Who Is This Son of Man
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37, 39) or ‘the sign of the son of man’ (Mt. 24.30), or ‘the days of the son of man’ (Lk. 17.22, 26). A relevant example of this is the famous l) yd hrb in 4Q246 2.1.38
5. A preceding prepositional phrase may be repeated with use of an anticipatory suffi x and thereby indicate that what follows is defi nite. A possible example of this could be ‘because of the son of man’ (Lk. 6.22); ‘before the son of man’ (Lk. 21.36).
6. A demonstrative pronoun may be used and one use within a discourse may indicate that the noun is defi nite on occasions when the demonstrative is not used.
7. A restrictive relative clause may indicate defi niteness by narrowing interpretative possibilities in such a way that the phrase ‘son of man’, whether governing the clause or contained within it, may be presumed to indicate a defi nite entity. For instance, Lk. 17.30 speaks of ‘the day on which X is revealed’, where X is the ‘son of man’ phrase. In some languages, including Greek and Hebrew, the defi nite article can precede a participle to form what is in effect a relative clause, thereby indicating the close relationship between the defi nite article and relative clauses.
8. Words can be defi nite due to cultural assumptions. For instance, in a Jewish monotheistic culture, a Jewish Aramaic speaker using the word )hl) will necessarily be understood to be speaking of a particular identifi able and therefore defi nite deity. Thus a vital question relative to the defi niteness of the phrase son of man is whether there was a defi ned concept of a Son of Man. Casey begins with the language, fi nds no explicit linguistic evidence for a defi ned concept, and then reads all occurrences in the light of that. I am of the persuasion that the linguistic evidence is compatible with the idea of a defi ned concept, if that concept could be established in pre-Christian sources on other grounds.
In order to conclude that defi niteness would have been known by hearers of Jesus, none of my particular examples needs to be authentic logia. The point can be established that if the phrase ‘son of man’ was indeed used by Jesus it 38. Comparison with other Aramaic makes it highly unlikely that the fi rst member of this construction is in the emphatic state. See also 4Q212 5.21.
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is unlikely that his hearers were always unaware of whether it was defi nite or indefi nite. I do not wish here, however, to drive too fi rm a distinction between these two categories and thereby preclude the possibility that any of Jesus’
sayings were ambiguous when taken by themselves. I am rather suggesting that discussion of ‘son of man’ sayings needs to begin from the acknowledge-ment that if Jesus, or anyone else, wanted a reference to a ‘son of man’ to be understood as defi nite he would be quite capable of indicating this, whether or not there was a defi nite concept of a son of man prior to his time.39
In addition to syntactic ways in which defi niteness might be indicated, we may also note specifi c texts in which some indication of defi niteness would be required. I refer here to Mk 2.28 and parallels. In Greek we have w#ste ku/rio/j e0stin o9 ui9oj tou= a)nqrw&pou kai tou= sabba/tou. What we notice about the word order is that the predicate (or part of it) precedes the subject. The main nominal element of the predicate is ku/rioj ‘Lord’, which is anarthrous precisely because it is the predicate.40 It is because it is anarthrous in Greek that we know it says that ‘the son of man is master’ rather than ‘the master is the son of man’. A similar thing may be said in general terms in Northwest Semitic languages. The word order when we are not dealing with fi nite verbs tends to be subject–predicate (‘I am he’ rather than ‘He am I’). If one simply joins two nouns together in a predication and neither has any way of indicating that it is defi nite or indefi nite, the former of the two will be understood to be the subject.
Now if the saying in Mk 2.28 is genuine, as Casey maintains, and has preserved the word order of the original as regards subject and predicate, as Casey also maintains,41 how would we know that the ‘son of man’ phrase is the subject and not the predicate if the ‘son of man’ phrase were not understood to be defi nite?
Casey may avoid some of the force of this argument by translating the noun ku/rioj using a word that is more adjective than noun, namely +yl#, but this 39. C. F. D. Moule, ‘Neglected Features in the Problem of “the Son of Man”’, in J. Gnilka (ed.), Neues Testament und Kirche (Festschrift R. Schnackenburg; Herder: Freiburg, 1974), p. 421, allows for the unlikely possibility that Jesus might have used the phrase brh dgbr’ which is found in the Old Syriac Gospels.
40. ‘. . . defi nite predicate nouns which precede the verb usually lack the article . . .’ in E. C. Colwell, ‘A Defi nite Rule for the Use of the Article in the Greek New Testament’, JBL
52 (1933), pp. 12–21 (20).
41. In
Aramaic Sources, p. 138, Casey reconstructs the Aramaic of Mk 2.28 as follows:
)tb#$b P) #$n rb )wh )n +yl#$.
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merely creates an unlikely word order in his reconstructed Aramaic. Here Casey’s explanation that ‘interference’ in the mind of a bilingual translator has been responsible for the translation encounters serious diffi culty. If the bilingual translator was in any way competent, he had to know that with the article o9 ui9oj tou= a)nqrw&pou in Greek had to be the subject. The easiest explanation for this was that he understood the phrase ‘son of man’ in the Aramaic to be subject and to be defi nite.
Thus there are a number of signs that defi niteness was indicated within the text. In addition to this we may note that there were ways that a text might formally mark indefi niteness, for instance by using the numeral ‘one’ in a quasi-articular way. It could be that the consistent absence of any markers of indefi niteness could increase the sense of ancient recipients of a text that an entity was defi nite.
Conclusion
I have paid disproportionate attention to the aspects of Casey’s work that deal with original wording in Aramaic. Since this is the foundation of his analysis, serious questions about the foundation must affect what has been built on top of it. Though it is possible that, as Casey contends, there was no title of ‘Son of Man’, the phrase was indefi nite and of general applicability, his account of the Aramaic origin of these sayings has been shown to be unnecessarily complex and there is room for analyses treating the phrase as defi nite. In particular, we need not posit a strong dichotomy between the Aramaic sayings as spoken by Jesus and the Greek words recorded in the gospels.
5
THE USE OF DANIEL 7 IN JESUS’ TRIAL, WITH
IMPLICATIONS FOR HIS SELF-UNDERSTANDING
Darrell L. Bock
Jesus’ potential use of the title Son of Man at his examination by the Jewish leadership is one of the more acute specifi c problems this scene generates. I have written a great deal already on this event and its background, but in this chapter I wish to concentrate specifi cally on the possibility that Jesus appealed to the Son of Man imagery and Daniel 7 during his examination.1 In fact, this response was an important factor in that examination’s determination to take Jesus on to Pilate and the crucifi xion that was the result of his meeting with the Roman prefect. I cover this specifi c question in two steps: (1) the use of Ps. 110.1 and Daniel 7 together and (2) the Apocalyptic Son of Man as a category Jesus used.
The use of Ps. 110.1 and Dan. 7.13 together
This topic and the next one are closely bound. One could discuss them together, but the availability of these Old Testament (OT) images is still a separate discussion from Jesus’ general use of the Son of Man title. So I will consider 1. See
my
Blasphemy and Exaltation in Judaism and the Final Examination of Jesus (WUNT, 2.106; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998) for a look at all the background and conceptual issues tied to this event. I have followed this up with a more comprehensive look at this specifi c scene in ‘Blasphemy and the Jewish Examination of Jesus’
, BBR 17.1 (2007), pp. 53–114. Yet another updated version forms one essay for a forthcoming WUNT volume yet to be titled on the historical Jesus edited by Robert Webb and me. The present essay seeks to get into yet more detail on the specifi c question of Jesus’ use of the Son of Man imagery in this context.
5. The Use of Daniel 7 in Jesus’ Trial
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issues tied to the question of the apocalyptic Son of Man separately. First, I discuss the use of Ps. 110.1, especially as it appears in Mark 12. Then I take up the question of Daniel 7 and the debate over the Son of Man.
In considering authenticity issues associated with the use of Ps. 110.1, our key text is Mk 12.35-37, because it sets the backdrop to the examination scene.
In that passage, Jesus raised the question why David calls the Christ Lord, if he is supposed to be David’s son.2 If this passage raising the issue of what Messiah should be called is authentic, there is nothing unusual about its presence in the trial scene.
Now the major objection to the authenticity of this Mark 12 text and its use of Ps. 110.1 is its alleged dependence on the LXX to make its argument. It is claimed that the wordplay involving the title ‘Lord’ is only possible in the LXX, so this text must be a later Christological refl ection of the post-Easter, Hellenistic Christian community.3 Hahn also rejects any attempt to suggest how this text may have been read in Hebrew or Aramaic had there been an attempt to avoid pronunciation of the divine Name, a point raised by Dalman years ago.4
Two points need to be made here. The fi rst point in response to Hahn is that one cannot exclude by mere declaration the possibility that the divine Name was not pronounced in an oral setting. It must be noted that it was common for biblical texts to be pronounced with a substitute for the divine Name, as also was the case for benedictions, with the exception of a few specifi ed cases. One of the situations with benedictions is noted in m. Sotah 7.6. This text describes how the common priestly benediction of Num. 6.24-26 was given to the people.
So here we have a scriptural text and a benediction. In the provinces, each 2. For a full treatment of Ps. 110.1 and its suitability to this setting, see my Luke 9:51–
24:53 (BECNT, 3b; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), pp. 1630–41.
3. This argument is clearly summarized by Ferdinand Hahn, Christologische Hoheitstitel (5th edn; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995), pp. 112–15.
4. Dalman,
Die Worte Jesu, p. 270. In the English version, the discussion of avoiding the divine name appears on pp. 182–83 and 194–98. In these sections he shows the kinds of things that were done at the time. On p. 182 he says, ‘It may be accepted as certain that by the time of Jesus the divine name hwhy had long disappeared from popular use, and that in the public reading of Holy Scripture the word was replaced by ynd)’. He also notes here how this was done in rendering the divine name into Aramaic as well by mixing vowels of ynd) with the radicals of hwhy. He suggests that perhaps the phrase ‘the name’ may have been used. One of the things the rendering of ku/rioj in the LXX already indicates is that some type of practice making this kind of a move for the divine name already existed when this translation was made by Jews of the time.
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verse was read by itself, and the crowd would respond with amen in each case, while at the temple it was read as a whole and treated together. But the more important consideration for us comes next when the issue of the pronunciation of the Name is treated. The text reads, ‘in the temple they pronounced the Name as written, but in the provinces by a substituted word’. So it is no guarantee that the presence of the divine Name in Scripture meant that it would be read or spoken in public.
Another text is m. Yoma 6.2. This text records the confession of the high priest over the lamb for the nation’s sins on the Day of Atonement. Included in the saying is the citation of Lev. 16.30. This verse includes a reference to the divine Name, which the high priest did read, and the crowd bowed and fell on their faces when ‘the people which stood in the temple court heard the expressed Name come forth from the mouth of the high priest’. In addition, they responded to the confession and the use of the Name with a euphemism,
‘Blessed be the name of the glory of his kingdom forever and ever’.5
These two texts show that using Scripture in the temple (or in public) did not guarantee the divine name was pronounced.
Still a third example appears at Qumran, though it is not consistent.6 In the Isaiah Scroll, hwhy is occasionally altered to ynd), or the dual phrase (ynd) hwhy) is reduced to only ynd) (1QIsa glosses the Name in 28.16, 30.15, 65.13, by writing above it ynwd); and reduces it in 49.22, 2.4, 1.1).7 In 1QIsa 50.5, 5. The command is also noted in exactly the same way in m. Yoma 3.8.
6. Stephen Byington, ‘hwhy and ynd)’, JBL 76 (1957), pp. 58–59.
7. Contra Siegfried Schulz (‘Maranatha und Kyrios Jesus’, ZNW 53 [1962], pp. 125–44
[133]), there is evidence of this type of change in early material. On pp. 132–33, he notes that a shortened form of the divine Name (why) appears in the Elephantine papyri of the fi fth century BCE (iaw), but he raises questions about how much can be drawn from this practice.
However, the very presence of an alternate and abbreviated form of the Name shows that the Name is being treated with respect by not being reproduced exactly. The texts at Elephantine can be found in A. Cowley, Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923). The passages where the Name appears are: 6.4, 6, 11; 22.1, 123; 25.6; 27.15; 30.6, 15, 24-27 (3×); 31.7, 24-25 (2×); 33.8; 38.1; 45.3-4; and 56.2. Care with regard to speaking the divine Name is also noted in Josephus, Ant 2.12.4 §§275–76; and in Philo, Vit.
Mos. 2.114. For evidence of a substitution of the Name with Lord, one can note the LXX
and the examples at Qumran; see Note 8. On the use of iaw, see R. Ganschinietz, ‘Iao’, in Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (Stuttgart: Metzlersche, 1916), vol. 9, cols. 698–721; Menahem Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1974), vol. 1, pp. 98, 171–72, 211–12, and vol. 2, pp. 140–41, 410–12, 673; and David Aune, ‘Iao (‘Iaw&)’, RAC 129, cols. 1–12.
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it is replaced with Myhwl). The Name is omitted from 1QIsa 45.8, while in 1QIsa 52.5 and 59.21 it is omitted once when it appears twice in the MT. In 1QIsa 3.17, ynwd)w appears for the Name, while 3.15 writes ynwd) over the Name. In 1QIsa 40.7 and 42.6, a row of dots appears where the Name would be expected, while in 42.5 the term Myhwl)h appears instead of the Name.
The same occurs in other texts from Qumran as well.8 These changes show that some Jews were careful to avoid writing the divine Name in Scripture, which in turn would prevent its being pronounced as well. These examples show it is an open question whether the Name would have been pronounced or avoided.
What these examples mean is that it is not certain that even if Jesus cited Ps. 110.1 he would have spoken the divine Name as written, given the possible variations permitted within oral delivery. This raises doubts about whether Jesus pronounced the divine Name. It is quite possible that the divine Name was not pronounced, but a substitute was given, although the alternate option also exists. The minute such a substitution was made, the ambiguity would exist in Aramaic (y)rml )yrm rm)). In Hebrew, a substitution revolving around the reuse of ynd) is also a possibility.
The second point in response to Hahn applies even if a substitution for the Name was not made, namely, that the problem introduced by Mark 12 text remains, though with slightly less of an edge. The issue raised by Mark 12 is not that the divine title Lord is used, but that David, an ancestor in a patriar-chal society, calls a descendant his Lord.9 This problem exists in the text in its Hebrew form as well. In the entire dispute over the later Christological signifi cance emerging from this text, it has been forgotten that the dilemma 8. Michael
A
.
Knibb,
The Qumran Community (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 134, 170, 232–33, 250. He notes how the Name is written in old script in 1QpHab vi 14, while in 1QS VIII 14, the citation of Isa. 40.3 leaves only four dots where the name YHWH
appeared. Interestingly, in 4QpPsa ii 13 the reverse is the case, as YHWH appears where
‘Lord’ was present. J. A. Fitzmyer has criticized Schulz at this point in ‘The Contribution of Qumran Aramaic to the Study of the New Testament’, NTS 20 (1974), pp. 382–407 (386–91).
He notes in 11QTgJob the absolute use of Aramaic and comments on: (1) the construct chains Schulz mentioned in the Elephantine papyri at 30.15, (2) the use of )hl) for the tetragram-maton in 11QTgJob 37.3, 38.2 (2×), 38.3, and 38.7, and (3) the rendering of yd# twice by
)rm in 11QTgJob 34.5, 7, as well as its likely presence in 36.8. In 34.6-7 he is confi dent it appears for the divine Name. For another probable absolute use of the term Lord (yrm), see also 1QapGen 20.12-13.
9. Jesus’ argument appears to assume that David is the speaker of the utterance.
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originally rotated around the honour that David gives to the proposed Messiah, who also is his descendant, a fact that is ironic in a culture that gives honour to the elder, not the younger.10 Thus it is quite possible that the text in an unaltered Semitic form could raise the dilemma that Jesus points out in the text. Why would David call his descendant Lord? Might whatever signifi cance is attached to being seated at God’s right hand be the reason? Might that promise, then, call for refl ection?
These two considerations (the possibility the Name was not pronounced and the tension of the elder respecting the younger) mean that Ps. 110.1 could be used as a way of probing the authority of the Messiah from the perspective of David as the one affi rming the royal promise, according to Jewish tradition.11