The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (2316 page)

 
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Song of Songs
.

One of the five
scrolls
of the Hebrew scriptures. In the hagiographa (
Writings
), it follows Job and precedes
Ruth
. Song of Songs consists of a series of love songs of an entirely secular nature. It has, however, been interpreted as an
allegory
of the love of God for his people, either the Israelites or the Christian soul.

 
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Song of the Three Children
.

An
apocryphal
addition to
Daniel
in the Hebrew scriptures. The
Song of the Three Children
was inserted between Daniel 3. 23 and 3. 24. It dates back to the 2nd or 1st cent. BCE. In Roman Catholic bibles it forms 3. 24–90; the Christian canticle known as the
Benedicite
comes from vv. 35–66.

 
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(Heb.,
ben Adam
). Phrase used in Jewish scripture (especially Psalms and once in Job) in parallel to other words for ‘man’. Since it is literally ‘son of Adam’ (i.e. descendant of the one who, with his descendants, is subject to the penalty of death, Genesis 3. 1–19), the phrase is used most often in contexts where it means ‘humans subject to death’ (a point already noticed and understood by the
Targums
, early translations of scripture). It carries with it the association of ‘humans subject to frailty and death’. In Daniel 7 (in an Aramaic passage), the phrase ‘a son of man’ is used of a figure seen in a vision as vindicated before a heavenly tribunal and awarded an everlasting kingdom. This probably epitomizes Jewish martyrs, vindicated by their obedience (which they have taken to the point of death), as the true kingdom of Israel. The phrase does not occur in scripture as a title.

 
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(Gk.,
ho huios tou anthropou
). A phrase (not title) used in the New Testament which occurs exclusively in the sayings of Jesus (and once elsewhere, Acts 7. 56), the anarthrous (i.e. without the definite article
the
) form in John 5. 27 being the only exception. The definite form in the singular (otherwise found only in the plural, ‘the sons of men’) has not yet been found in any pre-Christian Hebrew literature, except once in the
Dead Sea Scrolls
(
1QS
11. 20, and there apparently as an after-thought, since the article is added above the line). On the other hand, the definite form is found in Aramaic, so that if Jesus spoke Aramaic it is a natural expression. The conclusion is inescapable that the phrase was used deliberately and with specific intent by Jesus to convey ‘the son of man, the one you all know about’.
It seems probable, therefore, that Jesus used the phrase to draw together the two major uses in what was already becoming scripture by his time, namely, that he was teaching and acting among them with direct authority from God, not as a superhuman figure (e.g. an
angel
or a
messiah
or a
prophet
) but as one who is as much subject to death as anyone else, who believes nevertheless that he will be vindicated by God despite death. When it seemed on the cross that the vindication had not happened, the cry of dereliction (‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’) was real indeed; which makes the actual vindication in the resurrection all the more compelling, since it appears to have taken his followers very much by surprise. The allusion to Daniel 7 (and
Josephus
,
Antiquities
10. 267 implies that the passage might have been widely known) would also have carried with it a sense of his own obedience constituting the true vocation of Israel and the only ultimate basis for kingship—an obedience to which he called his followers also (however little they comprehended it at the time).

 
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Sons of Light
.

Hebrew phrase used in the
Dead Sea Scrolls
. The ‘sons of light’ are contrasted with the ‘sons of darkness’, and are presumably to be identified with members of the
Qumran community
.