Zealot - The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

form (
bar enash
rather than the definite
bar enasha
) can be translated as “
a
son of man,” or just “man,” the Greek version
ho huios tou anthropou
can only mean “the son of man.” The difference between the Aramaic and Greek is significant
     and not likely the result of a poor translation by the evangelists. In employing the
     definite form of the phrase, Jesus was using it in a wholly new and unprecedented
     way: as a
title
, not as an idiom. Simply put, Jesus was not calling himself “a son of man.” He was
     calling himself the Son of Man.
    Jesus’s idiosyncratic use of this cryptic phrase would have been completely new to
     his audience. It is often assumed that when Jesus spoke of himself as the Son of Man,
     the Jews knew what he was talking about. They did not. In fact, the Jews of Jesus’s
     time had no unified conception of “son of man.” It is not that the Jews were unfamiliar
     with the phrase, which would have instantly triggered an array of imagery from the
     books of Ezekiel, Daniel, or the Psalms. It is that they would not have recognized
     it as a title, the way they would have with, say, the Son of God.
    Jesus, too, would have looked to the Hebrew Scriptures to draw his imagery for the
     Son of Man as a distinct individual rather than as just a byword for “man.” He could
     have used the book of Ezekiel, wherein the prophet is referred to as “son of man”
     nearly ninety times: “[God] said to me, ‘Oh, son of man [
ben adam
], standon your feet and I will speak to you’ ” (Ezekiel 2:1). Yet if there is one thing scholars
     agree on, it is that the primary source for Jesus’s particular interpretation of the
     phrase came from the book of Daniel.
    Written during the reign of the Seleucid king Antiochus Epiphanes (175 B.C.E .–164 B.C.E .)—the king who thought he was a god—the book of Daniel records a series of apocalyptic
     visions the prophet claims to have had while serving as seer for the Babylonian court.
     In one of these visions, Daniel sees four monstrous beasts rise out of a great sea—each
     beast representing one of four great kingdoms: Babylon, Persia, Medea, and the Greek
     kingdom of Antiochus. The four beasts are let loose upon the earth to plunder and
     trample upon the cities of men. In the midst of the death and destruction, Daniel
     sees what he describes as “the Ancient of Days” (God) sitting upon a throne made of
     flames, his clothes white as snow, the hair on his head like pure wool. “A thousand
     thousands served him,” Daniel writes, “and ten thousand times ten thousand stood attending
     him.” The Ancient of Days passes judgment on the beasts, killing and burning some
     with fire, taking dominion and authority away from the rest. Then, as Daniel stands
     in awe of the spectacle, he sees “one like a son of man [
bar enash
] coming with the clouds of heaven.”
    “He came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him,” Daniel writes of this
     mysterious figure. “And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, so that
     all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion shall be everlasting;
     it shall never be destroyed” (Daniel 7:1–14). Thus, the “one like a son of man,” by
     which Daniel appears to be referring to a distinct individual, is given sovereignty
     over the earth and accorded power and authority to rule over all nations and all peoples
as king
.
    Daniel and Ezekiel are not the only books that use “son of man” to refer to a singular
     and specific person. The phrase appears in much the same way in the apocryphal books
     4 Ezra and 1 Enoch, more specifically in the parables section of Enoch popularly calledthe
Similitudes
(1 Enoch 37–72). In the
Similitudes
, Enoch has a vision in which he looks up to heaven and sees a person he describes
     as “the son of man to whom belongs righteousness.” He calls this figure “the Chosen
     One” and suggests that he was appointed by God before creation to come down to earth
     and judge humanity on God’s behalf. He will be granted eternal power and kingship
     over the earth and will pass fiery judgment on the kings of this world. The wealthy
     and the powerful will plead for his mercy, but no mercy shall be shown them. At the
     end of the passage, the reader discovers that this son of man is actually Enoch himself.
    In 4 Ezra, the son-of-man figure bursts out of the sea, flying on “the clouds of heaven.”
     As in Daniel and