Assessing One Of Crossan's "Son Of Man" Arguments.

In The Historical Jesus, Crossan disputes the claim that Jesus referred to himself or someone else as a/the son of man in any kind of apocalyptic sense. He does this by analyzing groups of individual sayings in the NT and apocrypha, claiming that they go back to a common source, and then giving arguments for why the phrase son of man was added on rather than originating with the common source or background. One example of this is his assessment of 1st Thessalonians 4:17 and Mark 13:26.

He argues that when Paul uses the phrase "in the clouds," he is deliberately tying his vision of Jesus to the apocalypticism of Daniel 7:13. He emphasizes, however, that Paul consistently uses the phrase "the Lord" instead of "Son of Man." He claims that it is very significant that the "in the clouds" passage from much later in Mark 13:26 then adds a son of man phrase into the mix. With this example, he begins to lay the foundations for the view that the son of man sayings are a later addition rather than something stemming from Jesus.

His next example is that Matthew 24:30 and Didache 16:6-8. According to Crossan, both derive from a common source but, once again, only one of them (Matthew) uses the son of man phrase. In the Didache, only "the Lord" is used. To summarize Crossan,
"What is of present interest is that Didache 16:6-8 speaks...of the Lord as apocalyptic judge but Matthew speaks of the Son of Man...It is not clear why Didache would omit the title had it been there, but, on the other hand, Matthew 24:30a, preparing for Matthew 24:30b, which mentions the Son of Man from Mark 13:26, could easily or even necessarily have added it. I judge that, once again, the earlier text spoke of the Lord as apocalyptic judge even against a backdrop of Daniel 7:13, whereas the later text changed "The Lord" to "The Son of Man." 

Possible objections: Even if Paul knew about a Son of Man tradition, there are reasons he may have avoided the term. As Paula Fredriksen notes: "The complete absence of the phrase from our earliest written source, Paul, might seem to argue against its role in the primitive apostolic kerygma. But the audiences of Paul's letter's are exclusively Gentile, and his use of Jesus Christ replicates the functional definition of Son of Man. Paul may simply have decided to spare himself and his Greek-speaking communities an unnecessary neologism." Additionally, when considering the same question, Bart D Ehrman comes up with the same reason: "Almost certainly because he was writing to Gentiles who would have no clue what it would mean."

Additionally, regarding the second complex, it is strange that Crossan would try to place the Didache at odds with Matthew when, as L. Michael White notes in From Jesus To Christianity, "it seems to quote most directly from Matthew and social ties to Matthean Christianity have been convincingly argued." In light of Matthew's high level of influence on Didache, it would seem that, rather than drawing from a common stream that Matthew altered, Didache is altering Matthew. Perhaps this is due to a familiarity with Paul's use of "The Lord" rather than "Son of Man?" 

Another point to make is that, one of the reasons for regarding the Son of Man sayings as historical is that they do not reflect a necessarily Christian worldview. The "son of man," in many verses (including the current one), can be interpreted as being someone other than Jesus. For this reason it passes the criterion of dissimilarity. If it was added by later Christians, they most likely would have made it more clear that it refers to Jesus. This also give another plausible reason for why the Didache uses the phrase Lord: it removes the ambiguity of the son of man phrase in order to make it clear that the verse refers specifically to Jesus.

Even if single saying about the apocalyptic son of man face obstacles when placed under critical scrutiny, the tradition that Jesus use such sayings is strong when the the cumulative case is assessed. Especially considering such a tradition is independently attested to in Mark, Q, and possibly John.