The following is from a transcript of part of Bart Ehrman’s Q&A to his 8th lecture in his series The Maverick Gospel of Luke. The lecture is at BSA here.
Son of Man – Three Questions and Answers
[Megan] It’s possible that Jesus actually did consider himself to be the Son of Man as opposed to a separate figure, and do you know of any arguments for or against this?
[Bart Ehrman] It’s possible. I’d say most scholars think that it’s true. I don’t.
The reason I don’t is in the Gospels Jesus definitely does talk about himself as the Son of Man: the Son of Man must go to Jerusalem, be rejected by the scribes and elders, the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head, etc.. He talks about himself as the Son of Man.
There are three categories of Son of Man sayings in the Gospels. [Formating into a list is mine.]
- Some of the Son of Man sayings are Jesus just talking about himself. The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.
- Some of the sayings about the Son of Man are about his going to Jerusalem and being killed. The Son of Man must be rejected and killed.
- Some of the Son of Man sayings are talking about a future apocalyptic Son of Man, a cosmic judge of the earth, who’s going to come and destroy the forces of evil and set up God’s kingdom.
The question scholars have long addressed is, did Jesus say all of them? Some of them? Any of them? If he said some of them, which ones? I think that Jesus probably did not say some of these.
I don’t think Jesus predicted that he was going to go to Jerusalem and be crucified and raised from the dead. I think that those are sayings later put on his lips by people who knew that that happened to show that he wasn’t taken by surprise. I think there are Son of Man sayings that he didn’t say.
The thing is though, if you look at these separate Son of Man sayings, the sayings about the Son of Man coming as a future judge are sayings that put the Son of Man in the third person. Jesus says, whoever’s ashamed of me, the Son of Man will be ashamed when he comes. And so, it’s not clear he’s talking about himself.
The argument is–I didn’t make this argument up–but I’ve long found it convincing. The argument is that Christians later thought Jesus had talked about a cosmic judge. Later Christians thought that since he’s gone up to heaven, he’s the cosmic judge. And so they started identifying him as the Son of Man. And they made up sayings where he talks about himself as the Son of Man.
But if you’ve got a saying a later Christian made up saying that doesn’t identify him as the Son of Man, well, that doesn’t make sense. It seems like a saying that is not identifying Jesus as the Son of Man would not have been invented by somebody who thinks Jesus is the Son of Man.
And those are always the cosmic judge sayings. I think those are the authentic sayings in which he differentiates himself from the Son of Man.
2nd question
[Megan] Could the Son of Man possibly have nothing to do with Daniel’s prophecy and merely be a translation of the Aramaic “bar enash”, meaning human being, including one other than Jesus?
[Bart Ehrman] There are lots of debates about Son of Man. There are big books written on Son of Man. As I said, my view isn’t the majority view. And, you know, who knows what the majority view, there’s lots of views, lots of books.
The Aramaic bar enash means Son of Man. It also means man. I think Jesus did use the phrase bar enash. And I think sometimes there are passages in the New Testament that make better sense if you realize he used that. Let me give you an example, because it’s a pretty interesting one.
When Jesus says, Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Therefore, the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath. Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Therefore, the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath. That makes no sense.
So when it says, the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath, what’s the logic? So what’s the therefore, therefore? How does that follow? If Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, how does that make the Son of Man the Lord of the Sabbath? But the same word in Aramaic means “man” and “son of man.”
So what Jesus said is, Sabbath was made for bar enash, not bar enash for the Sabbath, therefore bar enash is the Lord of the Sabbath. Now it makes sense. So Jesus certainly used the word bar enash.
Is it an allusion to Daniel 7? Well, if the bar enash is coming on the clouds of heaven in judgment of the earth, that’s one like a son of man from Daniel 7:13-14. So I think those sayings definitely are [an illusion].
You do get the son of man, Ben Adam—it’s a Hebrew, it’s not Aramaic—in Ezekiel referring to Ezekiel himself or to a mortal being. And so, it can mean a range of things. I think Jesus used it to talk about this cosmic judge.
3rd Question
[Megan] When Luke uses son of God and son of man, does he imply divinity?
[Bart Ehrman] When people today say son of God, Jesus is both son of God and son of man, what they typically mean is he’s both divine and human. He’s son of God, so he’s divine, and he’s human because he’s son of man.
That is the way these terms came to be used in later theological controversies of early Christianity, that son of God referred to his divinity, son of man to his humanity. In the New Testament, it’s the reverse. In the biblical tradition, Son of God was a human figure, and Son of Man was a divine figure.
Son of God refers to anybody on earth who is God’s representative. So the King of Israel is called the son of God. The nation of Israel is called the Son of God, or even angels are called the Sons of God.
It’s just anybody who’s manifesting God’s will or doing God’s will. If it’s a human, like a king, it just refers to the son of God as a human being.
The Son of Man is this cosmic figure coming from heaven. It’s a divine being. If somebody does think Jesus is the son of man as the coming cosmic figure, it’s saying that he’s a divine figure coming from heaven. But, if they say he’s the son of God, it doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s divine within Jewish circles.
If you’re a Greek or a Roman and you say son of God, it usually does mean that you’re related to God. And so it’s all very confusing.
NOTE – All the above text is from my transcript of Dr. Ehrman’s video.
