[1] Kirkpatrick, A. F., The Psalms (Cambridge, 1902), still of great value.Google Scholar

[2] Kümmel, W. G. has shown that there are no convincing reasons for rejecting the genuineness of 2 Thess – Introduction to the NT (ET London, 1966).Google Scholar

[3] Cf. Lindars, B. and Borgen, P., ‘The Place of the OT in the Formation of NT Theology’, NTS 23 (1976) 59–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Some years must be allowed for this development in the early Church. I agree with Bartsch's, H.-W. judgment in reviewing past research, though giving it a somewhat different slant from his: ‘I think we were wrong to take it for granted that Primitive Christianity began with the expectation of the Parousia in the near future’ (NTS 11 [1965] 397).Google Scholar

[4] Harris, J.Rendel, Testimonies, 2 vols. with the assistance of V. Burch (Cambridge, 1916–1920).Google Scholar

[5] ‘… there did not exist at that time a political eschatology alongside the transcendental, and indeed it could not on inner grounds subsist alongside it’ (Quest., p. 253).Google Scholar

[6] He describes these as ‘the four works to which we owe our knowledge of the eschatological expectations of late Judaism’ (Kingdom of God and Primitive Christianity [1968] 42).Google Scholar

[7] For a more detailed examination we my article, ‘Schweitzer's Influence – Blessing or Bane?’ (JTS, NS Vol. 28, 289–302)Google Scholarreprinted in The Kingdom of God (ed. Chilton, Bruce); and my book, Jesus and the End of the World (Edinburgh, 1980).Google Scholar

[8] The absence of any trace of the Similitudes (or Parables) among the Qumran scrolls and fragments – although every other section of Enoch is represented – has led to a re-consideration of the date of these chapters. M. A. Knibb proposes a date about the end of the first century A.D., the time of 2 Baruch and 2 Esdras. He has written that ‘the absence of any fragments of the Parables seems to me to point fairly strongly to the view that this section of Enoch was composed after the Qumran site was abandoned in A.D. 68’ (NTS 25 [1979] 358)Google Scholar. Charlesworth, J. in The OT Pseudepigrapha (London, 1983)Google Scholar which he edited, also supports a date late in the first century A.D. (p. xxxii). The editor of The Apocryphal OT (Oxford, 1984)Google Scholar, H. F. D. Sparks, briefly discusses the matter and refers to the alleged influence of the Similitudes on the NT and the question of the Son of man. He points out that ‘it looks as if much that has been written during the 20th century about these matters will have to be rewritten’ (p. 175). This is a point of view which I have been urging for some time. Even before the Qumran discoveries I showed that Charles's arguments for a pre-Christian dating were not cogent and I inclined at that time to the judgment of Bousset (in his book Jesus) that a date in the middle of the first Christian century was to be preferred (The Second Advent, London, 1945; 3rd ed. 1963; ch. 5). A date in the Christian era had of course been proposed by a number of authorities (Dalman, , Schmidt, N., Stanton, V. H., Lagrange and others) but Charles's deservedly wide influence led many to accept his opinion.Google Scholar

Several scholars have suggested that the Son of man passages could be a rebuttal, as it were, of the Church's claims about Jesus. There is an interesting passage in Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho where the Jewish protagonist brings up an objection to the Messiahship of Jesus, one that no doubt had been used from the earliest times of Christianity. The Messiah was to be a glorious figure, not like the crucified Jesus; he brings in Dan. 7 to reinforce his objection (ch. 32). The Similitudes, which owe much to Dan 7, could be, among other things, a Jewish counter-blast of this kind. Hindley, J. C., who prefers a date about A.D. 115, surmises that this Jewish work may perhaps draw on ‘the Christian use of the term Son of man for polemical purposes’ (NTS 14 [1968] 551–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ‘Towards a date for the Similitudes of Enoch’). Many years ago Stanton, V. H. spoke, in connection with the Similitudes, of ‘Christian influence upon Jewish thought’ (HDB 3.356).Google Scholar

[9] Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes.

[10] In the latter collection 2 Esdras is not included, on the ground that it is easily accessible in the English Apocrypha.

[11] Cf. Bousset-Gressmann, , Die Religion des Judentums, 486.Google Scholar

[12] The sub-title of this well-documented work is: ‘Royauté, Règne et Royaume de Dieu … sans Eschatologie’. The whole conception of the Kingdom of God is involved in this matter.

[13] Cf. Higgins, A. J. B., Jesus and the Son of Man (London, 1964) 59Google Scholar and Tödt, H. E., The Son of Man in the Synoptic Tradition (E.T. London, 1965) 44–5.Google Scholar

[14] It has been shown that in several cases Mark agrees with the LXX against the Hebrew; Glasson, T. F., ‘Mark 13 and the Greek Old Testament’ (Ex. Times 69, 213–15).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

[15] On the order of the references (sometimes brought forward as an objection, e.g. by Cullmann, in Salvation in History, 225 f.)Google Scholar, we my article ‘The Reply to Caiaphas’, NTS 7 [1960] 88–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Dodd, C. H. has pointed out that the words of Dan 7 are ‘a symbolic utterance, which the writer interprets … We may suppose it was equally symbolic in the mouth of Jesus.’ Cf. his Parables of the Kingdom (Nisbet, ed., 91–2)Google Scholar. See also Hooker's, Morna discussion in The Son of Man in Mark (London, 1967) 163–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

[16] Robinson, J. A. T. in his book Jesus and His Coming (London, 1957)Google Scholar finds authentic references to Christ's future ‘coming’ and divides these into two classes, Vindication and Visitation, but neither of these involves a visible descent in glory. In a more recent work Barnabas Lindars finds no authentic Parousia sayings in his study of the Son of man material in the Gospels (Jesus Son of Man, London, 1983).Google Scholar

[17] When the Parousia doctrine came to be established, Dan 7. 13 was applied in a new way to represent a descent from heaven as in Mark 13. 26. But the original meaning lingered. In Pseudo-Cyprian's, Testimonies against the Jews, 2.26, Dan 7. 13–14Google Scholar is quoted under the heading, ‘That when he had risen, he should receive from his Father all power, and his power should be eternal’; it is accompanied by Psa 110. 1–2 among other passages. Lactantius associates Dan 7. 13 with the Ascension, Institutes 4. 21. For centuries this verse and its context have been included in lectionaries for Ascension-tide and this is still the case in the Alternative Service Book (1980) of the Church of England, 627, 630.Google Scholar

[18] This note is quoted with approval by a former Chief Rabbi, Hertz, J. H. in his edition of the Pentateuch and Haftorahs (1938, 905).Google Scholar