Preface

Summary

It has taken very much longer than anticipated for this book to see the light of day. Other academic commitments and the responsibilities of a university chair have contributed to the delay. However, one result has been that I have been able to take account of some of the more recent literature which, to the impoverishment of my own work, would otherwise not have figured here. My opinion remains that none of the more recently proposed alternative solutions of the Son of man problem in the synoptic gospels, however new or different they may claim or may appear to be, carry such a weight of conviction as to overthrow irreparably the hypothesis they are intended to supplant.

The absence of discussion of the Johannine form of the Son of man, to which a chapter was devoted in my book of 1964, Jesus and the Son of Man, should occasion no surprise.

It so happened that the present study, in its final form, was completed early in the sesquicentenary year of what is now known as Saint David's University College. Since Theology has always figured prominently among the subjects of study in the College, it seems not inappropriate to dedicate this monograph to my colleagues in the Department of Theology during my tenure of the Chair from 1970 to 1976, and this I do with esteem and gratitude.