Zealot - The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

Enoch, Ezra’s son of man also comes to judge the wicked. Tasked with
     reconstituting the twelve tribes of Israel, he will gather his forces on Mount Zion
     and destroy the armies of men. But while Ezra’s apocalyptic judge appears as “something
     like the figure of a man,” he is no mere mortal. He is a preexistent being with supernatural
     powers who shoots fire out his mouth to consume God’s enemies.
    Both 4 Ezra and the
Similitudes
of Enoch were written near the end of the first century C.E ., after the destruction of Jerusalem and long after Jesus’s death. No doubt these
     two apocryphal texts influenced the early Christians, who may have latched on to the
     more spiritual, preexistent son of man ideal described in them to reinterpret Jesus’s
     mission and identity and help explain why he failed to accomplish any of his messianic
     functions on earth. The gospel of Matthew in particular, which was written around
     the same time as the
Similitudes
and 4 Ezra, seems to have borrowed a great deal of imagery from them, including the
     “throne of glory” upon which the Son of Man will sit at the end of time (Matthew 19:28;
     1 Enoch 62:5) and the “furnace of fire” into which he will throw all evildoers (Matthew
     13:41–42; 1 Enoch 54:3–6)—neither of these phrases appears anywhere else in the New
     Testament. But there is no way that Jesus of Nazareth, who died more than sixty years
     before either the
Similitudes
or 4 Ezra was composed, could havebeen influenced by either. So while the Enoch/Ezra image of an eternal son of man
     chosen by God from the beginning of time to judge mankind and rule on earth on God’s
     behalf does eventually get transposed upon Jesus (so much so that by the time John
     writes his gospel, the Son of Man is a purely divine figure—the
logos—
very much like the primal man in 4 Ezra), Jesus himself could not have understood
     the Son of Man in the same way.
    If one accepts the consensus view that Jesus’s main, if not sole, reference for the
     Son of Man was the book of Daniel, then one should look to that passage in the gospels
     in which Jesus’s use of the title most closely echoes Daniel’s in order to uncover
     what Jesus may have meant by it. As it happens, this particular son-of-man saying,
     which takes place near the end of Jesus’s life, is one that most scholars agree is
     authentic and traceable to the historical Jesus.
    According to the gospels, Jesus has been dragged before the Sanhedrin to answer the
     charges made against him. As one after another, the chief priests, the elders, and
     the scribes fling accusations his way, Jesus sits impassively, silent, and unresponsive.
     Finally, the high priest Caiaphas stands and asks Jesus directly, “Are you the messiah?”
    It is here, at the end of the journey that began on the sacred shores of the Jordan
     River, that the messianic secret is finally peeled away and Jesus’s true nature seemingly
     revealed.
    “I am,” Jesus answers.
    But then immediately this clearest and most concise statement yet by Jesus of his
     messianic identity is muddied with an ecstatic exhortation, borrowed directly from
     the book of Daniel, that once again throws everything into confusion: “And you will
     see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds
     of heaven” (Mark 14:62).
    The first half of Jesus’s response to the high priest is an allusion to the Psalms,
     in which God promises King David that he shall sit at his right hand, “until I make
     your enemies a footstool for yourfeet” (Psalm 110:1). But the phrase “coming with the clouds of heaven” is a direct
     reference to the son of man of Daniel’s vision (Daniel 7:13).
    This is not the first time that Jesus diverts someone’s declaration of him as messiah
     into a diatribe about the Son of Man. After Peter’s confession near Caesarea Philippi,
     Jesus first silences him, then goes on to describe how the Son of Man must suffer
     and be rejected before being killed and rising again three days later (Mark 8:31).
     After the transfiguration, Jesus swears the disciples to secrecy, but only until “after
     the Son of Man is raised from the dead” (Mark 9:9). In both cases, it is clear that
     Jesus’s conception of the Son of Man is to take precedence over other people’s assertion
     of his messianic identity. Even at the end of his life, when he stands in the presence
     of his accusers, he is willing to accept