My Master's Thesis

Today, I received my 2 bound copies of my master's thesis: "Apocalyptic Imagery as Resistance Discourse: An Analysis of the Son of Man in Daniel 7 and 1 Enoch in Relationship to Matthew 25:31." By employing several analytical tools from postcolonial/imperial-critical analysis in tandem with several of Joseph Fantin's observations from Relevance Theory in order to argue that the "Son of Man" discourse is an apocalyptic discourse that is constructed by the marginalized under imperial persecution and thereby may be understood as a discourse of resistance (similar conceptually to the concept of Negro spirituals sung in the 17th century like "Babylon's a-falling" wherein the slaves envisioned an alternative reality over against their present experience in safely nestled in religious imagery so as to be "coded" to use James Scott's concept of hidden/public transcripts). I argue that this is the case independently and historically for the "Son of Man" figure in Daniel 7, the Parables (Similitudes) of Enoch, and Matthew 25:31. However, of importance to my argument, I view the author of the Parables of Enoch to have taken Dan 7 and dynamically transformed the imagery, that is, s/he took imagery that functioned religio-politically and re-envisioned or "reactualized" the image and developed it further. Indeed, it seems Matthew later did the same thing with the Enochic imagery. What the Parables do with Dan 7 radically furthers the development and in some sense the discourse evolves in a new and different direction. My position is that this is equally the case for Matthew 25:31, namely, that Matthew takes Enochic imagery bearing a normative function and applies it to Jesus. In doing so, I believe that Matthew portrays Jesus in Enochic exaltation language which activates various concepts related to the Enochic portrayal with regard to Jesus, albeit in his own way. Therefore, the Matthean discourse is not merely the Enochic discourse, rather, in some sense, I think Matthew grounds the imagery and conceptual expectation of Enoch in a person, Jesus. Thus, I think in doing so he does not merely say "this is that" but....rather... that, really, is this (Jesus). It seems plausible that if Dan 7 may be perceived, as I have argued, as an imperial resistance discourse, and that the Son of Man in the Parables functions in this way also, that by Matthew relatively clearly employing that imagery and language (i.e. the Son of Man seated on his throne of glory") with the referent of Jesus, that in some sense, that manuever may well have been understood by some, those familiar with the Enochic material, as a discourse of resistance against imperial persecution. Jesus becomes the figurehead whom symbolizes the overthrow of the wicked, the institution of justice, and the marginalized becoming elite.

Therefore, in each chapter I reconstruct a plausible discursive world (conceptual/linguistic world) in which these literary figures arise in order to properly frame the ideological and religious significance of the discourses within the communities in which they arose. Unfortunately, I was severely constrained by the word limitations of a thesis in a school that pressures people who shouldn't be writing a thesis in the first place into doing it. This practice over stretches the faculty and limits those students whose work is advanced enough to warrant much more depth.

Enjoy an excerpt from my conclusion:

This thesis has sought to investigate the literary construction within its milieu of the Son of Man figure within Daniel, the Book of Parables, and Matthew 25:31. Our aim has been to reconstruct the cognitive environment relevant to each document along with its socio-political context in order to analyze the Son of Man figure in that regard. We have determined that each text arose in environments deeply impacted by the phenomena of empire. We have discerned that one aspect of the Son of Man discourse arising in Dan 7, the Book of Parables, and Matthew 25:31 may be understood as functioning among its hearers as a discourse of imperial resistance offering an alternative reality to the hearing community from that envisioned by the dominant imperial powers of the day, in each unique case. Furthermore, we have shown through the use of relevance theory, the likelihood that Matthew 25:31 appropriated and invested with new meaning the “Son of Man” figure as constructed by both Dan 7 and the tradition undergirding the final form of the Book of Parables and applied this new construction to Jesus, in an imperial context, in such way that some of his hearers would have perceived the “Son of Man” as a challenge to the normative power structure enjoyed by the living emperor.