What does it all mean & where does it come from???

(DB)
In the Middle Ages
it was taken as a sign of Jesus' humility
but later on was understood as such a potent mark of potentially blasphemous arrogance
that many scholars have argued that the "Son of Man" sayings were all put into Yeshua's mouth
AFTER
his death
...

Some have argued
that the term referred to a primordial heavenly man figure & even was connected with Iranian religion,
while others have denied entirely that there ever was such a figure at all!

All this has added up to what has been called for generations now "The Son of Man Problem."
When Yeshu came & walked around Galilee proclaiming himself the Son of Man, no one ever asked:
"What is a Son of Man, anyway?"

They knew what he was talking about (?)
whether they believed his claim or not, much as modern folks in many parts of the world
would understand someone saying
"I am the Messiah!"

But there is a puzzlement here, because this term is very odd in any of the ancient languages with which we are concerned ~ Hebrew, Aramaic, & Greek.

The Christological use of the term "the Son of Man" as a name for a specific figure is unintelligible in Hebrew & Aramaic
as an ordinary linguistic usage. In those Semitic languages it is a quite ordinary word that means "human being";
in Greek it indicates, at best, somebody's child!

One would think, then, that when Ye(ho)shu(a) referred to himself as the Son of Man, Aramaic-speakers
would hear him just calling himself a person.

But the contexts in Mark will not allow us to interpret Jesus' use of the term as meaning just a human being.

It would be very difficult to interpret the verses of Mark 2 as mes ING that any old human being has this capacity to forgive sins
against G d or that any person is Lord of the Shabbathday.

Referring to an individual as the Son of Man therefore has to be explained historically & literarily.

It only makes sense if "The Son of Man" was a known & recognized title in the world of the writer & characters in Mark.
So, whence came this title forth?

All images must have been an allusion to the pivotal chapter in the book of Daniel!

Much New Testament scholarship has been led astray by an assumption that this new term "Son of Man" referred
ONLY
to the coming of Yehoshua on the clouds at the parousia,
Jesus' expected reappearance on earth?!

This has led to much confusion in the literature, because on this view it seems difficult to imagine how the living, breathing Yeshu,
not yet the exalted-into-heaven or returning-to-earth Christ, could refer to HIMSELF as THE Son of Man,
as he surely seems to do in several places in Mark & the other Gospels.

This problem
can be solved, however,
IF we think of the Son of Man not as representing a particular
stage in the narrative of the Christ but as referring to
the protagonist of the entire story, Jesus the
Christ, Messiah, Son
of Man
~~~