Jesus, the merkavah, and martyrdom in early Christian tradition

Journal of Biblical Literature

Volumn 121, Issue 2, 2002, Pages 303-325

  Munoa III, Phillip B ^a  

^a HOPE COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61449285711     PISSN: 00219231     EISSN: 19343876     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3268358     Document Type: Article

References (35)

1. See I. Gruenwald, Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism (AGJU 14; Leiden: Brill, 1980), 36-37
2. In Mark 14:62 Jesus is quoted as saying, in answer to the high priest's question about Jesus' messiahship, "I am; and 'you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power,' and 'coming with the clouds of heaven.'"
3. M. D. Hooker (The Son of Man in Mark [Montreal: McGill University Press, 1967], 11-30)
4. and P. M. Casey (Son of Man: The Interpretation and Influence of Daniel 7 [London: SPCK, 1979], 24-39) favor the symbolic view
5. and H. E. Tödt (The Son of Man in the Synoptic Tradition [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1965], 22-31) argue for a heavenly savior-figure interpretation
6. Casey, Son of Man, 24-26, 64-66, 71
7. See also T. Levi 2:6
8. (Rowland, Open Heaven, 16, 218)
9. See my discussion in Four Powers in Heaven, 36-42
10. If Sparks is right about the author of Luke-Acts imitating the language of the LXX, it is not unreasonable that the same author may have used figures and/or events from the LXX as models for his own narrative interests. For Luke's use of OT themes and models, see B. S. Rosner, "Acts and Biblical History," in The Book of Acts in Its Ancient Literary Setting, vol. 1 (ed. B. Winter and A. D. Clarke; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 65-82
11. See I. H. Marshall, The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 867-68
12. see J. J. Collins, "The Son of Man and the Saints of the Most High in the Book of Daniel," JBL (1974): 50-66
13. and G. Hasel, "The Identity of 'the Saints of the Most High' in Daniel," Bib 56 (1975): 173-92
14. E. Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1971), 292 n. 4. More recent commentators on Acts often list explanations for Jesus' posture, but their uncertainty over its meaning is apparent. Close examination discovers that any additional explanations either overlap in varying degrees with Haenchen's list or are new explanations that lack significant textual support and serve as conjectures
15. See H. Conzelmann, Acts of the Apostles (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 59-60
16. C. K. Barrett, The Acts of the Apostles (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1994), 384-65
17. and J. A. Fitzmyer, Acts of the Apostles (AB 31; New York: Doubleday, 1998), 392
18. D. Aune, "Christian Prophecy and the Messianic Status of Jesus," in The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; Minneapolis: Fortress 1992), 419 n. 55
19. Fossum, Name of God, 124 n. 148
20. C. Fletcher-Louis, Luke-Acts: Angels, Christology, and Soteriology (WUNT 2.94; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1998), 246-48
21. Italics mine. The LXX has "he was brought to him" in Dan 7:13
22. idem, "Some Notes on the Exagoge of Ezekiel," Mnemosyne 37 [1984]: 364-68)
23. W. Horbury makes his case for Ezekiel the Tragedian's use of Dan 7 in "The Messianic Associations of 'the Son of Man,'" JTS 36 (1985): 42-43
24. Ezekiel the Tragedian was originally written in Greek and is extant only in fragments cited by Eusebius, Clement of Alexandria, and Pseudo-Eustathius
25. Most notably Exod 24:10
26. See Gruenwald, Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism, 62
27. and P. Munoa, "Christianizing Jewish Apocalypticism: D. E. Aune's Proposal for Understanding Revelation" BR 43 (1998): 54-60
28. J. Sweet, Revelation (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1979), 117
29. R. Mounce, The Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 134
30. and G. Caird, A Commentary on the Revelation of St. John the Divine (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 63-64
31. idem, The Use of Daniel in Jewish Apocalyptic Literature and in the Revelation of John [Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984], 181-223)
32. For the fourth vision of Perpetua this means that the aged figure with a youthful face can be exegetically traced to Dan 7. A. Green has demonstrated how Jewish tradition portrays God as both an old man and a young man ("The Children in Egypt and the Theophany at the Sea," Jud 24 [1975]: 446-56). Revelation's teaching that Jesus shares God's throne may also have contributed to the double appearance of the enthroned figure in Saturus's vision
33. see also G. Scholem, Jewish Mysticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition [2d ed.; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1965], 36-42)
34. Quoted by Robeck, Prophecy in Carthage, 166
35. Robeck, Prophecy in Carthage, 285 n. 10