Zeichman

I made the mistake of mentioning I was a universalist earlier this week and now I have to defend it. One of the reasons I believe it is because I believe that in Justification by Faith Alone, the historical Jesus would fail to be granted salvation. Thus, I'm wondering if I could get some assistence with arguments against a Jesus who believed himself to be the messiah- in any sense of the word. I'm not interested in radical criticism here, nor anything like that. Here's what I have so far, off the top of my head:

I) Paul
- Paul believed that Jesus was the Messiah by ressurection (though I don't recall the verses), and not by his own claiming.
- Since Paul is the earliest Christian whose writings survive, and he knew the disciples of Jesus, we must expect that his explanation was accepted.
II) Q
- Q fails to contain the word "Cristos" anywhere in it
- The sole use of "Son of Man" to refer to Jesus (7:34) is never attested elsewhere
- Thus we cannot accept that Jesus was regarded as Messiah as a result of his claiming so.
II) Mark
- The Messianic Secret is demonstratably a Marcan creation used to explain why Jesus was not accepted by his generation. IIRC, it is never present outside of material derived from Mark.
III) John
- It is inconceivable that Jesus had two messages which were known by one group of evangelists and another known by another. The Johannine "I AM" sayings and related theology (in addition to almost all of the sayings) must be rejected historically.
- The Johannine sayings are too long and philisophical to survive oral tradition and must be the creation of the evangelist.
IV) Didache & Thomas
- IIRC, the idea of a Messiah is absent from these works.
V) Messiah by return
- This one may be dubious, since this is based on a century-old document (namely, The Mystery of the Kingdom of God by Schweitzer).
- The Markan evangelist believed that Jesus would not be the Son of Man until his glorious return.
- Mark speaks of the Son of Man almost exclusively (or is it exclusively?) in terms of the future.
- Thus, Mark did not regard Jesus as having been Messiah during his life
- If this view of Mark has been debunked, let me know, please.

Any help would be appreciated.

Amaleq13

I think you can go a little beyond this and argue that the author of Mark also did not believe that Jesus was regarded by his disciples as the Messiah during his life. The "Messianic Secret" is an attempt to read this later belief back into the ministry.

I also think you are better off arguing that, even if we assume Jesus used the phrase "son of man" in reference to himself, it appears that it was intended as a generic reference to humanity rather than a title.

Zeichman

Good call, thanks.
I think the problem with this latter part is that some parts clearly refer to a Messianic-I-Enoch-style Son of Man, and others certainly use it in a present "humanity" sense. I would feel dishonest saying that all of the gospels' references to the Son of Man were simply of humanity in general (as is the case in the Q instance).

Amaleq13

Well, the argument does depend on the conclusions of folks like the Jesus Seminar and, more specifically, Crossan (The Historical Jesus )with regard to what sayings can be reliably attributed to Jesus. According to those scholars, the only "son of man" sayings that can be reliably attributed to Jesus are the generic ones. The apocalyptic interpretation is understood to be a later development.

Zeichman

Ah, gotcha. I think I misunderstood what you said the first time around. That is, the view that the apocalyptic "Son of Man" stems from a reinterpretation/misunderstanding of the generic/inclusive "son of man" which Jesus probably was speaking about.

RUmike

Jesus refers to himself as the "Son of Man" in three distinct roles throughout the Synoptics. They are, with an example each from Mark:

a) an earthly figure: e.g. Mark 2:10 "But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins..."
b) one who must suffer and die: e.g. Mark 9:12 "And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again."
c) eschatological judge: e.g. Mark 8:38 "For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels."

So Mark believed Jesus was a Son of Man in several ways, and not only in the future. Although, the ones in the present/near-future were not eschatological in nature.

However, does Jesus believing he is the future Son of Man who would come to judge the world at the eschaton equate with a belief that he was the Messiah? Aren't the two very different roles?

Zeichman

I think these ideas were roughly equated with each other in the near-contemporaneous I Enoch.

RUmike

Another thing...

At the trial before the Sanhedrin, Mark has Jesus say:

But Mark is the only gospel writer to have Jesus explicitly giving himself a messianic identity at the trial. Even just a chapter later when asked by Pilate, Jesus simply replies "You say so" (15:2). Considering that Mt 26:64 and Lk 22:70 both have Jesus respond to the high priest in a similar manner with, "You have said so" and "You say that I am," respectively, it seems clear that Mark likely read the same way originally. Thus, no claim to being the Messiah. Also remember that Jesus never admitted to Peter he was the Messiah after Peter told him who he was. He simply told Peter not to tell anyone.

It is absolutely clear, I think, that Mark has Jesus being Messiah only in his death and suffering, and that, in the original version, probably never claimed to be the Messiah at all.

RUmike

After a little research it seems that may be the case in 1 Enoch. But wasn't the prevailing belief that the Messiah would do things the prophets said he would... restore the Davidic kingdom, establish peace, deliever the people from Gentile enemies, etc..? He was killed by the same powers that the Messiah was prophesied to overcome. I guess what it comes down to is, what was likely for Mark to belive? The former (simply an eschatological figure), or the latter (a political role)?

Zeichman

Most of the recent scholarship I've read has suggested there wasn't an especially unified view of the Messiah among different parts of Judaism. As far as I know, the wholly political Messiah only becomes prominent a while after the destruction of the temple, that being after Mark had been completed.

One book on my to read list is "Judaisms and their messiahs at the end of the first century" or something close to that. Perhaps it's something you may also want to seek out.

edited by mod to add: Judaisms and their Messiahs at the Turn of the Christian Era ed by Neusner is searchable on Amazon.