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Who Is This Son of Man

Latest scholarship by L Hurtado on the son of man

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Who Is This Son of Man

Latest scholarship by L Hurtado on the son of man

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Lance Lopez
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JO 183 a) FN WESC) CN 09 Sa Dad ee Ded, Wa nf Oa WO i) Be) SS ‘WHO IS THIS SON OF MAN? The Latest Scholarship on a Puzzling Expression of the Historical Jesus EDITED BY LARRY W. HURTADO \ PAUL L. OWEN “* “WHO IS THIS SON OF MAN?’ The Latest Scholarship on a Puzzling Expression of the Historical Jesus EDITED BY Larry W. Hurtado AND Paul L. Owen e t&t clark Copyright © Larry W. Hurtado, Paul L, Owen and contributors, 2011 Published by T&T Clark International A Continuum imprint ‘The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SEl TNX 80 Maiden Lane, Suite 704, New York, NY 10038 www continuumbooks.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Larry W. Hurtado, Paul L. Owen, and contributors have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Author of this work. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: HB: 978-0-567-52119-4 ‘Typeset by Pindar NZ, Auckland, New Zealand Printed and bound in Great Britain Preface: The Son of Man Debate, What's the Problem? Abbreviations List of Contributors. 1 ISSUES CONCERNING THE ARAMAIC BEHIND 6 vids Tod cvGpes rou: A CRITICAL REVIEW OF SCHOLARSHIP Albert L. Lukaszewski 2 PROBLEMS WITH CASEY'S SOLUTION” Paul L. Owen 3 RE-SOLVING THE SON OF MAN ‘PROBLEM’ IN ARAMAIC David Shepherd . (Fiebig, Menschensohn, p. 75). Thi thesis as well (pp. 119-21) 22. This is not to suggest that Dalman’s work lacked its detractors; however. what eriti- cisms of his work there were did not gain adherents and were poorly conveyed. One notable exception to the unusual Jack of debate in the first half of the twentieth century is Nathaniel Schmidt’s vitriolic ‘Recent Study of the ‘Term “Son of Man” JBL 45(3/4) (1926), pp. 326-49. The author decries Dalman’s study as unscientific and ‘a mistaken estimate based on question- able data’, The main criticisms are Dalman’s tendency to weigh textual evidence ~ especially Palmyrene and Nabataean ~ without due consideration of the genres involved: “A philological observation may furnish a significant clue, but it must be followed through all the literary data, with due regard for the necessary criticism of sources and the main theories propounded in this field. Historical methods must be applied in the sifling of the material and the search for ascertainable facts’ (p. 327). For all of Schmidt's rhetorical vigour, however, the article lacks any substantial rebuttal to Dalman’s detailed discussion in Die Worte Jesus. Itis worth noting that, while Meyer's Aramaic argument was rejected, the understanding of the phrase that he espoused continued to find favour. We know of the dissent largely after the fact, by way of the posthumous publication of A. J. Wensinck’s notes on the matter. Wensinck ees that the phrase referenced “man” but dissents from its being a form of self-reference Despite the presence of this view, Dalman’s view certainly had the greater number of adherents and was regarded as the authoritative position. So Matthew Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (31d edn, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1998), p. 296: ‘Gustaf Dalman, hitherto the recognized authority on the subject [of the Aramaic backgrounds to the New Testament)’ h aus Daniel 7.13 = der Messias. Ist es richtig. der Mensch aus Daniel 7.13 = der Messias ist statement is reiterated and emphasized later in the 6 ‘Who is this Son of Man?’ of Man passages. He contested Dalman’s late dating of an indefinite sense for SWISS 12, suggesting that the argument was self-fulfilling — one naturally finds later phenomena in sources of late dating. Campbell instead argued that an indefinite phrase may be made to carry a definite sense at any time.” He further posited that such a reference in Aramaic was probably accompanied by a demonstrative adjective: SWI8 TI S177. That demonstrative was unneces- sary in Greek and was probably dropped. He concludes that the phrase was thus misunderstood by the translators and was thought to be a title. Shortly after Campbell argued for a mistranslation, John Bowman attacked Dalman’s arguments directly, employing both Targum Onqelos (on which Dalman relied for his work in Die Worte Jesu) and the Palestinian Targums from the Cairo Genizah. In the latter, Bowman found instances of both SW] 12 and U2 2 with an indefinite, general sense.** In 1950, Erik Sjoberg revised Dalman’s conclusions.» Sjaberg, like Ficbig and Dalman, surveys a vast array of ancient Near Eastern texts.”’ With Fiebig and Dalman, he finds that 1(8) 12 was probably used often in the Galilean Aramaic of Jesus’ time. Against Dalman and Fiebig, however, he finds that the phrase is not self-referential but pronominal. suggesting “a man’ or “someone”. While much of the corpora that Sjéberg used are today of questionable rel- evance for the present study, his was the first to attempt a large-scale diachronic analysis by broadening his scope to non-biblical works that preceded Jesus” time by several centuries 23. In support of this, Campbell cites Paul’s self-reference in 2 Cor. 12.2-3: ‘oi8a GvOpcorrov Ev Xpiated 24, ‘The phrase may also be S17177 SWI 72 in Campbell’s view. 25. See Gen. 4.14 and 9.5-6. 26. Erik Sjoberg, ‘O78 72 und W28 72 im Hebriischen und Aramaischen’, AcOr 21 (1950-51), pp. 57-65, 91-107 27. In the broad range of corpora used were Targum Ongelos, Targum to the Prophets, Elephantine Papyri, Nabataean inscriptions, Palmyrene inscriptions, Christian Palestinian Aramaic, and the Syriac corpus, It is worth noting that the diachronic range of the corpora used by Sjoberg is extraordinarily wide, extending from sixth century BCE to ~ at the earliest sixth century CE. 1. Issues Concerning the Aramaic Behind 6 uios Tou avépa@ trou 7 The debate Part 3: after Qumran After Sjéberg’s study, the field lay fallow for 15 years. In 1965, Geza Vermes gave a lecture in Oxford that was subsequently published in the third edition °8 After of Matthew Black’s An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Ac surveying the literature of the debate, Vermes states:”* [I]t may safely be accepted that ($)23 72 was in common use, both as a noun and as a substitute for the indefinite pronoun, in the early as well as in the later stages of the development of the Galilean dialect, and that the employment of the definite or indefinite forms does not substantially affect the meaning, Vermes then takes as the points of contention the use of the phrase as a circum- location for the first person and the possible messianic connotation behind its use (viz. Dan. 7.13) Vermes’ study took the debate forward in that his was the first study to use the fragments from the Cairo Geniza that Paul Kahle published and the five columns of the Genesis Apocryphon published by Avigad and Yadin.* In addi- tion, his corpora of comparison included Talmud Yerushalmi, the Aramaic of the Genesis Rabba, Codex Neofiti, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the fragmentary Jerusalem Targum, the Palestinian Talmud, and the Babylonian Talmud.*' He thus concludes that ($)0} 12 is a Western Aramaic circumlocution for the first person and is used to indicate humility, humiliation, danger or death. Noting readily that the phrase is not well-attested, he posits that this is not a reflec- tion of the rarity of the phrase: “It is more likely due to the rarity in the extant Aramaic sources of the sort of idiomatic setting in which such a grammatical phenomenon might normally occur’. This rarity, however, does not affect 28. Geza Vermes, “The Use of An Aramaic Approach, pp. 310-30. 29. Vermes. ‘Use’. p. 314 30. Paul Kahle, The Cairo Geniza (Oxford: Blackwell, 1959), Nahman Avigad and Yigael Yadin, Genesis Apocryphon (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1956) 31. Itis worth noting that, aside from the Genesis Apocryphon and Codex Neofiti, Vermes corpora date at least 300 years later than the time of Jesus and the earliest Christians. 32. Vermes, ‘Use’. p. 327 1D in Jewish Aramaic’ Appendix E in Black. 8 ‘Who is this Son of Man?’ Vermes® conclusion that, because none of the instances he uncovered were messianic in character, ($)W2 12 was unsuitable as a name or title. Finally, for 6 vids Tot dvGpestrou to become the term of honour that it did in Christianity and not have been a creation of the same, Vermes posits a conundrum. If the phrase was translated into Greek from Aramaic, then it was, according to Vermes’ argument, something ‘other than a title’. If it was natively Greek, one is confronted with the question of why a Hellenist would create ‘so alien an idiom’.™' Reaction to Vermes’ argument was swift and critical.’* Overall, respondents noted that all of Vermes’ examples were generic in nature and could thus include the speaker; one could not therefore be certain of the referent’s specificity. As Jeremias notes in reply, 8722 S81777 means “Myself and none other’ where SW 72 denotes “The Man, so myself”.*° Vermes’ response to these criticisms in 1978 was that he was misunderstood; the circumlocution was not necessarily a direct synonym for direct speech but an evasive way of making a roundabout reference. Fitzmyer further noted that Vermes’ corpus consisted largely of later Aramaic texts.” Later Aramaic dropped the initial 8. As a consequence, the morphological aspect of Vermes’ study is skewed.** Despite the lateness of the corpora and the morphological problems observed by Fitzmyer, Vermes’ argument was taken up, albeit with modification, by 33. Vermes, ‘Use’, pp. 327-28. In support of his conclusions, Vermes finally refers to yriac and Christian Palestinian Aramaic, wherein the expression 6 vids To dv8pas Trou is rendered severally as 8287 772, $WIIIT 773, 79237 772 34, Vermes, ‘Use’. p. 328 35. See Frederick H. Borsch, The Son ef Man in Myth and History (London: SCM Press, 1967); Joachim Jeremias, “Die alteste Schicht der Menschensohn-Logien’, ZNIV 58 (1967). pp. 159-72; and several works by Joseph A. Fitzmyer: Review of Matthew Black’s An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (3rd edn) in CBQ 30 (1968), pp. 417-28; “The Contribution of Qumran Aramaic to the Study of the NI, NTS 20 (1974). pp. 382-407; “Methodology in the Study of the Aramaic Substratum of Jesus’ Sayings in the NT” in Jesus aux origines de la christologie (ed. J. Dupont; BETL, 40; Gembloux: Ducoulot, 1975), pp. 73-102. An additional later, critique of Vermes is found in Bruce Chilton, ‘Son of Man: Human and Heavenly’, in The Four Gospels (ed. F. Van Segbroek, et al, BETL, 100; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1992), pp. 203-18, 36. ‘Ich und kein anderer’ and ‘Der Mensch, also auch Ich’, respectively. Joachim Jeremias, ‘Die alteste Schicht der Menschensohn-Logien’, ZNW 38 (1967), pp. 159-72 (165, n. 9). 37. See Note 31 38. Joseph Fitzmyer, A Wandering Aramean (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1979), pp. 143-60 1. Issues Concerning the Aramaic Behind 6 uios Tou avépa@ trou 9 Barnabas Lindars and Maurice Casey. Lindars’ methodology was manifestly weak and his conclusions have been discounted widely as a result.” Of the two, only Casey pursued the philological aspects of the Son of Man problem at length Over the course of several studies,"' Casey carries Vermes’ study on 8W3 2. forward, agreeing with his conclusion and employing it even when reverse translating large sections of Mark’s Gospel and Q.** From Vermes’ work and his own, Casey concludes that “()WI(S) 72 is a normal term for “mai 39. Bamabas Lindars, Jesus Son of Man (London: SPCK, 1983), Maurice Casey, Son of Man: The Interpretation and Influence of Daniel 7 (London: SPCK, 1979). 40. Lindars analysed a portion of Vermes® corpus and concluded three means of self-reference involving the third person: 1, a generic statement in which the speaker is included with the hearers 2. an exelusive reference by which the speaker alone is referenced 3. a gentilic use of a generic article by which the speaker references a class of persons His conclusions, however, have been refuted by several scholars. See Matthew Black ‘Aramaic Bamasha and the Son of Man’, ExpTim 95 (1984), pp. 200-206; Richard Bauckham. “The Son of Man: “A Man in My Position” or “Someone”?”, JSNT 23 (1985), pp. 23 Reginald Fuller, “The Son of Man: A Reconsideration’ in The Living Text: Essays in Honor of Ernest W. Saunders (ed. Dennis E. Groh and Robert Jewett; Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1985), pp. 207-17; Caragounis, The Son of Man, pp. 29-33. Lindars himself characterizes his conclusions as ‘a matter of guesswork’ (p. 53) and a ‘necessarily speculative reconstruction’ (p. 73). Casey would further omit the volume completely from his ‘State of Play” review of the literature in Aramaic Sources of Mark's Gospel (SNTSMS, 102; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), only referencing it later en passant (p. 163, n.17) Al. Casey, Son of Man, ‘General, Generic and Indefinite: The Use of the Term “Son of Man” in Aramaic Sources and in the Teaching of Jesus’, /SNT'29 (1987), pp. 21-56; ‘Method in our Madness, and Madness in their Methods’, JSNT 42 (1991). pp. 17-43: From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God (Louisville, KY: Westminster, 1991); “The Use of the Term (S)W3(8) “2 in the Aramaic Translations of the Hebrew Bible’, JSN7'54 (1994), pp. 87-118; ‘Idiom and Translation: Some Aspects of the Son of Man Problem’ N7S 41 (1995), pp. 164-82. 42. Aramaic Sources of Mark's Gospel (SNTSMS, 102; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); An Aramaic Approach to Q (SNTSMS, 122: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). The several and severe methodological problems with Casey’s retroversions in particular have been taken up in detail in my own ‘A Viable Approach to the Aramaic of the New Testament’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation; University of St Andrews, 2005), pp. 88-99. 43. Aramaic Sources, p. 111 10 ‘Who is this Son of Man?’ Following Fitzmyer,"* he observes that the first Aramaic reference similar to that under consideration is in the third Sefire inscription, a diplomatic treaty dating from the middle of the eighth century BCE that includes the use of 28 13.45 Casey then references Aramaic phrases that involve the use of “A. as a nomen regens and a form of WI8 as a nomen rectum which he translates as ‘Son of Man’ and as equivalent to 0 vids Tot dv@pastrou, These ‘exam- ples’ include a plethora of forms from disparate dialects and dates: W128 12, SOIND, 8H) TD, DIS TA, W) TI and SUIS 13." Casey treats the linguistic issues inherent in the diachrony of these several forms with little regard.’ Rather, he states that once ‘we have reviewed the range of usage of (8)WJ(%) 72 in natural Aramaic, we can proceed to the reconstruction of Jesus’ Son of man sayings’ .‘* Given that the range of sources used in his survey extends from the Sefire inscription ¢.750 BCE to possibly as late as 1200 CE, the latest dating for the writings of Christian Palestinian Aramaic, one may conclude that Casey views Aramaic grammar as being 44, Fitzmyer, A Wandering Aramean, p. 147. Fitzmyer notes that U2 “2 is used in the third inscription in the same way that WW is used in the second (Sf1IB 16). The context in which WINS 72 occurs. ina list of treaty stipulations rly not poetic. Contra Fitzmyer, however. it should be noted that diplomatic treaties typically do not reflect ‘the ordinary daily usage of the time’ (p. 147). Therefore, while the phrase is clearly attested in a non-poetic document, it cannot be said therefore to represent the common vernacular. Further, Fizmyer discounts any difference between the aforementioned Hebraism, which is prefaced by a negative 85 in the text, and the use of the Aramaic phrase in Sefire III. The textual data, however, do not afford one perspective on whether the phrases U3 72 and LA S85 are not idiomatic ways of referencing two slightly different entities 45. Sf IIL 16-17 46, Forms are presented in the order presented by Casey, Aramaic Sources, pp. 111-121 It is worth noting that Casey himself cites this discussion as illustrative of his assessment of the evidence related to ({$)W3(8) 72 and the Son of Man problem to date (Aramaic Approach p. 133). 47. Casey conflates the issues of lexicography and grammatology. In his methodology for rendering Greek into Aramaic, Casey maintains that one must turn to any dialect anywhere for words that are lacking in the provenance under consideration. Even on a lexicographical level, this methodology is flawed due to considerations of external influence and diachrony that must be addressed whenever comparing Semitic dialects and languages ~ none of which Casey addresses adequately. Carrying that lexicographical misunderstanding into the grammar behind one’s translations renders Casey’s retroversions speculative at best 48. Aramaic Sources, p. 111 isch 1. Issues Concerning the Aramaic Behind 6 uios Tou avépa@ trou I almost completely static for nearly two millennia.” He maintains this view against massive textual evidence and several major studies to the contrary,*° and it is this relatively static view of Aramaic that he uses to support his several retroversions of Greek into Aramaic, including 0 vids Tot avOpastrou. Despite his manifest view that one can retrovert Greek using “Aramaic of any period and dialect’ to develop a lexical register, Casey does not define the corpus from which his grammar is developed. Representing the morphological variety attested in the literature with the grammatically ambiguous construction (SWINK) TA, Casey reconstructs 0 vids Tod av8pcstrou with similar variety 49. ‘Aramaic Idiom and the Son of Man Problem: A Response to Owen and Shepherd’, JSNT 25 (2002), pp. 3-32 (5): “Aramaic was a relatively stable language over a period of centuries.” Casey’s perspective ignores the plethora of linguistic changes that have occurred and continue to occur in Aramai living language with an ancient history. Indeed, Casey’s attempted justification of his dialectal conflation by citing words found in both the Talmud and the Sefire inscription is comparable to saying that an English speaker of the twentieth century would understand an English speaker of the eleventh because they both use the word “good” (albeit spelt differently), 50. See Fitzmyer, A Wandering Aramean, pp. 57-84; Klaus Beyer. Die aramdischen Texte vom Toten Meer (Gottingen: Vandenhick & Ruprecht, 1984), pp. 23-155; Lukaszewski, ‘Viable Approach”, pp. 12-32, 103-240. Finally, one may refer to perhaps the most compre- hensive treatment on the sundry differences between the Aramaic periods and dialects in Franz Rosenthal, Die aramédistische Forschung (Leiden: Brill, 1964). Extant Aramaic texts date as early as the first half of the tenth century BCE (Fitzm\ A Wandering Aramean, p. 60). Prior to the mid-eighth century BCE, Aramaic is likely to have been relatively indistinguishable from Ammonite — thus the ongoing dispute over the language of the Deir “Alla inscription. From that point until the late seventh century BCE, the language became progressively standardized as it grew in popularity, eventually displacing Akkadian as the diplomatic language of choice. It is only at this point that the textual evidence allows one to assemble more than a patchwork of grammatical phenomena. This relative standardization of Aramaic lasted to the end of the third century BC Greek replaced Aramaic as the diplomatic language of choice and the various Aramaic speech communities became increasingly Balkanized. The grammatical trends of the dialects thus ‘grew more disparate with time. The resulting differences in speech were increasingly manifest in written communication. At the time of Jesus, five different dialects of Aramaic are attested: Nabataean and Judaean in the west and Hatran, Palmyrene, and Edessene in the east. These represent the major areas of Aramaic usage under the former period which then became the regional centres of their respective dialects. Their grammatical differences are manifest in later dialects, Edessene through later Syriac and Judaean through later Jewish Literai The third century CE then sees the beginning of the Late Aramaic period, wherein Aramaic shifts from being a native dialect to being increasingly a learned second language in the latter centuries, after being supplanted by Arabic. Arabic gradually influenced even this sage of Aramaic to the point that Kurds and other minorities in the modern Near East speak an Arabicized dialect commonly called Neo-Aramaic. when Aramaic. 12 ‘Who is this Son of Man?’ as DIS 7 of them. The anachronism of ©) 72 is worth noting in light of the aleph dropping from the phrase much later than our period.*? The remaining two recon- structions, however, illustrate Casey’s perspective on the coalescence of the emphatic and absolute states. This ultimately represents Casey’s understanding 2) 7D. 8OI8 TD, and then W3 7 again without justifying any of how the construct phrase was formed at the time.*' It was this understanding that was addressed by Paul Owen and David Shepherd in 2001.° In a carefully nuanced argument, the authors address Casey’s assertion that the emphatic and absolute had coalesced in form and, therefore, meaning. In a survey of the Aramaic of 11Q10 (7gJob) and 1QGenesis Apocryphon, the authors note several times in Qumran Aramaic when the emphatic has a definitive force.*’ Further, they note that “the distinc- tion between the absolute, construct and determined forms was maintained’ in the Palestinian Targum fragments found in the Cairo Geniza which would have been written much later.’ Consequently, Casey’s ambiguity between the absolute and emphatic forms is concluded to be unsupported. Casey subsequently responded to Owen and Shepherd in 2002.** In his reply, he appears to have noted their textual data but refuses to address the problems of method noted by his opponents. Attacking Owen and Shepherd as approach- ing the problem too traditionally and rigidly, Casey again cites a series of references to support his position: four from Talmud Yerushalmi (Ber. 2.8/3, 2.8/10, 2.8/12, y.Kil. 9.4/4), two from Talmud Bavli (b.Suk. 53a, b.Sanh. 107b), two from Targum Neofiti (Gen. 9.6, 40.23), one from the Sefire treaty (3.14-17), 51. Aramaic Sources, p. 138. 52. In Aramaic Sources. see respectively pages 121, 138, 194, and 220. 53. The aleph in (SWS TZ did not coalesce into the J in Western Aramaic until the rabbinic writings (post-200 CE). See Fitzmyer, A Wandering Aramean, p. 149 54, As will be noted, Casey’s grammatical register is, at best, unduly ambiguous, possibly even confused. See Note 47 55. ‘Speaking Up for Qumran, Dalman and the Son of Man: Was Bar Enasha a Common term for “Man’ in the Time of J V7 81 (2001). pp. 81-122 56. The authors further observe Casey's ack of attention to dialectal and diachronic issues (Speaking Up’, pp. 95, n. 61; 105, n. 93), 57. ‘Speaking Up’. p. 95, n. 60. The statement is made with reference to S, Fassberg, A Grammar of the Palestinian Targum Fragments from the Cairo Genizah (USS, 38; Atlanta: Scholars, 1990), pp. 136-37 58. ‘Response to Owen and Shepherd’ 1. Issues Concerning the Aramaic Behind 6 uios Tou avépa@ trou 13 two from 11Q10 (9.9, 26,2-3), and one from 1QGenesis Apocryphon (21.13). Casey thus concludes that the emphatic has coalesced with the absolute, thus legitimizing his use of either when reconstructing the Son of Man sayings. Justifving an Aramaic Vorlage Asis plain in the brief review above, scholars have approached the Son of Man problem from a myriad of angles even within the usually narrow confines of philology. Was 6 Vids Tol av@pestrou coined by the early Christians asa titular term? Or was it adopted from the apocalyptic vision of Daniel 7. complete with apocalyptic and messianic trappings? Or was it adopted from the Hebrew of Ezekiel? Was it common first-century idiom in either Judaea or Galilee? If so, was it a direct substitute for the third person, a more general substitute, or a cir- cumlocution for the first person? For such a breadth of alternatives to arise from four Greek words is no less than astounding. Such a multitude of choice arises more from methodological issues than ambiguity in the sources, unfortunately. In the early twentieth century, J. H. Moulton commented on the sundry studies that appeared at the turn of the century and the sundry problems of method: ‘The fascinating pursuit of Aramaic originals may lead to a good percentage of successful guesses; but they are mere guesses still, except when a decided failure in the Greek can be cleared up by an Aramaic which explains the error, and this acts as corroboration. ’* This statement crystallizes the most fundamental problem with any attempt to assert that 0 Vids Tot avOpcsTrou is appropriated from a non-Greek language. While the phrase is used in an obvious titular fashion in the Gospels and may therefore seem unusual — even stilted — in certain contexts, it remains grammatically consonant with known Greek of the time. Consequently. the first question that must be answered by any attempt to revert the phrase into any hypothetical source language is Why must it nor be Greek in origin? Before any meaning of the phrase can be asserted, one must establish the context from which a meaning is to be distilled. As noted above, the majority of scholars who have written on this topic have accepted Coccejus’ assertion of an Aramaic, rather than Hebrew. origin 59. A Grammar of New Testament Greek. Vol. 2: Accidence and word-formation (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1920), p. 16. 16 ‘Who is this Son of Man?’ derived its commerce from traders travelling from Egypt and Arabia to India or the northern regions of the empire, and vice versa. Several of the pre-Arabic dialects are therefore attested in Eretz Israel at this time, including Thamudic in the Transjordan.® There are also several Arabic names among the Greek and Latin inscriptions found in south-east Syria and Transjordan.“* Consequently, when seeking foreign sources to a Greek phrase, one is faced with several candidates. The necessary way forward, as Moulton noted, is that of negative proofs. Given the aforementioned language candidates, any attempt to unearth the Aramaic behind 0 vids ToU avOpestrou must first justify why an Aramaic source — as opposed to Hebrew or Greek — is neces- sary. One consequently needs a grammatical touchstone against which to test the phrase. A touchstone traditionally used to quantify the ‘correctness’ of a Greek phrase is classical Attic. The trouble with doing so is that the Attic in question predates the time of Jesus by 500 years. Five centuries before the date of this article marks the beginning of the Elizabethan period in English literature —a period coinciding with the English Renaissance.” One of the religious hlights of that time is Saint Thomas More’s Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation (written 1534). In the 1951 republication of More’s work, the edi- tor notes that major redaction was necessary to render the work’s language to be ‘more like that of today’. Consequently, it would be widely recognized as absurd to try to judge modern English usage by a grammar deduced from a text of that era.”° 67. 'Thamudic belongs to the proto-Arabian subgroup and is written in a seript that comes from the Arabian Peninsula. The presence of the dialect in the Transjordan suggests migration, presumably by traders 68. Rabin, ‘Hebrew and Aramaic’, pp. 1009-10 69. Ellen Crofts, Chapters in the History of English Literature: From 1509 to the Close of the Elizabethan Period (London: Rivingtons, 1884). 70. The note reads: “The first plan was to change only the spelling. It soon became evident that the punctuation would have to be changed to follow present usage. The longest sentences were then broken up into two or three, and certain others were rearranged into a word order more like that of today” [see the Project Gutenburg version of the work at www gutenberg.org/ files/17075/17075-8.txt (viewed 20 July 2009). The situation does not improve if one moves forward by a century, to the King James Version of the Bible in 1611, or even two centuries (300 years ago), to the publication of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe in 1719. Descriptions of ancient languages as static — even relatively so —are as groundle yas ish or any other modern language (Contra Casey, ‘Response to Owen and Shepherd’, p. 5) 1. Issues Concerning the Aramaic Behind 6 uios Tou avépa@ trou 17 Consequently, one must try to use a grammar of a more relevant timeframe and provenance. This pursuit, however, leads to several Greek grammars that are distilled from the New Testament. The most recent of these in English was published nearly 50 years ago; the most recent in German is 30 years old: none has been distilled comprehensively. Given these dated and limited treatments, ittle authoritatively about the Greek aspects of our phrase except one can say to say that it is consonant with the basic rules of Greek grammar. A search through the New Testament reveals that the structure is quite common.” The problem with the phrase thus becomes one of context and the religious mean- ing intended As a consequence of this lacklustre sourcing of Greek. philological studies on the Semitic background to the present Greek phrase are forced to assume an origin such as they endeavour to uncover. This is true regardless of whether one attempts to revert the phrase to Aramaic or Hebrew. If (as Casey states) the phrase is not ‘natural Greek’, why must it be ‘natural’ Aramaic?” The expression must be demonstrated to be dissonant in relation to the bulk of Greek usage at the time. Once shown to be discordant with Greek, a scientific approach would require analysing the phrase through the known grammatical phenomena and, if possible, grammars of the other languages in use in the same region and time. For 6 vids Tot avOpcstrou, this means considering the Aramaic. Hebrew and pre-Arabic evidence In doing so, however, one must first consider translation technique in 71. Outside the Gospels and Acts, Revelation tops the frequency list for occurrences of the structure article-noun-article-noun (genitive) in which the genitive modifies or otherwise relates directly to the preceding noun. It contains 219 such occurrences. However, the frequency can- not be said to relate to its style. Romans has 91, Hebrews 62. 1 Corinthians 60, 2 Corinthians. 37, 1 John 31, and Galatians 30, James, an epistle clearly written by a bilingual author with high Greek skills, has the construction only 13 times, It is worth noting that none of this data was available in the grammars. Rather. itis distilled from my work incorporated in the Lexham Syntactic Greek New Testament (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, n.d.), 72. Casey notes: ‘It is widely agreed that [6 vids Tol év@pc3rou] is not natural Greek. and that it represents some form of the Aramaic (S8)W(8) 72° (“Response to Owen and Shepherd’, 3). As Moulton’s comment on this subject implies, however, it is agreed so widely because it is so widely assumed ( Grammar of New Testament Greek, vol. 2, p. 16). In fact, the philological evidence for this point of the debate has never been developed sufficiently to support agreement much beyond assumption. See also Lindars, Jesus Son of Man, p. 17. scertain this, a bell curve appro: ‘i ior Greck and inferior Greek relative to the form and syntax employed by the majority of language users 18 ‘Who is this Son of Man?’ antiquity. In the literature surveyed above, the only scholar again who has taken up the matter of translation technique is Maurice Casey. Unfortunately, Casey consistently relies on translation studies that analyse modern languages and then extrapolates from those studies to address the problem of retrover- sion, summarizing the Septuagint’s translation techniques only in terms of overliteral translation to the point of transliteration.’* This does not do justice to the vast array of translation techniques manifest in the Septuagint and fur- ther anachronistically interjects modern language issues into a strange milieu. Ancient translations are known to have ranged from the very literal (so the LXX Pentateuch) to the very fluid (the rendering of Ben Sira from Hebrew).* At most, translators in antiquity are thought to have used a primitive glossary; there is no concrete evidence for the use of dictionaries or word lists.”° The literalness of the translation in the first books of the LXX is recognized as not indicative of highly developed translation techniques. Rather, as Olofsson and others have noted, it indicates reverence for the text.” Consequently, the literalness of any retroversion of 6 Ulds ToU dvOpestrou into Aramaic needs to be justified by the level of authority accorded to the text and the strictness required. Historically, Hebrew has been viewed as a second-string source for the phrase — even when understood to be still in use colloquially during Jesus’ time. The known Hebrew speech centres are located in Judaea.”* The understanding follows that, because Jesus came from Galilee, he would have been conversant in Aramaic alone, not Hebrew. Therefore, if the Son of Man sayings are to relate back to Jesus, they must originate from his mother tongue, Galilean Aramaic. 74, Casey, Aramaic Sources, pp. 93-98 75. Cf. Benjamin G. Wright, No Small Difference: Sirach s Relationship to its Hebrew Parent Text (SBLSCS 26; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), p. 26; Erik W. Larson, The Translation of Enoch: From Aramaic into Greek (unpublished doctoral dissertation, New York University 1995); Vincent ‘T. M. Skemp, The Vulgate of Tobit Compared with Other Ancient Witnesses (SBLDS 180; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 2000); Etienne Nodet, ‘Jewish Features in the “Slavonic” War of Josephus” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the SBL, Nashville, TN. 21 November 2000), p. 26. 76. Staffan Olofsson, The LXX Version: A Guide to the Translation Technique of the Septuagint (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1992), p. 7. 77. Olofsson, The LX Version, pp. 33-34. For more on the literalness of translation as correlative to the authority of the text, see Lukaszewski, “Viable Approach’, pp. 72-75 78. Greenfield, ‘Languages of Palestine’, pp. 145-50. 20 ‘Who is this Son of Man?’ Man’ is not necessary as much as the morphological and syntactic dynamics of the attested genitival expressions. An awareness of genitival expressions in other Semitic languages contributes to the degree to which one can attribute the phrase to one of them, none of them, or all of them. After excluding the phrase from Greek and justifying its origin as being particular to the Aramaic of the time, it is necessary to justify one’s chosen morphology. As noted above, studies as recent as 1965 showed an unnecessary reliance on Jewish Palestinian Aramaic and sources well outside the period of the earliest Christians. Again in 1979, Fitzmyer drew from a text of the eighth century BCE to illustrate the earliest occurrence of the phrase in Old Aramaic. While the latter is helpful for reasons of historicity, such an instance does not necessarily reflect the way a similar, diplomatic text would have been worded 800 years on, never mind the way a religious text would have been phrased. Rather, one must restrict one’s corpus to the closest dialects possible and as close as possible to the same or similar genres.** As Fitzmyer has noted, the time of Jesus and the earliest Christians is in the period of Middle Aramaic, a period from about 200 BCE to about 200 CE. These dates are certainly not firm.** but the relevance of the texts even within that range, never mind outside it, varies considerably. The texts from Coele Syria with provenance closest to the earliest attested post-resurrection com- munities are of three kinds: texts from Qumran, the Bar Kokhba letters, and the epigraphic material. Obviously, accepting the post-resurrection Church as the approximate centre, the relevance of each text is in direct correlation to its proximity in terms of date, geography and genre. The nature of the epigraphic material renders it unsuitable for the present problem except to clarify how 82. Vermes, ‘Use’. pp. 310-30 83. Fitzmyer, A Wandering Aramean, p. 147. 84. For this reason, the Aramaic from 11Q10 is not as relevant to the present problem as it may seem. There is no indication that such a form as that evinced in 11Q10 26.3 (W28 73) was the only way that the phrase could be constructed. 85. Fitzmyer, A Wandering Aramean, p. 77, n. 32. Itis worth noting that the natural start for Middle Aramaic is around 300 BCE, with the conquest of Alexander the Great, However, as Fitzmyer here notes, the Aramaic of Daniel suggests a degree of persistence in the older form called Biblical Aramaic. The degree to which this linguistic conservatism is a forerunner of the Atticising school of the second century CE is unclear. 1. Issues Concerning the Aramaic Behind 6 uios Tou avépa@ trou 21 fluid the linguistic environment was.*’ The Bar Kokhba letters appear around 60 years later than the source material for the Son of Man sayings, and after the revolt of 66 and the subsequent destruction of the temple in 70 as well as during the upheaval of the Bar Kokhba rebellion. Where it contradicts earlier material, therefore, the relationship of that evidence to the earlier texts must be clarified before it can be applied to the present problem. Consequently, to use the corpus closest in provenance to the earliest post-resurrection Christian communities without equivocations one necessarily turns to Qumran Aramaic. Whereas the Bar Kokhba material is well outside the period in which the Son of Man sayings came to be used among Christians, Qumran Aramaic existed in parallel. The earliest dating given to any of the Aramaic texts from Qumran is the first half of the second century BCE. The terminus for the com- munity as 68 CE, however, closely parallels the writing of the earliest Gospels. Consequently, the role of Qumran Aramaic as the primary source for any philological enquiry about Aramaic and the New Testament is beyond dispute. The question of the Aramaic behind 6 vids Tol dv@pcstrou thus moves from a concern about the genitival expression according to an allegedly homogeneous Aramaic, or even the more precise Middle Aramaic, to the construct phrase in Qumran Aramaic specifically ‘Natural’ Aramaic As with Biblical Aramaic, the Aramaic from Qumran evinces more than one way to form the construct relationship. Where Biblical Aramaic reflects three different ways,’ however, Qumran Aramaic (QA) manifests up to seven.** A sci- entific approach to the problem must justify its choice of form then, otherwise 86. One of the primary ways the presence of Judaea-based Arabians are known to us is through the names included in this material 87. F Rosenthal, A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic (Wiesbaden: Harassowitz, 1995), p. 29 ($48) 88. Lukaszewski, “Viable Approach’, pp. 199-201 (§9.1.2.2). This is not at all unusual T. Muraoka and B. Porten find six different forms of the construct phrase in the Elephantine Papyri (A Grammar of Egyptian Aramaic (Leiden: Brill, 2nd edn, 2003], p. 216 [$606]). F, Schulthess finds four ways in the Christian Palestinian Aramaic corpus from centuries later than our period (Grammatik des Christlich-Palastinischen Aramaisch (Hildesheim: Olms. 1965]. pp. 81-82 [§157)) 184 Index to Scripture and Other Ancient Sources 49.22 80 50.5 80 525 81 59.21 81 65.13 80 108 vill i4 81n8 1OpHab vi ld 81n8 10Sb 20-6 145 40161 8-10iii 11-25 145 iii20 147 40174 118-19 L45n48 40197 4112 22,24 43. 22 40201 314 23 40202 218 23 22 40212 521 75038 402140 2 “4 40246 22-4 75 40252 34 138 40405 231.23 147 40enAst 23 50 40lsaa see 40161 40pPsa ii 13 81 11Q10 (Targum of Job) 139 50 26.2-3 13,34 263 20n84, 22n92 28.2 50 345 81n8 34.6-7 81n8 34.7 81n8 36.8 8In8 373 81n8 38.2 8In8 38.3 81n8 387 81n8 NoI7 147 1QarJob see 11010 1Qmelch 218 85 HOT Job see 1QU0 EARLY CHRISTIAN: LITERATURE Apocalypse of Peter 61 130n1 Ascension of Isaiah 97-9 158 1132-3 130 Barnabas 12.10 102n4, 109, 168n20 Gospel of Mary 812-22 102n4 Gospel of Thomas 86 102n4, 167n18 Ignatius To the Ephesians 20.2. 102n4, 168n20 To the Smyrnans 13.2. 149 Irenaeus, Adversus Haeresis 3.10.2 102n4, 168n20 163 102n4, 168n20 16.7 102n4, 168n20 102n4 102n4, 168n20 19.1-2 102n4, 168n20 Josephus, Antiquitates Judaicae 2124 80n7. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew 3 82n10 83 82a 1003-4 102n4, 168n20 Odes of Solomon 882 161 Philo, De Vita Mosis 1.283 160 2114 80n7 Polycarp 83 149 Sibylline Oracles iii, 788-95 14547 Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem 410 Int OTHER ANCIENT SOURCES Elephantine Papyri 64 80n7 66 80n7 6 80n7 22.1 80n7 22.123 80n7 25.6 80n7 27.15 80n7 30.15 80n7, 81n8 30.24-7 80n7 30.6 80n7 317 80nZ. 31.24-5 80n7 33.8 80n7 38.1 80n7 453-4 80n7 36.2 80n7 Ezekiel the Tragedian 68-89 46-7 Index to Scripture and Other Ancient Sources Psalms of Solomon 219 147 145, 145n48 145 138 145, 145n48, 145 145, 14548, Sefire 3 314-17 3.16-17 10, 12, 25 12.34 10n45 Acts, son of man in 102n4, 169-70 anarthrous phrases 76, 115-16, 160-3, 165 Ancient of Days 36, 94n43, 142-3 angels in Daniel viii, 34n in Enoch 132n6, 150, 152 in John 107, 114-15 son of man as 98 Aramaic language definiteness in 72-5 demonstratives in 6 dialects of 173 emphatic form in 12-13, 29-32, 35, 50-9, 63-5 Enoch in 132-3 evolution of 10-11, 29, 51,67 extant texts in 1130 Galilean dialect of 6-7, 18-19, 34, 66 gospel traditions in 62 influence on Rabbinic Hebrew 60 Middle 20-1, 31, 33, 43, 30-3, 37, 59 Palestinian 62, 72 of Qumran texts see Qumran Aramaic (QA) “son of man’ in 1-2, 7-10, 13-14, 20, 25, 28, 43, 46, 57, 59-61, 63-4. 72-3, 104, 172-4, 176 touchstone for syntax 26 translation into Greek 68 Western dialect of 7, 12, 29-30, 72 Ascension of Isaiah 158 Attic, classical 16, 25 Bar Kokhba material 20-1, 26 Bethlehem 151 bilingual people 17, 63, 68, 71,77 Brown, Raymond 97 Casey, Maurice on Daniel 37-8, 37n21 on Enoch 156-7 on evolution of Aramaic 29 on E ATS and meaning of ‘son of man’ 14, 28-34, 39, 45-6, 50, 61-2, 172-4 on Parables of Enoch 132n6 and reconstructed sayings 65-8, 73, 76-7 sources used by 66-8 on translation techniques 18, 70-1 and work of Vermes 62-3 Christ on throne of God 130 as title 44, 83-4 use of by Jesus 122 crucifixion 78, 109-12, 120. 124-5 el the Tragedian Daniel eschatology in 86-7 in Ethopic language 141 interpretation of 35~7, 40n36, 46 Jesus’ use of 93-5 relationship with Enoch 142-3 similarities to John 116 son of man in viii-ix, 1. 34, 37, 62, 84-6, 98-9, 131, 168, 170-1, 175 Dead Sea Scrolls 32, 34, 44, 52, 66 definite articles viii, 64-3, 72, 75, 90, 147, 161-2, 16716 lack of see anarthrous phrases divine Name 79-82, 109 Dunn, James 83-4, 94-5, u7 Enoch see aiso Parables of Enoch: Similitudes of Enoch authenticity of 131-2 dating of 86n19, 93 son of man in 46-7 Ethiopic language 47, 131-3. 138-41, 147, 151, 153 Eucharistic tradition 126 Ezekiel in Ethiopic language 141 son of man in 13, 19. 47-8, 161 Ezekiel the Tragedian 46-7, 85 Ezra, son of man in 47 Farewell discourse 110, 112 Galilee 1 genitival gospels retro-translation into Aramaic 174 sources of 48 synoptic see synoptic Gospels translation techniques in 7041 18-19, 67 xpressions 20-1 Greek language definiteness in 757, 115-16, 167n16 demonstratives in 6 displacement of Aramaic 11n50 Enoch in 132-3 foreign sources of phrases in 11-12, 16-18, 48, 159 Jesus’ knowledge of 68-9 ‘son of man’ in 8, 13, 60, 63, 69-70, 141, 160-1, 163, 172 spoken in Eretz Israel 14-15 touchstone for syntax 25 Head of Days 142-3, 147, 149, 152 Hebrew language absolute forms in 55 definiteness in 73, 75 Enoch in 135 indefinite forms in 57 Jesus’ knowledge of 19. 68 plural forms in 161 relative clauses in 56 singular and plural in 59-60 ‘son of man’ in 13-14, 19, 161-2, 173 substitution of divine Name in 81 touchstone for syntax 26 use of 15, 18n77 interference 66, 68, 71-2, 77 Isaiah, relationship with Enoch 144, 146 Isaiah Seroll 19, 80 Jesus authority of 83, 116 expectation of kingdom of God 43-4 heavenly nature of 122 humanity of 120-1 identity of 118 John’s account of 103, 123 language spoken by 49, 60, 66, 68-9, 74 missionary instructions of 42 Subject Index reconstructed sayings of 67 resurrection of 43-5, 109-13, 115-16, 125, 129 self-understanding of 83-4, 87-8, 97-8, 100, 171, 175-6 speech patterns of vii, 30, 34, 42, 123, 163, 167-8, 174-5,177 trial of 78-9, 83 use of divine Name 81 use of ‘son of man’ 75-6, 78, 89, 91-3, 95, 98n50, 99, 102, 127, 169-70 Jesus movement, theological innovations of 99 Job, QA version of 51-2 John Christology of 104, 122-3 double meanings in 108 historicity of 101-4 son of man in 101, 104-6, 113, 116, 122-7, 129, 163, 165 Jonathan see Targum Jonathan Judaism Jesus as reformer of 99 and Parables of Enoch 136 kingdom of God 43, 99 Latin language 14, 47, 65, 132 Luke, son of man in 127, 164 LXX see Septaugint Mark authenticity of 79, 84 historical versimilitude of 87 son of man in 97, 98n30, 127 Matthew, son of man in 127, 163-4 Messiah authority of 82-3 Davidie 142, 145-6 in Enoch 137-8 name of the 149 and son of man 92n36, 126 use of by Jesus 122 187 Metatron 158 Micah 42n44, 151 Nicodemus 107-8, 117 Noah 133, 135, 137, 156 nomen rectum 24 nomen regens 10, 22-3 Old Testament in Greek see Septuagint Jesus’ quotations from 19, 79, 81-2, 87, 94-7 Onkelos see Targum Onkelos Parables of Enoch dating of 86n19, 133-6 ending of 152 heavenly mediator in 130 manuscripts of 132-3, 137-9, 142-3, 145-9. 153-4, 157 origin and significance of 131 original language of 135 son of man in 131n3, 137-9, 141n38, 142-3, 145-9, 152, 154-6 structure of 136-7 Parousia 41, 124 passion predictions 125 Paul self-reference of 6n23 self-understanding of 176 Peter, confession of 83 pre-Arabic dialects 14-17, 19, 26 priestly benediction 79-80 Qumran, manuscripts of Enoch from 134 Qumran Aramaic (QA) construct relationship in 21-4, 25n102 emphatic in 12, 23-4, 51 historical prionty of 21, 26, 52 idiomatic expressions in 334 Revelations, son of man in 102n4 Righteous One, the 131n3, 138, 156 188 self-reference 9 Septuagint 18, 79-80, 108, 114, 147, 151, 160-2 Servant of Yahweh 144 Shoot of Jesse 142, 144-5 Similitudes of Enoch 46-7, 63, 65, 85n16 son of man apocalyptic 79, 84, 87, 90, 92 ascent and descent of 106-8, 120, 165 belief in 117-19, 121, 124 in Christian texts 168-72 days of the 41, 75 as defined concept 75 Elect see Parables of ‘noch, son of man in Enoch as 152-8 in Ethiopic language 139-41 glorification of 110-13, 124, 126 Jesus as 90, 120, 166-8, 174 Subject Index Jesus Jesus, use of ‘son of man in Judaism 85-6, 93 and judgement 119, 125, 145-8 and king 93-4 lifting up of 108-10, 113, 125, 129, 165, linguistic background to term 1-6, 19, 25-6, 167 as link between heaven and earth 114-15 pre-existence of 148-52, 155, and salvation 116-17, 124-6 and son of God 121-2 as title vii, 6, 28, 30, 32 39, 43, 64-5, 88-90 son of man sayings apocalyptic 91 se of phrase see authenticity of 28, 38-44, 102 Casey’s explanations of see Casey, Maurice, and meaning of ‘son of man” and Daniel’s vision | in John 106, 113-15, 119, 128-9, 166 object in 73-4 reconstruction of 10, 48 in synoptic Gospels 128-9, 164-5 synoptic Gospels historicity of 102 son of God in 121 son of man in vii, 91, 123-7, 163, 165 Targum Jonathan 53-7, 59 Targum Onkelos 53-7, 59 Tertullian, and Daniel 1 throne of glory 86, 125, 135n18, 143, 145-7, 149 translation technique 17-18, 70 Vermes, Geza 1, 7-9, 22-3, 25, 61-3, 72, 74, 172n29 Torlage 69-70, 133n7

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