Q. Your conclusions on pp. 109-111 argue that the Son of Man figure in the Parables is not a divine figure, nor do the nations worship him but instead merely do obeisance as they might to a king, even though ‘that Son of Man’ figure in the Parables is not portrayed as a kingly figure in the traditional Davidic sense. Someone will ask, why are you working so hard to make that Son of Man figure in the Parables out... Read more
Q. In the Parables of Enoch, you suggest that the author does not think of ‘that Son of Man’ as personally or ontologically pre-existing creation, but merely foreordained before all creation to do something. This conclusion seems problematic when you also want to maintain that the Son of Man figure is merely human and has at some juncture been taken up into heaven in preparation for his returning to earth to judge the world. Surely the author of the Parables... Read more
Q. Why do you think it is that the writer(s) of the Parables of Enoch chose Enoch to be the figure represented in Dan. 7.13-14 as the Son of Man? Is it because he was taken up into heaven presumably as a righteous person, like Elijah was later? A. I think that would certainly be one reason. Elijah already had an eschatological role assigned to him (by Malachi) and so was not available. Enoch was an obvious alternative. But I... Read more
Q. I expect you will be addressing this in your second volume on Son of Man, but I remember Charlie Moule saying that the phrase ‘the Son of Man’ in the Gospels, with the definite article probably should be seen as deliberately allusive to Dan. 7—i.e. ‘the (aforementioned) Son of Man’. What do you think of this suggestion, which if right would mean that on the lips of Jesus, and presumably for the Evangelists the phrase in that context does... Read more
Q. Richard help my readers understand why it is important to understand the way Dan. 7 is interpreted in the Parables of Enoch, especially if the latter is too late to have influenced Jesus or his early followers? How would you sum up the importance of the Enochian material for the study of the Son of Man issue in the NT especially if in Enoch the phrase ‘Son of man’ is not a title for some messianic figure? A.... Read more
Q. I must confess to have always been very skeptical about arguments about a Q community in early Christianity, and I would say the same about an Enochian Jewish community that has a distinctive foundational corpus of literature from other streams of early Judaism. Surely the diversity of texts found at Qumran, including some Enoch literature, shows us that we can’t posit a whole community that focused exclusively on one sort of early Jewish literature any more than that works... Read more
Q. It seems clear that the Parables of Enoch are related to and draw on the Book of the Watchers, which as you suggest, is part of the earlier corpus of Enochian literature, perhaps even dating to the 2nd century B.C. Does this imply anything about the dating of the Parables themselves, and why dependance on this particular piece of Enochian literature? A. The Book of Watchers was foundational for the whole Enoch tradition. It developed from Genesis 5-6... Read more
Q. In your first major chapter, you have argued that 1 Enoch 70-71, where the Son of Man is identified as Enoch himself, is likely not a secondary portion of the book added later, but rather part of the original document, and that the identification had been hinted at along the way since the beginning of the document. What led you to this conclusion? If correct, would this not suggest that there was early Jewish messianic speculation about a specific... Read more
Q. As is widely known, the so-called Parables of Enoch are only extant in Ethiopic as a translation, presumably from Aramaic (as the fragments at Qumran attest in regard to other Enochian literature), and if, as you suggest, the Parables likely date to the late first or early second century of the Christian era, why in the world has there been so much speculation about that tradition being extant before the time of Jesus, and of influencing both Jesus and... Read more
Q. The frequent use of the phrase ‘Son of Man’ in the Gospels, without any direct explanation of its meaning has led to the supposition that there was a ‘Son of Man’ tradition in early Judaism developed out of reflection on Dan. 7, among other things, and that the tradition included speculation about a messianic Son of Man figure, perhaps witnessed to in 1 Enoch. One of the things that has bothered me about that sort of explanation is that... Read more
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