Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE QUESTION OF JESUS' SELF-UNDERSTANDING 516.4
Matt. 20.28
28 Just as the
Son of Man came not to be
served but to serve.
Mark 10.45
45 For the
Son of Man came not to be
served but to serve.
Luke 22.27
But I am among you as one who
serves.
In each case the most obvious explanation is that an original bar ' e nasa saying
has given rise to the variant versions in Greek. 165 Either each saying was put into
Greek by different individuals — one was content to translate literally (ho huios
tou anthropou), and the other recognized the Aramaic idiom and translated the
phrase as a personal reference (emou, egö, me) 166 — or Matthew, confronted
with a ho huios tou anthropou reference in the first two cases and recognizing the
Aramaic idiom, chose to bring out the personal reference implicit in the Aramaic
idiom in context, but in the third either knew a variant bar ' e nasa form or assumed
its presence from the implied 'men'/'son of man' play and elected to use
the Greek ho huios tou anthropou. 167 Either way, these 'Son of Man'/T parallels
provide a strong indication of an awareness somewhere in the transmission of
these sayings that the two phrases could be synonymous, and thus also a remembrance
of Jesus using bar ' e nasa as a way of referring to himself.
There is more that needs to be said, especially on the Matt. 10.32-33/Luke
12.8-9 complex. 168 But for the moment we can conclude that there is substantial
evidence that Jesus was remembered as using the phrase bar ' e nasa in an ambiguous
or masal-like way. The transition from Aramaic to Greek seems to have occasioned
a double development. On the one hand, some translated literally (ho
huios tou anthropou) and thus lost the idiom, while others attempted to translate
idiomatically and produced a more explicit self-reference and thus lost the ambiguity.
On the other hand, some maintained the sense of a more generic reference
to man/men (humankind), although the dominant tendency was to give the
phrase a more weighty titular force in reference to Jesus ('the Son of Man'). As
for Jesus himself, the implication is that Jesus did indeed use bar ' e nasa in an
ambiguous or masal-like way, including a somewhat modest self-reference, but
not as a title. Tradition-historical analysis indicates that this usage was recognized
so long as the tradition remained within an Aramaic milieu.
165. Contrast Schürmann, Gottes Reich 160-61, who can see only the titular form in
post-Easter colours; Hampel, Menschensohn 152-58, 212-13, whose grasp of the scope of the
bar v nasa idiom is too limited and tendentious (159-64).
166. On the parallel between Rev. 3.5c and Matt. 10.32/Luke 12.8, see A. Yarbro Collins,
'The "Son of Man" Tradition and the Book of Revelation', in Charlesworth, ed., Messiah
536-68 (here 559-62).
167. Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew 1.462; 2.216, 617.
168. See below §16.4c(3).
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