A historian's response.

The Historian and the Theologian

As an historian, rather than a theologian, I have been summoned to express my opinion on a theological book. I do not claim any expertise in this field in which Walter Wink is a recognized authority. However, Wink is a theologian who honestly respects history and the historical method, and does not want theology to superimpose its agenda on history. As he says in his Introduction, "We can find meaning in the present, not instead of a reconstruction of the past, but by means of a reconstruction of the past." I could not agree more.

Wink's words offer a non-conflicting balance between theology and history. The theological concern for providing the meaning of past events in the present is an autonomous and independent enterprise but must be pursued, in order to "prevent pure subjectivity," with respect to and not in spite of the autonomous and independent historical concern for reconstructing those facts, as Wink says, "by means of the most rigorous exegesis possible." In my work I have often voiced similar concerns, calling for a reconciliation between theology and other forms of critical scholarship. (1) Our modern, post-Enlightenment sensitivity simply cannot accept a theological or philosophical paradigm being affirmed, however legitimate and respectable, by imposing itself on history and changing retrospectively the course of events.

Personally, I am deeply sympathetic with Wink's theological goal to "recover Jesus' full humanity (or humanness)," which traditional Christianity suppressed "in favor of his divinity" (13). However, as an historian and specialist in Second Temple Judaism and Christian origins, I have not been summoned here today primarily to discuss the theological conclusions of the book, but the question whether such conclusions are supported "by means of a correct reconstruction of the past."

The Enigma of the Son of the Man

Wink is not satisfied with the interpretation of the term "son of man" as a humble emphasis on Jesus' humanity, although such an interpretation dominates the ancient tradition of the Church, and is well attested since the very beginning of the second century. The Letter of Ignatius to the Ephesians is the first extant Christian document which takes the term "Son of Man," as evidence of the humanity of the Christ, and contrasts it with "Son of God," denoting his divinity. (2) Wink is not even satisfied with some modern reconstructions that downplay any theological meaning, for example the one offered by Geza Vermes who sees in the phrase merely a circumlocution for the first personal pronoun, "I" (252). (3)

Wink correctly reminds his readers that the phrase must go back directly to Jesus as it appears only on his lips (19). It was not a creation of the Church, as the churches never made "the son of the man" the basis of any church confession or creed or developed it as a Christological concept. So far as we know it was never used in prayer or worship. In time it virtually disappeared from usage (19). If Jesus, indeed, used the expression "as virtually his only form of self-reference" (19), what is its meaning?

On one hand, in his book Wink spends a lot of time and energy showing that "Jesus did not use 'the son of the man' as a self-deprecating expression of humility" (22), and rejects "the conclusion of a number of philologists ... that the expression has no theological meaning" (19). I think most specialists in Second Temple Judaism would agree today with Wink's approach. His call for a reassessment of the term, Son of Man, within the theology of ancient Judaism deserves to be taken seriously and is in my judgment the most important contribution that Wink's book provides, not only to contemporary theology but also to contemporary historical research. There may be no agreement among specialists in Second Temple Judaism on the interpretation of the term Son of Man. There is, however, a growing awareness that the historical understanding of the preaching of Jesus within first-century Judaism largely depends on the solution of this enigma. (4)

On the other hand, Wink also rejects the hypothesis that "the Son of Man" may have been a recognized messianic title in the first century. He shows no doubt when claiming that "in the time prior to Jesus, (the Son of Man) was not the title of an apocalyptic figure expected to come to earth to judge and redeem humanity" (21). The problem is that Wink does not offer any evidence for this far more controversial statement, apart from a very short thirteen-page chapter. From the historical point of view, I see this chapter as the weakest part of Wink's argument.

Wink puts together documents from different ages and different streams of ancient Jewish thought, as if they belonged to the same tradition, without considering the diversity of pre-Christian Judaisms. Some of the dates offered are now completely outdated. Two questions about Wink's chronology are crucial here. First, he says that I Enoch 14 is dated "around 185 B.C.E." In fact, all Enoch specialists would agree that the Book of the Watchers was composed at least one century before that time. The date of the earliest extant manuscript cannot be confused with the date of composition of the document. (5) Second, even more relevant is the case of the Similitudes of Enoch, which Wink dates "somewhere between 50 and 100 C.E." (6) The current agreement of Enoch specialists is that these Parables of Enoch were composed at the very end of the first century B.C.E., after the Parthian invasion.

Of course, no one expects Wink to be a specialist in Second Temple Judaism. In the chapter cited, his goal is simply that of expressing the common opinion of scholars in the field. The problem is that Wink misses at least the last twenty years of research on Second Temple Judaism, and on the Enoch literature in particular. Most of the specialists who have shaped our contemporary understanding of the field, scholars such as Lawrence Schiffman, Shaye Cohen, Lester Grabbe, Paolo Sacchi, George W. E. Nickelsburg, James C. Vanderkam, Michael Knibb, Florentino Garcia Martinez, and others, are not even mentioned, (7) while others like John J. Collins and James Charlesworth, are only marginally used. (8) Such an omission is relevant because many of these interpreters claim that "the Son of Man" was, indeed, a messianic title used in some Jewish circles to denote their belief in the existence and, indeed, the preexistence in heaven of an angelic Messiah who would come at the end of time as the eschatological judge. I personally agree with this position. (9) The fact that the title refers to an angelic and not a divine being explains why the term was abandoned in Christian theology as soon as the divinity of the Christ was recognized. The shift is already apparent at the end of the first century in the Gospel of John. (10) The debate about the messianic identity of the Son of Man is still open, with scholars struggling to reach an agreement. Moreover, since in the short chapter devoted to the subject Wink does not add any new element to this debate, it must remain open.

The scholarly tradition in ancient Judaism with which Wink is most familiar and on which he exclusively depends, is that of a group of specialists in early Jewish mysticism, like Ithamar Gruenwald, Martha Himmelfarb, Peter Shaefer, Jarl Fossum, and the like; who have successfully demonstrated the presence in Judaism of "an unbroken chain of esoteric traditions lasting 2,500 years." As I deeply respect and admire the work of these specialists and friends, I must object to the way in which their work is presented. I do not think it good methodology to select a group of specialists and isolate them from the general context of studies in Second Temple Judaism to which their contribution was offered, and within which their contribution must be understood.

The impression that the reader receives from Wink's presentation of Jewish mysticism is that it was a very well defined and consistent form of Judaism, since its inception, and that there was a substantial continuity of such tradition over the centuries, so much so that earlier texts must be understood in the light of later texts. Now, in Second Temple Judaism, mysticism was neither the monopoly of one party, nor the product of a single movement. Mysticism, like apocalypticism, was a worldview that shaped, influenced or was used by different groups. Mystical elements were part of different ideological buildings, in which they often played very different roles. We cannot infer by the presence of the same bricks, the presence of the same ideological buildings. Mystical texts were the product of different Judaisms and components of different systems of thought. (11)

Second, the existence of esoteric traditions since biblical times does not mean that all concepts and ideas, which we found in later mystical texts, may be transferred back to the first century, or even earlier, to form the background of Jesus' mystical teaching. The continuity of a mystical tradition does not imply a consistency and continuity of all its elements since the earliest stage. With the same criterion we should infer that the building we now call "church" existed before Christianity because many of its constituent architectural elements go back to pre-Christian times. In the archaeology of artifacts, as well as in the archaeology of ideas, dating bricks is not the same as dating buildings, and dating ideas is not the same as dating systems of thought. A lack of methodological clarity easily results in anachronism. (12)

Unfortunately, Wink's entire argument that "the expression 'son of man' is an allusion to Ezekiel, and that 'the man' in the phrase is the divine figure on the throne who calls Ezekiel 'son', namely, the 'son' of the Human One seated upon the throne" (22), is based on a highly controversial, and in my view misleading, interpretation of early Jewish mysticism and a non-apocalyptic Jesus.

Moreover, when Wink, for example, states that "in the Similitudes of Enoch this apotheosis of the human reaches its apex when the human Enoch is upgraded to the angel Metatron" (62), he is misled by the presence of similar elements, so much so as to assume the presence of a much later system in a much earlier text. The problem is that in the Similtudes there is no reference to the angel Metatron. This occurs only in 3 Enoch. Wink's statement is simply an anachronism. (13)

An analogous problem emerges in Wink's rejection of the apocalyptic Jesus. Here Wink heavily depends on the conclusions of the Jesus Seminar. Once again, a scholarly perspective is taken out of the general context of Second Temple Jewish studies, to support a legitimate, yet anachronistic interpretative key to the sayings of Jesus on the Son of Man. (14) The overall conclusion that Jesus was a mystic instead of an apocalyptic only partially answers the historical question about the nature of his movement. Neither mysticism nor apocalypticism were parties or established movements; mystical and apocalyptic elements in Second Temple Judaism were shared cultural elements that were used in the construction of different buildings. Even the recognition of a predominance of mystical elements over the apocalyptic ones does not mean much. The real problem is to compare the Christian "building" to other ideological buildings, the Judaism of Jesus with other contemporary varieties of Judaisms. With E. P. Sanders, I believe that it is only within a holistic comparison of systems of thought that even the enigma of the Son of Man will find its solution. (15)

Summary and Conclusion

Wink's book is a brilliant piece of theology, capable of giving a new modern meaning to a now obscure expression of ancient Jewish theology. I have no doubts that many Christian readers will share this view. As an historian, I have no objections whatsoever. I have no right to challenge the right of the theologian to reinterpret ancient texts in order to find a meaning and even a new meaning for the present. Within a faith perspective the theologian may also claim that this was what the inspired texts really meant, even though their writers and first interpreters were totally unaware of it.

My task as an historian, however, is different, namely, not to reconstruct what those texts mean but how they were understood in the past. As a twenty first century human being, I find Wink's interpretation of Jesus as "the archetype of the Son of the Man, the Child of the Human One, Sophia's Child, the New Being, the Sisterchild" (260) absolutely fascinating. As an historian, I have serious doubts that this was what anybody understood in the first century.

There is, however, a point that the theologian, Wink, has been able to emphasize better than many historians. The enigma of the Son of Man cannot be removed as meaningless, simply because we are not able to explain it. The meaning of this meaningful expression must be found in the diverse world of Second Temple Judaism. We may disagree on Wink's conclusions, but in his book he had the courage to address the enigma and tried to find a solution, without removing the problem.

Notes

(1.) G. Boccaccini (1991), Middle Judaism: Jewish Thought, 300 BCE to 200 CE, Minneapolis: Fortress, p. 3. See also his (2002) Roots of Rabbinic Judaism: An Intellectual History, from Ezekiel to Daniel, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, p. 41.

(2.) See M. W. Holmes, ed. (1989), The Apostolic Fathers, Grand Rapids: Baker.

(3.) See G. Vermes (1981), Jesus the Jew: A Historian's Reading of the Gospels, Philadelphia: Fortress.

(4.) D. Burkett (2000), The Son of Man Debate: A History and Evaluation, Cambridge: Cambridge.

(5.) G. W. Nickelsburg (2001), I Enoch: A Commentary, Minneapolis: Fortress. See also G. Boccaccini, ed. (2002), The Origins of Enochic Judaism, Turin: Zamorani.

(6.) S. Chiala (1997), Libro dele Parabole di Enoc: Testo e commento, Brescia: Paideia.

(7.) See in particular, L. H. Schiffman (1991), From Text to Tradition: A History of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism, Hoboken: KTAV; P Sacchi (2000), History of the Second Temple Period, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press; and L. L. Grabbe (2000), Judaic Religion in the Second Temple Period, London: Routledge.

(8.) Texts like J. H. Charlesworth (1985), The Old Testament Pseudepigraphy and the New Testament, Cambridge: Cambridge, and J. J. Collins (1998), The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, are landmarks of contemporary research on the Son of Man.

(9.) G. Boccaccini (1998), Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, pp. 144-149.

(10.) Chiala, Libro dele Parabole, pp. 303-340.

(11.) G. Boccaccini (1993), Middle Judaism and Its Contemporary Interpreters, 1986-1992: Methodological Foundations for the Study of Judaisms, 300 BCE to 200 CE, Henoch 15, pp. 207-233.

(12.) Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 8-11, also Boccaccini, Roots of Rabbinic Judaism, 1-41.

(13.) See P. Alexander (1983), 3 Enoch, OTP 1, p, 223-315.

(14.) For an overview of contemporary research on the historical Jesus, see G. Theissen and A. Mertz (1998), The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide, Minneapolis: Fortress.

(15.) E. P. Sanders (1977), Paul and Palestinian Judaism, Philadelphia: Fortress.

Gabriele Boccaccini is Professor of Second Temple Judaism and Early Rabbinic Literature at the University of Michigan. is author of several articles and books or early Judaism and Christian origins.