Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Rylands agrees with another interesting Mythicist, Hermann Raschke, about the meaning of 'Son of Man' in Mark.

''Son of man'' is the mere visible body (the psyche) of the man possessed by the pneuma, the Spirit of the Christ.


Jesus prophetizes that only the his visible body will suffer, but not the his Spirit, who therefore will abandon him on the cross just before the death.

Therefore the blasphemy against the Son of Man is allowed, but not so the blasphemy against the Christ (being an emanation from God).

It is strange (=unexpected, =improbable), under this hypothesis, that just the proto-catholic Matthew 12:32 has:

Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

...differently from Mark 3:28, that sounds very 'catholic' insofar it hasn't ''son of man'' but ''sons of men'':

28 “Truly I tell you, sons of men will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”—

whereas Luke 12:10 is like Matthew:

And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.

The more probable explanation is that the verse is not so offensive to Catholics insofar it could stand not modified in Matthew and Luke.

But in Mark the verse had to be changed. The readers of Mark were gnostics.

I still don't get why anyone takes "son of man" as anything other than "I" later changed to fake a connection to Daniel that obvioudly does not exist.

...differently from Mark 3:28, that sounds very 'catholic' insofar it hasn't ''son of man'' but ''sons of men'':

You're reading backwards. Sons of man =Hebrew idiom for human beings (or everyone, in some contexts). Son of man if legitimately used means one human being in a 2nd person address or essentially "any man" in the third person. But son of man used differently than this (i.e. as christological title) is Catholic fakery.

The more probable explanation is that the verse is not so offensive to Catholics insofar it could stand not modified in Matthew and Luke.

The modification towards Catholicism PRODUCED Matthew and Luke's reading.

Giuseppe wrote:
But in Mark the verse had to be changed. The readers of Mark were gnostics.

The whole section, the whole story that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is unforgiveable, seems to be made up by the Catholics to mean "if you question our canon, which is inspired by the Holy Spirit, that is unforgiveable, you will be damned" to prevent dissent on the canon. I doubt any Gnostic gospel or Gnostic copy of a gospel contained this story until after Nicea.

davidbrainerd wrote:
I still don't get why anyone takes "son of man" as anything other than "I" later changed to fake a connection to Daniel that obvioudly does not exist.

You're reading backwards. Sons of man =Hebrew idiom for human beings (or everyone, in some contexts). Son of man if legitimately used means one human being in a 2nd person address or essentially "any man" in the third person. But son of man used differently than this (i.e. as christological title) is Catholic fakery.

There has been commentary on the difference between Christianity's definitive article the Son of Man compared to the Hebrew a son of man.

MrMacSon wrote:

davidbrainerd wrote:
I still don't get why anyone takes "son of man" as anything other than "I" later changed to fake a connection to Daniel that obvioudly does not exist.

You're reading backwards. Sons of man =Hebrew idiom for human beings (or everyone, in some contexts). Son of man if legitimately used means one human being in a 2nd person address or essentially "any man" in the third person. But son of man used differently than this (i.e. as christological title) is Catholic fakery.

There has been commentary on the difference between Christianity's definitive article the Son of Man compared to the Hebrew a son of man.

I took a stab at this issue here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2580, proposing that the definite article ("the") came from referring to the "one like a son of man" in Daniel 7.13-14 as "the son of man," just like exegetes refer to "the lion," "the bear," and "the leopard" in that chapter, distilling some creature which looks like an animal to the animal itself. It is the same thing as saying that Jesus is "the son of man" from the prophet Daniel; we make indefinite nouns definite once we are on the same page and know we are talking about the same thing.

ETA: I know you know this, MrMacSon. I was giving the link for those who did not participate on that thread.

Ben C. Smith wrote:

MrMacSon wrote: ----------------------------
There has been commentary on the difference between Christianity's definitive article the Son of Man compared to the Hebrew a son of man.

I took a stab at this issue here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2580, proposing that the definite article ("the") came from referring to the "one like a son of man" in Daniel 7.13-14 as "the son of man," just like exegetes refer to "the lion," "the bear," and "the leopard" in that chapter, distilling some creature which looks like an animal to the animal itself. It is the same thing as saying that Jesus is "the son of man" from the prophet Daniel; we make indefinite nouns definite once we are on the same page and know we are talking about the same thing.

ETA: I know you know this, MrMacSon. I was giving the link for those who did not participate on that thread.

Yep, I take such replies as elaborations. And of course I posted on that thread a link to another thread I had started to outline some scholars arguments, and to get some further commentary.

I wonder if making indefinite nouns definite like that is reification of a theological entity, as a reflection of its theological 'evolution'.

Peter K has, in turn, provided some further elaboration and commentary about that notion -

Peter Kirby wrote: ----------------------------
... "reification" is a decent option if we're talking about the step from the abstract to the specific, e.g., if someone developed the story of the Gospels from the abstract concept of a platonic-sounding Man. It would describe the step before the gospels, to the gospels, if so.

... a step from docetism to the orthodox view is basically "corporealization" (which is actually a word).

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/corporealization

• corporealization (plural corporealizations)
  
  The process of making corporeal, of giving physical form to.
  The state of having physical form as a result of this process.

(This can be further picked at, given that the ancients had a different concept of physicality and corporeality than we do, but "fleshifying" isn't a word... nor is "incarnationalizing"...)

Nope, got it -- enflesh

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/enflesh - Give bodily form to; make real or concrete


viewtopic.php?p=69453#p69453

davidbrainerd wrote:

You're reading backwards. Sons of man =Hebrew idiom for human beings (or everyone, in some contexts). Son of man if legitimately used means one human being in a 2nd person address or essentially "any man" in the third person. But son of man used differently than this (i.e. as christological title) is Catholic fakery.

I (and Rylands) agree per 100% with this. Read again the point above. Being ''son of man'' only ''a mere man, a guy'', then it is allowed to speak against Jesus as (apparently a) mere man. While the true blasphemy is to attack Jesus himself, his divine essentia (being Jesus Christ).
This says us that it is not necessary to wait the Gospel of Marcion to realize that already in Mark Jesus has two natures: one only apparently human and visible, the other really divine and hidden.

Only the former nature suffers in Mark, since Jesus prophetizes three times that the son of man (i.e.: him as mere apparent man) will die on the cross - and not Jesus himself (him as Jesus Christ).

Who rises is the same ''son of man'' (meaning that the Spirit of Jesus Christ enters again in him) but only to go among the gentiles of Galilea.

At least for me, this fits perfectly with all the other traces of separationism we find in Mark.

Mark could continue to believe both the things:

that the true Jesus Christ died in heaven, while the his (fictitious) earthly avatar died on the earth.