The "Son of Man" Debate

A few days after my arrival in Oxford as newly elected Reader in Jewish Studies, the late Dr. F.L. Cross was kind enough to accept my last minute offer to read a paper before an international New Testament Congress. The lecture, ’The use of bar nash/bar nasha in Jewish Aramaic’, was delivered in this same hall in September 1965, before appearing in print in 1967 /1/. In it, I set out to enquire into the meanings of the Semitic expression underlying the famous Gospel phrase, and advanced various conclusions. My task today is to expose the present state of the &dquo;son of man&dquo; debate which followed in the wake of the 1965 communication.