Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§16.4 How Did Jesus See His Own Role?
things on different occasions, and in the tradition the two versions have become
somewhat assimilated. But the more straightforward explanation of the divergent
forms is that underlying each is the same Aramaic saying, using bar ' e nasa,
which was taken different ways in reference, probably before translation into
Greek, but with the difference consolidated in the transition to Greek. It is not too
difficult to envisage such a saying, possibly in the somewhat cryptic form 'All
that blasphemes to the bar ' e nasa will be forgiven'. 155 The 'all', bar ' e nasa, and
the syntax are ambiguous. The saying could be taken to refer to all (everything)
being forgiven to bar ' e nasa (man/men/sons of men/humankind). Or it could be
taken to refer to all (everyone) blaspheming against bar ' e nasa being forgiven. In
which case it rather looks as though
• Mark has inherited a version of the former possibility (Mark 3.28), 156
• Q has inherited a form where bar ' e nasa has been taken as a titular selfreference,
as in the two cases already considered,
• Matthew, aware of both versions, and of the Aramaic idiom, has simply
conflated both to make a double saying, and
• Thomas has lost the Son of Man reference altogether but has retained the Q
version's basic antithesis.
If then Jesus did utter a bar ^nasa saying of this form, what did he mean
by it? A good question, to which no firm answer is possible. For if I am right,
the tradition in its original form was a classic masal, a riddle, as dependent for
its meaning on how it was heard as on how it was uttered. And, if I am right, it
was heard in two distinctively different ways, whether immediately or in the
course of its early re-expression and transmission. I have already suggested that
the saying provides a good clue to Jesus' own self-conscious claims to inspiration
by the Spirit (§15.7h). Here the point is rather the further indication that Jesus
is likely to have used the bar ' e nasa phrase in a more general way (as in
Mark 2.28), or perhaps in a deliberately ambiguous way to include a selfreference
(as in Mark 2.10). In both the Markan and Q collections of exorcism
sayings, of course, 157 the context is one of Jesus' responding to personal attack.
And if I am right, the second half of the saying (blasphemy against the Holy
Spirit) also had a personal reference, since Jesus' exorcisms as demonstration of
155. For more carefully laid out Aramaic reconstructions see R. Schippers, 'The Son of
Man in Matt. 12.32 = Luke 12.10 Compared with Mark 3.28', Studia Evangelica IV (1968)
231-35; Colpe, TDNT 8.442-43 (followed by Higgins, Son of Man 116-17); Lindars, Jesus Son
of Man 35-37; Marcus, Mark 1.275 (modifying Lindars slightly); Davies and Allison, Matthew
2.345-46 also think Lindars is close to the truth; cf. Hare, Son of Man 264-67'.
156. In the same way Ps. 145.3 LXX renders Ps. 146.3's ben 'adam as huioi anthröpoi.
157. See above, §12.5d.
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