Language Studies

Aramaic Thoughts

''Son of Man'' in the New Testament - Part 1

The title "Son of Man" is of great importance for the identification of Jesus in the New Testament. As such, it has been investigated to death, and it is not my purpose here to add anything new to the investigation. I intend first to lay out the basic facts of its use in the New Testament, look at possible Aramaic background and influence, and lay out some of the conclusions and their significance for understanding the theology of the New Testament.

First, it is a title used almost exclusively in the gospels. Of its 86 occurrences in the New Testament, 82 are in the gospels. Apart from the gospel use, the term appears in Acts 7:56; Hebrews 2:6; and Revelation 1:13; 14:14. In the gospels themselves, the term is used more frequently by Matthew (30 times) and Luke (26 times) than by Mark (14 times) and John (12 times). Based on the number of words in the respective gospels, the phrase occurs most frequently in Matthew, about equal frequency in Mark and Luke, and least frequently in John. This suggests that perhaps the phrase is more important for Matthew's presentation of Jesus than it is for John's.

Two forms of the phrase appear in the Greek of the New Testament. The first is the anarthrous form (lacking the definite article: huios anthropou). The other is the arthrous form (having the definite article: ho huios tou anthropou). The anarthrous form is used in Hebrews and Revelation. The use in Hebrews is not really relevant to this discussion, due to the fact that it is part of the quote of Psalm 2, hence applying to Jesus only indirectly. The arthrous form is used by Stephen in Acts 7.

In the synoptic gospels, only the arthrous form is found, and that only in the words of Jesus (the red letters, for those of you with red-letter Bibles). In fact, Jesus himself is the only one who uses the title in the gospels. No one else uses the title in reference to him. In John, the anarthrous form occurs once, in 5:27, also on the lips of Jesus.

Of the two forms, the anarthrous form is less objectionable from a linguistic point of view, reflecting the Semitic construct chain (a son of man, or a son of a man). In Hebrew, it would be ben adam. In Aramaic it would be bar enosh. The phrase ben adam is frequent in the Old Testament, occurring some 108 times. Of those 108,93 occur in Ezekiel, and it is the common title by which Yahweh addresses the prophet.

The arthrous form, though the most common in the New Testament, is more difficult linguistically. In normal koine Greek ho huios tou anthropou would mean "the son of the man," or "the man's son." This, of course, would seem not to have any significance as a title, even though that is obviously the manner in which Jesus uses the phrase. Hence some have argued that the phrase should be understood as "the son of Adam." This suggestion, however, has not received any widespread support. Most English translations thus have the phrase as simply "the Son of Man."

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