Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE QUESTION OF JESUS' SELF-UNDERSTANDING §16.4
ideas explains the blasphemy charge in Mark 14.64. 192 And though the lateness
of these other traditions urges caution, we do know that a form of mysticism was
practised within late Second Temple Judaism focused particularly on the chariot
throne of God (Ezekiel I). 193
Taken together, these two features suggest a possible rationale underlying
the reported exchange between Jesus and the High Priest as it was crystallized in
the Jesus tradition, almost certainly from a very early date. The tradition was of
Jesus using Daniel's vision of the manlike representation of the saints of the
Most High to express his own hopes for vindication. 194 This was heard as a claim
that Jesus himself would be enthroned in heaven. 195 In the realpolitik situation of
a leadership determined to be rid of Jesus, any self-referencing allusion to the
Danielic son of man could be cynically exploited to present Jesus as a threat to
one of the core principles of Second Temple religion (the wholly otherness of the
one God). In terms of ruling-class propaganda, such a charge would help ensure
the support of the people, just as the charge of messiahship could be transposed
into a threat to Caesar's kingship to ensure Pilate's support.
(3) Mark 8.38 pars./Matt.lO.32-33/Luke 12.8-9:
192. Rowland, Christian Origins 170-71; J. Schaberg, 'Mark 14:62: Early Christian
Merkabah Imagery?', in J. Marcus and M. L. Soards, eds., Apocalyptic and the New Testament,
J. L. Martyn FS (JSNTS 24; Sheffield: JSOT, 1989) 69-94; Evans, 'In What Sense?' 419-21;
Wright, Jesus 642-44; Davies and Allison, Matthew 3.534; Bock, Blasphemy 113-237. As
D. R. Catchpole, The Trial of Jesus (Leiden: Brill, 1971) shows, the suggestion is not new (140-
41). Cf. C. F. D. Moule, 'The Gravamen against Jesus', in E. P. Sanders, ed., Jesus, the Gospels
and the Church, W. R. Farmer FS (Macon: Mercer University, 1987) 177-95; and Hofius who
presses still further in seeing here 'the claim to a status and a function which could only be
grounded in an essential unity with God' ('1st Jesus der Messias?' 121).
193. There are already hints to that effect in Sir. 49.8 and 1 En. 14.18-20. The Qumran
Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice imply something to the same effect being practised in the worship
of Qumran. Paul himself may have been a practitioner of such mysticism (2 Cor. 12:2-4)
(J. W. Bowker, '"Merkabah" Visions and the Visions of Paul', JSS 16 [1971] 157-73; see also
Segal, Paul the Convert). The great rabbi Yohannan ben Zakkai, founder of the rabbinic school
at Yavneh following the disaster of 70, is also attested to have been a practitioner (t. Hag. 2.1).
194. This is not the same as saying Jesus thought he would become the Son of Man (denied,
e.g., by Hooker, Son of Man 188), which presupposes concepts and categories ('the Son
of Man') already more firmly delineated than we have seen to be likely for the time of Jesus.
Chilton, however, assumes that the angelic figure of Daniel's vision ('one like a person') was a
key element in Jesus' visionary practice {Rabbi Jesus 157-61), an intimacy bordering on identification
(171-72); cf. his earlier '(The) Son of (the) Man, and Jesus', in Chilton and Evans, eds.,
Authenticating the Words of Jesus 259-87, especially 274-86.
195. If this is a plausible way to interpret the tradition at the time of the Synoptists, then
it is no less plausible for the situation of Jesus, 40-50 years earlier, since the data regarding
mystical practice and misgivings about such practice (n. 193 above) are no stronger for the one
than for the other.
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