SON OF MAN
בֶּן־ אָדָם֙
SON OF THE EARTH
"Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. “Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?” they asked. “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.”And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith." Matthew 13:54-58 KJV
In this post, we turn from Jesus' "Who-am-I" question to the question people in his hometown of Nazareth were asking. Who is this person? Where did his get his wisdom and miraculous powers? Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name, Mary and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren't all his sisters with us? When and where did this man get all this information and the ability to heal?
These are indeed good questions and they reveal something about Jesus that we indoctrinated Christians tend to dismiss: Few if anyone in his hometown really knew who Jesus was as a person. It's as if they even forgot his name. He's not recognizable because they apparently could not remember anything about him growing up. They associate him with Jospeh's occupation, a carpenter - perhaps referencing an early memory of Jesus helping Joseph out. They know the name of his mother and his brothers and the fact that he as a number of sisters living in their community, but they are unable to remember his name or unwilling to say it. There is a strong lack of familiarity surrounding Jesus amongst the people who should have known him as one of their own.
The encounter with his hometown people is suggestive. There apparently was nothing impressive about Jesus growing up that stuck in their minds. Did Jesus leave his hometown at the earliest time he could and live elsewhere, to study with some biblical scholars or rabbis, perhaps? That he knew the scriptures as well as he did also rendered his home town folk unable to recognize him, as if to say that no one from their community would have been able to give him that sort of instruction or knowledge. His fame as a miracle worker was known to them but, if anything, that made him more unrecognizable. In fact they appear suspicious of him. "What had he been up to? Where had he been since they last saw him?"
Jesus response to their bewilderment is revealing. "A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home."
Jesus had changed. He had taken on the role and the identity of prophet.
Even in Jesus' day prophets were something to be wary of. The implication is that the people of Nazareth were so wary of him that Jesus could not do many miracles because of their lack of faith.
I chose this particular story about Jesus found in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark because it gives us window into how Jesus' contemporaries; particularly, those he grew up around perceived him. There is nothing remarkable about Jesus in the minds of those who knew him prior to his entry into his ministry. His wilderness journey in which he struggled with being called a son of God in a vision was transformative and transfiguring to the point people who should have easily recognized him couldn't or refused to do so.
In this passage, however, we find an answer to Jesus' question, "Who am I?" In this passage Jesus clearly identifies himself as a prophet. Prophets could also be understood as sons of God, although a prophet would never usurp that understanding to promote oneself. Any outright claim to being God's son would have been met with outrage. Instead Jesus chooses an ancient prophetic title, "Son of Man."
Only two prophet were called son of man. Ezekiel was regularly addressed by God as son of man (96 times). What I found disturbing is that in researching this term, some English translations translate the original Hebrew בֶּן־ אָדָם֙ (ben adam) as "mortal" instead of "son of Adam" or "son of man" or "son of the soil." I understand the temptation to do so because we humans are mortal, but it misses the etiological meaning of ben adam.
It's important to understand the etiology of this term "Son of Man" in order to get at what Jesus meant by applying it to himself. The etiology of the English word man or human is also linked to the idea of humus or earth, which renders a good translation בֶּן־ אָדָם֙ (ben adam) as "son of the earth." It is worth keeping that definition of in the back of our minds while discussing Jesus as the son of man.
Another term that is translated as "son of man" is found in the Aramaic phrass in Daniel 7:13 "like the son of man," כְּבַ֥ר אֱנָ֖שׁ [ kebar enawsh]. כְּבַ֥ר אֱנָ֖שׁ connotes in Daniel's vision someone "like" the son of mankind appeared to him. In Daniel 8:17 God calls Daniel in Hebrew בֶּן־ אָדָם֙ (son of Adam, son of man, or son of the earth) rather than the Aramaic בַ֥ר אֱנָ֖שׁ (son of mankind).
It is likely that the term son of Mankind ( כְּבַ֥ר אֱנָ֖שׁ the eschatological figure described in Daniel 7:13 influenced an understanding of Jesus as the "son of man" the eschatological term since it was found in Aramaic in Daniel, the language of Jesus. Jesus could have used the Aramaic בַ֥ר אָדָם֙ [bar adam (son of Adam, son of man, or son of the earth) just as easily.
The New Testament Gospels we have come from Koine Greek. As such, they translated בַ֥ר אָדָם֙ orבַ֥ר אֱנָ֖שׁ as ὁ υἱὸς τοὺ ἀνθρώπου, the son of man. There is some argument that the Hebrew or Aramaic translation of son of man found Ezekiel and Daniel is missing the definite article that preceds the Greek use of this term in the New Testament. As such the argurment is that lacking a definite article when using this term in the Hebrew and Aramaic texts there is no connection between Jesus' use of this term and its use in Ezekiel and Daniel. There is a simple reason, however, for this. In Daniel and Ezekiel the term lacks the definite article because it is a term God uses to address Ezekiel and Daniel. In the New Testament Gospels, Jesus applies this term to himself; frequently using it as a third person reference to himself.
It is likely Jesus used this term in much the way God identified both Ezekiel and Daniel. It is literally a humble title, given its connection to earth from which the human soul is made of. (See Genesis 2:7 and my Reflection on Agape and Nefesh). What is clear from Jesus' use of this term is that Jesus understood himself to be a prophet.
Why Jesus chose "Son of Man" as a reference to himself is precisely due to its revelatory connotation. Jesus was interpreting or revealing the signs of his time to the people of his time. If there is a prophet Jesus was channeling during his ministry, it would have been Ezekiel.
Ezekiel prophesied to Jews exiled in Babylonia, giving them hope that God would restore their land to them. As were many people living within the Roman Empire, the Jews living in Judea and Galilee became exiles in their own land. It was to these exiles in place that Jesus became their exemplar, God' messenger offering them hope and a way through the trials they were experiencing.
Jesus didn't engage in bizarre behavior like Ezekiel. He would, however, engage in behaviors and story-telling that challenged those following him and, in particular, the religious authorities who challenged him in return. Jesus touched untouchables. He partied with questionable characters. He broke Sabbath laws with aplomb. By doing so he drew attention to himself as the Son of Man, their and our exemplar, in order to draw attention to what we are doing to ourselves. Jesus became the exemplar of what it means to be human; that is, to be created in the image of God and to be a child of God.
As our exemplar, Jesus also cryptically applied "the Son of Man" to mean all of us. There are two examples of this in the Synoptic Gospels. The first is found in the Gospel of Mark 2:1-12.
This is the story of Jesus healing a paralytic. Jesus returns home to Capernaum and his fame as a healer and prophet has spread throughout the area. A paralyzed man is brought to him on a mat and lowered through the roof of the place where Jesus was preaching to be healed by Jesus. Jesus is impressed by their faith.
Jesus uses this event as a teaching moment. Infirmity of any sort was largely considered a punishment for some sin either committed by the person or a member of the person's family. For someone to be blind, crippled, or paralyzed from birth cast suspicion of sin and guilt upon the person's family; in that, someone had sinned and the person's infirmities exposed it as God's punishment of it.
In this case, the man's palsy or paralysis was attributed to something the man had done. It is quite obvious that in many of these situations, the afflicted might be left wondering, what sin did I commit that would result in such a punishment. In this story, Jesus' response to this man is, "Son your sins are forgiven." Note that Jesus calls him "Son." There is really only one way for a Jew of Jesus' day to interpret the meaning of "son" in this context, which is that he was a son of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; a member of the tribe of Judah. Jesus immediately identifies this man as his sibling and a sibling to everyone in the room.
Jesus' declaration that the man's sins were forgiven must have raised some eyebrows on the faces of the the religious leaders who were present. Jesus picks up on their questioning looks and confronts them with, " Is it is easier to say to this man your sins are forgiven or to say take up your mat and walk." Without waiting for a reply Jesus said, "So that you know the son of man has power to forgive sins on earth,' Jesus then turns to the man and says, "Take up your mat and walk home."
"That you may know the son of man has power to forgive sins on earth" is Jesus' way of saying to everyone in the room, "You have the power to forgive sins" and by doing so telling them they can heal the many ills they are afflicted with and can refrain from attributing sin to every ill that comes their way.
The other story in the Synoptic Gospels that gives strong credence that Jesus' use of 'son of man" was applied to mean every human comes on the heels of the paralytic story in Mark 2:23-28 and is also found in the other two Gospels of Matthew 12:1-7 and Luke 6:1-6. What differentiates the account of this story in Matthew and Luke from the account given in Mark is Jesus' revealing statement of using the term son of man to mean all of humanity. Matthew's and Luke's version follows that of Marks until the last two sentences in Mark. Here is Marks account from the King James Version:
"And it came to pass, that he went through the corn fields on the sabbath day; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn. And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful? And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him? How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him? And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath."
As our exemplar, Jesus is properly understood as the Son of Man, a man with a clear prophetic vision of the ignored obvious. By the time the Gospels of Luke and Matthew were written, we can see that the notion of the "son of man" being used by Jesus to indicated his role as our exemplar and a prophet became something more than Mark's understanding of that term. "Son of Man" became an exclusive title ascribed to Jesus, as the eschatological figure described in Daniel and in the Book of Revelation.
Mark being the earliest Gospel account of Jesus' life and ministry has value in that it shows Jesus use of that term having a purely human connotation.
Until next time, stay faithful.
Norm
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