Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§16.3 How Did Jesus See His Own Role?
similar interpretations of Daniel's vision. In each case the hope which the manlike
figure of Dan. 7.13 embodied was crystallized in a particular individual —
the Son of Man, the Man, Jesus exalted. Here too no clear consensus has
emerged. But the range of possibilities should certainly make one cautious about
building a thesis which depends on a pre-Jesus dating for the Similitudes and the
use the Similitudes make of Dan. 7.13. 113
A third issue is when the influence from Daniel's vision first entered the
Jesus tradition. That there was such influence is not a matter of dispute. We have
already noted the likely influence of the first part of the vision on John the Baptist.
114 More to the point here, there is no doubt that the vision of one like a son of
man coming on the clouds influenced the tradition of Jesus' words. The clearest
cases are Mark 13.26 pars, and 14.62 pars.: 115
Mark 13.26: 'and then they shall see the son of man coming on clouds with
much power and glory'.
Mark 14.62: 'you will see the son of man sitting on the right hand of power
and coming on the clouds of heaven'.
These examples certainly indicate an awareness of Daniel's vision on the part of
the tradents. But do they indicate an awareness of a Jewish Son of Man expectation
such as we find in the Similitudes of Enoch ? And was the influence of the
language of Dan. 7.13 part of the Jesus tradition from the first? Opinions are as
varied here as with the other issues and, of course, they criss-cross across the
range of issues, so that the total picture becomes very complex and confusing.
In terms of issues posed, not least troublesome is the question of how the
two possible roots, philological and apocalyptic, relate to each other. They are so
different, as different as human and heavenly! Could it be that both were equally
important as roots of the son of man usage in the Jesus tradition? Does either or
both go back to Jesus? If only one, which came first? And if both go back to Jesus,
are there any indications of how they hung together in his own thinking?
Such questions continue to fill not just articles but whole monographs.
113. Leivestad believes it to be 'methodologically inexcusable to use ... the Similitudes
as a source for Jewish conceptions at the time of Jesus' {Jesus 19-20; see further 153-55).
114. See above, chapter 11 at n. 135.
115. Other references speak of 'the Son of Man coming' (Matt. 10.23; Matt. 24.44/Luke
12.40; Luke 18.8), coming in glory (Mark 8.38 pars.; Matt. 16.28), or coming in glory to judge
(Matt. 19.28; 25.31; similarly John 5.22, 27). See further my 'The Danielic Son of Man in the
New Testament', in Collins and Flint, eds., The Book of Daniel 2.528-49.
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