I argued a few weeks back that the “son of man” figure in Daniel 7:13-14 is not an individual messiah or an angel or divine hypostasis (i.e., a manifestation of some aspect of the godhead) but symbolically represents that part of Israel which remained faithful to the covenant, at great cost, during the crisis provoked by Antiochus IV Epiphanes’ brutal attempt to eradicate Jewish religion.

Craig has objected, however, that the reference to “one like a son of man” is unique, that he is clearly a “singular individual”, and that I have not “provided a persuasive argument to overcome this”. He further maintains that “saints of the Most High” defines an expansive category that includes not only the “current Jewish saints” but everyone who would be part of God’s kingdom—“in other words the church of God of people of all nations”. Finally he asks whether my novel “historical interpretive schema” does not in fact oblige me to argue that Daniel’s prophecy was not fulfilled by Jesus. I want to address these criticisms.

The scribes claim that Jesus casts out demons by the prince of demons, and Jesus says that’s a stupid accusation to make because it would mean that Satan is fighting against himself. He then puts to them a little parable, the point of which presumably is that he is able to cast out evil spirits because the strong man has been bound:

But no one can enter a strong man’s (ischurou) house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house. (Mk. 3:27; cf. Matt. 12:29)

In a series of talks at the Communitas International (formerly known as Christian Associates) staff conference in Budapest recently Greg Boyd argued 1) that American Christianity has been compromised and corrupted by its close association with state and especially military power; 2) that European Christendom was a disastrous departure from the authentic faith of the early church and should never have been allowed to happen; and 3) that the cross should be determinative for our reading of scripture and our understanding of God. Greg has a big new book coming out next year, I gather, with the title The Crucifixion of the Warrior God, which just about sums up the whole thesis.

What is the mission of the church? Conservatives will say that the mission of the church, at core, is to save people. Other activities, no matter how laudable, are secondary to this task because there is nothing more important than a person’s eternal destiny. More progressive types will say that the mission of the church is to serve people. That’s partly because people don’t want to be saved any more, but there’s also a gratifying ethical-political edge to it. It’s a way of getting some traction in the world.

Oversimplifying admittedly, I suggest that both the conservatives and the progressives have got it wrong. Saving people and serving people are understandable responses to the crisis of credibility that the church in the secular West faces. But they lack a sense of narrative context and for that reason miss the point.

Who is the “one like a son of man” who comes with the clouds of heaven to be presented before the Ancient of Days in Daniel 7:13? Collins calls it “perhaps the most celebrated question in all the apocalyptic literature”.

As far as modern scholarship goes, three interpretations are generally considered: 1) a symbolic figure standing for righteous Jews or for Israel; 2) an angel, probably Michael; and 3) an individual human such as the messiah, or even, if we keep the historical context in view, Judas Maccabeus. It has sometimes been claimed that the “one like a son of man” is a hypostatized manifestation of God like Wisdom in Proverbs 8 or equivalent to the “likeness with a human appearance” in Ezekiel 1:26. But the narrative does not easily allow an identification of the inferior son of man figure, who receives dominion, with the Ancient of Days, who judges empires.

Larry Hurtado has uploaded a pre-publication version of his contribution to a response to N.T. Wright’s Paul and the Faithfulness of God. As the fashion goes these days (How Jesus Became God / How God Became Jesus) the new book is cleverly called God and the Faithfulness of Paul: A Critical Examination of the Pauline Theology of N. T. Wright, and is edited by Christoph Heilig, J. Thomas Hewitt and Michael F. Bird. You can get it on Amazon for £134 ($194), which is twice the price and half the number of words of Wright’s original book, so if any other contributors feel inclined to make pre-publication copies available, it would be much appreciated. 

Hurtado’s chapter is entitled “YHWH’s Return to Zion: A New Catalyst for Earliest High Christology?” He summarises Wright’s argument about the development of Paul’s christology and puts forward two main lines of criticism. I haven’t looked closely at what Wright says, but on the evidence of the summary, I’d say Hurtado has a strong case. Where it leaves us in terms of an Early High Christology, is another matter. I’ll throw in some thoughts at the end.