The Son of Man as the Last Adam

The Early Church Tradition as a Source of Paul’s Adam Christology

Yongbom Lee

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9781610975223
  9781498261067
• eBook ISBN:
  9781621893783
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

Most New Testament scholars today agree that Jesus used an enigmatic self-designation, bar nasha ("the Son of Man"), translated into Greek as ho huios tou anthropou in the Synoptic Gospels. In contrast, Paul, the earliest New Testament writer, nowhere mentions the phrase in his letters. Does this indicate that the Gospel writers simply misunderstood the generic sense of the Aramaic idiom and used it as a christological title in connection with Daniel 7, as some scholars claim? Paul demonstrates explicit and sophisticated Adam Christology in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15. In contrast, there is no real equivalent in the Synoptic Gospels. Does this indicate that Adam Christology in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 was essentially a Pauline invention to which the Evangelists were oblivious? In this study Yongbom Lee argues that in addition to the Old Testament, contemporary Jewish exegetical traditions, and his Damascus Christophany, Paul uses the early church tradition--in particular, its implicit primitive Adam-Jesus typology and the Son of Man saying traditions reflected in the Synoptic Gospels--as a source of his Adam Christology.

1

Introduction

The Purpose of this Study

Paul seldom quotes the sayings of Jesus in his letters, which has led some scholars in the past to consider him as “the second founder of Christianity.”1 Despite the scarcity of explicit references to Jesus’ earthly life, however, Paul’s letters show substantial theological overlap with Jesus’ teachings in the Synoptic Gospels.2 Seyoon Kim argues that Jesus’ kingdom gospel had to be replaced or re-presented by Paul’s gospel of the death and resurrection of Christ for the post-Easter church and his Hellenistic audience.3 David Wenham similarly claims that Paul modified Jesus’ kingdom preaching according to its spirit.4 One way to test the theological coherence between the early church tradition and Paul is to compare and contrast the early church Christology—reflected in the Synoptic Gospels—and Paul’s Christology in his letters.5

In this study, I will compare and contrast the early church Christology and Paul’s Christology by focusing on the relationship between the early church Adam-Jesus typology—reflected in the Synoptic Gospels and the epistle to the Hebrews—and Paul’s Adam Christology in his letters. Although the Evangelists nowhere call Jesus “the Last Adam” as Paul does in 1 Cor 15:45, there are a number of passages in the Gospels that implicitly compare and contrast Jesus and Adam and present Jesus as the eschatological Adam—Mark 2:10, 27–28; 14:62; Luke 3:38—4:1; cf. Heb 2:5–11.6 Did Paul invent the so-called “Adam Christology” in Rom 5 and 1 Cor 15 out of nothing (ex nihilo)? Or, did the early church already possess a primitive form of Adam-Jesus typology that Paul develops into his explicit and sophisticated Adam Christology? Or, have the early church and Paul separately derived Adam Christology from first-century AD Judaism? These questions will be addressed in chapter 2.

Another focus of this book is the relationship between the early church traditions behind the Synoptic Son of Man sayings and Paul’s Adam Christology. As I will argue later, Paul in developing his Adam Christology in Rom 5 and 1 Cor 15 incorporates not only the Son of Man saying tradition related to the early church Adam-Jesus typology (Mark 14:62) but also two others that are unrelated (Mark 10:45 and Matt 19:28//Luke 22:30). We cannot find the phrase “the Son of Man” in Paul’s letters. Koester claims, “The title was not known to Paul and did not play any role in the corpus of the New Testament epistles.”7 It is difficult to imagine that Paul knew nothing about any Son of Man saying tradition or Jesus’ self-designation as אשנ רב (“the Son of Man”)—the generally accepted Aramaic phrase behind the Greek ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου.8 As we will see later, Paul most likely knew at least three Son of Man saying traditions—Mark 10:45; 14:62; Matt 19:28//Luke 22:30—and incorporated them into his Adam Christology in Rom 5 and 1 Cor 15. I will argue in this study that Paul uses the early church tradition as a source of his Adam Christology, particularly, its Adam-Jesus typology and Son of Man saying traditions reflected in the Synoptic Gospels.

Literature Survey

Numerous studies exist on the topic of Jesus’ Son of Man sayings. Despite such a fact, however, most studies focus on the origin of the Son of Man sayings and only a few studies deal with the relationship between the early church traditions behind the Son of Man sayings and Paul’s Adam Christology. There are even fewer studies devoted to the relationship between the early church Adam-Jesus typology and Paul’s Adam Christology. I will begin my literature survey with Oscar Cullmann’s classic The Christology of the New Testament (1959).

While correctly observing the association between the Synoptic Son of Man saying traditions and Paul’s Adam Christology, Cullman attributes it to “the common root of the Original Man idea” in ancient Judaism.9 According to Cullmann, both the early church Son of Man/Adam Christology and Paul’s Adam Christology are derived from the Primal Man myth in ancient Judaism and wider ancient Near Eastern thought. Cullmann’s view is based on the hypothetical existence of such a myth, which the so-called religionsgeschichtliche Schule (“History of Religions School”) assumed—influential especially in German-speaking scholarship. The History of Religions School arbitrarily retrojected the Primal Man myth found in Gnosticism to earlier periods. The existence of the Primal Man myth in the first century AD has been largely rejected by English-speaking New Testament scholarship today due to its lack of evidence.

In “‘Der Menschensohn’ und die Paulinische Christologie” (1963), Anton Vögtle sums up his discussion of the relationship between the Synoptic Son of Man sayings and Paul’s Adam Christology with three statements:

(1) It is possible, even if it cannot be proven, that the term bar nasha was the origin for the Christological use of Psalm 8 . . . (2) The apostle does not use the bar nasha expression certainly known to him—ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου or [its] equivalent term—as a Christological title . . . (3) Paul teaches the true coming in the flesh of the pre-existent Son of God.10

Vögtle emphasizes the last statement and contrasts it with his observation that the Synoptic Son of Man sayings do not allude to Jesus’ pre-existence11 and concludes: “Even this—admittedly only negative—agreement between Paul and the Synoptics seems to me not without significance, if we take seriously the well-grounded possibility that, in the unique occurrence of the phrase ‘Son of Man’ in the NT, especially in the Synoptic Jesus-tradition, the knowledge of its special usage continues to have an effect which had to do with Jesus’ way of speaking of himself.”12

Later scholars who deny any relationship between the Synoptic Son of Man saying traditions and Paul’s Adam Christology often cite Vögtle’...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Tables
• Figures
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: The Early Church Adam-Jesus Typology as a Source of Paul’s Adam Christology
• Chapter 3: The Son of Man Sayings as Sources of Paul’s Adam Christology
• Chapter 4: Conclusion
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Bibliography