Son of Man

Jesus’ Relationship to the Heavenly Son of Man in Gerd Theißen and Annette Merz’s New Jesus Book

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Having learned much from Gerd Theißen and Annette Merz’s 1996 book Der historische Jesus: Ein Lehrbuch (ET = The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide, Fortress, 1998) during my student days, it evoked good memories for me to read their (relatively) new book Wer war Jesus? Der erinnerte Jesus in historischer Sicht. Ein Lehrbuch (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2023).

While there is much overlap with the 1996 book, there is also much that is new or newly conceptualized, including the extent to which the 2023 book is shaped by memory-hermeneutical questions and considerations. And this is presumably why the authors and/or publisher decided to give this book a new title rather than simply characterizing it as a new edition of the original book.

As Theißen and Merz put it in the opening sentences of the preface (p. 6): “Our textbook on the historical Jesus is the new version of a textbook that was published in 1996. It has, after a quarter-century, become a new book.” / “Unser Lehrbuch über den historischen Jesus ist die Neufassung eines Lehrbuches, das 1996 erschienen ist. Es ist nach einem Vierteljahrhundert ein neues Buch geworden.”

In this blogpost, I am going to provide a translation of a paragraph from the section titled “Jesus as Son of Man: The Explicit Christology” / “Jesus als Menschensohn: Die explizite Christologie” (pp. 407-416), alternating between my English translation and the German text. At the end of the post, I will then include a comparable excerpt from John Bowden’s English translation of the first edition, so that one can compare it with what is said in the 2023 book, while noting that some of what is said in this quotation is paralleled by material from the 2023 book that I have not quoted/translated below.

Excerpt from Wer War Jesus? (pp. 415-416):

There are then two possibilities for how Jesus understood his relationship to the super-earthly Son of Man.

Es gibt dann zwei Möglichkeiten, wie sich Jesus sein Verhältnis zum überirdischen Menschensohn.

He could have understood their relationship as a two-stage activity of the same figure.

Er könnte ihr Verhältnis als zweistufiges Wirken ein und derselben Gestalt vorgestellt haben.

In that case, he would have expected, as Enoch is appointed to (or installed into) the role of the Son of Man at the end of the Book of Parables in 1 Enoch 70-71, to be appointed (or installed) as Son of Man.

Dann hätte er so, wie Henoch am Ende der Bilderreden in äthHen 70-71 in die Rolle des Menschensohns eingesetzt wird, erwartet, zum Menschensohn eingesetzt zu werden.

Jesus would have had a futuristic self-consciousness (R. Otto).

Jesus hätte ein futurisches Selbstbewusstsein gehabt (R. Otto).

He would, however, have been much more than a forerunner of the future Son of Man and instead have been the divinely chosen candidate for this role.

Er wäre aber weit mehr als ein Vorläufer des zukünftigen Menschensohns gewesen, sondern der von Gott erwählte Kandidat für diese Rolle. (Note: It is difficult to capture the force of “sondern” here — usually “but rather” is best but “and instead” might work better in this sentence.)

But his statements sound as if a Son of Man already existed now in heaven – such as how Enoch in the Parables sees him already now in heaven (1 Enoch 36-69) before it is revealed to him at the end that he is this Son of Man (1 Enoch 70-71).

Aber seine Aussagen klingen so, als existierte schon jetzt im Himmel ein Menschensohn – so wie Henoch ihn in den Bilderreden schon jetzt im Himmel schaut (äthHen 36-69), bevor ihm am Ende offenbart wird, dass er dieser Menschensohn ist (äthHen 70-71).

Therefore, Jesus also understood himself as the representative of this heavenly Son of Man already now on earth.

Deshalb hat sich Jesus auch als Repräsentant dieses himmlischen Menschensohns schon jetzt auf Erden verstanden.

In doing so, he was able to carry a social-mythical parallelism between heaven and earth to its conclusion.

Er konnte dabei einen sozialmythischen Parallelismus zwischen Himmel und Erde zu Ende führen.

For the one like a son of man in Daniel 7 represents the people of God living upon earth, the Son of Man in the Parables of Enoch only a part of the people, namely the “community of the righteous.”

Der Menschenähnliche in Dan 7 repräsentiert nämlich das auf Erden lebende Gottesvolk, der Menschensohn in den Bilderreden des Enoch nur noch einen Teil des Volkes nämlich die “Gemeinde der Gerechten.”

Jesus, however, is the only representative of the heavenly Son of Man on earth as in Mark 8.38-39 (H. Merklein).

Jesus aber ist der einzige Repräsentant des himmlischen Menschensohns auf Erden wie in Mk 8,38f (H. Merklein).

Jesus was probably both: on the one hand the candidate for the role of the future Son of Man, on the other hand already now the earthly representative of the present Son of Man in heaven.

Jesus war wahrscheinlich beides: einerseits der Kandidat für die Rolle des zukünftigen Menschenshns, andererseits schon jetzt der irdische Repräsentant des gegenwärtigen Menschensohns im Himmel.

What is decisive is that he shows his strong consciousness of exalted status (or: majesty) through the fact that he ascribed to himself the same role as “the Son of Man.”

Entscheidend ist: Er zeigt sein großes Hoheitsbewusstsein dadurch, dass er sich die gleiche Rolle als “der Sohn des Menschen” zuschrieb.

Excerpt from G. Theißen and A. Merz, The Historical Jesus, trans. J. Bowden (Fortress, 1998), 552:

“In our view the interpretation mentioned last is therefore the most probable one: Jesus spoke of both the present and the future Son of Man. He combined the expression ‘son of man’ from everyday language with the visionary-language tradition of a heavenly being ‘like a son of man’. This combination revalued the everyday expression, and the visionary-language comparison with a son of man was replaced by the direct designation ‘Son of Man’. No angel, no heavenly being, no one who was only like a man, but a concrete man will take over his role in the kingdom of God which is breaking in: Jesus himself. He is at the same time the present and the future ‘man’. This ‘double’ concept of Son of Man is analogous to the ‘double’ kingdom of God eschatology. However, the combination of present and future eschatology in the kingdom of God is more easily understandable than in the case of a person who is speaking about his own future as though about another person. The two proposed solutions discussed by scholars – the assumption of a two-stage activity of the same person and that of a representative relationship between heavenly and earthly person – do not a priori contradict each other: mythical thought understands the future as the present which already exists in heaven. To say that Jesus represents in the present the future Son of man amounts to the same thing. Except that in relating himself to an already existing heavenly figure Jesus could not be referring to himsef, whereas in relating himself to a future figure he could. At all events, it is certain that Jesus thought in terms of a symbolic representative relationship. When he chose the ‘Twelve’, they represented the twelve tribes of Irsael. This presupposes that Jesus himself represents Israel as a whole. He, a human being, was destined to lead Israel into the kingdom of God.”

For my other blogposts on Gerd Theißen, see here.

For a complete list of my blog posts, please see here.

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Jens Schröter on Jesus’ use of the Son of Man Expression as Aufmerksamkeitssignal

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Today’s model sentence is excerpted from Jens Schröter‘s attractive attempt to answer the Gretchenfrage of the Son of Man Problem in his book Jesus of Nazareth – Jew From Galilee, Savior of the World (2014) / Jesus von Nazaret: Jude aus Galiläa – Retter der Welt (1st = 2006; 4th = 2012).

For my other posts on this book, see here. For all my Schröterposts, see here.

Jesus of Nazareth (p. 167): The Son of Man expression can then be placed into the profile of the activity of Jesus as follows: Jesus used this expression in such a way that with it the distinctive character of precisely his activity was stressed … Thus, Jesus used the expression “Son of Man” rather than merely saying “I” in order to point to the distinctiveness of his person: everything that took place through him and toward him was of singular significance because as the representative of God he established God’s reign and confronted human beings with the decision over salvation and judgment. Thus, one can understand Jesus’ use as an attention-attracting signal with which he pointed to the distinctiveness of his person.

Jesus von Nazaret (4th edition, p. 254-255): Der Menschensohnausdruck lässt sich dann folgendermaßen in das Profil des Wirkens Jesu einzeichnen … Jesus benutzt demnach den Ausdruck “Menschensohn” und sagte nicht einfach “ich”, um damit auf die Besonderheit seiner Person hinzuweisen: Alles, was sich durch ihn und an ihm ereignete, war deshalb von einzigartiger Bedeutung, weil er als Repräsentant Gottes dessen Reich aufrichtete und die Menschen mit der Entscheidung über Heil und Unheil konfrontierte. Man kann die Verwendung durch Jesus also als ein Aufmerksamkeitssignal verstehen, mit dem er auf die Besonderheit seiner Person hinwies.

Grammatical Analysis: the subject is Menschensohnausdruck/Son of Man expression. I usually translate the expression lässt sich + infinitive (here: einzeichnen) as can be verb-ed (here: “can be placed into” or “can be sketched into”). dann = then. folgendermaßen = as follows. in das Profil (acc) + des Wirkens (genitive) + Jesu (genitive) goes with einzeichnen: can be placed/sketched into the profile of the activity of Jesus. Jesus is the subject and benuzt/uses is the verb. With a view to readability, I translated demnach as “thus” rather than “according to this”. den Ausdruck/the expression is the object of the verb and Menschensohn/Son of Man represents the expression that is in view. I translated und sagte nicht einfach (and said not simply) as “rather than merely saying” with a view to English style. “ich” = “I”. um + zu + infinitive = in order to verb: the zu is found in the verb at the end (hinzuweisen = zu hinweisen = “in order to point to”). I left damit untranslated: I sometimes translate damit with “thereby” or “in this way”. auf goes with the verb (to point to); it takes the accusative die Besonderheit/the distinctiveness + genitive seiner Person/of his person. Alles, was = everything which/that (I chose “that” because it seems to me that the clause is defining rather than non-defining). sich ereignete is the verb (happened/took place); durch ihn = through him. an ihm is more difficult and I’ve never discovered a great way to capture the sense in English, since “on him” doesn’t work so well and “toward him” or “to him” is not much better; sometimes I use “in relation to him”. war von Bedeutung = was of importance/significance + einzigartiger = was of singular or unique significance. deshalb/weil literally means  “therefore/for this reason …. because” but in this construction it is probably better to leave deshalb untranslated. weil/because introduces a subordinate clause and therefore the verbs aufrichtete/established and konfrontierte/confronted move to the end of their sentence segments. als Repräsentant Gottes = as representative God; in English it seemed necessary to write “as the representative of God”, though it probably would have been better to translate this phrase with “as God’s representative”. dessen Reich is the object of aufrichtete: established his reign/kingdom. In the context, his = God’s. Given the German word choice it may have been preferable to translate Reich as kingdom, but the translation really depends on knowing what emphasis the author wants to set with each use of this term. die Menschen = “people” or “human beings” is the object of konfrontierte. mit + dative (der Entscheidung) goes with konfrontierte = “confront … with the decision”, which is defined further via the preposition über/over + the two objects of the preposition, namely Heil/salvation and Unheil/judgment. Unfortunately, the word “unsalvation” doesn’t exist in English, so it is necessary use a word such as “judgment”, “ruin” or “disaster”: one of the the latter options may be preferable. Man = one or people. Man kann …x…als … verstehen = “one can understand x” or “x can be understood as”: the latter is often preferable despite the change from active to passive. die Verwendung (object of verstehen) = the use; durch Jesus = by Jesus: it would have been possible to alter the syntax and simply write “Jesus’ use”. also = thus/therefore (not “also”, which is a false friend): in English it is often best to move “Thus” to the beginning of the sentence. als ein Aufmerksamkeitssignal = “as an attention-attracting signal”: it is in the same case as die Verwendung (accusative), which would make it an object complement in Greek, but I’m not sure if this is the way one would speak of this construction in German/English. mit dem = with which. It introduces a subordinate clause and the verb hinwies (from hinweisen) moves to the end: with which er/he … points + auf/to + accusative die Besonderheit/the distinctiveness + genitive seiner Person/of his person.

Substantive analysis: I am attracted to and convinced by Schröter’s interpretation of Jesus’ use of the Son of Man expression as an Aufmerksamkeitssignal, which I think makes good sense of what we find in the narratives of the Gospels and good sense of what seems likely for the earthly Jesus.

Let me conclude today’s post by giving a plug for my wife Ingie Hovland‘s latest blog post on the anthropology of Christianity: Hidden determinants of Christians’ behavior: Reading Annelin Eriksen and Joel Robbins on values in Christianity!

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German Mondays: Thank you for making it to the end of this blog post! Unfortunately, I have found it increasingly difficult to write a new post each Monday, but I hope to be able to write at least two or three Monday blog posts each month. We’ll see. Best, Wayne.

 

 

Solving the “Gretchenfrage” of the Son of Man problem with Eugene Boring

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The title of this post is intentionally misleading. It aims to raise one’s hopes that this post will unlock the great mysteries associated with the interpretation of the “Son of Man” expression in the Gospels. Though it can, of course, do nothing of the sort, I hope that it will resolve a minor “Son of Man” problem that for me at least had remained a mystery until now, namely the problem of making sense of the title of Anton Vögtle’s 1994 book Die “Gretchenfrage” des Menschensohnproblems (3rd edition 1997).

Whenever I had read Vögtle’s title, I had wondered about the precise meaning of “Gretchenfrage”. It was clear that it meant something about the “question of the Son of Man problem”, but I remained completely in the dark about what it meant beyond that. Fortunately, Eugene Boring shed some light on this matter for me in a helpful note in his translation of Udo Schnelle’s Theology of the New Testament. It reads as follows (p. 150, n. 274):

“[To ask the ‘Gretchen question’ is to ask about someone’s deepest religious or political convictions; from Goethe, Faust, I.—MEB]”

In my further attempts to determine the precise meaning of the term, I found the following explanations:

The Redensarten-Index defines Gretchenfrage as “eine wesentliche Gewissensfrage” (a fundamental question of conscience) and as “die entscheidende Frage” (the decisive question).

Wiktionary provides a number of definitions, among which [1], [2], [3], [4] and [5] could all be relevant for Vögtle’s usage. In other words, it might convey the nuance/connotations of  [1] evoking the usage in Faust, [2] weighty/significant, [3] pertaining to religion, [4] calling for a decision, and/or [5] tricky/difficult and therefore hard to answer.

Finally, Jeremy Gray suggests that the “Gretchen Question” is comparable to the English expression “where’s the rub”?, which is if nothing else a brilliant attempt to convey the force of a Goethe reference with the help of an allusion to Shakespeare!

[And Ben Simpson noted in his comment on this post that “the Collins Dictionary defines this as the “sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.”]

In the end, I still remain somewhat uncertain about how exactly this phrase should be translated. In other words, should the translator simply write the “Gretchen question” or should an attempt be made to signal the meaning of this phrase? If the latter, how should this be done? Would the “decisive question” or the “all important question” or the “deeply penetrating question” or the “crucial question” or the “fundamental question” of the Son of Man Problem be adequate? Or would a more expansive solution like “the decisive yet difficult question of conscience that calls for a decision” be required to convey something of the possible range of nuances?! Given the depth of meaning of the term, I suspect that it may be best to retain the phrase the “Gretchen question” as Eugene Boring has done, perhaps with an explanatory footnote.

For some other links that touch on the “Gretchen question”, see here and here and here and here and here and here.

For a complete list of my blog posts, please see here.

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For two interviews with me about the Baylor-Mohr Siebeck Series, see Clifford Kvidahl and Michael Hölscher.

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German Mondays: Thank you for making it to the end of this blog post! In an effort to provide a sense of regularity and predictability for this blog’s readership, I plan on writing a new post each Monday. So hopefully I will ‘see’ you again in a week’s time. Best, Wayne.