The Human Being: Jesus and the Enigma of the Son of the Man [Paperback]

Walter Wink (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2001

A thorny historical issue handled with artistry and imagination The epithet "the son of the man" (or "the Human Being") in the Gospels has been a highly debated topic. Wink uses this phrase to explore not only early Christology but the anthropology articulated in the Gospels. Jesus apparently avoided designations such as Messiah, Son of God, or God, though these titles were given by his disciples after his death and resurrection. But Jesus is repeatedly depicted as using the obscure expression "the Human Being" as virtually his only form of self- reference. Wink explores how Jesus' self-referential phrase came to be universalized as the "Human Being" or "Truly Human One." The Human Being is a catalytic agent for transformation, providing the form and lure and hunger to become who we were meant to be, or more properly perhaps, to become who we truly are.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Walter Wink is Professor of Biblical Interpretation at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City. He is author of the award-winning Fortress Press books: Naming the Powers (1982), Unmasking the Powers (1986), Engaging the Powers (1992), and When the Powers Fall (1998), and also the editor of Homosexuality and Christian Faith (1999).

Product Details

• Paperback: 372 pages
• Publisher: Fortress Press (November 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0800632621
• ISBN-13: 978-0800632625
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #672,607 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

79 of 81 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?, February 26, 2002

By 

Lori Lambert (Cambridge, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Human Being: Jesus and the Enigma of the Son of the Man (Paperback)

Many will be delighted by the portrayal of Jesus that Walter Wink presents here. Others, however, who rely largely on dogma as their primary source for understanding who Jesus was and is, will undoubtedly experience an initial jolt by this book, but one, I think, that is potentially freeing and life transforming.

The book is refreshing, moving, clear, intelligible and well organized throughout. Perhaps one of the most important comments that can be made about this text is that it provides the reader with a perspective on Jesus which is not only believable, but meaningful. Without sacrificing the importance of Jesus, Wink presents us with an emerging Christology from below that he grounds in Jesus' own self understanding as gleaned largely through the Gospel accounts of his life, teaching and ministry.

Wink masterfully develops his thought by mining the Hebrew and New Testament scriptures taking as his central theme and starting point the numerous "son of the man/human being" sayings throughout the scriptures. As noted above, he begins with Ezekiel and moves on to Genesis which, as the author notes, was written after Ezekiel. He continues on with Daniel, the Gospels and concludes with pertinent extra biblical texts of the First Century CE. In the end we are left with an image of Jesus as one who fully realized his humanity and thus the goal of life as God intended.

Using a historical critical method and a critique of domination as his critical lens, Wink recovers emphases within the scriptures that have been lost in the Christian tradition due to the traditions tendency to accommodate and interpret the gospels in light of structures of domination. As Wink aptly illustrates, the fundamental thrust of Jesus' teaching and ministry was to confront and condemn all forms of domination. Accordingly, for Wink, the critique of domination provides the essential criterion for determining what was revelatory in Jesus' life and message as this apprears in the "son of the man" sayings.

The fundamental thesis of the book is that by recovering the archetypal meaning of "the son of the man," Jesus, the human being - the son and mediator of the truly Human One, becomes a catalyst for human transformation by teaching us what it means to be more fully human. Through careful and creative exegesis, Wink offers a provocative first century portrait of Jesus that systematically peels away the multiple layers of dogmatic assertions about Jesus and illuminates the earthly, human Jesus who truly was `one like us.'

This book is a wonderful scholarly addition to the study of Jesus. Likewise, it smoothly integrates theology, philosophy and psychology. Wink is simultaneously provocative, humorous, realistic and humble throughout. He is both a feminist and a liberationist in his critical approach to theology and the scriptures.

I recommend this text to all students of theology and anyone else who is interested in becoming more authentically human in light of their Christian commitment to God, through Jesus - the fully human, human being.

60 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Demanding Read, recommended for ministers..., August 8, 2002

By 

Allan M. Gathercoal "fdoamerica" (Norcross, GA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Human Being: Jesus and the Enigma of the Son of the Man (Paperback)

"God is Human" Walter Wink so believes. In `The Human Being', Wink redefines divinity, not as godlike, but as fully human, and calls us to become like God - actualized humans. "We are called not to become what we are not - divine - but to become what we are: human."

This book is an authoritative commentary on the words, "son of man" and "the son of the man" an expression found throughout the Bible and an expression that Jesus used almost exclusively to describe himself. The Hebrew phrase simply means "a human being." For Wink, Jesus came to teach us, to call us, to be truly human. A task that Wink feels we have failed at miserably.

"We are only fragmentarily human, fleetingly human, brokenly human. We see glimpses of our humanness . . but we have not yet arrived at true humanness." He goes on to say, "we are incapable of becoming human by ourselves. We scarcely know what humanness is, but we know well what inhumanity is."

I found the most interesting and engaging chapter 'Feuerbach's Challenge', where Wink agrees with Ludwig Feuerbach, the 19th Century German Philosopher, that God is the merely the projection of human values and human nature. He turns this around to support his thesis that the projection of our best
qualities and powers into Godhead, the emptying of ourselves into
transcendence is what God wants. "We are projections of God, functions of God, and that God is a function, a projection of us. Consequently, our perceptions of God are projections, as Feuerbach thought."

I was disappointed that Wink's focus is on us becoming `truly human', yet he only gives one and a half pages to discussing the definition of the `truly human'. Scant space when you consider this is the core of his thesis. Throughout the book he alludes to what being `truly human' means, but you must collect the fragments and paste together your own understanding. He states, "The new human being has not yet emerged. Evil is as powerful today as it was the day Jesus hung on the cross." Right, Professor, but what does the "new human being" look like, Jesus? And if Jesus, then the human side, right? Carl Jung's concept of `individuation' is referenced multiple times,
as is Maslow's concept of self actualization. But you come away with nothing definitive.

This book is a demanding academic read that will escape most of the general populace. It is recommended for ministers seeking a commentary on the words "son of man" and various passages throughout the Bible, as well as theologians and students of theology. In `The Human Being' Walter Wink has given us an exhaustive study on the words "son of man"; going beyond just the
Biblical and expanding the study into the use of the words in Pseudepigrapha, Apocrypha, Gnostic and Jewish mysticism and Apocrypha mystic writings. Recommended

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Profound and Brilliant, July 9, 2005

By 

Eo (Gilbert, AZ United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: The Human Being: Jesus and the Enigma of the Son of the Man (Paperback)

Surely one of the most perplexing phrases in the Gospels is Jesus' repeated reference to himself as "Son of Man." Let's face it, for most biblical scholars, the term is simply an embarrassment, and they work hard to explain it away. Inconsistent statements such as saying that Jesus is fully human as well as fully divine are used to try to explain it. Or, attempts are made to show that "Son of man" is some divine title. In both the ancient and modern church, the phrase is basically non-existent in hymns, prayers, and liturgies.
Wink researches all the references to the son of man he could locate: in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and in Hebrew literature. For example, he shows that the capitalization of "Son of Man" was added by the translators, to give the impression that "Son of Man" is a title. In fact, there is no capitalization at all in the Hebrew or Greek texts of the bible. In fact, "son of" is a Hebrew idiom (usually appearing as "ben `adam") that means "member of a class," and Wink pulls many examples from the bible itself, examples that would not be obvious unless you return to the Hebrew text (or a literal translation, because the idioms are not translated as "son of," but as "member of," or the translation simply drops "son of " and just leaves the group name.) One example is in Genesis 18:7, which for example NIV translates as "Then he ran to the herd and selected a choice, tender calf ..." but Young's Literal Translation is "and Abraham ran unto the herd, and taketh a son of the herd, ..."
The exception to this translation of "son of," Wink points out, is when Jesus refers to himself as "son of man." Here, the translators don't appear to be willing to have Jesus call himself a man, so the leave the strange-sounding phrase "Son of Man," and capitalize it to boot.
Wink has a knack for seeing through the fog of Christology and all the baggage that his been built around Jesus by the translators and theologians. Wink explores carefully the historical meaning of Son of Man in Jewish literature. Then he analyses the curious and unique use of Son of Man in Gospel ("bar enash" in Aramaic, which appears as "ho huios tou anthropou" in the Greek NT sources): that nobody else uses this term in the New Testament except Jesus himself, and that it really doesn't mean "I" since among other things Jesus frequently uses "I," and could have used that if he wanted to.
Wink's essential conclusion that Jesus' repeated use of "son of man" is to deliberately emphasize that he is human. Jesus was not claiming to be divine, not calling us to worship him, but calling us to be human, and that is our highest calling. Wink makes the profound observation that Jesus never appealed to God's authority for anything he said or did, and yet divine authority clearly shines through his words and deeds. Wink's interpretation of Jesus' message is not that being "human" is bad, but that our failure is that we are rarely human at all; that we act selfishly, without thinking, without consideration, without reverence for God. It is a compelling interpretation, well analyzed and defended. Wink shows that is the most consistent with what is found in the Gospels.
This interpretation will for many people hard to accept. It is one thing to have Jesus come down from high, to be worshipped, with a huge chasm between him and us. It is another to realize that Jesus was, in fact fully human while we most of us are barely so, and that he tried with all his might to show those around him the way to the Kingdom of God, and that is our calling not to worship Jesus but to share his understanding and worship of God.