resurrection after three days.This saying was expanded from the tradition of the events whichtook place, possibly with the help of scripture. This process mightreasonably be expected from the way in which the traditions of theOT prophets were expanded, and more generally from the clarifyingexpansions frequent in Targum and midrash.

This same process is verifiable in the editing of the central

predictions byMatthew and

Luke,and it is to be found at Mk 9.311

and 10.33-34.At Mk 9.31, 6 ui6~ rob ~,v9pc~rrou napa6i6o-cat comes



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from the genuine loono VIN 13 of Mk 14.21 (c also Lk 22.48), EiSxsipag av9pwnwv is probably from the same source, and most oftheverse is another version of the prediction underlying Mk 8.31. Mk10.33-34 is a further expansion. For dvapaivopEv sig IspoJ6Xvpa~ cf.Lk. 13.33; 6 oi6~ zou dv0p(bnou 7Tapa.&>eT,crE&dquo;tat renders 7 DDnD v3t4 13(Mk 14.21; cf Lk. 22.48); zois PXlPEcrtV Kat ioiS ypapparsbJw ...roig 8vEcrtV may be perceived as interpretations of 1&dquo;1~:J ... mv3m(Mk 14.21); 6 v16g rou Uv0p&nov ... 6noKrsvobJw Kai uerd &dquo;tpEihptpaq 6Lva(Y-c~(YE-c(xt is again a version ofthe prediction behind Mk

8.31. The prediction has also been expanded with many details fromthe actual events. Similar comments apply to Mk 14.41, wherenapa8i8o-cat 6 v16g rob dv9p(bnou is from 14.21, and sig rUg XE!Paqiwv


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1~rt~H 7b 7DDnD VIN 13

.c1~ 1~e~ nn~n in2 nonoi n3i!TO!n

This is not an enigmatic saying in which Jesus avoided claims, butinvited people to think for themselves about the implications of theundeniable facts of his ministry: it is mundanely incoherent. KaiTT01crEVOcrlV a6r6v Kai tnoKrav0sig is comprehensible on linguisticgrounds only as the work of a Greek-speaking editor. We mustremove nnnn because it is unsatisfactoryAramaic, but the insertionof Kai

tnoKrav0sigdoes not have a

goodSitz im Leben in the work

of someone who was translating literally an authentic prediction (itmay readily be explained in work of a bilingual person composingmidrashically). The rest of the saying is certainly obscure enough tobe incomprehensible, but not much else can be said for its authenticityas it stands in its present context. It does use VIN 12 indefinitely withreference to an unidentified person, and the result is an obscuresentence. We then have to suppose that Jesus, having predicted hisdeath clearly enough for Peter to object, rebuked Peter equallyclearly for opposing his intentions (Mk 8.31-33), but made a secondprediction which is partly similar to the first yet so obscure that thedisciples could not understand it (9.31-32). He followed it up with athird prediction (10.33-34) in which the situational context andcircumstantial details are so clear that only he could be subject-Jacob and John understood his intentions in the very next pericope

(10.39)-but the use of v3m 7D is nonetheless contrary to normalAramaic usage so that people could think for themselves about theimplications of his ministry. This makes 8.31 both enigmatic andclear, and entails an internally incoherent view of 10.33. Theproposed understanding of 9.31 is perhaps not inconceivable, but it ismost improbable and if it were right, Mk 9.31 would be anexceptionally unsuccessful use of the idiom, not typical of a group ofson

ofman

sayings. Wemust

conclude that Bauckhams suggestionsfor Jesus unique use ofviN 12 belong to a theological and exegeticaltradition which is on the wrong trajectory: the posited unique use ofV38 12 does not leave room for faith, it makes incoherent nonsense ofsentences whose origin can be otherwise explained as secondarydevelopments, partly of authentic predictions. Mk 9.32, like 9.30, isbest regarded as the work ofan editor, perhaps the evangelist himself.Luke continued to develop his comment (Lk. 9.45; 18.34).We must therefore conclude that the genuine son ofman predic-

tions of Jesus death are Mk 10.45,14.21 and a saying which can be at



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least partly reconstructed from Mk 8.31. All these sayings wereindirect but clear. Lk. 22.48 is also a

genuine sayingfrom the

moment ofJesus betrayal. Mk 9.9, 9.31, 10.33-34, and 14.41 are allmidrashic developments ofgenuine sayings: the developmental processis characteristic of Jewish culture, and the process and the need for ithave an excellent Sitz im Leben in the early church. The originalsayings belong to a larger group of genuine predictions: the otherones were also indirectly expressed

6. Some OverallAspects of the Son ofMan Problem

We must consider finally some of the overall features of the kind ofsolution to this problem proposed by Lindars, Bauckham and myselfOne of the crucial questions is whether the proposed number ofauthentic sayings is large enough to explain the genesis of inauthenticsayings. Lindarss version of the theory is in serious trouble at this

point because, of the nine posited sayings, two (Lk. 11.30 and hisproposed passion prediction behind Mk 8.31 et al. ) are not true ofanyone except Jesus himself, and cannot therefore be regarded assatisfactory examples of the idiom: the passion sayings are especiallyimportant at this point because if the proposed original of Mk 8.31,etc., be unsatisfactory, Lindarss view that it produced a developmentof other sayings cannot be accepted either. Seven sayings are surelytoo few for the authentic core. This article has stated the main reason

why I believe that there are about a dozen straightforwardly authenticsayings, and a penumbra of midrashic developments of two of thepassion predictions. This means that a large majority of sayings inour oldest sources (Mark and Q) are either authentic as they stand, orconsist of perceptible developments of authentic sayings. Further,both the secondary developments of the passion predictions and thelarge group ofinauthentic sayings have a perfect Sitz im Leben in the

early church, which vigorously interpreted Jesus death and ferventlyhoped for his return. The secondary parousia predictions contain awhole group which are demonstrably dependent on Dan. 7.13.25Bauckham, after arguing that the proposals ofLindars and myself

lead to too small a number of authentic sayings, makes his proposalthat Jesus used bar enash (probably, rather than bar enasha) in theindefinite sense (a man, someone) ... but used it as a form of

deliberately oblique or ambiguous self reference. Bauckham includeshere sayings such as Mk 14.62 which refer directly to Dan. 7.13. He



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argues that the usage cannot appeal to parallels in later Jewish

Aramaic,and

suggeststhat the

degreeof

ambiguitywill have

varied,including cases where the saying has a somewhat enigmatic orriddling character (Lk. 11.30; the passion predictions), and caseswhere some hearers might easily assume Jesus reference to be to afigure other than himself. I have discussed some of the reasons whythis proposal should not be accepted, and all the main points may bedrawn together here. First, it is misleading to claim that there are noparallels in later JewishAramaic.As we have seen, someAramaic

examples of this idiom can easily be classified as indefinite, and theself reference may be perfectly clear when it is oblique. There arehowever no examples where the reference might be to some otherperson, and the only ambiguous example is instructive because itleads to discussion and explanation, a reaction not found in thesynoptic Gospels. Lk. 11.30 passes without interruption, the firstpassion prediction of Mk 8.31 provoked an immediate reaction from

Peter which shows that he understood it with perfect clarity, and thehigh priest is portrayed as reacting to Mk 14.62 equally withouthesitation. We have seen that the only Son ofman saying that is saidto have puzzled the disciples is genuinely puzzling only in so far as itis a secondary development in the wrong context (the original partsat Mk 8.31, and 14.21, are not puzzling). Nor should we accept thesuggestion that sayings referring to Dan. 7.13, such as Mk 14.62,should be

acceptedas authentic. Bauckham

comments,There seems

no reason why Jesus should not have exploited the coincidencebetween his accustomed form of oblique self reference and thelanguage of Dan. 7.13, so that bar enash in a saying alluding to Dan.7.13 becomes the same kind ofveiled hint of his own status as otherauthentic Son of Man sayings convey. I have attempted to refute thisview elsewhere: if the arguments put forward are incorrect, theyshould be disproved.26One more overall feature of my proposed solution to the Son of

Man problem must be dealt with. I have noted elsewhere that it is anadvantage of this hypothesis that it explains why these sayingsappear in the synoptic Gospels on the lips of Jesus himself thepattern breaks down in subsequent literature, beginning with Jn12.34. The reason for this is that Jesus is the only person in theGospels who talks about himself to any extent. This explanation has

been vigorously attacked by Moloney: why are the Son of mansayings found uniquely on the lips of Jesus? This century-old



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question is lamely solved in the following fashion ... Scene afterscene in the Gospels finds people talking about themselves and theirconcerns: Scribes and Pharisees, people seeking cures, disciples,Pilate(!), or some ofthe great characters from the Fourth Gospel: theMother of Jesus in the Cana story, Nicodemus, the Samaritanwoman, the man bom blind, and so on. Never do they speak ofthemselves as &dquo;the son of man&dquo;. 27 This is a most unsatisfactory list.Mary and the Samaritan woman must both be removed because theywere not sons of men, but women: Pilate is not likely to have known

this or any otherAramaic idiom. More fundamentally, my explanationhas been removed from its context, where it was intended to explainwhy Son of man sayings are confined to the lips of Jesus in thebottom layer ofthe tradition. Most of Moloneys characters speak inthe Gospel attributed to St John, a Gospel most ofwhose discoursematerial is so far removed from the Jesus of history that it has noexamples of this idiom in his sayings either. If we look at the synoptic

Gospels, where I have suggested about twelve simply authenticexamples of this idiom and some further developments of thesesayings, it is in fact the case that other people speak so much less thanJesus that 12:0 is a perfectly reasonable proportion of occurrences,well comparable with something in the region of 50:1 for probablyauthentic uses of veP)7TD. Other people talk little about themselves,and there are very few occasions when this optional idiom is evenfeasible, even fewer where the circumstances are as

dramaticallyexalted or humiliating as the situation of Jesus. When we come tosecondary developments, we find that the synoptic Gospels met thechurchs needs by attributing fundamental teaching to Jesus himself,a habit culturally endemic amongJewish people who pseudonymouslyattributed much of their Law, prophecy, wisdom, psalms andapocalyptic to the fountain-heads of their traditions. The fourthGospel was however partly written like a Hellenistic revelatorydiscourse. These are frequently carried forward by some not verybright questions, and the first occurrence of son of man on someoneelses lips in the Gospels is found in such a question at Jn 12.34. Thepattern broke down further in apocryphal documents.The explanation which I proposed must therefore be allowed to

stand. It is fundamental to the solution to the Son ofMan problemwhich I have proposed that it permits the solution of the classic

problems of Son ofMan research in this way.



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Conclusions

The following conclusions may therefore be suggested OurAramaicsources give us sufficient evidence of the existence of an idiom inaccordance with which anyAramaic speaker might use the term(N)VIN ::1, in either the definite or indefinite state, in a generalstatement in order to say something about himself, or sometimeshimselfand a group of associates. He would normally do so in orderto avoid sounding exceptionally exalted or feeling exceptionally

humiliatedA core of authentic Son ofman

sayings in the synopticGospels turn out when reconstructed to be examples of this idiom.They should be accepted as authentic sayings of Jesus, because theidiom in itself, and these sayings in particular, have an excellent Sitzim Leben in the ministry of Jesus and most of them have no Sitz imLeben in the early church or in the creative work ofthe evangelists.The genuine statements about Jesus death, most of them predictions,were then further developed in the light of the circumstances inwhich he died This process also has an excellent Sitz im Leben inthe early church. Inauthentic son of man statements were thendeveloped on the basis of the term, and the return ofJesus, beingfound in scripture at Dan. 7.13. Once this process was under way,further son of man sayings about the parousia of Jesus weregenerated without reference to this text. Both this process and beliefin the return of Jesus have also a verifiable Sitz im Leben in the earlychurch.Unhappily we cannot add that work on this problem is complete.

The following tasks remain. TheAramaic sources must be reworkedto see if further examples ofthe idiom can be found The idiom mustthen be fitted into the more general background of indirect ways usedbyAramaic speakers to express themselves. These features in theirturn may be illuminated by the much more detailed knowledge

which we have ofmodem people expressing themselves indirectly inawkward circumstances. Further, ifthis theory is right, several othertheories must be wrong, and these must be disproved The exegesis ofindividual examples ofthe idiom will require further exposition. Thetraditional exegesis of authentic sayings as authoritative statementscontaining a Christological title is ingrained in our culture anddifficult to shift by means of the discussion of the assumptions ofSecond

Temple Judaism,the evidence for which is often

fragmentaryand difficult to reconstruct. Finally, the generation of inauthentic



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sayings, which has already been seen to have an excellent Sitz imLeben in the early church, must be seen against the background of amore general theory which will explain the development of NTChristology. 28

NOTES

1. G. Vermes, The Useof in JewishAramaic,AppendixE in M. Black,AnAramaicApproach to the Gospels andActs (Oxford: OUP,3

1967), pp. 310-28, reprintedin G.

Vermes,Post-Biblical

JewishStudies

(Leiden: Brill, 1975), pp. 147-65; P.M. Casey, The Son of Man Problem,ZNW67 (1976), pp. 147-54; G. Vermes, The Present State of the "Son ofMan" Debate, JJS 29 (1978), pp. 123-34; P.M. Casey, Son of Man: TheInterpretation and Influence of Daniel 7 (London: SPCK,1980), esp. ch. 9; B.Lindars, The New Look on the Son of Man, BJRL 63 (1981), pp. 437-62,reprinted separately (Manchester: The John Rylands Library ofManchester,1981); B. Lindars,Jesus Son of Man (London: SPCK, 1983)my quotationis from

p. 24;P.M.

Casey,The

Jackalsand the Son ofMan

(Matt.8.20 //

Luke 9.58), JSNT 23 (1985), pp. 3-22; R Bauckham, The Son ofMan: "AMan in my Position" or "Someone"?, JSNT 23 (1985), pp. 23-33 (myquotation is from p. 29); B. Lindars, Response to Richard Bauckham: TheIdiomatic Use of Bar Enash,JSNT23 (1985), pp. 35-41; cf. also M. Mller,The Expression "the Son ofMan" as Used by Jesus, Stud Theol38 (1984),pp. 47-64. This approach has been rejected by F.J. Moloney, The End of theSon of Man?, Downside Review 98 (1980), pp. 280-90; M. Black, AramaicBarnasha and the "Son of

Man", ExpT95

(1983-84), pp. 200-206;cf. P.M.

Casey, Aramaic Idiom and Son of Man Sayings, ExpT 96 (1984-85),pp. 233-36. For alternative understandings of the term , cf. R.Kearns, Vorfragen zur Christologie, I-III (Tbingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1978-82);G. Gerleman, Der Menschensohn (Leiden: Brill, 1983). For differentapproaches to the problem, cf. V. Hampel, Menschensohn und historischerJesus (Diss., Tbingen, 1982); S. Kim, The Son of Man as the Son of God(WUNT, 30; Tbingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1983); W.O. Walker, The Son of Man:

Some Recent Developments, CBQ 45 (1983), pp. 584-607. More generally,M. M

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