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The Johannine Son of Man: A New Proposal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2011

John Ashton
John Ashton
Affiliation:
Wolfson College, University of Oxford, Linton Road, Oxford OX2 6UD, UK. email: jfashton@gmail.com
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Abstract

How is the association of the descent/ascent motif with the Johannine Son of Man to be explained if the gnosticism theory no longer holds? ἀναβέβηκεν (3.13) is usually taken to refer to Jesus' final ascension. But Odeberg saw that it refers to a tradition of heavenly ascent in Jesus' lifetime. Bühner argued rather for a double reference—to the ascent of a visionary seer involving a metamorphosis into a heavenly being and a final ascent at death. Yet he ignores the likelihood, sustained by Jarl Fossum and Morton Smith, that the transfiguration tradition was based on an authentic memory. In chs. 9 and 5 the evangelist recognizes that Jesus had been invested with the authority of the heavenly Son of Man. He sees the crucifixion as an exaltation (3.14), and follows a statement of Jesus' ascent, descent and exaltation by a full summary of God's loving gift to the world.

Keywords

Son of ManapocalypticascensionexaltationtransfigurationMoses/Sinaivisionary seer
Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 57 , Issue 4 , October 2011 , pp. 508 - 529
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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References

1 Meeks, W. A., The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology (Leiden: Brill, 1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar 16.

2 All commentators discuss the title, many in considerable detail, but only in order to explain its use and significance in the Gospel itself. This is also true of other studies, including the chapter ‘Son of Man’ in my own book, Understanding the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Oxford University, 1991, rev. ed. 2007)Google Scholar. What is probably the most thorough discussion to date (Reynolds, Benjamin E., The Apocalyptic Son of Man in the Gospel of John [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008]Google Scholar) sets out to prove that John is everywhere indebted to Dan 7, but goes no further.

3 ‘The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism’, JBL 91(1972) 44–72Google Scholar.

4 Prophet-King, 297. Meeks adds that except for an isolated statement in Philo ‘this pattern of descent/ascent of a heavenly messenger has no direct parallel in the Moses tradition’. This conclusion has been strongly challenged by Jan-Adolf Bühner, who argues that much of the material actually quoted and commented on by Meeks, not just from Philo but also from rabbinical and Samaritan sources, proves that Moses' commission by God was thought of as the descent and subsequent ascent of a heavenly messenger: Der Gesandte und sein Weg im vierten Evangelium. Die kultur- und religionsgeschichtliche Grundlagen der johanneischen Sendungschristologie sowie ihre traditionsgeschichtliche Entwicklung (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1977) 306–13Google Scholar. Moreover, focusing as he does exclusively on the Moses tradition, Meeks takes no notice of the possible influence of traditions concerning other heavenly messengers. These are treated in some depth by Bühner (Der Gesandte, 322–41).

5 C. Colpe, ‘ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου’, TDNT 8.400–477.

6 TDNT 8.415 (translation modified). In the printed English version nicht weggelassen is translated, unintelligibly and unintelligently, as ‘not refuted’.

7 I have given a detailed comment upon this verse in Understanding, 342–8, and will say no more about it here.

8 Talbert, C. H., ‘The Myth of a Descending–Ascending Redeemer in Mediterranean Antiquity’, NTS 22 (1975/76) 418–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See Understanding, first edn, 350–3, where this article is summarized and assessed. Bühner (Der Gesandte, 335–41) adds some important rabbinical material to the texts discussed by Talbert.

9 It may be worth including at this point the most striking of these: the visit of the angel Raphael to Tobit and his son Tobias. About to take his leave, Raphael first summarizes his healing mission, and then tells them to give thanks to God, ‘for I am ascending to him who sent me’ (ἀναβαίνω πρὸς τὸν ἀποστείλαντά με, Tob 12.20). ‘This text’, comments Bühner, ‘gives the clearest indication of the possibility that Johannine christology may have taken over some elements of Jewish angelology’ (Der Gesandte, 337).

10 Odeberg, H., The Fourth Gospel Interpreted in its Relation to Contemporaneous Religious Currents in Palestine and the Hellenistic-Oriental World (Uppsala: Almquist & Wiksell, 1929)Google Scholar.

11 Borgen, P., ‘Some Jewish Exegetical Traditions as Background for Son of Man Sayings in John's Gospel (John 3, 13–14 and Context)’, L'E?vangile de Jean: Sources, rédaction, théologie (ed. de Jonge, M; Louvain: University Press; Gembloux: Duculot, 1977) 243–58Google Scholar.

12 ‘Exegetical Traditions’, 254. Biblical texts cited by Borgen (251–2) referring to the ascent of God (1 Sam 2.10; Pss 47 [46].6; 68 [67].19) are irrelevant in the context of a pre-existent installing in office.

13 Understanding, 355.

14 Dunn, J. D. G., ‘Let John be John: A Gospel for its Time’, Das Evangelium und die Evangelien (ed. Stuhlmacher, P.; Tübingen: Mohr Seibeck, 1973) 309–39Google Scholar.

15 Admittedly Ben Sira uses the word κατασκηνοῦν (literally ‘to tabernacle’) of what he thought of as the enduring presence of wisdom/torah on earth. But the word is used more naturally (as in the Prayer of Joseph) of short stays, since the σκήνη, the Tent of Meeting, was designed (unlike the Temple) for brief and occasional divine visits.

16 See Rowland, C., The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity (London: SPCK, 1982) 181–2Google Scholar, plus n. 47. Divine beings in apocalyptic visions are regularly represented as human, just as human beings are regularly represented as animals or beasts. The name Michael (who is like God?) is peculiarly appropriate to the role played by one like a man in Dan 7.

17 And indeed in one variant of John 3.13, where some MSS add the words ὁ ὣν ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ to qualify ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. Some commentators, including C. K. Barrett, Nils Dahl and Jarl Fossum, hold this to be the correct reading.

18 I am here assuming that (as I argued in Understanding, rev. ed., 44–8) ch. 6 belongs to the second edition of the Gospel.

19 See Bühner, Gesandte, 406 n. 1.

20 Bultmann, R., The Gospel of John (Oxford: Blackwell, 1971) 150–1Google Scholar.

21 Rowland, C. and Morray-Jones, C. R. A., The Mystery of God: Early Jewish Mysticism and the New Testament (Leiden: Brill, 2009) 128Google Scholar.

22 Frey, J., Die johanneische Eschatologie, vol. 2 (Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 1997) 252–5Google Scholar. See Bultmann, Gospel, 150 n. 2.

23 Apocalyptic Son of Man, 115. There is no other example of the gnomic perfect in the Gospel, and none of the four NT texts cited by Reynolds (cf. Funk, Greek Grammar, §344) allows an historical exception to the gnomic generalization. See Schnackenburg, R., The Gospel according to St. John, vol. 1 (London: Burns & Oates, 1968)Google Scholar 393.

24 Somewhat surprisingly Meeks makes no mention of it in his ‘Man from Heaven’ article.

25 Fourth Gospel, 72. Cf. Bultmann, Gospel, 150 n. 1; and Meeks, Prophet-King, 301 n. 1, who praises Odeberg's ‘unusual perception’. In Understanding, 350, I wrongly stated that Odeberg does not mention Moses. He does so in Fourth Gospel, 97, along with Enoch, Abraham, Elijah and Martyn, Isaiah. J. Louis argues that Elijah was among the evangelist's targets: The Gospel of John in Christian History (New York: Paulist, 1978) 20–1Google Scholar. Also, I think, Enoch.

26 Schnackenburg, reorganizing this chapter, effectively severs this link. But there is no good reason for any such reorganization.

27 Bühner cites numerous examples from the apocrypha and rabbinical writings, as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls, of a human seer being transformed into an angel as a crucial part of an argument concerning the fusion of the concepts of prophet and מלאך (Der Gesandte, 341–75). He is clear about the relevance of this argument to the association of the descent/ascent motif with the Johannine Son of Man.

28 Der Gesandte, 374–99. This is how Bühner sums up his reading: ‘Jesus ist in einer Art Berufungsvision anbatisch in den Himmel gelangt, dort zum Menschensohn gewandelt und als solcher in seine irdische Existenz hinabgestiegen’ (398).

29 Der Gesandte, 271–315.

30 Der Gesandte, 307.

31 Prophet-King, 205.

32 Memar Marqar, v. 2. trans. Macdonald, 198 (quoted by Meeks, Prophet-King, 245).

33 Mos 2.288; Virt 53.76; QG 1.86. See Meeks, Prophet-King, 124.

34 Der Gesandte, 311–13.

35 What is more, Reuel's interpretation is remarkably anticipatory of the warning in m. Hag. 2.1 against indulging in dangerous speculation on things beyond one's competence, namely ‘what is above, what is beneath, what was beforetime and what will be hereafter’—the passage that provided Christopher Rowland with the main topics of his trail-blazing Open Heaven (London: SPCK, 1982)Google Scholar. Cf. Meeks, Prophet-King, 208.

36 Jesu Letzter Wille nach Johannes 17 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 3rd ed. 1980) 26Google Scholar.

37 Bultmann, R., Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 7th ed. 1967)Google Scholar 278 n. 1. One of the earliest scholars to challenge this view, Morton Smith, reinforces his argument with the sour reflection that ‘to suggest that the blessed Evangelists, not to mention early Christians in general, wanted to tell what they believed to be the truth, is to strike at the very root of Formgeschichte’: ‘The Origin and History of the Transfiguration Story’, Union Seminary Quarterly Review 36 (1980) 39–44Google Scholar, here 43.

38 Chilton, B. D., ‘The Transfiguration: Dominical Appearance and Apostolic Vision’, NTS 27 (1980–81) 115–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here 122 (author's italics).

39 Fossum, J. E., ‘Ascensio, Metamorphosis: The “Transfiguration” of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels’, The Image of the Invisible God: Essays on the Influence of Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Freiburg, Switzerland: Universitätsverlag, 1995) 71–94Google Scholar, here 76.

40 There are other passages too where the evangelist alludes to traditions that for one reason or another he does not include in his own story, e.g. Jesus' baptism in 1.32–33 and the Gethsemane episode in 12.27–30. (I owe this observation to Judith Kovacs.)

41 In Understanding, 179–81, I argued that the central section of the chapter, 9.18–23, was added on subsequently to the original story, and suggested that the same is true of the conclusion, 9.35–41. I am now no less confident of the first suggestion and rather more confident of the second.

42 In his History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (Lousville/London: Westminster John Knox, 3rd ed. 2003) 130–1Google Scholar, J. Louis Martyn has a brilliant insight into the evangelist's use of the two-level drama of apocalyptic. Yet the preceding argument (‘From the Expectation of the Prophet-Messiah like Moses… To the Presence of the Son of Man’) overlooks the claims to equality of God that trigger off the murderous fury of ‘the Jews’ in chs. 5, 8 and 10, and depends on two false assumptions: first that ‘the titles Son of Man and Son of God have become interchangeable for John’ (128 n. 193); and secondly that there is in the Gospel ‘an emphasis on confessing Jesus as Son of Man’ (129 n. 195). Not only is there no emphasis upon confessing Jesus as Son of Man; there is no confession at all.

43 Gospel, 239.

44 It should be added that the evangelist may have found an additional impetus in one or both of two types of Son of Man sayings in the other three gospels: first those in which the title Son of Man refers to Jesus' activities on earth (although these have no connection whatever with Daniel's dream); and secondly those that refer to the coming of the Son of Man in judgment, such as Mark 13.26 and 14.62 (although in these verses, like the passage in Daniel that they recall, the Son of Man is thought of as in heaven).

45 Gospel, 151. Besides Bultmann many major Johannine scholars, for a variety of reasons, adopt the same approach: Dodd, Barrett, Borgen, Culpepper, Moloney, Keener, Lincoln, Frey.

46 Brown, R. E., The Gospel according to John, vol. 1 (New York: Doubleday, 1966)Google Scholar 16.

47 Contra Borgen, who asserts that it is an independent traditional expression, since it occurs in different contexts in 8.34 and 12.23 (‘Exegetical Traditions’, 247 and again, 252). But these contexts are not different: they too are predictions of the crucifixion.

48 ‘Man from Heaven’, 181 and 185.

49 Such in fact is the scene portrayed on the reverse side of the Isenheim altarpiece, a glorious Christ rising upwards out of the tomb: with modern technology the transformation might be conveyed by fading one side of Grünewald's painting into the other.

50 Here is another indication of the association of the figure of the Son of Man with the theme of judgment. Cf. Kovacs, J., ‘“Now Shall the Ruler of This World be Driven Out”: Jesus' Death as Cosmic Battle in John 12.20–26’, JBL 114 (1995) 227–47Google Scholar.

51 Dodd, C. H., The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1953)CrossRefGoogle Scholar 6.

52 ‘Man from Heaven’, 71–2.

53 ‘It is almost a commonplace in rabbinic traditions’, remarks Meeks, ‘that when Moses “went up to God” on Mt. Sinai, he ascended “on high”, that is, to heaven’ (Prophet-King, 205). But in many other places too, where Moses is credited with having received special revelations over and above the law, it is assumed that this must have happened in heaven. See for instance 4 Ezra 14.4–5; 2 Apoc. Bar. 59.4. Both the book of Jubilees and the Apocalypse of Moses present themselves as having been revealed in this way. See Stone, M. E., A Commentary on Fourth Ezra (Hermeneia Commentaries; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990) 418–19Google Scholar.