(Continued):
Yet another (and IMHO more likely) possible way of looking at it postulates that the context of the trial accounts in the synoptics suggests that it is not so much the question of the high priest, but Jesus’ statements that leads to the accusation of ‘blasphemy’. Jesus’ affirmative response alone to the question of whether He is the Messiah would have been insufficient to convict Him of blasphemy, although it may well have been sufficient grounds for a conviction of the offense of rebelling against Rome. Similarly, the affirmative response ego eimi (I am) alone was unlikely to be interpreted as a claim to divinity. The charge of blasphemy is related to the saying based on a combination of Psalm 110:1 and Daniel 7:13 (“You will soon see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven”).
With regard to the part of the saying based on Psalm 110:1, it is clear that at least some Jews in the late Second Temple period had no problem with the idea of a heavenly Messiah, an exalted patriarch or a principal angel sitting or standing at the right hand of God or sitting on God’s throne itself. The issue was not so much that no one could sit at God’s right hand, but that a current living person, who is perceived as deceiving the people, is making the claim. To envisage Enoch, Moses, David, an angel or a heavenly messiah sitting beside or on God’s throne is a different thing from confronting a living human who predicts that He Himself will be so enthroned. Notably, all the surviving texts which use the enthronement language (such as 1 Enoch, 3 Enoch, the
Exagōgē of Ezekiel 67-89, and even the statement attributed to Rabbi Akiva in the Talmud: Hagigah 14a and Sanhedrin 38b) look to past luminaries to perform the special role, with none involving direct self-claims. Such a prediction might seem close to Gaius Caligula’s claim to be a god or the governor of Egypt’s claim to be ‘constraining destiny’, claims that so offended Philo. The later rabbis, perhaps in response to claims about Jesus, but plausibly in response to claims about Enoch, Moses or the Messiah, eventually rejected the idea of ‘two powers in heaven’. This is also reflected in the Akiva tradition:
One [throne] was for Himself and one for David. Even as it has been taught: One was for Himself and one for David: this is R. Akiba’s view. R. Jose protested to him: Akiba, how long will thou profane the Shechinah? Rather, one [throne] for justice, and the other for mercy. Did he accept [this answer] from him or not? Come and hear! For it has been taught: One is for justice and the other for charity; this is R. Akiba’s view. Said R. Eleazar b. Azariah to him: Akiba, what hast thou to do with Aggada? Confine thyself to [the study of] Nega’im and Ohaloth. But one was a throne, the other a footstool: a throne for a seat and a footstool in support of His feet.
With regard to the “son of man” statement, the identification is equivalent to a messianic claim. (Compare to the messianic figure in the Similitudes of Enoch and the messiah in 2 Esdras 13, which are both based on the son of man figure in Daniel; cf. also the interpretation attributed Akiba in Hag. 14a.) The judgment that Jesus had commited ‘blasphemy’ is thus interpreted here in the prediction of Jesus predicting that He will be enthroned alongside God and will return or be manifest with divine glory. As mentioned earlier, this is analogous to Philo’s definition of Gaius’ and the governor of Egypt’s claims as ‘blasphemy.’
Again, one should note that the definition of blasphemy as misuse of the Name again derives from the Mishnah, Sanhedrin 7.5. One could also make the argument here that this narrow definition could be a later development. There is no absolute certainty that these rules were in absolute effect at the time of Jesus, nor that they were strictly observed. Josephus does define blasphemy along these lines, but it is likely that the Sadducees, a group to which the chief priests may have belonged, defined it more broadly, like Philo, and thus would have considered Jesus’ declaration to be blasphemous.
What is at question is not merely being exalted and present in heaven, but in having a position that places one at God’s side. For some Jews at the time, a few select luminaries of old could be considered for such an honor by a direct invitation from God. However, the lack of good, clean parallels for contemporary figures making such a self claim serves as evidence for the offense when a contemporary like Jesus makes such a statement. What you have here is no great, venerable figure from of old, but an untrained Galilean, a troublemaker, who claims not only the ability to sit beside God, but also that He will be vindicated before their eyes: in other words, “constructive blasphemy.”
What exactly is the idea of “two powers in heaven”? One stream of Jewish thought at the time envisioned a revered figure sitting or standing at the right hand of God or sitting on God’s throne itself, thereby being exalted over all creation (including the angels), while still being in some way subordinate to God. As mentioned, we can find this enthronement language implied in 1 Enoch (51.3; 61.8; 62.5; 69.29), and more explicitly depicted in the Hebrew
3 Enoch (where Enoch, transformed into the angel Metatron and is accorded a throne similar to God’s, is acclaimed as “the little Yhwh”), and the
Exagōgē of
Ezekiel the Dramatist (67-89, where Moses is the one taken up to heaven and enthroned in God’s own throne). This idea was however later rejected by rabbinic Judaism as heretical, since of course there could be no equality with God.
