This survey of Son of man-Forschung makes no claim to completeness, which in any case is probably unattainable, but seeks to review the main trends and developments since my earlier book Jesus and the Son of Man (1964).

A number of scholars still find authentic words of Jesus in all three groups of sayings: those referring to his earthly activity, those foretelling his passion and resurrection, and those looking to the parousia and glory of the Son of man. Among them are Goppelt, Moule, Maddox, Marshall, Barrett, and Bruce.

Goppelt adds to the authentic sayings the following: Mark 2.10, 28; the Q present sayings Matt. 8.20, par.; 11.19, par.; 12.32, par.; the future saying Luke 12.8, regarded as more original than parr. Matt. 10.32 and Mark 8.38; and a passion prediction behind Mark 8.31, traceable to the oldest Palestinian tradition and possibly to Jesus in the form, ‘The Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected (and after three days be raised up)’; this last part is implicit, because in the idea of the suffering righteous man rejection leads to exaltation.

Marshall does not take into account all the texts. The establishment of the fact (sic) that Jesus referred to himself as Son of man in his earthly ministry makes it impossible to believe that in the future sayings he could have referred to someone else, for he could not have spoken about two Sons of men! Jesus, therefore, refers to himself in Luke 12.8f.; 12.40, par. Matt. 24.44; Luke 18.8b; Mark 14.62.

Summary

The antiquity of a saying attributed to Jesus may be tested in several ways; but antiquity does not guarantee authenticity. In his study of Son of man sayings and their non-Son of man rivals or parallels, Jeremias is concerned with the question of the priority of one or the other of the two types. Clearly, investigation of the relative age of traditional sayings must precede the further inquiry into authenticity. The present study has not found sufficient evidence to justify acceptance of either Jeremias' preference for the non-Son of man parallels, or Borsch's contrary arguments in favour of the Son of man versions as the more primitive type. Jeremias' other thesis is that the oldest Son of man sayings of all are likely to be those without non-Son of man rivals (konkurrenzlos). Our investigation, however, has produced the result that the only sayings of this category to which authenticity can be assigned with any degree of probability are the three closely associated sayings in Luke 17.24, 26f., 28–30. These, together with Luke 12.8f. and 11.29f., the only authentic sayings of the other category, constitute the ‘kernel sayings’.

Full account has been taken of the ‘sentence of holy law’ investigated by Käsemann (Perrin's ‘eschatological judgment pronouncement’ or ‘judgment saying’), and of the ‘eschatological correlative’ (Perrin's ‘comparison saying’) more recently isolated by R. A. Edwards. Both these types are represented among the kernel sayings: Luke 12.8f. is a sentence of holy law, and Luke 11.30; 17.24, 26, 28a + 30 are eschatological correlatives.

The appearance not only of another book about the Son of man, but of one by an author already responsible for an earlier work on the subject, may perhaps require some explanation. In the last chapter of my earlier book, Jesus and the Son of Man (1964), the thesis was outlined that Jesus confidently expected vindication of his mission after his death by being given, in the presence of God, a status of exaltation that involved the judgmental functions traditionally associated with the apocalyptic Son of man. The present work seeks to develop this thesis, and to that extent it is a logical sequel to JSM. It was suggested as a worthwhile undertaking by study of subsequent contributions to the unending debate, some of which have been used in support of the thesis presented here, while others, setting out theories which appear to me to be unconvincing, have served only to strengthen my adherence to it. The contribution of the present study, therefore, is not the presentation of a fresh or novel theory, but the defence, promotion, and development, against the background of recent significant work, and by detailed investigation of the relevant texts, of the theme stated above.

The first two chapters, constituting Part One, are intended mainly as necessary prolegomena to the study of texts in Part Two. Although not an actual part of the argument, these chapters are far from being a mere catalogue of the principal views and theories put forward since 1964.

Of the sayings listed in the left-hand column at the beginning of chapter III there remain to be investigated those having non-Son of man rivals or parallels: Luke 12.8–9 par. (Mark 8.38), and Luke 11.29–30 par. In addition, Luke 12.10, along with its parallels, is re-examined next because of its position immediately after text 1 in Luke. The chapter concludes with briefer discussions of some other pairs of sayings.

1. Luke 12.8–9. ‘Every one who acknowledges me before men, the Son of man will also acknowledge before the angels of God; (9) but he who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.’

Matt. 10.32–3. ‘So every one who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; who is in heaven.’

Mark 8.38. ‘For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of man also be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels’ (parr. Luke 9.26; Matt. 16.27).

Support for the superiority of the Lukan to the Matthaean version is very strong and includes Bultmann, Tödt, Hahn, Fuller, Leivestad, Voss, and Pannenberg. Bultmann, Tödt, Hahn, and Pannenberg lay special emphasis on the alleged distinction attributed to Jesus between himself and the Son of man as a separate figure as a mark of authenticity, and maintain that the post-Easter community could not have originated it.

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.

A majority of recent writers continue to support the view that there existed in pre-Christian apocalyptic Judaism a concept of the eschatological Son of man, a transcendent and pre-existent being whose primary function in the End-time would be that of a judge, delivering the righteous and punishing the wicked. Besides H. E. Tödt, E. Jüngel, and F. Hahn may be mentioned the following. D. E. Nineham accepts the hypothesis without discussion. R. H. Fuller thinks the most likely source of the Son of man concept used by Jesus and the early church to be a pre-Christian apocalyptic tradition of the Son of man ‘as the pre-existent divine agent of judgment and salvation’. C. K. Barrett supports the apocalyptic Son of man passages in the gospels, because ‘they have a readily ascertainable setting in the Judaism with which, we may suppose, Jesus was familiar’, and part of the evidence is provided in the Similitudes of Enoch. It is part of P. Vielhauer's different thesis (that it was not Jesus but the early church that spoke of him as the coming Son of man, and that Jesus did not use the term at all) that this concept and title were derived from apocalyptic Judaism. He is followed by H. Conzelmann. According to H. M. Teeple, who also denies to Jesus any Son of man sayings, the Son of man Christology began in Hellenistic Jewish Christianity, perhaps in Syria, and was derived from Jewish apocalyptic.