Saturday, May 21, 2022

Delbert Burkett on the Problematic Nature of Claiming Jesus' "Son of Man" Sayings is an Expression of His Humanity

  

Ultimately the interpretation of “Son of Man” as an expression of Jesus’ humanity failed because it made the title superfluous: Jesus had no need to emphasize his simple humanity, since it would have been apparent to all. As Beyschlag pointed out, “Jesus could not possibly have felt any need of again and again assuring his contemporaries of his true human nature, which none of them could doubt” (Beyschlag, New Testament Theology, 1894: 1.61). The idea that Jesus emphasized his human nature in contrast to his divine nature is anachronistic, since it presupposes the orthodox dogma of Christ’s two natures, concepts that “belong to the theology of the fifth century, and not to the biblical mode of thinking or speaking” (Beyschlag 1894: 1.61). Furthermore, as James Stalker emphasized,

 

the statements made about “the Son of man” are anything but characteristic predicates of humanity . . . things are predicted about “the Son of man” which are the reverse of simply human.

(Stalker, The Christology of Jesus, 1899: 47-48)

 

For instance, it does not belong to the characteristic peculiarity of human nature to forgive sins, as in Matthew 9.6 (Usteri , "Die selbstbezeichnung Jesu als des Menschen Sohn," Theologische Zeitschrift aus der Schweiz, 1886: 9), or to come on the clouds of heaven.

 

Bernhard Weiss raised similar arguments against the concept of the “lowly” human Son of Man:

 

For the genuine humanity of the man who stood before them, and therefore, also the weakness that belonged to His human nature as such, and the fact that it was subject to suffering and death . . . these were points as to which they had no doubt; and neither the homelessness (Matt viii.20) nor the suffering which is claimed for the Son of Man in Mark viii.31 belongs to the common fate of man.

(B. Weiss, Biblical Theology of the New Testament [1868] 1893: 1.74) (Delbert Burkett, The Son of Man Debate: A History and Evaluation [Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series 107; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997], 20)