Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE QUESTION OF JESUS' SELF-UNDERSTANDING §16.3
The long-running debate on who the 'one like a son of man' was intended
to refer to in the original text continues to rumble on. The current main alternatives
are a heavenly (angelic) representative of Israel ('the saints of the Most
High') or simply a symbolic representation of Israel. 98 Either way the overall
point seems to be clear enough: Daniel 7 is a piece of propaganda on Israel's behalf
in the context of Judea's oppression by its Syrian overlords."
As is well known, this vision became very influential in Jewish apocalyptic
thinking. Its influence is most evident in the Similitudes of Enoch, a section of
what is now known as 1 Enoch (1 En. 37-71), 100 and in 4 Ezra 13. 101 In these,
Daniel's manlike figure is clearly identified as a particular individual, 'the Elect
One' in the Similitudes}® 1 a particular 'man' in 4 Ezra. 103 In this case the issue is
whether the Similitudes and 4 Ezra provide evidence of the way Daniel's vision
had already been interpreted at the time of Jesus. Alternatively expressed, the issue
is whether there was by the beginning of the first century CE a clear concept
of and belief regarding the Son of Man, a heavenly figure, expected to exercise
final judgment in favour of Israel over Israel's enemies. Particularly in dispute is
the dating of the Similitudes. The assumption behind much German scholarship
on the subject has been that they were written during the decades before Jesus. 104
98. See again the review in Collins, Daniel 304-10 (particularly 309-10). But is it really
implicit in Daniel's vision that the 'one like a son of man' was also God's Son (as argued particularly
by Moule, Origin 25-26; and S. Kim, "The 'Son of Man' " as the Son of God [WUNT 30;
Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1983])? Kim argues on the unprecedented ground that the representative/head
of the saints of the Most High (= the sons of God) would be the Son of God (but see
nn. 12-13 above), and can cite only the rather obscure 4Q246 in support (see above, n. 15),
though with support now from Collins (see further below, n. 109).
99. There is a large-scale consensus that Daniel is a product of the Maccabean period
and that Daniel 7 reflects the crisis occasioned by the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes in
the period 175-167 BCE.
100.1 En. 46.1-3: 'And there I saw one who had a head of days, and his head was white
like wool; and with him there was another, whose face had the appearance of a man, and his
face was full of grace, like one of the holy angels. And I asked one of the holy angels ... about
that Son of Man, who he was, and whence he was, and why he went with the Head of Days.
And he answered me and said to me, This is the Son of Man who has righteousness . . .'
(Knibb).
101. 4 Ezra 13.1-3: 'After seven days I dreamed a dream in the night: and behold, a wind
arose from the sea and stirred up all its waves. And I looked, and behold, this wind made something
like the figure of a man come up out of the heart of the sea. And I looked, and behold, that
man flew with the clouds of heaven . . .' (OTP).
102. For detail see Caragounis, Son of Man 101-10.
103. See further J. J. Collins, 'The Son of Man in First-Century Judaism', NTS 38
(1992) 448-66; also Daniel 79-84; K. Koch, 'Messias und Menschensohn. Die zweistufige
Messianologie der jüngeren Apokalyptik', JBTh 8, Der Messias (1993) 73-102.
104. See below, §16.3c(2). With the allusion to the Parthians and Medes in 56.5 suggest-
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