In response to N.T. Wright’s belief that
the “Son of Man” figure in Dan 7 is not an individual, not a corporate
personality, Ben Witherington provides the following criticisms of this popular
but very errant belief held by many:
Where Wright
and I appear to part company is in the interpretation of Daniel 7. Wright
argues that the humanlike figure is simply a cipher for Israel as the true
humanity, as opposed to the beastly pagan nations. This is a possible
interpretation, but it draws on a rather dubious idea of corporate personality.
It appears more likely to see that the Son of Man is seen as a representative
of the beastly nations. The people of God could not simply be the new Adam;
they required a representative to fulfill this role. Wright is however correct
that it was indeed seen by various prophets as the vocation of God’s people to
restore the whole creation, not just the Promised Land, and this meant that
what happened to the Gentiles was conditioned upon what Israel was dong and
what was happening to Israel . . . Wright is able to show that Josephus
reflects the fact that the material in Daniel 1-12 was being seen in a
messianic light in the first century A.D. 9cf. Wars 6.312-15 to Ant.
10.206-9). In particular, the combining of insights from Daniel 0:24-27 and 2:35,
44-45 seems to have led to an individualized reading of Daniel 7:13-14. This potentially
could tell us a lot about Jesus’ use of the Son of Man phrase. Wright agrees
that the rereading of the Daniel 7 material in 4 Ezra 13:3-13 involves
an interpretation of the Son of Man figures as the Messiah, but he argues that
in Daniel itself Son of Man refers to the group—the saints of the Most High
(Dan 7:18, 27). I am unconvinced of this latter conclusion. The Son of Man even
in Daniel 7 originally represents rather than is synonymous with the saints of
the Most High. (Ben Witherington III, The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for
the Jew of Nazareth [2d ed.; Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press,
1997], 223-24, 226-27)
In an endnote for the above, Witherington
further discussed the problems of understanding the figure as a corporate
personality:
The
notion of corporate personality goes beyond the idea of someone who is a
representative or agent of a group. Thus, for instance, Wright will talk about Jesus
acting as Israel, not merely acting for Israel. In the notion of corporate
personality the many are included in or incorporated into the one. So, for
instance, with Adam the idea would be that the seed of Adam are (seminally)
present in Adam so that when Adam acts, his descendants have also acted. This idea
has rightly been questioned by various scholars, especially Old Testament
scholars such as J. Rogerson. It seems to involve a reading back of the idea of
“being in Christ” (i.e., believers incorporated into the divine and omnipresent
Christ) back into Old Testament notions about Israel and its representatives or
agents. (Ibid., 313 n. 117)
