The Son of Man in the Similitudes of Enoch and 4 Ezra: An Adaptation of the Synoptic Son of Man as a Response to the Fall of the Temple

The Synoptic tradition, 4 Ezra, and Similitudes of Enoch all feature the Son of Man as a human yet divine eschatological judge, which is an innovative reinterpretation of the Danielic Son of Man. The question then becomes, who began this innovation? Given the generally monotheistic milieu of first-century Palestinian Judaism, the Synoptic tradition is most likely the source of this innovation. Why, however, would the Jewish/Jewish-Christian authors of 4 Ezra and Similitudes have taken their cue from the Synoptics in regards to this innovation? This article conjectures the possibility that Jesus’s own designation of the fall of the Jerusalem Temple as the beginning of the eschatological schema, at the end of which the Son of Man comes as an eschatological judge, may have inspired the authors of 4 Ezra and Similitudes for such adaptation of the Son of Man in the aftermath of the fall of the Temple.