in a bold fashion, proposing to regard the Son of Man, in Jesus' usage of the title, as a conception in which the Messiah of the Book of Enoch and the Servant of the Lord in Isaiah are united into one. [1] Most writers, however, did not free themselves from inconsistencies. They wanted at one and the same time to make the apocalyptic element dominant in the expression, and to hold that Jesus could not have taken the conception over unaltered, but must have transformed it in some way. These inconsistencies necessarily result from the assumption of Weiss's opponents that Jesus intended to designate Himself as Messiah in the actual present. For since the expression Son of Man has in itself only an apocalyptic sense referring to the future they had to invent another sense applicable to the present, which Jesus might have inserted into it. In all these learned discussions of the title Son of Man this operation is assumed to have been performed.
According to Bousset, Jesus created, and embodied in this term, a new form of the Messianic ideal which united the super-earthly with the human and lowly. In any case, he thinks, the term has a meaning applicable in this present world. Jesus uses it at once to conceal and to suggest His Messianic dignity. How conscious Bousset, nevertheless, is of the difficulty is evident from the fact that in discussing the meaning of the title he remarks that the Messianic significance must have been of subordinate importance in the estimation of Jesus, and cannot have formed the basis of His actions, otherwise He would have laid more stress upon it in His preaching. As if the term Son of Man had not meant for His contemporaries all He needed to say!
Bousset's essay on Jewish Apocalyptic,[2] published in 1903, seeks the solution in a rather different direction, by postponing, namely, to the very last possible moment the adoption of this self-designation. "In all probability Jesus in a few isolated sayings towards the close of His life hit upon this title Son of Man as a means of expressing, in the face of the thought of defeat and death, which forced itself upon Him, His confidence in the abiding victory of His person and His cause." If this is so, the emphasis must be principally on the triumphant apocalyptic aspects of the title.
Even this belated adoption of the title Son of Man is more
- ↑ R. H. Charles, "The Son of Man," Expos. Times, 1893.
- ↑ Die judische Apokalyptik in ihrer religionsgeschichtlichen Herkunft und ihrer Bedeutung fur das Neue Testament. (Jewish Apocalyptic in its religious-historical origin and in its significance for the New Testament.) 1903. On the eschatology of Jesus see also Schwartzkoppf, Die Weissagungen Jesu Christi von seinem Tode, seiner Auferstehung und Wiederkunft und ihre Erfullung. (The Predictions of Jesus Christ concerning His Death, His Resurrection, and Second Coming, and their Fulfilment.) 1895. P. Wernle, Die Reichgotteshoffnung in den altesten christlichen Dokumenten und bei Jesu. (The Hope of the Kingdom of God in the most ancient Christian Documents and as held by Jesus.)
