# Why can Jews NOT be Christians? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 28, 2003, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-jews-not-be-christians/164721 "2003-03-28T05:33:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-jews-not-be-christians/164721/61 "2003-03-30T15:35:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by UnuMondo \* > \*\*1) Perkins isn’t projecting a Christian interpretation onto anything. The most striking thing about this book is it isn’t written from a Christian viewpoint, but rather from a detached sociocultural view, much like scholars today write about Rastafarianism. > > 1. Perkins isn’t talking about Hebrew scriptures as such, she’s talking about _Jewish apocalyptic literature_ which was a split-off scene from mainstream Judaism. She sees Christianity as just another development of the apocalyptic beliefs of groups like the Essenes, who used “Son of Man” to mean “messiah”. > > UnuMondo \*\* If she says that any pre-Christian Jewish sect, or any part of Hebrew scripture ever used “Son of Man” to refer to the Messiah she is contradicting all Jewish scolarship and, frankly, she’s just flat out wrong. What is her evidence that the Essenes used the phrase in this way? What is a specific example from the Hebew Bible which she thinks is a reference to the Messiah? Is two thousand years of rabbinical scholarship wrong? (not to mention some basic lingusistic analaysis) Are we to believe that the Jews don’t really know what their own bible means, but that Perkins has it all figured out? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-jews-not-be-christians/164721/62 "2003-03-30T15:38:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by UnuMondo \* > \*\*Sometimes the meaning of words change. “Son of Man” meant something to mainstream Jews of the time from Ekzekiel, but something else to apocalypic communities who began to use the term for their own special meaning. > > UnuMondo \*\* What evidence does Perkins use to support this remarkable and unique assertion? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-jews-not-be-christians/164721/63 "2003-03-30T15:53:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Diogenes the Cynic \* > \*\*What evidence does Perkins use to support this remarkable and unique assertion? \*\* She probably uses the Book of Enoch, which does seem to use “Son of Man” to refer to the messiah… > [@](#): > > And there I saw One who had a head of days, > And His head was white like wool, And with Him was another being whose countenance had the appearance of a man, And his face was full of graciousness, like one of the holy angels And I asked the angel who went with me and showed me all the hidden things, concerning that Son of Man, who he was, and whence he was, (and) why he went with the Head of Days? And he answered and said unto me: This is the son of Man who hath righteousness, With whom dwelleth righteousness, And who revealeth all the treasures of that which is hidden, > > Because the Lord of Spirits hath chosen him, > And whose lot hath the pre-eminence before the Lord of Spirits in uprightness for ever. > > And this Son of Man whom thou hast seen Shall raise up the kings and the mighty from their seats, [And the strong from their thrones] And shall loosen the reins of the strong, And break the teeth of the sinners.[And he shall put down the kings from their thrones and kingdoms] Because they do not extol and praise Him, Nor humbly acknowledge whence the kingdom was bestowed upon them. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-jews-not-be-christians/164721/64 "2003-03-30T16:44:19Z")
The oldest versions of Enoch do not use “Son of Man” to refer to the Messiah. Enoch has at least twelve layers of emendation and redaction in it, and it is believed by Jewish scholars that the application of “Son of Man” to the Messiah, as quoted above, is a Christian interpolation. Other references to “Son of Man” in Enoch can only fit the generic “human being” definition. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-jews-not-be-christians/164721/65 "2003-03-30T21:04:11Z")
Perkins may or may not be right, but her position is certainly not “unique,” as **Zev** has characterized it. I am a student at Wesley Theological Seminary. What she has been described as saying is very much in keeping with what I’ve been taught. On of my professors, Craig Hill, recently wrote a book which mentions this topic. He is very much in the mainstream of Christian biblical scholarship. He disdains overly speculative or idealogically driven arguments. He tends to dissent from the “scholarly consensus” only where he sees clear evidence that would convince others. I’ll quote breifly from his book. (My comments are in {braces}. All bolding is mine.) > [@](#): > > The Similitudes of Enoch {Chapters 37-71 of I Enoch, the section of the text that discusses the Son of Man} were written only a century and a half after Daniel (that is around the turn of the millenium); nevertheless, their representation of the Son of Man goes far beyond anything found in Daniel. {The description of a possibly heavenly messianic figure as “one like the Son of Man” in Dan 7:13 is seen as an intermediate text between SoM as human in Ezk and SoM as messiah in NT.} In fact, the Similitudes are so startlingly similar to the New Testament at this point that some scholars have found it impossible not to regard them as a later development, written either by Christians of under the influence of Christianity. Nevertheless, the evidence for a pre-Christian date is quite strong and is favored by most interpreters. [Craig Hill. _In God’s Time_, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), p81.] He goes on to provide evidence both for the Jewish nature of the text and an early date of composition. He makes a convincing case that at least some forms of Judaism at the time of Jesus were much closer to Christianity than once suspected, but that after Christianity developed, both religions developed doctrines that helped to separate themselves from the other and to reject doctrines that seemed too close to the opposition. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-jews-not-be-christians/164721/66 "2003-03-31T00:53:35Z")
**Alan** , let’s just say that the SoM as Messiah is outside the mainstream of _Jewish_ Biblical scholarship and leave it at that. In any case, the characterization in the Similitudes is unique in Hebrew scripture. The overwhelming usage of SoM in Hebrew and in Aramaic is as an idiom for “man.” ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-jews-not-be-christians/164721/67 "2003-03-31T03:11:54Z")
So where did the early Christians get “son of man” as a messianistic title from? Was this strictly an invention of early Christianity, then? It doesn’t have any parallels with any strain of 1st century Jewish thought? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-jews-not-be-christians/164721/68 "2003-03-31T04:14:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Captain Amazing \* > \*\*So where did the early Christians get “son of man” as a messianistic title from? Was this strictly an invention of early Christianity, then? It doesn’t have any parallels with any strain of 1st century Jewish thought? \*\* From the Jewish Encyclopedia: > [@](#): > > **In the Gospels the title occurs eighty-one times. Most of the recent writers (among them being II. Lietzmann) have come to the conclusion that Jesus, speaking Aramaic, could never have designated himself as the “son of man” in a Messianic, mystic sense, because the Aramaic term never implied this meaning. Greek translators coined the phrase, which then led, under the influence of Dan. vii. 13 and the Logos gospel, to the theological construction of the title which is basic to the Christology of the Church. To this construction reference is made in Abbahu’s controversial saying in Ta’an. 65b. Indeed, examination of many of thepassages shows that in the mouth of Jesus the term was an equivalent for the personal pronoun "I."E. G. H.** In other words, Jesus used the term in it’s Aramaic sense. Greek translators, misunderstanding the idiom, applied it in a titular manner and it was then strongly associated by early Christians as a title for the Messiah. If you read many of the sayings of Jesus which refer to the SoM, and substitute “human being” for the term in question, you can often get quite a different (but strikingly sensible) connotation. (Note: Many Christian theologians would strongly contest the statements made above. The Christian perspective is that SoM = Messiah, that Jesus knew what he was saying, that the translators got it right, and that’s the end of it.) ---
**Author:** ![Dreaming\_of\_Maria\_Callas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f14d63/32.png) [@Dreaming\_of\_Maria\_Callas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dreaming_of_Maria_Callas)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-jews-not-be-christians/164721/69 "2003-03-31T12:04:06Z")
Perkins’ arguments for that meaning of son of man are precisely the same as those listed by **Alan Smithee**. As Christianity didn’t come out of a vacuum, Perkins believes that its meaning of “son of man” must be related to that of previous authors of apocalyptic literature like Enoch (she also mentions “The Assumption of Moses” I believe). UnuMondo ---
**Author:** ![acropolis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9f8e36/32.png) [@acropolis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/acropolis)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-jews-not-be-christians/164721/70 "2003-03-31T14:48:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Captain Amazing \* > \*\*“son of man” \*\* You could be like some Bedoin communities and take it literally. The men wear baggy pants (think MC Hammer) because every man has to be reay to give birth to the messiah. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-jews-not-be-christians/164721/71 "2003-03-31T15:15:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by UnuMondo \* > \*\*Perkins’ arguments for that meaning of son of man are precisely the same as those listed by **Alan Smithee**. As Christianity didn’t come out of a vacuum, Perkins believes that its meaning of “son of man” must be related to that of previous authors of apocalyptic literature like Enoch (she also mentions “The Assumption of Moses” I believe). > > UnuMondo \*\* Enoch was Hebrew, not Aramaic. SoM was never applied to the Messiah in Aramaic (and, as I’ve said before, Jewish scholarship doesn’t really buy that Enoch did it in Hebrew). The _only_ usage in Aramaic at the time of Jesus was as a generic refernce to humanity as a whole. The circumstancial evidence is pretty good that SoM was simply misunderstood in the translation. You’re right that Christianity did not arise in a vaccuum, but most of the apocalyptic/eschatological aspects of it came about after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The Messiah was then reimagined by Christians as a supernatural saviour figure (rather than the human king expected by Judaism) and identified as Christ. Christians, after the Roman sack of Jerusalem, started to read apocalyptic literature differently than Rabbinic Jews. They interpreted in a way which fit their belief in Christ as a supernatural Messiah, and more than that, as God. The guy in the clouds who was “like the Son of Man” was appealing to them as an image of jesus returning to Kick Roman ass and take names. It’s not remarkable that the definition of SoM changed when the phrase was taken out of its original Aramaic context and placed into a Greek one. The whole definition of “Messiah” changed changed dramatically as well. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-jews-not-be-christians/164721/72 "2003-03-31T17:59:54Z")
Your ideas intrigue me, **Diogenes** , and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter. Do you have a cite to show that this is, in fact, the consensus of current Jewish scholarship. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-jews-not-be-christians/164721/73 "2003-03-31T19:31:26Z")
I’ve already posted the links to [Jewish Encyclopedia](http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=965&letter=S). Any Hebrew or Aramaic dictionary will still identify “Ben Adam” or “Bar-Anash” as being synonomous with mankind. It’s hard to google for a cite which states what Judaism _doesn’t_ believe, so all I can say is you won’t find any Jewish scholarship which identifies SoM as the Messiah. My own knowledge of the issue has been largely derived from my own academic background and books, not from linkable internet sites. My attempts to google 'Judaism son of man" seem to turn up a lot of Christian sites, not Jewish ones. I’ve been unsuccessful trying to find a definitive online statement as to the contemporary Jewish definition of SoM. Maybe Zev or one of the other Jewish poster can help provide a decent cite. ---
**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-jews-not-be-christians/164721/74 "2003-03-31T19:57:31Z")
I was under the impression that for a Jew to accept Jesus as the messiah he’d have to throw out a big chunk of the Jewish religion, as Jesus is most definitely NOT the Jewish messiah (for one thing, he has not brought peace to the Earth). ---
**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-jews-not-be-christians/164721/75 "2003-03-31T20:02:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by acropolis \* > \*\*You could be like some Bedoin communities and take it literally. The men wear baggy pants (think MC Hammer) because every man has to be reay to give birth to the messiah. \*\* Ouch! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-jews-not-be-christians/164721/76 "2003-03-31T20:03:43Z")
Even more importantly, the Jewish Messiah != God. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-jews-not-be-christians/164721/77 "2003-03-31T20:26:27Z")
**DtC** , the Jewish Encyclopedia (according to the homepage of the cite you linked to) was published between 1901 and 1906. Biblical scholarship has obviously changed a lot since then, and in that time, it is my impression, Christian and Jewish scholarship have largely converged due to a mutual reliance on neutral principles of historical and textual criticism, the blatant Antisemitism of especially the early German critics notwithstanding. Nevertheless, there are still lingering traces of Antisemtitism in contemporary Christian scholarship (largely the result of reliance upon earlier scholarship without recognizing its biases, NOT the result of current Antisemitic attitudes.) It is possible that this is an area of continued disagreement. I don’t mind looking in a book, so go ahead and tell me your print sources, if you don’t mind. This (well, not this _specifically_, but this field) is my area of study (Master’s level, so I’m not doing research) and I’d genuinely like to see the data for myself here. (Sorry to everyone else for the hijack!) ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-jews-not-be-christians/164721/78 "2003-03-31T21:34:42Z")
One more point. Lest the argument focus too narrowly on one phrase, it seems clear from Daniel and intertestamental pseudepigrepha that late 2nd Temple Judaism included the idea of some sort of heavenly supernatural or human-divine being as a messiah or an intermediary for God. Post 70 CE rabbis may have discouraged this thinking as aberrant, and may have been right, but it was certainly floating around out there in Jesus’ time. Christians didn’t invent it out of whole cloth. In Thessalonians, the earliest extant piece of Christian writing, Paul describes Jesus’ second coming: “with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, [he] will descend from heaven” (Th 4:16) This seems very clearly to be related to Matthews text, in which he puts very similar words in Jesus’s own mouth in the context of a Son of Man saying from Daniel: “they will see ‘the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven’ [Dan 7:13] with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels witha loud trumpet call” (Mt 24:30-31). It seems likely from the above texts that Paul was quoting a saying of Jesus, and that it was originally tied to Daniel’s vision of a messianic figure “like the Son of Man” coming from heaven. If you don’t think that Jesus could possibly have been such a figure, it still makes more sense to argue that the concepts were aready around, and that Jesus _thought of himself_ as such a figure, than to argue that **all of Jesus’ closest followers** misunderstood (or lied about) his thinking and **very soon after his death** began falsely saying that he thought himself the messiah, an idea which they supposedly made up out of whole cloth with no precident whatsoever, but which none of his other followers ever objected to. ---
**Author:** ![shoe1234](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b782af/32.png) [@shoe1234](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shoe1234)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-jews-not-be-christians/164721/79 "2003-03-31T23:48:54Z")
I know some Apostolic Pentacostals(Christians) that teach that they are “Spiritual Jews” and “Abraham’s seed.” In a couple of the bible studies they gave me, they included these biblical passages. However, it was much more involved. > [@](#): > > Rom 9:6 > 6 Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: > > 7 Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. > KJV > Gal 3:26-29 > 26 For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. > > 27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. > > 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. > > 29 And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. > KJV and > [@](#): > > Rom 2:28-29 > 28 For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: > > 29 But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God. > KJV They also **do not** believe in the trinity, but teach that Jesus is God. [Here](http://www.davieapostolicchurch.com/studies/seedabrm/index.htm) and [here](http://www.davieapostolicchurch.com/studies/godsisrael/index.htm) are bible studies from their incomplete[website](http://www.davieapostolicchurch.com/). ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-jews-not-be-christians/164721/80 "2003-04-01T02:20:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Alan Smithee \* > \*\*One more point. Lest the argument focus too narrowly on one phrase, it seems clear from Daniel and intertestamental pseudepigrepha that late 2nd Temple Judaism included the idea of some sort of heavenly supernatural or human-divine being as a messiah or an intermediary for God. Post 70 CE rabbis may have discouraged this thinking as aberrant, and may have been right, but it was certainly floating around out there in Jesus’ time. Christians didn’t invent it out of whole cloth. > > In Thessalonians, the earliest extant piece of Christian writing, Paul describes Jesus’ second coming: “with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, [he] will descend from heaven” (Th 4:16) This seems very clearly to be related to Matthews text, in which he puts very similar words in Jesus’s own mouth in the context of a Son of Man saying from Daniel: “they will see ‘the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven’ [Dan 7:13] with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels witha loud trumpet call” (Mt 24:30-31). > > It seems likely from the above texts that Paul was quoting a saying of Jesus, and that it was originally tied to Daniel’s vision of a messianic figure “like the Son of Man” coming from heaven. If you don’t think that Jesus could possibly have been such a figure, it still makes more sense to argue that the concepts were aready around, and that Jesus _thought of himself_ as such a figure, than to argue that **all of Jesus’ closest followers** misunderstood (or lied about) his thinking and **very soon after his death** began falsely saying that he thought himself the messiah, an idea which they supposedly made up out of whole cloth with no precident whatsoever, but which none of his other followers ever objected to. \*\* Addressing Daniel first: The part of Daniel you cited is one of the prophesies that Judaism generally accepts as a refernce to the Messiah (but obviously, they don’t think it meant Jesus). When Daniel describes him as a King who is “like a son of man,” he is specifically drawing a contrast to God and defining the Messiah as human. As I’m sure you know, Daniel was written during the Maccabean revolt against Antioch. The Messiah was supposed to be a king who would defeat Antioch and herald in a new and dominant era for Israel. This king was supposed to come only a couple of years after Antioch had placed a statue of Zeus in the temple (167 BCE), so obviously, the Messiah of Daniel’s dream never showed up. Daniel was definitely seized on and reinterpreted by early Christians and its influence is especially strong in Revelation. In any case, the “Son of Man” appellation in Daniel is _descriptive_, not titular. It emphasized that the messiah would be human. As to the use of the term by Jesus and what the apostles may have thought: Well, first of all, we really don’t know what his earliest followers thought, since we have no first hand testimony. As I’ve said before, the only Aramaic meaning of “Bar-Anash” was “man.” Personally, I think that Jesus used the term in this manner to teach that man had a moral authority of their own which was distinct from written law. Mark 2:10, for instance, would be a perfect example. Jesus forgives a paralytic, in a cultural context where physical ailments were believed to be God’s punishment for sin, and informed the incredulous crowd (who said that only God could forgive sins) that “the son of man” i.e. human beings, were allowed to forgive anyone that they wanted. Jesus was teaching that compassion could never be a sin. I don’t know if Jesus believed himself to be the Messiah. I tend to doubt it since he did not attempt to do anything to fulfill the Jewish expectations of the Messiah. It’s possible that his disciples believed it, or came to believe it after the crucifixion. I don’t think they personally would have used the SoM phrase to refer to him. I believe that Jesus’ SoM sayings were collected in sayings gospels like Q, translated into Greek and then reinterpreted as titular and self-referential by the gospelers and by other NT writers. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-jews-not-be-christians/164721.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-can-jews-not-be-christians/164721.md?page=5)