Where In the Hebrew Scriptures is the Messiah called God?

“Although the official rabbinic theology suppressed all talk of the Memra or Logos by naming it the heresy of “Two Powers in heaven,” both before the Rabbis and contemporaneously with them there was A MULTITUDE OF JEWS, in both Palestine and the Diaspora, who held onto this version of monotheistic theology.” Boyarin, The Gospel of the Memra

The man who has personally questioned my sanity for changing my own ideas several times, the Christian then Muslim, Muslim apostate, Muslim revert, Muslim apostate Paul Williams is back to his old tricks, ignoring the countless evidence he has already been provided, by Sam Shamoun, myself, General Han Solo, Radical Moderate (and others) and pretending he has not been sufficiently answered: 

And:

Challenge Accepted

 "Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is HIS NAME whereby he shall be called: Jehovah our righteousness (Yahweh tsidkenû)." Jeremiah 23:5-6

Some Muslims like Sami Zaatari and Osama Abdullah tried to discredit this as a reference to the Messiah's divinity and divine kingship, unfortunately for them Sam Shamoun already completed a devastating critique here

Here are more passages where the Messiah is explicitly called God:

Your throne, O God, is permanent. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of justice. You love justice and hate evil. For this reason God, your God has anointed you with the oil of joy, elevating you above your companions. Psalms 45:6-7 

For a child has been born to us, a son has been given to us. He shoulders responsibility and is called: Extraordinary Strategist, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His dominion will be vast and he will bring immeasurable prosperity. He will rule on David's throne and over David's kingdom, establishing it and strengthening it by promoting justice and fairness, from this time forward and forevermore. The LORD's intense devotion to his people will accomplish this. Isaiah 9:6-7

Here is a passage where the Bible also implies the Messiah is God:

Marshal your troops now, city of troops, for a siege is laid against us. They will strike Israel's ruler on the cheek with a rod. "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times." Micah 5:1-2 

For more of a detailed exegesis of these and other passages (e.g. Isaiah 7:14 etc) check here

Before we further embarrass PW's unfathomable ignorance of the Hebrew Scripture and Jewish Thought, he makes another astounding admission:

Presuming PW is correct, the Quran is then wrong. In the Quran the 'Messiah' is a title that belongs to one special person. In fact the Quran uses the word Messiah and only applies it to Jesus, but not only as a title but even as Jesus' own personal and proper name:

The Angels said, “O Mary, God gives you good news of a Word from Him. HIS NAME IS the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, well-esteemed in this world and the next, and one of the nearest. 3:45

They have taken their rabbis and their priests as lords instead of God, as well as the Messiah son of Mary. Although they were commanded to worship none but The One God. There is no god except He. Glory be to Him; High above what they associate with Him. 9:31

Thank you Paul Williams for disproving the Quran.

PW who is not in the least bit familiar with scholarship, doesn't know that while many references to Mashiach in the Hebrew Scriptures do convey an anointed or chosen one, historians and scholars have long since made a distinction, between various messiahs and The Messianic Messiah. 

As John J. Collins, Holmes Professor of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Yale Divinity School, pointed out:

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls considerably expanded the corpus of literature relevant to the study of messianism. The number of occurrences of מָשִׁיחַ, messiah, in its various forms, is not great, but it illustrates well the range of reference to the term. One of the first scrolls published, the Community Rule, refers to the coming of “the prophets and the messiahs of Aaron and Israel” (1QS 9:2), and so testifies to the expectation of at least two messiahs, one priestly and one royal.59 Since מָשִׁיחַ is also used in the plural with reference to prophets (CD 2:9; 1QM 11:7), and the Melchizedek scroll (11QMelchizedek) identifies the “herald” of Isa 52:7 as “the anointed of the spirit” (… cf. CD 2:9), it is possible that the prophet may be a messianic figure, too. The scrolls, then, indicate a greater diversity of messianic expectations in Judaism around the turn of the era than was apparent before their discovery.60 

The degree of diversity is inevitably bound up with the question of terminology. In modern parlance, the word “messiah” refers at the minimum to a figure who will play an authoritative role in the end time, usually the eschatological king. The Hebrew word מָשִׁיחַ, however, means simply “anointed” and does not necessarily refer to an eschatological figure at all.61 While it refers to a royal figure some thirty times in the Hebrew Bible, it can also refer to other figures, most notably the anointed High Priest.62 The association of the term with an ideal Davidic king derives from Ps 2:2, which speaks of the subjugation of all the peoples to God’s anointed. In the post exilic period, where there was no longer a king in Jerusalem, we occasionally find the hope for an ideal king of the future. Jer 23:5 can be read in this context: “The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” …. 

It is not helpful, however, to restrict the discussion of messianism too narrowly to occurrences of מָשִׁיחַ or its translation equivalents (christos, unctus, etc.).63 On the one hand, since the term “messiah” is commonly used in later tradition for the ideal Davidic king of the future, passages such as Jer 23:5-6, which clearly refer to such a figure, may reasonably be dubbed “messianic,” even though the specific term does not occur. On the other hand, it is best to reserve the English term “messiah” for figures who have important roles in the future hope of the people. Even though historical High Priests are called מָשִׁיחַ in Daniel 9, they are not “messiahs” in the eschatological, futurist, sense of the term.64 The term “messiah” may be used legitimately, however, for the High Priest in an eschatological context, and for other eschatological figures, such as the Enochic Son of Man, who are sometimes designated as מָשִׁיחַ or its translation equivalents. The term cannot be extended at will. ... In short, a messiah is an eschatological figure who sometimes, but not necessarily always, is designated as a מָשִׁיחַ in the ancient sources. 

It should be clear from these remarks, however, that “messiah,” even as an eschatological term, can refer to different kinds of figures, and that to speak of “the messiah” without further qualification is to speak ambiguously. ... One could, arguably, give a satisfactory account of Jewish future hope without using the word “messiah” at all.66 What matters is the expectation of a Davidic king, of an ideal priest, of an eschatological prophet. Besides, there was NO Jewish orthodoxy in the matter of messianic expectation, and so we should expect some variation. 

We shall argue, however, that the variation was limited, and that some forms of messianic expectation were widely shared. ... We shall find four basic messianic paradigms (king, priest, prophet, and heavenly messiah), and they were not equally widespread.67 (Admittedly, the heavenly messiah” paradigm is somewhat different from the others, since it is not defined by function, and can overlap with the other paradigms.68) (John J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star: Messianism in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 2nd edition (Grand Rapids, Michigan/Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, [1995], 2010), pp. 16-18) [note: the Hebrew characters in Collins’ text do not have the vowel pointings.] 

59 The extent of this “bi-messianism” in the Scrolls has been much disputed… 

60 A point noted by Morton Smith, “What is Implied by the Variety of Messsianic Figures?” Journal of Biblical Literature 78 (1959) 66-72 

61 As noted repeatedly by Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J., The One Who Is to Come(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 8-25 

62 F. Hesse, “Chrio, etc.,” G. Friedrich, ed., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974) 9.501-9. Gerbern S. Oegema, The Anointed and His People: Messianic Expectations from the Maccabees to Bar Kochba (JSPSup 27; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 23-27, lists several definitions of messiah that have been proposed. 

63 Pace Fitzmyer, The One Who Is to Come, 1-7, who focuses obsessively on the use of the Hebrew word מָשִׁיחַ. The need for a broader basis is recognized by most scholars. See James C. VanderKam, “Messianism and Apocalypticism,” in John J. Collins, ed., The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism. Vol. 1. The Origins of Apocalypticism in Judaism and Christianity (New York: Continuum, 1998) 193-228, especially 195; Hogeterp, Expectations of the End, 428-29. 

64 It is somewhat bizarre that Fitzmyer, for all his rigor, regards Daniel 9 as evidence that “messianism truly emerged in pre-Christian Palestinian Judaism” (The One Who Is to Come, 64). He is led to this conclusion quite mechanically, by the fact that the noun is used with a verb in the future tense.
…
66 Compare Geza G. Xeravits, King, Priest, Prophet. Positive Eschatological Protagonist of the Qumran Library (STDJ 47; Leiden: Brill. 2003). 

67 Compare F. Garcia Martinez, “Messianische Erwartungen in den Qumran-schriften,” Jahrbuch für Biblische Theologie 8 (1993) 171-208. 

68 As noted by Al Wolters, “The Messiah in the Qumran Documents,” in Stanley E. Porter, ed., The Messiah in the Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 

75-89, specifically 81. Hogeterp, Expectations of the End, 429, objects to the fourth category on the grounds that different earthly types may incorporate heavenly dimensions. (source)

However PW is clearly still in need of a more thorough reality check, a divine wake up call, and I will be happy to oblige. He claims the divine Son of Man is a "weird non-Jewish Idea". What this really suggests is that Paul Williams may have never read a scholarly journal, article or book in his odd life. 

While the consensus of pseudo anti-missionary propaganda that PW advertises on his website is that the Son of Man is a collective entity referring to Israel/Israelites, PW may actually want to investigate scholarship rather than preciously held erroneous fundamentalist beliefs of anti-Christ Jews. The Consensus of Jewish Scholarship presents a very different picture to the consensus of Jewish Anti-Missionaries.

What Jewish scholars and non-Jewish scholars say about the divine Son of Man

Here is an ironic twist: PW's favorite radical skeptic Bart Ehrman agrees that Daniel’s Son of Man is a divine being as quoted on PW's blog:

"I have already argued that he did not consider himself to be the Son of Man, and so he did not consider himself to be the heavenly angelic being who would be the judge of the earth."

Erhman says else where: 

"Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet who predicted that the end of this evil age is soon to come and that within his generation God would send a cosmic judge of the earth, the Son of Man, to destroy the forces of evil and everyone who has sided with them and to bring in his good kingdom here on earth." (Bart Erhman, Did Jesus Exist? p. 298)

 Erhman also says:

"There are other figures – apart from God himself – who are sometimes described as divine in ancient Jewish sources, both in the Bible and in later writings from near the time of Jesus and his followers. The first is modeled on a figure found in an enigmatic passage of Scripture, Daniel 7, a figure that came to be known as “the Son of Man.”" (source)  

And just to put the nail in the coffin for the oddball PW:

“Another path to seeing Jesus’ divinity starts not with the idea of Jesus as the Son of God but with Jesus as the Son of Man. Jesus himself spoke of the coming of the Son of Man, a cosmic judge of the earth who would bring judgment in his wake, based on his understanding of Daniel 7:13-14. Once his followers came to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead, however, they thought that he himself would be the one who would come from heaven to sit in judgment on the earth. This is Paul’s view, expressed in 1 Thessalonians 4-5. Paul was writing to gentiles, not to Jews, and so he does not use the title Son of Man. But that is how he understood Jesus: as the future judge to come from heaven. If the Son of Man was a kind of divine figure, and Jesus was the Son of Man, that makes him a divine figure who lives with God.” (Ehrman, Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We don’t Know About Them) [HarperOne, A Division of HarperCollins Publishers, 2009], Seven. Who Invented Christianity?, p. 253)

Ehrman goes so far as to admit that Mark himself believed that Jesus was that Son of Man:

“How will the kingdom arrive? For Mark it will be brought about by ‘the Son of Man,’ a cosmic judge of the earth who will judge people according to whether they accept the teachings of Jesus: ‘For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of that one will the Son of Man also be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels’ (Mark 8:38). And who is this Son of Man? For Mark it is Jesus himself, who must be rejected by his people and their leaders, executed, and then raised from the dead (Mark 8:31). Jesus will die, he will be raised, and then hell return in judgment, bringing with him the kingdom of God.” (Ibid., Three. A Mass of Variant Views, p. 78)

However PW may have changed his mind again. Dr. Erhman is obviously an incompetent gentile scholar who's scholarly testimony must be unreliable in this case right?

Let's appeal to PW's Jewish sensibilities instead.

Jewish Scholar Alan Segal said:

"One passage says: His throne was fiery flames (Dan. 7:9) and another says: and thrones were placed; and One that was ancient of days did sit–there is no contradiction; One (throne) for Him and one for David: this is the view of R. Akiba. Said R. Yosi the Galilean to him: Akiba, how long will you treat the divine presence as profane! Rather, one for justice and one for grace. Did he accept (this explanation) from him, or did he not accept it?–come and hear: One for justice and one for grace; this is the view of R. Akiba.21 

These two rabbis were perplexed by the seeming contradiction in the verses. In one place, more than one throne is indicated by the plural form of the noun. In another place "His (God’s) throne was fiery flames" implies only one throne. Does this mean that the ‘son of man’ in the next verse was enthroned next to God? Rabbi Akiba (110-135 C.E.) affirms the possibility, stating that the other throne was for David. Akiba must be identifying the ‘son of man’ with the Davidic messiah. Nor was R. Akiba alone in the rabbinic movement in identifying the figure in heaven as the messiah. There is some evidence that Judaism contained other traditions linking these verses in Daniel with the messiah." (Alan Segal, Part Two. The Early Rabbinic Evidence, Chapter Two. Conflicting Appearances of God, pp. 47-48. underline)

21. b. Hag. 14a Tr. Epstein. Cf. also b. Sanhedrin 38a where other rabbis are said to oppose R. Akiba… (Ibid., p. 47)

"… R. Hiyya b. Abba answers in Aramaic, rather than in Hebrew, that if a heretic says that there are ‘two gods’ based on Dan. 7:9f., one is to remind him that God stated that He is the same at the Sea and at Sina…" (Ibid., p. 42)

The Jewish scholar Jacob Neusner (who attempts to minimize 'traditional' notions of the messiah) readily admits that the messianic expectations of pre-Mishnahhic Jewry were those of an exalted super-human figure! Neusner believes that the compilers of the Mishnah were attempting to resolve the same issues, but in a different way. In describing this attempt, Neusner gives a telling description of what the 'older' traditions were:

"We focus upon how the system laid out in the Mishnah takes up and disposes of those critical issues of teleology worked out through messianic eschatology in other, earlier versions of Judaism. These earlier systems resorted to the myth of the Messiah as savior and redeemer of Israel, a supernatural figure engaged in political-historical tasks as king of the Jews,even a God-man facing the crucial historical questions of Israel's life and resolving them: the Christ as king of the world, of the ages, of death itself." (Judaisms and Their Messiahs at the Turn of the Christian Era, edited by Jacob Neusner, William Scott Green & Ernest S. Frerichs [Cambridge University Press, 1987], p. 275)

Another, Orthodox Jewish scholar Daniel Boyarin provides us with remarkable insight:

“In this remarkable text, we find the prophet Daniel having a vision in which there are two divine figures, one who is depicted as an old man, an Ancient of Days, sitting on the throne. We have been told, however, that there is more than one throne there, and sure enough a second divine figure, in form ‘like a human being,’ is brought on the clouds of heaven and invested by the Ancient of Days in a ceremony very much like the passing of the torch from elder king to younger in ancient Near Eastern royal ceremonial and the passing of the torch from older gods to younger ones in their myths…

“We can begin to see here a notion about redemption that is quite different from the expectation of the restoration of a Davidic king on the throne of Jerusalem.What this text projects is a second divine figure to whom will be given eternal dominion of the entire world, of a restored entire world in which this eternal king’s guidance and rule will be in accord, completely and finally, with the will of the Ancient of Days as well. Although this Redeemer figure is not called the Messiah–this name for him will have to wait for later reflections on this Danielic vision, as we shall see below–it brings us close to at least some of the crucial characteristics of the figure named later the Messiah or the Christ.

“What are these characteristics?

• He is divine.
• He is divine in human form.
• He may very well be portrayed as a younger-appearing divinity than the Ancient of Days.
• He will be enthroned on high.
• He is given power and dominion, even sovereignty on earth.

“All of these are characteristics of Jesus Christ as he will appear in the Gospels, and they appear in this text more than a century and a half [sic] before the birth of Jesus. Moreover, they have been further developed within Jewish traditions between the Book of Daniel and the Gospels. At a certain point these traditions became merged in Jewish minds with the expectation of a return of a Davidic king and the idea of a divine-human Messiah was born. This figure was then named ‘Son of Man,’ alluding to his origins in the divine figure named ‘one like a Son of Man/a human being’ in Daniel. In other words, a simile, a God who looks like a human being (literally Son of Man) has become the name for that God, who is now called ‘Son of Man,’ a reference to his human-appearing divinity…” (Boyarin, The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ [The New Press, New York, NY 2012], pp. 31-33)

And:

“There are many variations of traditions about this figure in the Gospels themselves and in other early Jewish texts. Some Jews had been expecting this Redeemer to be a human exalted to the state of divinity, while others were expecting a divinity to come down to earth and take on human form; some believers in Jesus believed the Christ had been born as an ordinary human and then exalted to divine status, while others believed him to have been a divinity who came down to earth. Either way, we end up with a doubled godhead and a human-divine combination as the expected Redeemer.*…” (Ibid, p. 34)

In a footnote he states:

* In these ideas lie the seed that would eventually grow into doctrines of the Trinity and incarnation in all of their later variations, variations that are inflected as well by Greek philosophical thinking; the seeds, however, were sown by Jewish apocalyptic writings. (Ibid)

He goes on to write the following:

“In this prophetic narrative, we see two divine figures, one who is clearly marked as an ancient and one who has the appearance of a young human being. The younger one has his own throne (that’s why there is more than one throne set up to start with), and he is invested by the older one with dominion, glory, and kingship over all the peoples of the world; not only that, but it is an eternal kingship forever and ever. This is the vision that will become in the fullness of time the story of the Father and the Son.

“From the earliest layers of interpretation and right up to modern times, some interpreters have deemed the ‘one like a son of man’ a symbol of a collective, namely, the faithful Israelites at the time of the Maccabean revolt, when the Book of Daniel was probably written [sic]. Other interpreters have insisted that the ‘[one like a] son of man’ is a second divine figure alongside the Ancient of Days and not an allegorical symbol of the People of Israel. We find in Aphrahat, the fourth century Iranian Father of the Church, the following attack on the interpretation (presumably by Jews) that makes the ‘one like a son of man’ out to be the People of Israel: ‘Have the children of Israel received the kingdom of the Most High? God forbid! Or has that people come on the clouds of heaven?’ (Demonstration 5:21) Aphrahat’s argument is exegetical and very much to the point. Clouds–as well as riding on or with clouds–are a common attribute of biblical divine appearances, called theophanies (Greek for ‘God appearances’) by scholars. J.A. Emerton had made the point decisively: ‘The act of coming with clouds suggests a theophany of Yahwe himself. If Dan. vii. 13 does not refer to a divine being then it is the only exception out of about seventy passages in the O[ld] T[estament].’ It is almost impossible to read the narrative here of the setting up of thrones, the appearance of the Ancient of Days on one of them, and the coming to him of the one like a son of man apart from the stories of the investiture of young gods by their elders, of close gods by transcendent ones. Some modern scholars support Aphrahat unequivocally. As New Testament scholar Matthew Black puts it bluntly, ‘This, in effect, means that Dan. 7 KNOWS OF TWO DIVINITIES, the Head of Days and the Son of Man.’ Those two divinities, in the course of time, would end up being the first two persons of the Trinity.” (Ibid, 39-40)

There is much more that Boyarin has to say about this subject, some of which include:

“Ancient Jewish readers might well have reasoned, as the Church Father Aphrahat did, that since the theme of riding on the clouds indicates a divine being in every other instance in the Tanakh (the Jewish name for the Hebrew Bible), we should read this one too as the revelation of God, A SECOND GOD, as it were. The implication is, of course, that there are two such divine figures in heaven, the old Ancient of Days and the young one like a son of man. Such Jews would have had to explain, then, what it means for this divine figure to be given into the power of the fourth beast for ‘a time, two times, and a half of a time.’ A descent into hell–or at any rate to the realm of death–for three days would be one fine answer to that question.

“The Messiah-Christ existed as a Jewish idea long before the baby Jesus was born in Nazareth. That is, the idea of A SECOND GOD as a viceroy to God the Father is ONE OF THE OLDEST OF THEOLOGICAL IDEAS IN ISRAEL. Daniel 7 brings into the present a fragment of what is perhaps THE MOST ANCIENT OF RELIGIOUS VISIONS OF ISRAEL THAT WE CAN FIND…” (Ibid, p. 44) (For more quotes from Boyarin see here)

Other Scholars on Son of Man

Old Testament Scholar Michael Heiser comments:

"The striking parallels are especially noteworthy given that this is the only time in the Old Testament where a second personage other than Yahweh is described as “coming with/upon the clouds” (the preposition in Aramaic can be translated either way). The intent of the author to describe this “son of man” with a title reserved only for Yahweh was clear by virtue of how the scene followed the Baal literature — the literary cycle whose central character, Baal, held the Cloud-Rider title! 

The Jewish audience reading Daniel understood the implications — the prophet Daniel was describing a second power in heaven — a second being at the level of Yahweh to whom Yahweh himself granted authority. Although we naturally think of the idea of a godhead as distinctly Christian, we have evidence here that the seeds of the idea are found in the Hebrew Scriptures. It’s no accident that Jewish theological writing during the Intertestamental period is filled with references to the “second power in heaven” and attempts to figure out how to articulate what was going on in heaven in light of monotheism. Jewish writers speculated that the “second god” was the archangel Michael, or perhaps Gabriel. Some Jewish writers even wrote that Abraham or Moses occupied that position! For Christians the answer was obvious. 

It is well known that Jesus’ favorite title for himself while on earth was “son of man.” The term means two things: (1) human being (Jesus enjoyed being human!), and (2) the deity figure to whom all authority was given." (source)

Two Jesus Scholars point out:

"Jewish monotheism could worship a heavenly being who owed status solely to God- but not an earthly man who was given divine dignity on the basis of his words and actions. In the time of earliest Christianity Jews could recognize heavenly figures alongside God (e.g. Son of Man, wisdom, or Logos). They could conceive of God exalting a human being (like Enoch) to himself. However, they protest against a human being making himself God (John 5:18; 10:33) and being worshiped (Acts 12:21-23; 14:8-18)" Gerd Theissen and Annete Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1996), 95.

A Christian scholar notes:

“Third, only one person may properly be identified as the ‘son of man’ and that person is Jesus Christ as the New Testament apostles and Christ himself confirmed. Montgomery acknowledges that the messianic view is ‘the eldest and, in past Jewish and Christian exegesis, the prevailing opinion.’ For example, over fifteen hundred years ago Jerome was espousing this view. Slotki notes that rabbinical exegesis interpreted this person to be the Messiah, and Jeffrey points out that the Talmud (Sanhedrin 98a) accepted this interpretation. “Though Hartman declares that this figure has ‘no messianic meaning,’ A. Bentzen argues that the Gospels, Acts, Revelation, 1 Enoch, and 4 Ezra 13 could not all have been incorrect in seeing a messianic individual in Dan 7. For example, John 12:34 states: ‘The crowd spoke up, “We have heard from the Law that the Christ [the Messiah] will remain forever, so how can you say ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’?”’ In this passage the term ‘the Christ’ [the Messiah] and ‘the Son of Man’ are used interchangeably. It may be inferred that the people of Jesus’ day already had come to identify the Danielic ‘Son of Man’ as the Messiah.” (Stephen R. Miller, The New American Commentary An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture – Daniel [Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1994], Volume 18, Daniel, p. 209)

Another knowledgeable scholar points out:

"Jesus’ favorite self-designation, due to its concealing as well revealing nature, was the title Son of Man. Jesus in using this title clearly had in mind the Son of Man spoken of in Daniel 7:13 (as is evident from Matthew 10:23; 19:28; 25:31; Mark 8:38; 13:26; 14:62). Therefore, rather than stressing humility, it is clear that the title reveals the divine authority Jesus possesses as the Son of Man to judge the world and his sense of having come from the Father (cf. here also Matthew 5:17; 10:34; Mark 2:17; 10:45). Many attempts have been made to deny the authenticity of some or all of the Son of Many sayings, but such attempts founder because this title is found in all the Gospel strata (Mark, Q, M, L, John), and satisfies perfectly the 'criterion of dissimilarity,' which states that if a saying or title could not have arisen out of Judaism or out of the early Church, it must be authentic. The denial of the authenticity of this title is therefore based not so much on exegetical issues as upon RATIONALISTIC PRESUPPOSITIONS that a priori deny that Jesus of Nazareth could have spoken of himself in this way." Robert H. Stein (The Portable Seminary, David Horton (general editor) [Bethany House Publishers, 2006], Chapter 5. The Doctrine of God the Son, p. 128)

Two Greek Scholars point out:

"Some biblical scholars question whether Jesus ever used this title of himself. The designation “Son of Man” was not used, however, in the New Testament as a part of the church’s own way of speaking about Jesus. Other than on the lips of Jesus, he is so designated only in Acts 7:56 (Stephen’s vision prior to his stoning) and Revelation 1:13 (John’s initial vision). The Son of Man sayings of Jesus, then, pass a stringent test of authenticity (the so-called criterion of dissimilarity): if a saying of Jesus is unlikely to have been worded as it is by the early church, then we may infer that Jesus probably said it. (The reverse, though, is not a valid argument: from the fact that the early church would be comfortable wording something as it appears in a Gospel saying, it does not follow that Jesus didn’t say it.) "(Robert M. Bowman & J. Ed Komoszewski, Putting Jesus in His Place – The Case for the Deity of Christ [Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, MI 2007], Notes, Chapter 20: God’s Right-hand Man, p. 357)

John Collins, a more liberal Christian scholar also has plenty to say about the divine Son of Man. He comments on the importance 1 Enoch and 4 Ezra have on understanding the Jewish mindset regarding passages such as Daniel:

“… The two earliest Jewish interpretations of Daniel 7 are found in the Similitudes of Enoch and 4 Ezra 13. Both these passages assume that Daniel's 'one like a son of man' is an individual, and both use the term 'messiah' with reference to him. In both these documents, the Son of Man figure is pre-existent, and therefore transcendent in some sense…” (Collins, “The Danielic Son of Man,” The Scepter and the Star--The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature [Doubleday: 1995], Chapter 8, p. 167) 

The figure of the Son of Man in the Similitudes shows considerable development over against Daniel's 'one like a son of man.' In later, rabbinic, tradition the name of the messiah is listed among the things that preceded the creation of the world. The Son of Man is equated with the messiah in 1 Enoch 48:10 and 52:4. While the title messiah plays a minor role in the Similitudes, it is all the more significant that the identification of messiah and Son of Man can be assumed. Daniel's 'one like a son of man' appears after the judgment of the beasts/kingdoms. In the Similitudes he is said to cast down kings from their thrones and from their kingdoms, and he takes his seat on his throne of glory as judge (62:5; 69:29). He also has the role of revealer. In many respects he seems to be assimilated to the Deity (who also sits on the throne of his glory). In 48:5, people fall down and worship him. (Ibid., p. 181)

“While they are not primarily a work of interpretation, however, the Similitudes remain an important witness to the early understanding of Daniel. They take for granted that Daniel's 'one like a son of man' is a heavenly individual of very exalted status. While they offer no reason to think that this figure was known independently of Daniel, they show how the Danielic text inspired visions of a heavenly savior figure in first century Judaism.” (Ibid., p. 182)

Collins notes that the image presented by Enoch and Ezra regarding the Messiah is that:

“… he is a preexistent, transcendent figure, whom the Most High has been keeping for many ages.” (Ibid., p. 186)

Collins concludes his analysis by highlighting the commonalities between 1 Enoch's and 4 Ezra's portraits of the Danielic Son of Man:

“First, both assume that the 'one like a son of man' in Daniel refers to an individual, and is not a collective symbol. In fact, the collective interpretation is not clearly attested in Jewish sources until Ibn Ezra. 

Second, this figure is identified in both works as the messiah, and the understanding of 'messiah' is thereby qualified. The title messiah has only minor importance in the Similitudes, but the fact that it is still used there shows that it must have been commonly associated with the Danielic 'Son of Man.' This again is accordance with the prevalent interpretation in early Jewish tradition. 

Third, he is preexistent: 'the one whom the Most High has kept for many ages,' and therefore a transcendent figure of heavenly origin. even if he also has a Davidic ancestry in 4 Ezra. Both figures, in different ways, appropriate imagery traditionally reserved for God: the Enochic Son of Man sits on the throne of glory, and the figure in 4 Ezra is portrayed in terms of the theophany of the divine warrior. Even the association with the clouds in Daniel was a motif traditionally associated with the Deity... 

If 'servant' rather than 'son' is the original designation of the messiah in 4 Ezra, then the possibility arises that both documents associate this figure with the Isaianic 'servant of the Lord.' In neither document, however, does the Son of Man figure undergo suffering. While the Similitudes contain some clear allusions to the text of Isaiah (e.g. 48:4, 'light of the nations,' cf. Isa 49:6), that is not the case in 4 Ezra 13. At most, the motif of 'hiddenness' may be derived from Isa 49:2 ('in his quiver he hid me away'). It would be quite misleading, however, to speak of a 'suffering servant' in this connection. 

The correspondence between 4 Ezra and the Similitudes point to common assumptions about the interpretation of Daniel 7 in first-century Judaism. It is difficult to say how widespread these assumptions were. Allusions to Daniel 7:13-14 are conspicuously absent at Qumran (apart from the 'Son of God' text, 4Q246), despite the heavy use of other parts of Daniel, especially chapter 11, in the Scrolls. However, there is no evidence of influence between Similitudes and 4 Ezra, and they were certainly not products of a single group. It is reasonable to suppose that their common assumptions were also shared by others in first-century Judaism.” (Ibid., pp. 187-188)

Finally,

“In Jewish writings emphasis on the heavenly character of the savior king appears in texts of the first century CE, especially in the period after the failure of the first revolt against Rome and the destruction of the Temple (4 Ezra, Sib Or 5). We may suspect, then, that it reflects a certain disillusionment with messiahs of human, earthly origin. The disillusionment was not complete, as can be seen from the messianic revolts of the early second century. Also the hope for a heavenly deliverer, under God, is attested in the early apocalyptic literature, notably Daniel 7, and the heavenly messiah of the Similitudes is likely to be older than 70 CE. What we find in the writings of the first century CE, however, is a tendency to combine traditions about a Davidic messiah with the expectation of a heavenly savior. There was, then, some flexibility in the use of messianic traditions in this period. Daniel's 'one like a son of man' could be understood as a purely heavenly figure (in the Similitudes) or as a messiah who operates on earth to restore Israel (4 Ezra). Danielic imagery could be applied to the Davidic messiah to give him a more heavenly, transcendent character than is apparent in other sources. In short, Davidic messiah and 'Son of Man' were not mutually exclusive concepts. Each involves a cluster of motifs, which could be made to overlap…” (Ibid., p. 189)

Collins makes similar remarks in his monumental commentary on the book of Daniel:

“1 Enoch 71:14, where Enoch is greeted by an angel with the words ‘you are the son of man who was born to righteousness,’ is usually taken to imply the identification of Enoch with this heavenly figure. While this is problematic, it is not impossible, for in later tradition Enoch is identified with Metatron. In 1En 70:1, however, Enoch is clearly distinguished from the Son of Man. In fact, identification is not necessarily implied at 71:14. The Ethiopic text can be translated ‘you are a son of man who was born to righteousness,’ that is, a human being in the likeness of the heavenly Son of Man. There are also some indications that 1En 70:3–71:7 is a secondary addition to the Similitudes… In the Similitudes he is said to cast down kings from their thrones and from their kingdoms, and he takes his seat on the throne of glory as judge. Moreover, ‘even before the sun and the constellations were created, before the stars of heaven were made, his name was named before the Lord of Spirits’ (48:3). The name here represents the person who was created before the universe, like Wisdom in Proverbs 8. Consequently, ‘from the beginning the Son of Man was hidden, and the Most High kept him in the presence of his power and revealed him only to the chosen’ (62:8; cf. 48:6). In later, rabbinic tradition the name of the messiah is listed among the things that preceded the creation of the world. The Son of Man is equated with the messiah in 48:10 and 52:4, but he evidently represents a transformation of traditional royal messianism. He also has the role of revealer. In many respects he seems to be assimilated to the Deity(who also sits on the throne of his glory). In 48:5 he is even portrayed as the recipient of worship… The apparition of the figure on the clouds in Daniel was certainly compatible with the notion that he existed before creation. The portrait of the ‘Son of Man’ figure was filled with the reminiscences of preexistent Wisdom (Proverbs 8), which was also a revealer and of the hidden servant of the Lord (Isa 49:2). There are also messianic overtones even apart from the use of the title ‘messiah.’ The account of the Chosen One in 1En 62:2 (‘the spirit of righteousness was poured out on him and the word of his mouth kills all the sinners’) recalls Isa 11:2, 4. The motif of a second figure enthroned beside God has its clearest precedent in Psalm 110, another messianic passage… Although they are not primarily a work of interpretation, the Similitudes remain an important witness to the early understanding of Daniel. They take for granted that Daniel’s ‘one like a son of man’ is a heavenly individual of exalted status. Though they offer no reason to think that this figure was known independently of Daniel, they show how the Danielic text inspired visions of a heavenly savior figure in first-century Judaism. In this, of course, they were not alone.” (Hermeneia – A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible, A Commentary on the Book of Daniel, by John J. Collins with an essay, “The Influence of Daniel on the New Testament,” by Adela Yarbro Collins, edited by Frank Moore Cross [Fortress Press, Minneapolis 1993], pp. 80-82; underline emphasis ours)

In a footnote Collins says in reference to the Messiah being named before creation that:

63 … Urbach notes that “there are no grounds … for a distinction between the pre-existence of his name and the pre-existence of his personality.” (P. 81)

And this is what he writes concerning 4 Ezra:

“The relation of 4 Ezra 13 to the Similitudes of Enoch is also complex. On the whole the ‘man from the sea’ is very different from the Enochic Son of Man. The one is a warrior who takes his stand on a mountain and is concerned with the restoration of Israel and Zion; the other is a judge enthroned in heaven. There is no allusion to the Similitudes in 4 Ezra. Nonetheless, some of the features in 4 Ezra that are new over against Daniel are paralleled in the Similitudes. The figure flying on the clouds is identified as the messiah. He is preexistent: ‘the one whom the Most High has kept for many ages.’ He also takes an active role in the destruction of the wicked. Both figures, in different ways, appropriate imagery traditionally reserved for God: the Enochic Son of Man sits on the throne of glory, and the figure in 4 Ezra is portrayed in terms of the theophany of the divine warrior. The correspondences do not require that 4 Ezra was influenced by the Similitudes. Rather they point to a shared tradition of the interpretation of Daniel 7. 

It is taken as obvious that the figure on the clouds, or the ‘Son of Man,’ is an individual, and he is identified as messiah. (4 Ezra is more in line with traditional national messianism than the Similitudes.) He is preexistent, in the sense that he is kept hidden in heaven ‘for many ages’ before his final revelation…” (P. 84; underline emphasis ours)

Finally:

“IV. Traditional Interpretations. The earliest interpretations and adaptations of the ‘one like a human being,’ Jewish and Christian alike, assume that the phrase refers to an individual and is not a symbol for a collective entity.²⁶³ In the Similitudes of Enoch (1En 46:1), the white-headed ‘head of days’ is accompanied by one ‘whose face had the appearance of a man, and his face [was] full of grace, like one of the holy angels.’ He is explicitly called ‘messiah,’ or anointed one, in 48:10; 52:4, and ‘his name was named’ before creation (48:3). In 4 Ezra 13 the man who rises from the sea and flies with the clouds of heaven is also a messianic figure, but like ‘that Son of Man’ in the Similitudes, he is a preexistent, supernatural figure (13:26; ‘This is he whom the Most High has been keeping for many ages’). The messianic literature prevails in rabbinic literature²⁶⁴ and remains the majority of opinion among the medieval Jewish commentators. The tradition is not entirely uniform. In some circles the two figures in Dan 7:9-14 were taken as two manifestations of God, apparently to the heretical view that they represented two powers in heaven. The collective interpretation is not clearly attested in Jewish circles until the Middle Ages… In summary, the traditional interpretations of the ‘one like a human being’ in the first millennium overwhelmingly favor the understanding of this figure as an individual, not as a collective symbol. The most usual identification was the messiah, but in the earliest adaptations of the vision (the Similitudes, 4 Ezra, the Gospels) the figure in question had a distinctly supernatural character.” (Pp. 306-308) 

263… Montgomery (320), who argues for the collective interpretation, nonetheless writes, “It must be admitted that the earliest interpretation of ‘the Son of Man’ is Messianic.” See also Vermes, Jesus the Jew, 170-172; and the list of passages in H. L. Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch (Munich: Beck, 1922) 1.486. 

264. Undisputed examples include b. Sanh. 98a; Num. Rab. 13:14; ‘Aggadat Ber’esit 14:3; 

23:1 (Casey, Son of Man, 80). It is probably implied in Akiba’s explanation of the plural “thrones” as one for God and one for David, which we noted at v. 9, above (so, e.g., Montgomery, 321). Casey (Son of Man, 87) points out that it is not a necessary inference in the case of Akiba, but his arguments do not lessen its probability… (Pp. 306-307) (source)

For more from Collins read the following:

http://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/christology_evolution1.htm
http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/shamoun/messiah_sonofman.html

http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/shamoun/rebuttals/williams/jesus_lord_indeed1.html

http://www.answering-islam.org/Responses/Osama/zaatari_messiah_son1.htm

Finally lets finish off with leading a giant in apologetics, Christian philosopher William Lane Craig:

“It is highly likely that Jesus thought of himself as and claimed to be the Son of Man. This was Jesus’ favorite self-description and is the title found most frequently in the Gospels (over eighty times). Yet, remarkably, this title is found only once outside the Gospels in the rest of the New Testament (Acts 7:56). That shows that the designation of Jesus as ‘the Son of Man’ was not a title that arose in later Christian usage and was then written back into the Jesus tradition. On the basis of the criterion of dissimilarity we can say with confidence that Jesus called himself ‘the Son of Man.’ Dunn concludes, ‘When we encounter a thoroughly consistent and distinctive feature–a tradition which depicts Jesus regularly using the phrase ‘son of man’ and virtually no other use of the phrase–it simply beggars scholarship to deny that this feature stemmed from a remembered speech usage of Jesus himself.’” (Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics [Crossway Books, Wheaton, IL: Third Edition 2008], Part Five: De Christo, 7. The Self-Understanding of Jesus, p. 315; bold emphasis ours)

It also satisfies the criterion of multiple attestation since it is found in all the Gospel strands, e.g., Q, Mark, the so-called M or special Matthean material, L or special Lukan material, John etc.

“That Jesus believed in the eschatological appearance of the figure described in Daniel’s vision is multiply attested in Markan and Q sayings (Mark 8:38; 13:26-27; Matt. 10:32-33/Like 12:8-9; Matt. 24:27, 37, 39/Luke 17:24, 26, 30). In Daniel’s vision the figure looks like a human being, but he comes on the clouds of heaven, and to him is given a dominion and glory that is God-like. The Similitudes of Enoch presents a similar vision of the preexistent Son of Man (I En. 48.3-6 cited above; cf. 62.7) who ‘shall depose kings from their thrones and kingdoms’ (I En. 69.29). We have also mentioned the Danielic vision of 4 Ezra 13, in which Ezra sees ‘something like the figure of a man come up out of the heart of the sea,’ whom the Most High identifies as ‘my son’ (4 Ezra 13.37) and who preexists with the Most High. The point in mentioning these passages is not that people listening to Jesus would have recognized his allusions or ideas–which they evidently did not–but rather that the construal of Daniel’s Son of Man as a divine-human figure would be neither anachronistic nor un-Jewish for Jesus. By using the oblique, self-referential expression ‘the Son of Man,’ Jesus prevented a prematurely transparent revelation of his super-human and messianic dignity.” (Ibid., p. 316)

“… It seems highly unlikely that this saying could be the manufacture of Christian theology, especially in light of traditions like Matthew 11:27 (cf. John 5:20; 16:15, 30; 21:17c), because it ascribes ignorance to the Son. The criterion of embarrassment requires the authenticity of the reference to the Son’s ignorance. Just how embarrassing the saying was is evident in the fact that although Matthew reproduces it (Matt. 24:36), Luke omits it, and most copyists of Matthew’s Gospel also chose to drop the verse (though it is preserved in the best manuscripts). That Mark preserves this saying, despite his emphasis on Jesus’ predictive power and foreknowledge (Mark 11:2; 13; 14:13-15, 18, 27-28, 30), is testimony to his faithfulness to the tradition. As Markan commentator Vincent Taylor nicely puts it, ‘Its offence seals its genuineness.’” (Ibid.,  pp. 312-313)

Here are some bonuses for Son of Ummi Paul Williams:

http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/shamoun/rebuttals/williams/god_incarnate3.html
http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/shamoun/rebuttals/zaatari/jews_monotheists.html