Saturday, December 4, 2021

Phillip B. Munoa III on Exalted Figures being Given the Attributes of Both the Son of Man and the Ancient of Days

 

Initially it may seem strange to argue that a Jewish author would so interpret Daniel 7 as to produce an exalted view of Adam and Abel, even substituting the former for the Ancient of Days. However, it has long been known that the Christian community, a distinctly Jewish community at its inception, made significant use of Daniel 7 in its exaltation of Jesus. This tendency of early Christianity to exalt a human figure, Jesus of Nazareth, beyond the status and function of ordinary humanity, is understood by L. Hurtado as 'standard fare in post-exilic Judaism' and was paralleled by what Casey calls a 'process of development of purely Jewish figures' also by communities other than Christian in Middle Judaism (Hurtado, One God, One Lord, p. 51).

 

Rev. 1.13-14 demonstrates how the Christian community interpreted both the Ancient of Days and the Son of Man of Daniel 7 in light of its allegiance to Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus is given attributes from each figure: the designation 'one like a son of man' and hair like white 'wool'.

 

Rev. 1.13-14: and in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like a Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a white sash across his chest. His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire.

 

Concerning this connection of Jesus and the Ancient of Days, Casey writes:

 

It is not impossible that John identified the Ancient of days as Jesus. Some Jewish exegetes saw an angelic figure here, Galipapa identified him as Mattathias, and the identification as Jesus was held by Ephrem . . . At this time Jewish authors did reuse such imagery in their descriptions of the intermediary figures characteristic of their apocalyptic works, and it is consistent with John's use of the rest of the OT to suppose that he did the same (Casey, Son of Man, p. 146).

 

Beside the Christian interpretation of Jesus in the tradition of the Ancient of Days and the one like a son of man, there is the angel Iaoel of the Apocalypse of Abraham. In this text Iaoel is described like Jesus was, with characteristics derived from both figures of Daniel 7.

 

Apoc. Abr. 10.4: "The angel [Iaoel] he sent me to me in the likeness of a man came . . . (emphasis mine)

 

Apoc. Abr. 11.2: The appearance of his body was like sapphire, and the aspect of his face was like chrysolite, and the hair of his head like snow . . . (emphasis mine)

 

Jesus and Iaoel as the 'Son of Man' and the 'Ancient of Days' illustrates the diversity of opinion over the identity of the ambiguous figures of Dan. 7.9-27. Speculation over the divine status of the 'Son of Man' could be encouraged by the text of Dan. 7.13. A Feuillet has shown how the accompaniment of clouds at the appearance of the 'one like a son of man' (Dan. 7.13) can be taken to indicate a divine figure since clouds often accompany Old Testament theophanies (A. Feuilet, 'Le fils de l'homme de Daniel et le tradition biblique, RB [1953], pp. 170-202 [197-88]). Goldingay notes how the 'one like a son of man' comes with or among the clouds, not on them, and adds that clouds came to collect Moses in Josephus (Ant. 4.4.48) and Jesus in the New Testament (Acts 1.9) (Goldingay, Daniel, p. 171). The Testament of Abraham adds to the controversy over this text through its near deification of Adam and Abel, both of whom are granted divine characteristics by the author. Even a figure like Adam, known as the fallen head of the human race in Genesis, could be interpreted as the 'Ancient of days' when the characteristics of this rather ambiguous Danielic figure were interpreted in a broader light. (Phillip B. Munoa, III, Four Powers in Heaven: The Interpretation of Daniel 7 in the Testament of Abraham [Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Supplement Series 28; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998], 62-64)

 

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