Sunday, January 14, 2024

Joel Marcus: "The Son of [the] Man" means "the Son of Adam"

  

SUMMARY

 

The Gospel expression ο υιος του ανθρωπου = "the son of the man" means "the son of Adam." The most natural way of construing the double definite article is that it speaks of the son of a particular man, namely Adam, who is called ο υιος του ανθρωπου in Genesis 1-2 LXX.  The Adam in question, however, is not just the biblical protoplast but also the figure of later Jewish and Christian legend, who possessed dominion and divine glory, which will be restored to him at the eschaton (cf. the exalted Son of Man sayings), who exercised authority over the created order, which is governed as the earthly representative of the heavenly king (cf. the present authority sayings), but who is also associated with the worlds present condition of suffering and death (cf. the suffering Son of Man sayings).

 

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One of the big advantages of the Adamic interpretation of the "Son of Man" is that it permits integration of these seemingly disparate religionsgeschichtlich backgrounds. The Adamic interpretation encompasses Category 1 because of the dominion and divine glory of the prelapsarian Ada, which will be restored to him at the eschaton. It embraces Category 2 [the earthly activity and/or authority of the Son of Man] for basically the same reason: before the fall Adam exercised authority over the created order, which he governed as the earthly representative of the heavenly king. And it embraces Category 3 [the suffering and death of the Son of Man] because of the association of the post-lapsarian Adam with the world's present condition of suffering and death.

 

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The Adam Traditions and the Son of Man Sayings

 

Having surveyed the relevant Adam traditions, we may now return to the three categories of Synoptic Son of Man sayings listed above in order to show their consonance with Jewish and Christian traditions about Adam, most of which can be traced back to the first Christian century or earlier times.

 

1) The Son of Man in his exalted state: At the eschaton Adam will be resurrected and will recover the glory that he lost at the fall. He (or his son Abel, the "son of Adam") will become the eschatological judge of all humanity, helped in his task by the angels. The description of Adam (or his son Abel) in his role as eschatological judge is parallel to the description of the "one like a son of man" in Daniel 7.

 

2) The earthly activity of the Son of Man: Along with his glory, Adam will recover dominion, the kingly rule that he had at his creation, his authority over all other creatures—an authority which he exercised at the earthly vice-regent of the heavenly king. In the fall, the devil usurped Adam's dominion over the world; but that dominion will be recovered at the eschaton.

 

3) The suffering and death of the Son of Man: Until that recovery, however, Adam will continue to be associated with the consequences of his act of disobedience, namely the suffering and death that are an inevitable part of the human condition before the fall.

 

Thus, all three categories of the Synoptic sayings about "the Son of the Man" have close analogues in the Adam traditions. The "exalted Son of Man" sayings correspond to traditions about Adam's pre-lapsarian glory and authority, which he will recover at the eschaton. The "present authority" sayings reflect the same traditions, but understood from the vantage point of realized eschatology: Jesus is already exercising the dominion over the world that Adam once had. And the "suffering" sayings reflect Jesus’ participation in the other side of Adamic existence, the suffering and death that Father Adam brought on all humanity through the enmity of the devil and his own sin. (Joel Marcus, "Son of Man as Son of Adam," Revue Biblique 110, no. 1 [January 2003]: 38, 48-49, 57-60 ; cf. "Son of Man as Son of Adam, Part II: Exegesis (continued)," Revue Biblique 110, no. 3 [July 2003]: 370-86