Another group of coming Son of man
sayings is found almost exclusively in Q, and each conforms to the structure of
the eschatological correlative discussed above. The first such saying is Luke
11:30 (Matt. 12:40):
For as Jonah became a sign to the men
of Nineveh, so will the Son of man be to this generation.
A second correlative is found in Luke
17:24 (Matt. 24:27):
For as the lightning flashes and
lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of man be in his
day.
The third and fourth correlatives are preserved
within a tightly structured framework in Luke 17:26-30 (Matt. 24:37-39):
I a As it was in the days of
Noah,
b So will it be in the days of the son of man.
c1 They ate, they drank,
c2 they married, they were given in marriage,
d until the day when Noah entered the ark,
e and the flood came and destroyed them all.
II a Likewise as it was in the
days of Lot—
c1 they ate, they drank,
c2 they bought, they sold,
c3 they planted, they built,
d but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom
e fire and sulphur rained from heaven and
destroyed them all—
b so will be on the day when the Son of man is
revealed.
The saying of Jesus is characterized
by a remarkably complex structure based on the principle of ring composition or
chiasmus. While the Semitic poetic structure alone does not guarantee that we
are dealing with an authentic saying of Jesus, the presence of such an
unusually complex structure is a forceful argument for authenticity. (David
E. Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World [Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1983], 182-83, emphasis in bold added)