Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE QUESTION OF JESUS SELF-UNDERSTANDING H6.4
Matt. 9.6-8
6 'But that vou mav know that
the Son of Man has authority on
earth to forgive sins' — he then
said to the paralytic,
'Rise, take up vour
bed and go to vour home'. 7
And he rose
and went to his home.
8 When the crowds saw it, they
were filled with awe, and they
glorified God, who had given
such authority to men.
Mark 2.10-12
10 'But that vou mav know that
the Son of Man has authority on
earth to forgive sins'—he
said to the paralytic— 11 'I
sav to YOU. rise, take up vour
pallet and go to vour home'. 12
And he rose, and immediately
took up the pallet
and went out before
them all; so that they
were all amazed and
glorified God,
saying, 'We never saw
anything like this!'
Luke 5.24-26
24 'But that vou mav know that
the Son of Man has authority on
earth to forgive sins'—he said
to the one who was paralyzed—
'I say to vou, rise and take up
vour bed and go to vour home'.
25 Immediately he stood up
before them, took what he had
been lying on, and went to his
home, glorifying God. 26
Amazement seized all of them,
an ley glorified God and were
fiheu with awe, saying, 'We
have seen strange things today'.
Of interest here is the fact that the Son of Man saying belongs to the core of the
story, together with the following command to the paralytic. Quite possibly it
was the stability of the core, encasing the awkwardness of the turn to the paralytic,
144 which ensured that that awkward element was retained in the retellings
of the story. In the form as thus 'fixed' and maintained, 'the Son of Man' has titular
force, presumably in part at least because in context the self-reference to Jesus
himself is so clear. At the same time it should be noted that the auditors in the
narrative express no surprise and take no offence at the usage; this presumably
counts at least somewhat against the thesis that 'the (heavenly) Son of Man' was
a well-known figure in first-century Jewish expectation. 145 Nor can we assume,
to repeat the point, that the phrase in and of itself carried an allusion to the
Danielic manlike figure. 146 It may also be significant that Matthew's conclusion
(ignoring Mark's typical choral ending) has the crowd glorifying God (so also
Mark/Luke) that he 'had given such authority to men (tois anthropoisY (Matt.
9.8). Does this reflect awareness (by the most Jewish of the Synoptic Evangelists)
that the strange Greek ho huios tou anthröpou (9.6) originally referred to
man (humankind)? In which case, Matthew's tradition preserves awareness of an
earlier sense of 'the son of man', even though it had been lost in the Markan ver-
144. See Guelich, Mark 81-83 and Hampel, Menschensohn 189-97 for discussion of the
integrity of the narrative. Caragounis robustly disputes the suggestion of awkwardness in the
Greek {Son of Man 180-87).
145. Cf. Casey, Son of Man 159-61, who offers an Aramaic reconstruction (160).
146. Hooker, Son of Man 89-93, further 178-82, 190-95 (taking up from Todt, Son of
Man 126-30), focuses on the Danielic overtones of the one like a son of man being given 'authority'
(also Caragounis, Son of Man 188-90; Witherington, Christology 246-47); but in the
pericope the surprise is only at the authority claimed, not at any claim to be the authorized Son
of Man (see further Hare, Son of Man 185-90). Here as elsewhere, Hampel simply applies his
thesis — bar v nasa as a cipher bringing to light 'the exclusive and unique consciousness of
mission and so messianic self-understanding of Jesus' {Menschensohn 199).
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