The connection between the coming of the Son of Man and the destruction of the temple

I made some general comments on the relation of the coming of the Son of Man motif to historical events in my previous post on Tucker Ferda’s book Jesus and His Promised Second Coming: Jewish Eschatology and Christian Origins. I really don’t think he’s right to disconnect the disorder in the heavens and the seeing of the Son of Man coming in clouds from the prediction of war and the destruction of the temple. Here, I work through his more detailed arguments in the “Messiah and Temple” section.

But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with much power and glory. And then he will send the angels and he will gather the elect from the four winds, from end of earth to end of heaven. (Mk. 13:24-27*)

According to Ferda, the heavenly phenomena described in Mark 13:25 are “citations” from apocalyptic oracles in Isaiah 13 and 34 about the “day of the Lord.” The vision of “the Son of Man coming in clouds with much power and glory” is drawn from Daniel 7:13-14: “(one) like a son of man coming upon the clouds of heaven… and was given to him… all glory.” Therefore, the coming of the Son of Man in Mark 13:24-26 ‘signals the arrival of the Lord’s “day” that impacts all of creation, “from the edge of the earth until the edge of heaven.”’

Because this prophecy comes at the end of Jesus’ response to the disciples’ question about the destruction of the temple, some scholars (Glasson, Robinson, Caird, France, Hatina, Wright, and others) have argued that the passage “refers not to the literal return of Jesus in the future but rather symbolically describes the temple’s destruction, or the ascension/vindication of Jesus, or the rise of the church.”

Ferda disputes this understanding. I have summarised below in bold type his reasons for thinking that the symbolic interpretation is “highly unlikely.” I then put forward counter-arguments in support of the view that the motif of the coming of the Son of Man in Jesus’ teaching bears the same relation to historical events as it does in Daniel 7. It is, roughly speaking, an apocalyptic symbol for the vindication and empowerment of the righteous, either plural or singular, in a time of national crisis.

First, Ferda argues that the connection with the Son of Man saying in Mark 8:38-9:1 makes a symbolic reading unlikely because the earlier passage cannot be “reduced to the temple’s destruction, and/or the ascension/vindication of Jesus, and/or the rise of the church, and it would be odd for Mark to use the same language in completely different ways.”

This is wrong. In Mark 8:34-9:1 Jesus has said that anyone who follows him must be prepared to forfeit his or her life. The horizon of this precarious existence is the coming of the Son of Man “in the glory of his Father with the holy angels,” which will coincide with the coming of the kingdom of God “with power” within the lifetime of some in his audience. One of the consequences of this event will be the repudiation of those in this “adulterous and sinful generation” of Judeans who were ashamed of Jesus and his words.

Nothing is said about the general circumstances associated with the coming of the Son of Man, but the stress on the current generation of his Jewish opponents naturally focuses attention on first century Jerusalem.

Whether or not the “coming” is to be understood symbolically, it relates directly to the punishment of the wicked tenants of the vineyard of Israel. So Jesus says to the Council of Jewish leaders, when they denounce him as a blasphemer, that they will live to “see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven” (14:62).

The prediction is confined to the fate that would befall Jerusalem and the many who had been ashamed of Jesus and his words. Nothing is said about the nations or humanity or the rest of the cosmos.

Mark dissociates the Son of Man vision from the account of “political and social realities” in 13:5-23 by means of “clear structuring words.” Verse 24 begins with an adversative (“but”) and states that the cosmic signs will occur “after” the tribulation of the war period. Ferda highlights the temporal sequence: events surrounding the abomination in the temple → cosmic disorder “after that suffering” → “and then” the coming of the Son of Man → “and then” the sending of the angels. Therefore, verses 24-27 must refer to “something different from and subsequent to what was previously described.”

I struggle to see the logic of this.

1. Ferda objects to the fact that symbolic readings of the paragraph “tend to overlook the conjunctions,” but he conveniently ignores the phrase “in those days” (en ekeinais tais hēmerais), between the “But” and “after that tribulation.” “In those days” means “in those days”—not “at some later time.”

The expression is found frequently in the apocalyptic literature and Qumran texts with the clear and consistent purpose of locating events in the same period of time. For example:

And then wisdom shall be given to the elect. And they shall all live and not return again to sin, either by being wicked or through pride; but those who have wisdom shall be humble and not return again to sin. … In those days (en ekeinais tais hēmerais), when the children of man had multiplied…. (1Enoch 5:8-9; 6:1)

And God will speak, with a great voice, to the entire ignorant empty-minded people, and judgment will come upon them from the great God, and all will perish at the hand of the Immortal. … The all-bearing earth will be shaken in those days (ēmasi keinois) by the hand of the Immortal…, all the souls of men and all the sea will shudder before the face of the Immortal and there will be a terror. (Sibylline 3:669-679)

At the end of that generation I [shall remove] the kingdom from the hand of those who possess it and [e]stablish strangers from another people over it. And [arr]ogance shall rule in all the land. And the kingdom of Israel shall be destroyed. In those days [there will] b[e a king, and h]e will be a blasphemer. He shall commit abominations and I shall remove [his] kingd[om and] that [king] for the destroyers. (4Q387 f2ii:5-9)

2. The “But,” therefore, establishes not a temporal contrast between two different periods of time but a qualitative contrast between the chaos and confusion described in 13:5-23 and the decisive resolution of the crisis described in apocalyptic terms in 13:24-27.

3. The sequence of events that follows occurs within “those days.” The coming of the Son of Man happens after the tribulation of war but within the historical period (“those days”) which has the destruction of the temple as its defining moment.

4. The cosmic signs are evidence of convulsions in the heavenly realms that will have their political counterpart on earth. In oracles of judgment against Babylon and the nations, Isaiah writes:

For behold, the incurable day of the Lord comes, a day of wrath and anger, to make the whole [region] (oikoumenē) desolate and to destroy the sinners from it. For the stars of heaven and Orion and all the ornament (kosmos) of heaven will not give light, and it will be dark when the sun rises, and the moon will not give its light. … For heaven will be enraged, and the earth will be shaken out of its foundations, because of the fierce anger of the Lord Sabaoth in the day when his wrath comes upon it. (Is. 13:9-10, 13 LXX)

…the wrath of the Lord is against all the nations and his anger against the whole number of them, to destroy them and to give them over for slaughter. … Heaven shall roll up like a scroll, and all the stars shall fall like leaves from a vine and as leaves fall from a fig tree. (Is. 34:2, 4)

I’m not sure that Mark has Jesus cite these passages as such, but Ferda gives no reason to think that he does not use this sort of prophetic language to “invest history with theological meaning,” in N. T. Wright’s well-known definition. If 13:5-23 “probably… refers to political and social realities” and the apocalyptic imagery of 13:24-25 is commonly used in the Old Testament with reference to the violent destruction of cities, what is the problem with supposing that the two are connected in Jesus’ mind, that he is saying something in a characteristically prophetic idiom about the violent destruction of Jerusalem “in those days” and what happens next?

The overall apocalyptic character of Mark’s Gospel leads us to think that the language of the passage is not merely metaphorical or symbolic: “the rest of Mark’s Gospel… gives little reason to doubt that vv. 24–27 describe transcendent realities that cannot be reduced to mere historical or political processes.” Jesus’ “battle against supernatural forces” points to a final defeat of Satan that will cause the powers of heaven to be shaken. A new future is envisaged in which marriage and procreation will not happen.

I made the point before that Ferda over-interprets the transcendent elements in the Gospels. Yes, demons and Satan are supernatural entities, and Jesus probably intends resurrection literally, but I would argue that neither the defeat of Satan nor the “resurrection” at issue in the dispute with the Sadducees is a final or absolute event (Mk. 12:18-27).

The battle against the demonic points to a defeat of Satan as the supernatural power behind the corruption of first century Israel and its oppression or subversion by Rome. Jesus, presumably, has bound Satan (Mk. 3:27-28)—or has seen him fall from heaven (cf. Lk. 10:18)—but this is to enable his disciples to pursue their mission to Israel after his death through to the moment when they will be vindicated for proclaiming the coming of the kingdom, the end of the age of second temple Judaism.

Jesus casts out unclean, disruptive spirits now but he expects them to come back in greater numbers, and the state of “this evil generation” will be even worse (cf. Matt. 12:43-45; Lk. 11:24-26). He does not anywhere speak of a final destruction of supernatural opposition to Israel. In Revelation, Satan is confined to the abyss after the defeat of Rome and the nations, but he is not destroyed until the thousand years are over (Rev. 20:1-3, 9). The historical and contingent event is explicitly disconnected from the final event.

If Jesus’ expectation of a resurrection at the time of the coming of the Son of Man derives from Daniel 12:2-3, this is not a resurrection of all the dead, leaving no one to marry and procreate. It is a resurrection of some of the dead to share in the life of the age of restored Israel.

It is often assumed that it is the final resurrection of all the dead that is definitive for Jewish thought, but it seems more likely to me that what came first was the resurrection of some Jews at the time of the deliverance of Israel from the pagan aggressor—to ensure that both those who had behaved well and those who had behaved badly in the crisis got their just deserts.

The unexpected resurrection and vindication of Jesus as a righteous martyr anticipated this “first” limited resurrection; the final resurrection of all the dead was likewise a later development (cf. Rev. 20:5-6).

The circumstances of Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion foreshadow the turmoil and darkness of the final “day of the Lord.”

I have no problem with the argument that the betrayal, trial, and suffering of Jesus foreshadow the later betrayal, trials, and suffering of the disciple. But what about the “literal darkness” at the crucifixion (Matt. 15:33)? Is there any reason to think that it foreshadows the darkness of the day of the Lord as described in 13:24-25? Well, yes, but not in the way that Ferda imagines.

The commentaries make the point that darkness and other strange phenomena often accompany the death of great figures in ancient literature. But then the conclusion to draw would be that the darkness of the day of the Lord as depicted in 13:24-25, even if it is understood literally, would signal the death of a great city. Darkness at the crucifixion of Israel’s presumptive king Jesus by Rome foreshadows the crucifixion of thousands of Jews by Rome in the course of the war and the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple.

Ferda cites Amos 8:9 as an example of darkness connected to the day of the Lord. Did he think to read the passage? This is a catastrophic “day of the Lord” against Jerusalem and only against Jerusalem:

The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,” declares the Lord GOD. “So many dead bodies!” “They are thrown everywhere!” (8:3)

On that day, God will “make the sun go down at noon and darken the [land] in broad daylight.” It is not immediately clear what form the destruction will take, but this is an “end” that has come upon “my people Israel” (8:2).

So we have every reason to think that the darkness that will come “in those days, after that tribulation,” has something directly to do with the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. It may well be foreshadowed in the darkness that covered the whole land at the time of the crucifixion, just as the fate of the temple was foreshadowed in the tearing of the temple curtain at the same moment.

The teachings that follow the passage suggest that it is a “prophecy about the climactic return of the son of man.” Jesus is the “Lord of the house” who will return suddenly after a period of time. So we have an inclusio: the “Jerusalem material” begins with the entry into Jerusalem, the cursing of the fig tree, and a parable about a mismanaged vineyard, and it ends with a parable about a fig tree, warnings to attend to the management of the house, and the re-entry of an absent Lord.

I agree with this. The Son of Man will be seen in some sense by the leadership of Israel, coming with the clouds of heaven and seated at the right hand of Power, after a period of time. He will send out the angels to gather the elect, who are the disciples sent out among the nations to proclaim the imminence of this spectacular divine intervention in the affairs of his people. He will return to the household, so it is important that his servants and the doorkeeper are awake (Mk. 13:33-37).

But that “period of time” is the forty years roughly between the entry into Jerusalem, the denunciation of the temple establishment, the cursing of the fruitless fig tree of Israel, the telling of the parable of the reprobate tenants of the vineyard of Israel, and the fulfilment of all these foreshadowings in the destruction of the city and in the “eschatological” vindication of Jesus and his followers.

So again, I see no reason to dissociate the apocalyptic and visionary events related in 13:24-27 from the “historical and political realities that lead up to the destruction of the temple.” It is not “all of creation” that is impacted but the geo-political region, with Rome at its centre and Jerusalem on its outer edge, across which the followers of Jesus have travelled, “from end of earth to end of heaven,” with news of the coming convulsions.