The CBE Scroll

Comment by Rev. J.

June 18, 2010 @ 6:22 pm

While Jesus was clearly a male, yet he came to Israel proper. I personally see his choosing of 12 males as indicative of the 12 tribes and all of the other salvific imagery that he chose. This does not exclude the women since women followed him,supported him with their living and cared, most likely, for a lot of his daily needs. I woud find it difficult to believe that the Lord would be kind to women outside of his troupe, but tell the women who directly followed him that they had no positions of authority waiting for them as well.

The Lord did not come to set all things straight at once…else how would we be able to explain the present evil day? Why would the Apostle Paul still be revealing revelations 50-60 years after the resurrection? The Lord came to begin a work of redemption, with the most important, i.e. the atoning wrk of the cross, having been completed while he was here upon earth.

It is interesting to note that the quote does not say, “what is not presumed…” but rather “assumed”, thus if women wish to have salvation and places of authority, it would seem necessary that they then must ASSUME IT, or in other words, TAKE IT!

Comment by jlp

June 26, 2010 @ 3:49 pm

“Perhaps that is one reason why Scripture speaks most often of Christ as the “Son of anthropos,” or humanity, rather than “Son of aner,” or male.”

More women need to be aware of this.

Comment by Liz

June 26, 2010 @ 5:18 pm

People would be more aware if that word was correctly translated as humanity or similar. I don’t know why some translators persist in writing ‘man’. Such a simple thing and yet it makes a world of difference.

Comment by Michelle

June 26, 2010 @ 5:51 pm

I don’t know why pastors persist in teaching it as though it were correctly translated “man”.

Comment by Sonnet

June 27, 2010 @ 6:28 pm

I always found the “son of man” wording odd because Jesus was born of a virgin *woman*. So in that sense, I knew “man” had to pertain to humanity – male and female. But from an emotive level, “son of man” conveys something of an exclusive male’s club to me. And in today’s language, it seems like a misleading or incomplete description.

Comment by Don Johnson

June 28, 2010 @ 6:52 am

I have heard that the term means “human being” but then acquires more meaning due to Daniel.

Comment by ls

June 28, 2010 @ 10:11 am

Just some thoughts:

I use to read ‘Son of Man’, or the story of Abraham, Joseph, Rahab, Esther… and feel included or invited to examine application for myself…and think that if I went to a ‘teaching’ leader, the ‘help’ I would be offered would be in that same direction. Now, after the timing of my awareness and church politics collided, I am thinking that, for me, before more awareness, it might have been more helpful if ‘teachers’ would have stressed the importance of examining scripture in light of context and the original languages. That is, the difference between ‘man’ and ‘humanity’ would not have been noticed by me before. But had a ‘teacher’ given an example of misunderstanding or misreading caused by translation and then that ‘teacher’ invited all to be Berean ‘this way’, by examining original languages and context, I might have been helped by that. Who knows? It just seems like that is my learning style, so maybe others have some of that style too.

Also, I now wonder why many ‘teachers’ emphasize some parts of scripture (“I hate divorce”) and not others (“the seed of the woman”). So, I think that it might have been helpful and still might be helpful to me to have ‘teachers’ try to emphasize or point out that a glimpse or part is not the whole, but the whole of scripture is the priority…or something like that. Hope you all can understand what I’m trying to say.

ls

Comment by em

June 28, 2010 @ 5:29 pm

In reference to Sonnet, I learned that “son of man” refers to the divinity of Jesus (which was His favorite self designation) whereas “son of God” refers to His humanity. It sounds the opposite of what we would think. However think of Jesus when he says something to the effect of ‘foxes have holes but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head’ he was speaking of His own divinity- of course he as a human had somewhere to lay his head. ( I think I read this also in Jesus and the Victory of God by N.T. Wright)
“What is not assumed is not saved” is to be understood in the context that Jesus represented humanity and not male gender. This unfortunatley perplexed me while doing my grad studies- because I thought Jesus represented the male gender only.

Comment by Don Johnson

June 28, 2010 @ 6:48 pm

“son of man” just means “human”. Daniel extends the meaning.

Comment by Sonnet

June 29, 2010 @ 3:13 pm

“the whole church may take the whole Gospel to the whole world.”

Imagine how much faster this could be accomplished if the church would release its chains that hold back many within the Body. Restricting women makes the whole Body limp along. Our interconnectedness affects us all.

Comment by Trevor

June 29, 2010 @ 5:12 pm

Hi Don,

It might be worth teasing out your comments (91432, 91435) a little with some further explanation or thoughts as to how the term, ‘Son of Man’ is employed in the book of Daniel. Perhaps also in what way Jesus used this term in reference to Himself. It’s interesting that some ancient manuscripts translate Daniel 10:18 as reading, “Then something that looked like a human hand touched me again…” as opposed to the traditional, “Then the one who looked like a man touched me again…” (NLT). The reading of Daniel 8:15,16 seems pretty plain that Daniel sees a fully ‘human’ person, rather than just a male person. The description of that same person in Daniel 10:5,6 is not unlike references to the glorified Jesus in the book of Revelation, so there appears to be no question that this vision Daniel sees is actually Jesus, the interpreter of visions and the purposes of God.

The fact that Jesus takes this term to Himself in the Gospels simply indicates to me that He is, in the flesh, that person that Daniel saw in his vision and the person that other prophetic writers alluded to. Daniel’s earliest visionary visitation by this glorious person described in chapter 7:13,14 leaves no doubt in my mind as to why Jesus would use this somewhat oblique reference to Himself to capture the attention of those attuned to the unfolding purposes of God.

Having said all of that it seems to me that there is no need whatsoever to make something of Christ’s maleness out of these references. The ancient manuscripts clearly have in mind to point up the humanity of this person, not the gender. It is only that when the earlier translations from the original languages were first formulated the term man meant for them humankind, or ‘mankind’ being representative of humanity. Modern translators are duty bound to clear up this anomaly as the English language no longer uses the term ‘man’ as meaning human. It is entirely erroneous to make something of Jesus ‘maleness’ here as being exclusive, He is foremost a human, manifested in a male gendered body.

Interested in your thoughts Don as you brought Daniel into the discussion.

Comment by Liz

June 29, 2010 @ 5:19 pm

On a slightly different angle…….Jesus is likened to a lion and a lamb among other descriptions and these two animal s are quite different in their being and function.
So why when it comes to male and female descriptions are they so rigidly applied to all aspects of a human’s life ?

Another thought…..in the new testament disciples are likened to soldiers, farmers, athletes….all males at the time of writing. So does that mean that these instructions do not apply to females or is there an underlying principle to be obeyed?

Comment by Don Johnson

June 29, 2010 @ 5:59 pm

I think Jesus is giving at least 2 tiers of meaning.

When he refers to himself as “son of man” he is saying he is a human (and like other humans who are also “sons of man”).

He is ALSO making a ref. (Hebrew remez/hint AKA hypertext link) to Daniel, which is a special “son of man”. This in turn has some linkage to the divine.

Comment by Christy

July 25, 2010 @ 5:24 am

Back to the thought, giving the whole Gospel to the whole world… To me this is the crux of the matter. The Gospel alone is the POWER of God for salvation. He created it, He reveals it to us, and He alone fulfills it. God has given its proclamation to the church as its first priority.

To distort this Gospel by claiming that it does not cleanse both men and women equally is to corrupt that divine message. We have all witnessed the pain and suffering which results from this corruption. I also believe that one major factor in radicalizing many feminists into the perversions they practice today is their initial reaction to the false teachings about women taught in the churches. These women did not hear the Good News being taught. The church has a lot to answer for in not being faithful to its primary task.
The most important understanding we need to lay hold of is the right telling of the Gospel. When its properly preached, the man/woman issues will fall into their proper places.

As egalitarians, we also need to be careful of whom we endorse as well. Even if a group may be woman friendly in its teachings, if they do not preach the Gospel accurately, we must not give them our official approval. That Gospel message is of first importance to God and ought to be to us as well.