Bible Dictionary

The phrase “the son of man” (o uios tou anthrōpou) occurs 82 times in the Gospels, and four additional times in the rest of the New Testament. In Hebrew, which Jesus may have been speaking, the term isben Adam, literally, son of Adam. There are four common viewpoints regarding what Jesus meant by this phrase: he could be calling himself a human, the Messiah, a prophet, or simply speaking of himself in the third person using idiomatic Hebrew or Aramaic. Allow me to briefly summarize these theories before proposing a fifth.

1. Son of Man = Human

First, it is often thought that by using the phrase, Jesus was pointing out that he was human. It should be immediately obvious that this cannot be exactly true. Though Jesus was fully human, he cannot have been simply making that claim by using the phrase “son of man.” Nobody goes around declaring “I am a human” unless they are not straight in the head. Generally, those who hold this view believe that Jesus did not actually say these things, but the second-century church added these saying to the Gospels in order to defend against the heresy of Doceticism, which claimed that Jesus was not fully human. There is a way for Jesus to call himself “the son of man” and mean that he is human, but before we consider that, let us look at the two other common understandings for the term “the son of man.”

2. Son of Man = Messiah

The second option is that in using the phrase, Jesus was calling himself the Messiah. This view leans heavily upon Daniel 7:13, which speaks of one like a son of man coming on the clouds from heaven. Since the angels say something similar about Jesus in Acts 1:9-11, many equate the prophecy of Daniel 7 to the Messianic ministry of Jesus. Again, there are a few problems with this view. First, Daniel writes of one “like” a son of man. This was actually a key text for the Docetic heresy just discussed. They pointed to this verse and said, “See? Jesus was not actually a man. He was only like a man. He only looked like one.” So although Jesus was the Messiah, it is dangerous to use this verse as a key text to explain the phrase “the son of man” as Messianic title. Besides, it is much more likely that with this image, Daniel was referring to the people of God as a whole. This does not mean that the title “the son of man” is not Messianic. It is; but not through the Daniel 7 route.

3. Son of Man = Prophet

Third, many view the title “the son of man” as a prophetic title. The phrase is frequently found in the Hebrew scriptures as title for prophets. This is especially true of Ezekiel. From this it is argued that when Jesus used the term, he was calling himself a prophet. Not much can be said against this view except that in the vast majority of the places where Jesus speaks of “the son of man” he seems to be saying more than “I am a prophet.”

4. Son of Man = I

Finally, some have argued that maybe the term simply means “I.” Scholars have noted that in Hebrew and Aramaic, the phrase “son of man” is frequently a term of self-designation. It is another way of saying, “I” or “me.” Of course, it can also be used to refer to someone else, as in “he” or “that person.” Since Jesus was mostly likely speaking in Hebrew or Aramaic, this is a likely option. And yet, it does not seem to fit all of the instances in the Gospels. It frequently seems that Jesus is implying much more than simply “I.”

A Proposal

So what does the title mean? The way forward is to see how Jesus uses other titles, terms, and symbols in his teaching and in his miracles. For a comprehensive discussion on this, read Jesus and the Victory of God by NT Wright, who argues that through everything Jesus said and did, he was pointing out that he was the new temple, the new priesthood, the new Torah, the new land, and the new King. Jesus took every prominent symbol of Judaism, and directed them all at himself.

This, I believe, is what Jesus meant by the term “the son of man.” He used it as a way of directing the symbol of “Israel as the people of God” directly toward himself. Jesus was using the term to refer to himself as a collective entity. He is the one in whom all Israel—indeed, all humanity—is fulfilled, and through whom all humanity has a new beginning. In him, Israel and the entire world have been freed from exile. As “the son of man” (ben Adam) Jesus is the new and true son of Adam. Where Adam failed and led the entire human race into captivity to sin and death, Jesus, as the son of Adam—the second Adam to use Paul’s terminology (Rom 5:12-21; 1 Cor 15:47-49)—has brought life and freedom. When Jesus uses the term, he is referring not only to himself, but also to all those who will be in him. “The son of man” is an all-encompassing figure who is the representative of the entire human race.

In this way, the term is prophetic. Jesus is a prophet, speaking the will and word of God to the world. But it is more than prophetic. It is also Messianic. Only the Messiah can be the corporate and collective entity of all mankind. Which, of course, makes the term extremely human. Jesus was a man, but more than just a man. He was the representative of all people, in whom all humanity becomes fully human.

When Jesus speaks of “the son of man,” he is referring not only to himself, but to all humanity as well. A theologically-guided dynamic equivalent translation of “the son of man” could be “I, and all humanity with me.”

For more on this topic:

• Green, Joel; McKnight, Scot; and Marshall, I. Howard. “Son of God” in The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (Downers Grove: IVP, 1992), 777-780.
• Wright, NT. Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 360-367, 512-519, 624-651.
• Young, Brad. Jesus the Jewish Theologian (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 243-252.
• Flusser, David. The Sage from Galilee (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), 107-116.

 

Sabbath (Heb. Shabbat)

Despite the mistaken belief by many Christians that Sunday is the Sabbath, it is actually the seventh day of the week, Saturday. And since Jewish days begin and end with the sunset, the Sabbath begins on Friday evening at sunset, and concludes on Saturday evening at sunset.

The origins of the Sabbath are found in Genesis 1 when God rested on the seventh day after creating the world and all that is on it. Similarly, the primary purpose of the Sabbath was for people to take a day of rest from their work. The fourth commandment in Exodus 20:6-11 states that no work is to be performed on the Sabbath.

The difficulty, of course, lies in knowing what constitutes “work.” The commandment in Exodus 20 does not provide specifics, and the rest of Scripture is somewhat vague as well (cf. Exod 16:29; 34:21; 35:3; Jer 17:22; Amos 8:5; Neh 13:15-22). The written Hebrew Scriptures provide very little specific instructions on what it means not to work on the Sabbath. As a result, there was a lot of room for various opinions and interpretations. In one instance, a group of Jews held to such a strict observance of the Sabbath, that when they were attacked by some enemies on the Sabbath day, none of the Jews defended themselves, or even ran away from the attacking army, because to do so would have been work, and in their minds, they would have violated the Sabbath (1 Macc 2:29-38; Jub 50:12). And so they were slaughtered.

Eventually, some Rabbis recorded a set of guidelines for what could and could not be done on the Sabbath. They wrote down 39 prohibited activities: plowing earth, sowing, reaping, binding sheaves, threshing, winnowing, selecting, grinding, sifting, kneading, baking, shearing wool, washing wool, beating wool, dyeing wool, spinning, weaving, making two loops, weaving two threads, separating two threads, tying, untying, sewing stitches, tearing, trapping, slaughtering, flaying, tanning, scraping hide, marking hides, cutting hide to shape, writing two or more letters, erasing two or more letters, building, demolishing, extinguishing a fire, kindling a fire, and transporting an object between the private domain and the public domain, or for a distance of four cubits within the public domain (ISBE IV:251).

It was also taught that this list did not originate with the Jewish teachers, but was given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai. It is part of the Mishnah, or the Oral Torah, the teaching of God through Moses which was not written down, but which was passed down from generation to generation. It was finally written down in the third century AD because the Jewish Rabbis feared the tradition would be lost and forgotten if it was not recorded.

In addition, there are other prohibited acts which are not stated in the list of 39. For example, Exodus 16:29 states that a person should not go out of their place on the Sabbath. Clearly, people needed to leave their homes on the Sabbath, and so the question arose about how far a person could walk before they violated the Sabbath. Using Joshua 3:4-5 as a guide (even though the verse has nothing to do with the Sabbath), it was determined that a person could not walk more than 2000 cubits (about 3000 feet) on the Sabbath. This became known as a “Sabbath’s Day journey.”

But even this required further clarification. Was this 2000 total for the day, or 2000 at a time? Was it 2000 cubits in a straight line, or could the distance be stretched if the route meandered? And over time, the Rabbi’s answered these questions. First, they decided it was not 2000 cubits total, but 2000 cubits at a time. If you stopped for a meal, you could then travel another 2000 cubits home. So the tradition developed that if you planned ahead, you could travel larger distances by pre-arranging a meal at the end of 2000 cubits.

If you were traveling only within a city, the 2000 cubit distance did not apply. Any distance could be traveled within the city, as long as you are within the populated area of the city. You only have to start watching how far you walk once you leave the city. In today’s cities, this means you could theoretically walk hundreds of miles, as long as the whole way is populated.

Clarification on the 39 prohibited acts was also provided. For example, the Rabbis felt the need to explain what counted as plowing and what did not. As a result, spitting became illegal on the Sabbath, for the spittle might dislocate some dirt, making a little indentation in the ground, which could be considered digging a hole, or plowing.

This is how the Sabbath day laws developed over time. What began as a law to do not work on the Sabbath was further defined and clarified over time to prohibit all sorts of things that few would consider “work.” The Jewish people recognized that they had exponentially multiplied the rules and regulations in an effort to obey the laws of God, but they were so intent on keeping the law, they felt it was necessary to “build a fence around the law” to make sure they kept the actual law (Pirkei Avot 1:1). They had a saying which said, “the rules about the Sabbath…are as mountains hanging by a hair, for Scripture is scanty and the rules many” (Bock 1996:171).

One Jewish scholar by the name of Yehoshua Neuwirth wrote a multi-volume work called A Guide to the Practical Observance of the Sabbath. It was written to explain how modern Jews could observe the Sabbath laws. Here are some of his instructions:

Cooking in most forms (boiling, roasting, baking, frying, etc.) is forbidden on the Sabbath, especially when the temperature is raised above 115 degrees.

If the hot water tap is accidentally left on, it cannot be turned off on the Sabbath.

Escaping gas may be turned off, but not in the normal way. One must turn off the tap of a gas burner with the back of the hand or the elbow.

One cannot squeeze a lemon into a glass of ice tea, but you can squeeze a lemon onto a piece of fish.

Since Exodus 34:3 teaches that one cannot light a fire on the Sabbath, it is also wrong to turn on electric lights. If you need to turn on the lights, you can get an automatic timer which will do the job for you.

So too, an air conditioner cannot be turned on by a Jew on the Sabbath, although a Gentile can turn it on as long as a Jew does not explicitly ask him to turn it on.

You cannot bathe with a bar of soap on the Sabbath, but you can use liquid soap.

If someone is walking on the Sabbath, and discovers that they are carrying something in their pocket that they forgot was in there, they have to stop carrying it immediately. But at the same time, since Jews are not allowed to lift anything on the Sabbath, a person is not allowed to simply take the item out of their pocket.

In order to get it out, he has to reverse his pocket so the item falls out. And then he must leave it there.

If the item is valuable, and he does not wish to leave it on the ground, he can ask a Gentile to watch it for him.

Or, if you must take the item with you, you can carry it, but not in the usual way. You can put it in your shoe, or tie it to your leg—as long as you do not tie a knot—or somehow suspend it between your clothing and your body.

Though some of these laws by Rabbi Neuwirth are a result of trying to apply Sabbath principles to modern technology, many similar laws were in place during the lifetime of Jesus. It is these rules and regulations that Jesus frequently confronted in the Gospel accounts and show that although He kept the Sabbath, there were certain man-made elements of the Sabbath tradition which He did not follow.

Have you ever wondered what deuteroproto means in Luke 6:1? If you’re like me, probably not.

A while back, as I was preparing commentary on Luke 6:1-5, I fell headlong into the debate swirling around this difficult word. It literally means “second-first” and while the majority of scholars today believe the word is not original and should be removed from the text, I was uncomfortable with such a conclusion. It seemed to me they had little textual basis for removing the word, and were doing so only because they didn’t know what it meant in context.

So I started studying the word, and I made a post about my progress. I came up with a theory which seems to make good sense of the word, and which helps bring significance to the surrounding context. I was pretty excited about it, but the explanation of the word for the commentary required less than one paragraph to explain. I had read about 1000 pages on the word, and spent dozens of hours reading and researching it. It seemed a shame to summarize all that into one paragraph.

So, simply to dignify the hours I spent studying one word, and to put all my research in one place for future reference, I wrote an article about my findings. If you are curious about it at all, you can read the article by clicking the link below.

What’s on Second Who’s on First Luke 6 1

Happy Studying!

Gospel comes from the Greek word euangelion and literally means “good news.” It is used in Scripture in reference to all the good news surrounding the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, with special emphasis on His death and resurrection.

Here is a longer article on the definition of Gospel.