“Son of Man” and Hellenistic Christology

Abstract

At the turn of the century Albert Schweitzer claimed that the Son of Man problem had been solved. 1 He still shared the nineteenth-century optimism that scientific investigation both defined and solved critical problems. Yet, the volume and diversity of works published since that statement on the subject "Son of Man" reveal the difficulty confronting a theological world which senses that the task of christology is unfinished as long as the title Son of Man is not properly related to the person and work of Christ.It is noteworthy that the resurgence of interest in the designation Son of Man for Jesus follows a development parallel to that of the quest for the historical Jesus and is directly linked to nineteenth-century religious themes such as the search for the dignity of humankind, the humanization of God, the reinterpretation of myth, the search for a methodology in religion, and the progressive realization that primitive Christianity experienced the shocks of several waves of hellenization. Twentieth-century principles of investigation in biblical criticism bear the indelible marks of those movements. In addition to the Religionschichtliche Schule, form criticism and redaction criticism have provided the means to understand better the forces at work in the formation and transmission of traditions and, most importantly, they undergird our historical knowledge by a fairly objective classification of sources. 3 By using these methods several scholars have produced valuable works which have contributed to the study of the relationship of Son of Man to christology. 9 It is, however, with considerable hesitation that successive New Testament scholars have pursued, each in his or her own way, a Heideggevi&n Holzweg in their attempt to cut across a web of complex interrelationships and influences which, from the Persian captivity to the Gnostic movements, have shaped the messianic expectations of the Judeo-Christian tradition.It would be impossible to review all the hypotheses New Testament scholars have formulated in order to establish a christological meaning of the title Son of Man. The frustrations in that specific field of research often suggest that we should abandon the protean scholarly attempts at a solution and acknowledge theological and exegetical defeat. Every concerted attempt toward the normalization of a Son of Man theology has crumbled under the weight of conflicting evidence. It is consequently with great hesitation that one could propose still another possibility, that the Son of Man title may owe its meaning more to circles where hellenistic and pre-Gnostic influences