Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE QUESTION OF JESUS' SELF-UNDERSTANDING §16.3
Coming more from the side of the second option, a mediating middle interpretation
has suggested that 'the Son of Man' was not someone other than Jesus
but Jesus' way of indicating what he expected his future role to be. To put the
point in oversimplified terms, 'the Son of Man' was what Jesus expected to become!
127
(4) Not entirely unexpectedly, a fourth option has been strongly canvassed.
If the third option argues in effect that both usages (philological and apocalyptic)
go back to Jesus, the fourth argues that neither goes back to Jesus; none of the
son of man/Son of Man sayings are authentic. Here the observation initially
made by Philipp Vielhauer has been especially influential. 128 Vielhauer noted
that in the earliest strata of the Jesus tradition 'kingdom of God' and 'Son of
Man' belong to separate strands. Since, then, the kingdom motif is indisputably
authentic Jesus' usage, the Son of Man motif must have been drawn in later. The
basic development in the tradition postulated by the second line of interpretation
is accepted (the whole motif began with the influence of Dan. 7.13), with the difference
that the development is thought to have begun only after Easter. This was
an earlier flight from apocalyptic, 129 equivalent to that which now characterizes
the neo-Liberal questers. 130 The argument is much the same: the Jesus who proclaimed
the presentness of God's reign could not also have proclaimed a future
coming; all future-imminent eschatology is the work of the earliest Christians'
eschatological enthusiasm, and that includes the influence of Dan. 7.13. 131
(1965-66) 327-51, reprinted in Jesus the Saviour 73-99; M. D. Hooker, The Son of Man in
Mark (London: SPCK, 1967) 182-95; Moule, Origin 11-22; J. Bowker, 'The Son of Man', JTS
28 (1977) 19-48; Witherington, Christology 233-61 (particularly 243). Also Cullmann, Christology
particularly 158-64; de Jonge, Jesus 51-54; Stuhlmacher, Biblische Theologie 1.122-23.
Caragounis reviews the whole Synoptic tradition under the heading 'The Influence of Daniel's
"SM" upon the SM in the Teaching of Jesus' (Son of Man 168-243).
127. So already Weiss, Proclamation 115 n. 83, 119-21; Schweitzer, Quest 1 230-32.
Subsequently R. H. Fuller, The Mission and Achievement of Jesus (London: SCM, 1954) 102-
KB, 107-108 (but Fuller revised his views — see above, n. 122); A. J. B. Higgins, Jesus and the
Son of Man (London: Lutterworth, 1964) 185-95; also The Son of Man in the Teaching of Jesus
(SNTSMS 39; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1980) particularly 80-84; Jeremias, Proclamation
272-76; Rowland, Christian Origins 185-86; a further variation in Hampel,
Menschensohn (bar v nasa as 'cipher for his function as Messias designatus', 164); Flusser, Jesus
131; Theissen and Merz, Historical Jesus 551-52; C. M. Tuckett, 'The Son of Man and
Daniel 7: Q and Jesus', in Lindemann, ed., Sayings Source Q 371-94 (here 389-94).
128. P. Vielhauer, 'Gottesreich und Menschensohn in der Verkündigung Jesu' (1957),
Aufsätze zum Neuen Testament (München: Kaiser, 1965) 51-79.
129. Pointed out by K. Koch, Ratlos vor der Apokalyptik, the note of bewilderment
(ratlos) being lost in the ET The Rediscovery of Apocalyptic (London: SCM, 1972).
130. See above, §4.7.
131. Influential here also was the argument of E. Käsemann, 'The Beginnings of Christian
Theology' (1960), New Testament Questions of Today (London: SCM, 1969) 82-107 (here
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