judge

Um..my view would be that every time the Lord is mentioned as coming on clouds it is metaphoric and hence no one would see the Lord literally.

This is what I think is meant in the synoptics.

Later christians took these texts and instead began to look for a literal coming where Jesus/the Lord would actually be seen.

i'm not sure about the reference to Saul. What is it?

jeffevnz

I stand corrected.

GrahamSA

Thanks to the replies to my question, much appreciated, I am learning !

My understanding that the term/word Christ/us is a title ?

And if so when any reference is made by Josephus/Pliny/Tacitus to Christ/us does it necessarily mean that Jesus (Biblical) is being referred to ?

Jesus bar Abba/s (Barrabas) was also around at the time, could it not be that it was he that was referred to as being on the receiving end of Pilate's bad treatment ?

Graham

neilgodfrey

(I Samuel 22.) Your view is certainly the common understanding of the synoptics today and probably a long time past, but I don't know how we can be certain that was how it was originally meant. Mark's gospel has seeing/not seeing as one of its key motifs, and often "seeing" means seeing in a metaphorical sense only. Christ was seen in his glory on the cross -- but not everyone can see this. The Roman centurion may have seen it, Mark's original readers presumably saw it, but the narrative is clear that most did not see it. And many things Mark expects one to see are seen in inverted irony -- such as that example of Jesus glorified on Golgotha. This leads one to wonder if one is meant to "see" a similar reversal of the normal literal sense of the words in the coming of the Son of Man in Chapter 13. Christ coming will be in the way the prophets of old "foresaw" the coming of the glorified God -- in the destruction and corpses left by armies.

I don't know if this is part and parcel of the Danielic image of the coronation of one like the Son of Man -- in Daniel the coming refers to a change in order (a "new order") on earth marked by the Son of Man "coming to the Ancient of Days" in heaven.

With two apparently alternative views in the OT of what the coming of the Lord meant, neither of which fits the modern understanding, I don't think it is safe to be too quick to assume our common understanding of the literal meaning in Mark is what was originally meant. -- especially given the problems the modern literal interpretation does raise -- as per the OP, which I don't think has been completely put to rest by any of the usual explanations offered.



Neil

Decypher

The "Coming of the Son of man" in Matthew 24:30 seems to connect in the NT with material about a judgement of individuals where people will be rewarded or punished. So to me, it doesn't seem to be talking merely about the destruction of Jerusalem.

Responses that I have seen, include the partial preterist idea of splitting up the verses and having two different "comings". I haven't seen much in the way of evidence for that.

Another preterist idea that I have seen is that the judgement being talked about in Matthew 25 etc. is something that everyone enters after they die, rather than it being an event in history where the Son of man turns up and everyone alive or dead gets judged at that time. But if you place it outside of being an historical event, you're interpreting the prophecy in such a way so that it can't be verified or falsified which looks very suspicious.

I believe context (what I take to be connected material) is against such an interpretation. For example:

It seems to be talking about angels and a judgement. It doesn't look like "messengers" spreading the gospel message.

GrahamSA

Please help me here ............... why is Jesus referred to as the Son of man, my understanding is that he has always been sold to us as the Son of God ?

Perhaps I have looked past the obvious, but just not making sense to me :huh:

Graham

Amaleq13

The author is generally understood to be using the language of Daniel 7:13 in keeping with the notion of Jesus as a fulfillment of it:

I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.(KJV)

judge

1 Samuel 22 ?
Neil was that reference right? I can't see any mention of the Lord coming.

It is not common among christians now or historically as far as I know.

Maybe others share it. Who were you thinking of?

ible

You'll note that it is Jesus calling himself the Son of Man.... I imagine that the astounding thing, from God's point of view, is not that God is the Son of God, but that he is the Son of Man .

neilgodfrey

2Sa 22:10 -
He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet.

If we read Daniel 7:13 (one like the Son of Man coming in clouds) and Mark 13 within the literary tradition of the above and following citations we begin to see how Mark 13 can quite naturally refer to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 c.e. -- the end of the Jewish/Mosaic/Temple kingdom, allowing "Christians" to claim inheritance of the new kingdom thus ushered in.


Isa 30:27 -
See, the Name of the Lord comes from afar, with burning anger and dense clouds of smoke; his lips are full of wrath, and his tongue is a consuming fire.

Jer 4:13 -
Look! He advances like the clouds, his chariots come like a whirlwind, his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us! We are ruined!



Divine judgment, immediately administered by conquering armies, is really from the clouds of heaven . . .

Jer 51:9 -
"'We would have healed Babylon, but she cannot be healed; let us leave her and each go to his own land, for her judgment reaches to the skies, it rises as high as the clouds.'

Jer 51:16 -
When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth. He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses.

Other passages where the "day of the Lord comes" or appears or with judgment and clouds symbolizing or directing human military conquest below ---

Eze 30:3 -
For the day is near, the day of the Lord is near-- a day of clouds, a time of doom for the nations.

Eze 30:18 -
Dark will be the day at Tahpanhes when I break the yoke of Egypt; there her proud strength will come to an end. She will be covered with clouds, and her villages will go into captivity.

Eze 34:12 -
As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness.

Isa 14:31 -
Wail, O gate! Howl, O city! Melt away, all you Philistines! A cloud of smoke comes from the north, and there is not a straggler in its ranks.

La 2:1 -
How the Lord has covered the Daughter of Zion with the cloud of his anger! He has hurled down the splendor of Israel from heaven to earth; he has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.

Eze 32:7 -
When I snuff you out, I will cover the heavens and darken their stars; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not give its light.

Eze 38:9 -
You and all your troops and the many nations with you will go up, advancing like a storm; you will be like a cloud covering the land.

Eze 38:16 -
You will advance against my people Israel like a cloud that covers the land. In days to come, O Gog, I will bring you against my land, so that the nations may know me when I show myself holy through you before their eyes.

Joe 2:1-2 -
For the day of the Lord is coming, for it is at hand, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness. Like dawn spreading across the mountains a large and mighty army comes, such as never was of old nor ever will be in ages to come.

Na 1:3 -
The Lord is slow to anger and great in power; the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet.

Zep 1:15 -
That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness,

Jud 5:4 -
"O Lord, when you went out from Seir, when you marched from the land of Edom, the earth shook, the heavens poured, the clouds poured down water.

De 33:26 -
"There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, who rides on the heavens to help you and on the clouds in his majesty.

We also have metaphoric uses of "seeing God" from the same literary circuit:

Job 42:5
I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.

And Mark's gospel is, of course, the gospel of metaphor par excellence -- in particular metaphors of seeing and hearing. Galilee is the metaphor of the kingdom of God -- where Jesus is to "be seen" after his resurrection.

It is also interesting, I think, that at the Transiguration in Mark's gospel, that some disciples are allowed to see the kingdom of God in power (with clouds) but only for a moment. Suddenly the reader is drawn to the scene of the same disciples looking around and seeing no-one anymore. The vision was only momentary. It was there but then not there. Yet the kingdom of God is still "at hand", with them, in Jesus, as demonstrated immediately afterwards by his power contrasted with their impotence.

The kingdom was seen coming in clouds and it was there with them, but not seen any more.

After Jesus' resurrection he was "seen" again in 70 c.e. according to the narrative.




Mea culpa. I wrote on the fly while between here and somewhere else.


Neil