Diogenes the Cynic

I know the dates. 150 still puts it well before Athenagoras

aa5874

Do you not understand that the fragment could have been written PAST 150 CE???

Why can't you even repeat what is written???

Diogenes the Cynic

No, it's attested by several patristics dating between about 140-160.

aa5874

Please name the patristics??? I hope they are NOT the same patristics that claim all the Pauline writings are authentic, and that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote the Gospels.

Duvduv

We find that the word "messiah" in GJohn appears only twice, in chapter 1 and chapter 4, i.e. when followers "found" the one of whom Moses wrote, and in conversation with the Samaritan woman.

Otherwise, identifying Jesus as the Messiah only occurs with the word Christ, i.e. once in chapter 4, and then in chapters 7, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 20. Does this distinction also appear in Greek? In these cases we don't got the sense that the "Christ" (anointed=messiah) has anything to do with the Jewish concept, and Jesus never answers anyone's questions about himself directly, always avoiding the direct answer.

Interestingly enough, he is never called "messiah" in the synoptics, only "Christ." In Luke and Matthew it is accompanied by the term "son of God", and in Mark son of God appears only twice along with son of the blessed.
Of course Son of Man is even more common in the gospels than the term Christ, Messiah or son of God.
There is really a lack of emphasis anywhere on Jesus being the actual Davidic messiah despite inferences relating to Elijah, the Baptist or King David. "Son of Man" appears twice as often as Christ in Luke and just about the same number as Christ in John; in Mark AND Matthew Son of Man appears twice as often as Christ.

What do folks think about all this? Is Son of Man SIMPLY interchangeable with Christ, which ostensibly means the same thing as Messiah in its Jewish sources? Or is there something else here? WHY would such writers prefer the term Son of Man even over Christ or Messiah??

Duvduv

Is it of no significance to those who believe in a direct link between epistles and the gospels that the authors of the epistles never refer to their Christ as Son of Man even a single time? This despite the fact that the term is used far more frequently in the gospels than the word Christ?!
Don't the apologists find this interesting at all? Could SOM be considered some different than a Christ or messiah?

Diogenes the Cynic

Yes, In Aramaic it just means "man."

"Son of man" (Ben Adam in Hebrew bar enash in Aramaic) was just a convention for referring to human beings in general. The "Son of..." prefix was especially prevalent in Aramaic and it was a phrasing used to indicate all kinds of associations - familial descendancy, of course, but one also might be called something like a "son of war," if they were a soldier or a "son of peace" if they were peaceful. Mark says that Jesus called the sons of Zebedee (John and James) Boanerges "sons of thunder."

It was also common to refer to ancestral identifications by way of the "son of..." construction. A descendent of Aaron would be a "son of Aaron," for instance.

Everybody was a descendant of Adam, of course, therefore everybody was a "son of Adam." Adam means "man." Therefore everybody is a "son of man." That construction, in normal use, just meant "human," or sometimes humanity collectively (analogous to how we use the word "man").

The Book of Daniel prophesies that "one like a son of man" (using the Aramaic, bar enash here) will descend from the clouds and take dominion over the world. Daniel is only saying that a man (i.e. a human messiah) will descend from the sky, and is not using it as a title.

That phrase seems to have, somewhere along the line, become an indirect way to reference the Messiah. There is question as to when, though. The Synoptics often have Jesus using it in the third person, and on more than one occasion, the saying appears to make as much or more sense if it's read as referring to humanity in general, instead of just the Messiah.

It is an open question whether Mark intended to use the phrase titularly or not, and a case can be made that he simply misunderstood the use of the phrase in his own source material as having a titular significance when it did not.

Duvduv

It is used even more frequently in the other gospels, even more than the word Christ ......

Diogenes the Cynic

Yeah, it's in Q, which means it's pretty early.

Another interesting thing about the "son of man" pericopes is that Jesus is the only one who ever uses the phrase, and he uses it in the 3rd person.

Duvduv

Personally I am not satisfied with the views that dismiss anything significant in its use compared with the word Christ.
Is Jesus the Son of Man something more than Jesus the Christ? And is the anointed messiah description merely an insufficient description of the salvic person in the form of the Son of Man in the gospels? Especially since the epistles never use it?