Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§16.6 How Did Jesus See His Own Role?
tion (Matthew, John) strengthens the suspicion that the Similitudes did not appear
on the scene anyway until some time after Jesus' mission was ended.
e. As to the development clearly evident within the Jesus tradition at this
point. It seems to have started with Jesus' own use of the Aramaic idiom (bar
' e nasa) into which he himself drew the particular bar ' e nas allusion to Dan. 7.13.
In the course of transmission the self-reference in 'the son of man' became more
pronounced, and the transition to Greek established the phrase as a formal title
('the Son of Man'). In the same process the initial allusion to Dan. 7.13 was
made more complex by a succession of elaborations: by incorporation of an allusion
to Ps. 110.1 (Mark 14.62), by reversal of the direction of travel to include
the thought of Jesus' return (parousia) from heaven (particularly Matthew), and
by development of an allusion to the also-developed use of Daniel's vision in the
Similitudes of Enoch (Matthew and John).
This hypothesis is quite strong in tradition-historical terms, even though
supporting evidence from outside the Jesus tradition is confusing and indecisive.
Its strength is that it takes seriously the Jesus tradition both as the attempt to remember
what Jesus said and as the attempt to interpret that tradition in the light
of developing faith-insight (Christology) and changing circumstances. Its greatest
value is in demonstrating the likelihood that Jesus himself was influenced by
both of the roots (more often set in antithesis by contemporary questers), that he
thought of himself as very much bound up with the frailties of humankind, and
that the Danielic vision may have encouraged him in hope of being welcomed by
the Most High on the completion of his mission. Its greatest deficit for traditional
Christian faith is the corollary that the tradition of Jesus coming (again to earth)
may have originated from a post-Easter merging of the Son of Man coming motif
with the return motif of the crisis parables.
16.6. Conclusion
Our examination of the relevant evidence is not yet complete. There are other aspects
of the matter still to be discussed, but better dealt with in the next chapter.
Even so, however, some appropriate conclusions can already be drawn.
In one sense our findings thus far are disappointing. We have to conclude
as likely that Jesus made no attempt to lay claim to any title as such; also that he
rejected at least one which others tried to fit him to. We can sharpen the point a
little. It would appear that Jesus saw it as no part of his mission to make specific
claims for his own status. The nearest we have to such a claim is his use of the
non-title bar ' e nasa, too ambiguous to be a demand for explicit faith in himself,
more an expression of his own hope for vindication. Allusion to his own role
comes out more as a by-product of his proclamation of God's kingdom; his role
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