(1) A Special Relationship
"In Hebrew and Aramaic 'son of' is commonly used to mean 'member of the class of'; hence, 'the sons of god' is a regular way of saying 'the gods,' just as 'the sons of men' (commonly translated 'the children of men') is a regular way of saying 'men'."
- Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God? (1978) p. 133
Traditionally, the expression "sons of God" referred to the angelic host. "Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them."
- Job 1:6
It also referred to God's special relationship with the Israelites - His chosen people. "And you shall say to Pharaoh: Thus says the Lord: 'Israel is My son, My firstborn'."
- Exodus 4:22
"When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son."
- Hosea 11:1
"He [the Lord] said, 'Surely they [house of Israel] are my people, sons who will not be false to me'; and so he became their Savior."
- Isaiah 63:9
As the figure head representing of Israel, the king was decreed to be God's son. "I [David] will proclaim the decree of the LORD: He said to me, 'You are my Son [or son]; today I have become your Father [or have begotten you]'."
- Psalms 2:7
This royal birthright was passed on to Solomon and, by implication, to all future successors of the House of David. "Behold, a son shall be born to you [David],...his name shall be Solomon....He shall build a house for My Name; he shall be a son to Me, and I will be a Father to him, and I will establish his royal throne in Israel forever."
- Psalms 2:7
The Hebrew word behind "son" is "servant". This reflects the special status of kingship prevalent in the ancient world. (For example, the ancient Egyptians identified the living Pharoah with Horus, son of the God Osiris, and the deceased Pharoah with Osiris himself.) "Endow the king with your justice, O God, the royal son with your righteousness."
- Psalms 72:1
"The king of Israel was declared to be God's vice-regent on earth, precisely the role marked out for Jesus who is God's royal Messiah."
- Graham N. Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus, The Oxford Bible Series (1989), paperback, p. 44
(2) The Titular "Son of God"
The Son of God (or Son of Elohim) was a messianic figure presaging a return of the rule of the House of David in certain apocryphal literature.
"The most significant development since 1986 in this regard has been the discovery of the title 'Son of God' in one of the Qumran papyri (Dead Sea Scrolls) used in relation to a person other than Jesus.....this simply reinforces the argument made there that to be called the Son of God in a Jewish setting in the first century is not by any means the same as being identical with God Himself."
- Tom Harpur, For Christ's Sake "[There will be violence and gr]eat [Evils.] Oppression will be upon the earth. [Peoples will make war.] and battles shall multiply among the nations, [until the King of the people of God arises. He will become] the King of Syria and [E]gypt. [All the peoples will serve him,] and he shall become [gre]at upon the earth. [...All w]ill make [peace,] and all will serve [him.] He will be called [son of the Gr]eat [God;] by His Name he shall be designated."
"He shall be called the Son of God; they will call him son of the Most High. Like the shooting stars that you saw, thus will be their Kingdom. They will rule for a given period of year[s] upon the earth and crush everyone. People will crush people, and nation (will crush) nation, until the people of God arises and causes everyone to rest from the sword. His Kingdom will be an Eternal Kingdom, and he will be Righteous in all his Ways."
- "The Son of God" (4Q246 Aramaic - attributed to the prophet Daniel)
"He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High."
- Luke 1:32a
"A. Fitzmyer clarified another important aspect of angelology by closely analyzing the terminology for 'son of God' at Qumran. In his opinion, 'son of God' terminology at Qumran has no messianic context. Rather, it is used as a title for angels, as it is throughout the Hebrew Bible. Furthermore, Qumran evidences the use of the term 'Lord' (mr') for YHWH, the Tetragrammaton. This suggests that the origin of the church's use of the term 'Lord' for 'Christ' is not to be found in the Hellenistic environment but in the original Hebrew 'church,' as it was a feature of Jewish sectarianism before Christianity.
- Alan F. Segal, "The Risen Christ and the Angelic Mediator Figures in Light of Qumran" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (James H. Charlesworth, Ed. - 1992), p. 304 "He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."
- Luke 1:32-33
Notice here that the author of Luke is echoing the promise extended to David in Psalms 2:7. This messianic Son of God can also be found in the Christian Greek addition to 4 Ezra, a 1st c. CE text. "I, Ezra, saw on Mount Zion a great multitude, which I could not number, and they all were praising the Lord with songs.
In their midst was a young man of great stature, taller than any of the others, and on the head of each of them he placed a crown, but he was more exalted than they. And I was held spellbound.
Then I asked an angel, 'Who are these, my lord?'
He answered and said to me, 'These are they who have put off mortal clothing and have put on the immortal, and they have confessed the name of God; now they are being crowned, and receive palms.'
Then I said to the angel, 'Who is that young man who places crowns on them and puts palms in their hands?'
He answered and said to me, 'He is the Son of God, whom they confessed in the world.' So I began to praise those who had stood valiantly for the name of the Lord.
Then the angel said to me, 'Go, tell my people how great and many are the wonders of the Lord God which you have seen.' "
- 4 Ezra 2:42-48
"When the Hillelite rabbis gained control of the Jewish community, they vociferously argued against the worship of any angel and specifically polemicized against the belief that a heavenly figure other than God can forgive sins (b.Sanh 38b), quoting Exodus 23:21 prominently among other scriptures to prove their point. The heresy itself they call believing that there are 'two powers in heaven.' By this term the rabbis largely (but not exclusively) referred to Christians who, as Paul says, do exactly what the rabbis warn against: they worship the second power."
- Alan F. Segal, "The Risen Christ and the Angelic Mediator Figures in Light of Qumran" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (James H. Charlesworth, Ed. - 1992), p. 317
(3) The Son and Tenant Farmers "I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit."
- Isaiah 5:1-2
"The parable of the wicked tenant farmers, despite signs of some editorial reworking by his followers, seems to derive ultimately from Jesus. He then may have referred to himself with the word 'son'; 'He (the 'man who planted a vineyard' = God') sent 'his son' to the tenant farmers 'saying, 'They will respect my son'."
"The fruitful fields are owned by absentee landlords, which describes rural Palestine beginning with the heavy taxations by Herod the Great. It does not so representatively describe Palestine after its devastation by the Romans in 66-70 C.E. The ambiance is that of Palestinian Jews from the time of Herod the Great until 70, when they, like Job, felt unjustly persecuted, and not that of the post-Easter community, which claimed to be justified by Christ's death and resurrection.
"The refusal of the tenant farmers to pay what is owed to the landlord makes adequate sense only in Jesus' time; the land rightfully belonged to the so-called tenant farmers, who believed that their religious and legal right had been unjustly robbed from them. Such history fits precisely both the parable and the Palestinian countryside after 38 B.C.E."
- James H. Charlesworth, "Jesus as 'Son' and the Righteous Teacher as 'Gardener'" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (1992), pp. 142, 153 "He began to speak to them in parables. 'A man planted a vineyard, and set a fence around it, and dug a trough (for the wine press). Then he built a tower (to protect it); finally, he leased it to tenants, and went away. When the time came (for the harvest), he sent a servant to the tenants, to collect from them (his portion) of the fruits of the vineyard. But they took him, beat (him), and sent (him) away empty-handed. Again he sent to them another servant; him they wounded in the head, and treated shamefully. Then he sent another; him they killed; (he even sent) many others; some they beat and some they (even) killed. He had still one other (he could send): a beloved son (huion agapeton). He sent him to them last (of all, escchaton) saying, 'They will respect my ' But those tenants said to one another, 'This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours' And seizing (him), they killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard. What will the owner (ho kyrios) of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants, and give the vineyard to others.'"
- Mark 12:1-9 (translated by James H. Charlesworth) (Matthew 21:33-39; Luke 20:9-15a; Thomas 65:1-7 colored pink)
"...The reference to the 'son' is impressively undeveloped and ambiguous. This factor accords well with the use of 'son' in early Jewish theology, and especially with the words of some Galilean charismatics contemporaneous with Jesus, notably Honi (m.Ta'an 3:8), or the tradition that one of the Galilean charismatics, namely Hanina, was called 'my son' by God (b.Ber 17b)."
"There is impressive evidence that it once circulated in an Aramaic oral form. Note the undeveloped sentences and the need to supply within parentheses the full meaning. The audience knew the historical setting; it was familiar to them from their daily lives. Note especially the need to supply objective pronouns within parentheses: 'him' must be added for meaningful English not fewer than three times. Recall the following sentence: 'But they took him, beat (him), and sent (him) away empty-handed.' Like English, Greek usually presents these objective pronouns, but Aramaic, Jesus' own language, frequently assumes them in oral and written language."
- James H. Charlesworth, "Jesus as 'Son' and the Righteous Teacher as 'Gardener'" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (1992), pp. 154, 155
(4) God as Father "[...you will be] to Him like a firstborn son and He will feel for you as a man does for his only child..."
- The Secret of the Way Things Are 4Q416 Frag. 2 2.13
"Many early Jews tended to conceive of God as distant, visiting humanity only through intermediaries such as angels, as we know from studying the Pseudepigrapha and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Jesus perceived that God himself was very near, and that he was directly concerned about each person, even (perhaps especially) sinners."
- James H. Charlesworth, Jesus Within Judaism
"...The Aramaic invocation Abba ('my own dear Father') occurs on the lips of Jesus only once in all four Gospels, yet many critics ascribe it on other grounds to the historical Jesus."
- John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew - Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 1. "Abba, Father,' he said, 'everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.'"
- Mark 14:36
"...It is clear that Jesus chose one particular Aramaic noun to articulate his conception of God. Jesus refers to God by the word 'Abba', which is a determinative Aramaic noun, 'the Father'. It is employed frequently as a vocative form, meaning 'O Father', and, since the pronominal suffix is often omitted in colloquial speech, it also means 'my father'. Occasionally in Jerusalem I hear children call their fathers with the sounds 'Abba, Abba', which is, of course, Hebrew for 'Daddy'."
"Jesus' unique use of 'abba' (Aram.) for God builds upon the Jewish custom to call God 'abinu ' (Heb.) , 'our father'. God is invoked as 'Our father' in a version of the second benediction before the Shema in the morning synagogal service, namely the Ahabah Rabbah. This prayer can be dated with some probability in form and content, but not exact wording, to pre-70 Palestinian Jewish liturgical settings."
- James H. Charlesworth, Jesus Within Judaism "Our Father (abinu), merciful Father, thou who are ever compassionate, have pity on us and inspire us to understand and discern, to perceive, learn and teach, to observe, do, and fulfill gladly all the teachings of thy Torah."
- Ahabah Rabbah
".. For Jesus to address God so directly as 'Father' does not necessarily mean he claimed to be his divine son in the Christian sense. Rather it was a form of address often used by the Jewish holy man, the nabi, the hasid or indeed anyone who felt he could enter into a direct dialogue with God."
- Ian Wilson, Jesus, The Evidence
The first time Godd is addresses as Abba in rabinnical literature occurs in the Talmudic account of Honi, the Circle Drawer. "Thus he says to him, Father [Abba] take me to bathe in warm water [and he does], wash me in cold water [and he does], give me nuts, almonds, peaches, and pomegranates and he gives them unto him."
- Babylonian Talmud, Taanith 23a
"'Abba' as a way of addressing God was certainly used by the grandson of Honi the Circle Drawer."
- Ian Wilson, Jesus, The Evidence "A. Hana ha-Hehba was the son of the daughter of Honi the Circle-Drawer. When the world was in need of rain, the Rabbis would send him school children and they would take hold of the hem of his garment and say to him, Father, Father [Abba, Abba], give us rain.
B. Thereupon he would plead with the Holy One, Blessed be He, [thus], Master of the Universe, do it for the sake of these who are unable to distinguish between the Father [Abba] who gives rain and the father [abba] who does not."
- Babylonian Talmud, Taanith 23b
"That is also the second and final time that God is addressed as 'Abba' in rabbinical literature. Both cases are in the context of miracle workers and their imperious, childlike control of the divine power."
- John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus, The Life of a Mediterranean Peasant (1991)
(5) A Special Relationship "Blessed are You, O my God, who has opened to knowledge the mind of Your servant. Establish all of his works in righteousness; raise up the son of Your handmaiden - if it please You - to be among those chosen of humankind, to stand before You forever."
- Charter of a Jewish Sectarian Association 11:16-17
The Gospels not only used the expression "sons of God" (or "children of God" in some translations) in the familial sense but to any one who enjoyed a special relationship with God. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God."
- Matthew 5:9
"..the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God."
- Luke 3:38
Paul and the Gospel of John say that those who believe in Christ would also become Sons [children] of God. "I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty."
- 2 Corinthians 6:17-18
The meaning of "Son of God", denoting a special relationship with the Divinity, gave way to a new interpretation which resembled the doctrine of the mystery religions wherein any true believer could be reborn and filled with God (the Holy Spirit). "And to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fulness of God."
- Ephesians 3:19
"Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- children born not of natural descent, [Greek 'of bloods'] nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God."
- John 1:12-13
(6) The "Son" Secret "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God."
- Mark 1:1
Mark "was written a little more than a decade after Paul's letter to the Romans [ca. 53-58 C.E.], and perhaps as long as five years after Paul's death....If Jesus was designated Son of God at the resurrection for Paul, the surely he was also the Son of God during his earthly life, even if no one recognized it."
- John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels, p. 223
"The pagans (a minority in the Galilean population, but not absent and not to be forgotten) seem to have thought him a god or the son of a god, as did some of the people from whom he cast out demons."
- Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God? (1978) p. 57 "Who do you say I am?'
Peter answered, 'You are the Christ.'
Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him. He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again."
- Mark 8:29-31 (Matthew 16:15-20; Luke 9:20-21
"There is some Jewish evidence which suggests the expected Messiah would remain silent about his messiahship until he had completed his task and had been vindicated by God."
- Graham N. Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus, The Oxford Bible Series (1989), paperback, p. 224
"Numerous Jewish texts, like the Psalms of Solomon and 4 Ezra, indicate that only God can declare who is the Messiah. Any self-designation only proves that the proclaimer cannot be the Messiah. This insight certainly helps clarify the reticence (or refusal) of Jesus to accept Peter's confession according to Mark 8."
- James H. Charlesworth, "Jesus as 'Son' and the Righteous Teacher as 'Gardener'" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (1992), p. 142
"According to Mark's theory of the 'messianic secret' (better: 'the Son secret'), no human being can know and proclaim in faith that Jesus is the Son of God before the ultimate act of mysterious revelation that is Jesus' death on the cross. Only then can a human being - pointedly, an outsider, a Gentile centurion involved in Jesus' execution - proclaim the truth: 'Truly this man was Son of God' (Mark 15:39). Before that, only God, speaking from heaven at Jesus' baptism and transfiguration, and the demons as they are exorcised - hence, only supernatural beings - can voice the truth of Jesus' divine sonship."
- John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew - Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 2.
"...The title 'Son of God'...in the synoptics almost always appears in miraculous contexts. The only exceptions are this passage (Mk. 14.61f. with its parallels) and Mk. 1.1 (the title of the gospel). On the other hand, 'Son of God' very rarely appears in messianic contexts. The likelihood is that the term came from a tradition in which it designated not a messiah, but a supernatural being, both worker and subject of miracles."
- Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God? (1978) p. 51
That the "Son of God" has supernatural connotations is also intimated in Hellenistic magical texts. "I am the Son."
- Papyri graecae magicae IV.535
"I am the Son of the living God."
- The Demotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden XX.23
"As 'Son of God' Jesus casts out demons (Mk. 3.11; 5.7p; Lk. 4.41), walks on the sea, and knows the Father (Mt. 11.27p.; 14.33). Because he claims to be 'son of God' the devil demands miracles from him (Mt. 4.36p.) and the Jews mock him when he is unable to perform them (Mt. 27.40, 43). Because he was 'a son of god' miracles attended his death (Mk. 15.38f.p.). by contrast, the gospels rarely attribute Jesus' miracles to 'his spirit' or to 'the holy spirit'..."
- Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God? (1978) pp. 132-133
(7) Intimations of Divinity
The syoptic gospels, in accord with Jewish tradition, make it clear that the man Jesus and God are not one and the same.
"The recognition of sin, the need for forgiveness, and the perception that God alone can supply absolution is insightfully articulated in the Thanksgiving Hymns (cf. esp. 1QH 4). The author confesses that everyone is in iniquity from birth and remains in sin until death. Then comes the memorable acknowledgment that righteousness is not possible for humans and that 'all the works of righteousness' belong solely to God (1QH 4:31)."
- James H. Charlesworth, Jesus Within Judaism "And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, 'Good Teacher [Righteous Rabbi], what must I do to inherit eternal life?' And Jesus said to him, 'Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.'"
- Mark 10:17-18; (Matthew 19:16-17; Luke 18:18-19)
"The claim that only God is good could have been made by any Judean or by any Greek influenced by Plato."
- Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels
According to Paul, Jesus did not achieve recognition as the messianic "Son of God", with all its implications of divinity, until after his death and resurrection. "And who through the Spirit [Or who as to his spirit] of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God [or was appointed to be the Son of God with power] by his resurrection from the dead:Jesus Christ our Lord."
- Romans 1:4
"...For Paul it was the spirit of God that animated life and that was seen in the analogy of the wind (ruach) and thought to be similar to the breath (nephesh) that God breathed into Adam at the dawn of creation.)"
- John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels, p. 222
Note also that the root of the Greek word for "spirit", pneumatikoV means "wind" or "breath".
"Instead of referring to Jesus as 'the Christ', which would have been the correct translation of 'Messiah' into Greek, Paul adopted the fashion (he most likely initiated it) of calling Jesus 'Christ' as if this was a proper name, ignoring its political connotations, and also referred to him as theSon of God."
- Ian Wilson, Jesus, The Evidence "At once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God."
- Acts 9:20
The author(s) of John equated the Son of God with the throne of Israel, but also asserted the unity of Jesus and God while Jesus was still alive. "Then Nathanael declared, 'Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.'"
- John 1:49
The Jews [Sadducees] answered him, 'It is not for a good work that we stone you but for blasphemy; because you, being a man, make yourself God.'
Jesus answered them, 'Is it not written in your law, "I said, you are gods"? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came (and scripture cannot be broken), do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, "You are blaspheming", because I said, "I am the Son of God"? If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.'"
- John 10:32-38
"God presides in the great assembly; he gives judgment among the gods:" "I said, 'You are gods; you are all sons of the Most High.' But you will die like mere men; you will fall like every other ruler."
- - Psalm 82:1, 6
"In this psalm, God (Elohim) is subjugating the congregation of El the mighty, the 'children of the most high', the sons of El, and now they are going to die like men."
- Chris King, "This Day the Scripture is Fulfilled in Your Ears"
"The 'works' of Jesus and his unity with the Father are Johannine themes that have no basis in the aphorisms and parables of the historical Jesus."
- Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels
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