In a previous article: Catching Shabir Ally Red Handed!.

I exposed Shabir Ally for lying about what a noted New Testament scholar named Robert H. Gundry stated in regards to the Trinitarian implications of our risen Lord’s baptismal instructions found at the conclusion of Matthew’s Gospel.  

I noted how Ally has become infamous for his continual habit of either lying about the sources he cites, or for misapplying and misrepresenting the scholarly literature.

In this post I will provide a further example of Ally shamelessly misquoting another scholar in a debate he had with William Albrecht titled Jesus and the Son of Man: A Muslim-Christian Debate, which took place on January 19, 2022.  

Around the 32-minute mark of his opening statements, Ally cites the book, King and Messiah as Son of God, coauthored by liberal biblical scholars Adela Yarbro and John J. Collins, asserting that Adela .

When asked about Jesus being the Son of Man of Revelation 1:9-18 around the one hour 54-minute mark of the Q&A portion of the debate, Ally again cited Mrs. Collins’ interpretation that the one like a son of man spoken of in Revelation, particular in 14:14-16, is a subordinate angelic being, specifically the principal angel.   

In light of Ally’s deceit, I have decided to quote the entirety of Mrs. Collins discussion of Revelation 1:12-16 and 14:14-16 in order to allow the readers to see for themselves that, contrary to Ally’s misleading claims and false impression, the professor explicitly acknowledges that John is describes Jesus as that very Son of Man spoken of in the book of Daniel.

One cautionary note and qualification. I do not quote Collins because I agree with her exegesis, since there is much in what she writes that is simply flat out wrong and contradicted by the context. Rather, I cite here for the express purpose of exposing Shabir Ally’s willingness to lie and deceive his audience concerning the facts of the matter.

Christ as an Angel, as Angelomorphic, or Angelic

The letter to the Hebrews strongly and clearly rejects the idea that Christ is an angel (Hebrews 1).⁶⁵ Revelation, however, seems to portray the risen Jesus as an angel or at least in angelomorphic terms.⁶⁶ The first passage that may present Jesus as an angel is the opening of the book. The prologue or preface (1:1-3) speaks of John the prophet in the third person: “[The] revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must happen soon, and he made it known by sending [it] through his angel [or messenger] to his servant John” (1:1). In the phrase “which God gave him,” the pronoun “him” is clearly Jesus. Jesus possesses the revelation because God gave it to him. In the phrase “he made it known,” it is not so clear whether God or Jesus is meant. In favor of taking the unexpressed subject of the verb as God is the fact that the only nominative noun expressed so far is theos (God). In that case, it would be God who sent his angel to John. Since God gave the revelation to Jesus, that angel could be Jesus. Further, the risen Jesus is the first heavenly being to appear to John in his account (1:13-20).⁶⁷ In addition, in 22:6 someone, probably the angel who showed John the new Jerusalem (21:9-10), states that God sent his angel to show his servants what must happen soon. Against taking the angel of 1:1 as Jesus, however, is the fact that Jesus is quoted in 22:16 as saying that he has sent his angel to declare these things to you (plural) about the (seven) congregations. The “you” here could refer to the servants mentioned in 1:1. It seems, then, that whatever angel is referred to in 1:1 is sent both by God and Jesus.⁶⁸ The ambiguity in the use of the pronouns in 1:1 may be deliberate. In any case, it is not a problem if “God” is understood instead of “Jesus” or vice verse.

In the description of the appearance of the risen Christ to John in 1:12-16, it is not said that he is an angel or messenger (angelos).⁶⁹ Yet a number of features of that description are attributed elsewhere to angels. The first thing to notice is that the author of Revelation does not use “the Son of Man” as a title for Jesus. Rather, in 1:12-13 he wrote that he saw “[one] like a son of man” (eidon … hyion anthropou). The accusative hyion here is a violation of the rules of Greek grammar; it should be dative or genitive.⁷⁰ The phrase homoion hyion anthropou (“one like a son of man”) is probably a translation of the Aramaic kebar enash in Dan 7:13 or of the Hebrew kidemut bene adam in Dan 10:16.⁷¹ In Dan 7:13 the phrase, in its original historical context, referred to an angel, probably Michael.⁷² later, the phrase came to be understood as the messiah.⁷³

Since the figure of 1:12-20 is identified with the risen Jesus (v. 18) and he is called messiah elsewhere in the book,⁷⁴ it is likely that John shared the view of his contemporaries that the “one like a son of man” in Dan 7:13 is the messiah. Yet a number of scholars have pointed out that the imaginary of Rev 1:13-16 is adapted from Dan 10:5-9.⁷⁵ The figure in Daniel is best understood as an angel.⁷⁶ Some of the imagery comes from Ezekiel 9-10 (an angel with priestly and scribal characteristics), some from Ezek 28:13 (the primal man), and some from Ezekiel 1 (of the four living creatures, the chariot, and the one seated on the throne).⁷⁷

Carrell concludes that Jesus is divine in the book of Revelation and not an angel. He infers the divinity of Christ from his position in the midst of God’s throne (5:6) and his relation with God as father and son (3:21). Christ’s close association with the throne of God makes him similar to the four living creatures, whom Carrell calls “the most exalted of all heavenly beings apart from God”; nevertheless they worship him.⁷⁸ A problem with this conclusion is that the sonship of God is highly ambiguous. It may, but need not, imply divinity. The risen Jesus being seated on the throne certainly implies his exaltation and his sharing in important activities of God, such as ruling and judgment. Yet divinity admits of different degrees. Carrell also concludes that the “christology of Apocalypse 1.13-16 is appropriately described as an ‘angelomorphic christology,'” that is, Jesus has the form of an angel, but is not an angel. 

Gieschen argues that “the theophany in Ezekiel 1″ has influenced the angelophany of Daniel 10; the connection between the two texts leads him to conclude, “The Christ in Revelation 1 was not only understood as Gabriel (from Daniel), but also the Glory (from Ezekiel 1 and 8), the very man-like form of God.”⁷⁹ He also concludes “that ‘the angel’ of Rev 20.1 is Christ.”⁸⁰ The elements adapted in Rev 1:13-16 from Ezekiel 1, however, are not all taken from the description of the one seated on the throne-chariot. For this reason it seems unwarranted to conclude that the risen Christ in Revelation 1 is identified with the manlike form of God in Ezekiel 1. The argument that the angel of 20:1 is Christ is based on texts from the Gospels and non-Pauline epistles; the relevance of these texts for the interpretation of Revelation is dubious. Ultimately, the hypothesis seems to be dependent, directly or indirectly, on Augustine’s interpretation of Rev 20:1, namely, that it was Jesus who bound Satan.⁸¹

Hannah concludes that, with the exception of Jude 5-6,⁸² Christ is never called or portrayed as an angel in the New Testament. Motifs related to principal angels, however, “are used to elucidate Christ or his work,” so “angelology did have some effect on NT Christology” and “we are justified in speaking of NT angelic Christology.”⁸³ It is noteworthy in this context that the Greek version of Isaiah 9 refers to the ideal king as an angel.⁸⁴

Hannah’s conclusions, on the whole, are more judicious than those of Carrel and Gieschen. As argued above, the risen Jesus is clearly identified as the messiah in Revelation. The author of the work used some traditions about angels in order to portray Christ as a messiah of the heavenly type. The idea of a heavenly messiah, however, is compatible with the notion that he is also the principal angel. The strongest evidence for the conclusion that the author considered the risen Jesus to be angel are the ways he uses the phrase “one like a son of man” in 1:13 and 14:14. These ways will be discussed in the next subsection.

As we have seen, the notion of a heavenly messiah was combined with the portrayal of preexistent, personified wisdom in 1 Enoch 48:2-3, 6, and probably in the letters of Paul.⁸⁵ The same two ideas appear in Revelation, so it seems that the author considered them compatible. Christ is portrayed in terms of personified wisdom in the message to Laodicea: “Thus says the amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God” (Rev 3:14).⁸⁶

The tradition about personified wisdom is probably also the best context which to understand the sayings of Rev 1:17 and 22:13. In the former, Christ affirms that he is “the first and the last” (ho protos kai ho eschatos); in the latter that he is “the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (to alpha kai to o, ho protos kai to eschatos, he arche kai to telos). God also affirms “I am the alpha and the omega,” in 1:8, and the same in 21:6 along with being “the beginning and the end.”

It is not necessarily the case that the same attributes have exactly the same significance for Christ as they have for God. For example, in light of 3:14, the affirmation that Christ is the beginning and the end in 22:13 may be understood as signifying that he is both the beginning and the fulfillment of the creation of God. Thus his being “the first and the last” (an affirmation not made about God in Revelation) could also mean the first creature of God and the agent of God at the end. All of the affirmations are more like poetry than like philosophy, so it is difficult to determine whether the author considered Jesus to be an aspect or emanation of God or the first creature of God, or whether he thought about this issue at all. The notion that Christ was the first creature of God is compatible with his being the principal angel.

One like a Son of Man

The previous subsection focused on the angelic motifs in the vision of the risen Christ as “one like a son of man” in Rev 1:12-16. As noted above, the author of Revelation does not use the phrase as a title for Jesus, “the Son of Man,” as the Synoptic Gospels (and Acts 7:56) do. In 1:13, the author seems to be alluding to Dan 7:13. This conclusion is supported by 1:14, which reads, “and his head and his hair were white as white wool, as snow” (he de kephale autou kai ai triches leukai hos erion leukon hos chion). This statement seems to reflect a Jewish apocalyptic tradition, based on Dan 7:9 ultimately, but varying in wording. The Aramaic original of that text says that an ancient of days took his throne, that his garment was white as snow, and that the hair of his head was like pure wool.⁸⁷ It is striking that in Rev 1:13-14 the risen Christ is associated with both the manlike figure of Dan 7:13 and the ancient of days, usually understood as God, in 7:9. 

In his edition of the Old Greek version of Daniel, Rahlfs followed the cursive manuscript 88 and the literal Syriac translation of the fifth column⁸⁸ of Origen’s Hexapla made by the monophysite bishop Paul of Tella in the early seventh century (Syh, the Syro-Hexapla)⁸⁹ in reading hos palaios hemeron in Dan 7:13. This reading has the one like a son of man coming as the ancient of days, rather than to the ancient of days.⁹⁰ If the author of Revelation was familiar with the reading as the ancient of days, this could explain why he combined attributes of the two figures in his portrayal of the risen Christ.

James A. Montgomery, however, had already suggested that this reading was an ancient error for heos palaiou hemeron, but an error that was made before the time that Revelation was written. He rejected Wilhelm Bosset’s suggestion that the change was made deliberately in order to express the idea of a preexistent messiah, suggesting that the change was accidental.⁹¹ He reasoned that heos was misread as hos and that this error resulted in the “correction” of palaiou to palaios.⁹² Since Rev 1:14 seems to identify the two figures, Montgomery inferred that the author of Revelation read hos palaios in his text of Daniel. Sharon Pace Jeansonne followed Montogmery and Joseph Ziegler in arguing that the reading hos palaios hemeron (“as an ancient of days”) is a corruption of the original reading.⁹³

The arguments of Montgomery and Pace Jeansonne are convincing. It is better to explain variants as mechanical errors when such an explanation is credible. As Montgomery suggested, this error may be very ancient. Papyrus 967 provides evidence that the error was made in the second century or earlier.⁹⁴ As an inadvertent error, it could have been made as easily by a Jewish scribe as by a Christian one. 

The prototypes of the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible (in this case Aramaic) and of Theodotion and the earliest recoverable reading of Old Greek as reconstructed by Ziegler⁹⁵ may be read as revealing that alongside God (the ancient of days) there is a primary angel or there will be an exalted messiah (one like a son of man). This point of view was apparently opposed by certain rabbis in the second century CE, who argued exegetically that the ancient of days and the one like a son of man were two different manifestations of the one and only God. Greek-speaking Jews of this persuasion would have welcomed the reading of Pap. 967 and MS 88-Syh as support for their point of view. They could have argued that Dan 7:9-12 and 7:13-14 are two parallel accounts of the same event. Supporters of the notion of two powers in heaven could have replied that neither the ancient of days nor the one like a son of man was the one and only transcendent God; the two figures are variant manifestations of the principal angel.96

If the form of Dan 7:13 known to the author of Revelation was hos palaios hemeron (“as an ancient of days”), he apparently interpreted both the ancient of days and the one like a son of man as manifestations of the principal angel whom he identified with the exalted messiah.⁹⁷

The other important passage related to John’s depiction of the risen Jesus as son of man is Rev 14:14-20. This vision is the sixth in a series that begins with the vision of the woman clothed with the sun.⁹⁸ It depicts a symbolic harvest and vintage inspired by Joel 4:13 (3:13 Eng.), which uses the images of harvest and vintage for divine judgment on the nations on the day of the lord. This application is made clear by 4:12 and 14. That the symbolic vision in Revelation concerns judgment is made clear by the way in which the description of vintage shifts into battle imagery in 14:20.⁹⁹

The vision opens with a white cloud, and upon the cloud “one like a son of man” (homoios hyios anthropou)¹⁰⁰ was seated. Louis Vos has argued that the motif of the seated son of man comes from Mark 14:62 or its parallel in Matt 26:64, since the one like a son of man is not portrayed as seated in Daniel 7.¹⁰¹ Although the son of man is not seated in Daniel 7 or 4 Ezra 13, he is so described in the Similitudes of Enoch (1 Enoch 37-41). In 69:27 “that son of man” is depicted as sitting on the throne of his glory for the purpose of judgment. Although, the Similitudes were probably composed prior to the writing of Revelation,¹⁰² it could be that the respective authors either independently adapted Daniel 7 or were familiar with a common tradition based ultimately on Daniel.

Another difference between this vision and Daniel 7 is that Dan 7:13 says that the one like a son of man was coming with the clouds of heaven, whereas Rev 14:14 portrays him as seated on a single cloud. The fact that Luke 21:27 also speaks of one cloud does not prove a connection between the two texts. The author of Revelation may have chosen to refer to a single cloud to create a more vivid image.¹⁰³

The crown on the head of the one like a son of man in Rev 14:14 can be explained as a visual representation of the remark in Dan 7:14 that he was given dominion and glory and kingship. The sickle derives from Joel 4:13 (3:13 Eng). George B. Caird and Louis Vos interpreted the image of the harvest in Rev 14:14-16 as the ingathering of the elect. It is better understood, however, as an image for judgment, since the ripeness of the harvest in Joel is in synonymous parallelism with the fullness of the winepress, which is associated with the wickedness of the nations in Joel 4:13. Furthermore, the motif of salvation in this series comes at its end in Rev 15:2-4.¹⁰⁴

Vos also argued that the depiction of an angle coming out of the temple to inform the one like a son of man that it is time to reap is dependent on Mark 13:32 or its parallel in Matt 24:36, the saying in which Jesus declares that only the father knows the day and the hour of the end. He is right that the angel of Rev 14:15 should be taken as an agent of God announcing the arrival of the time for judging the nations. There is no need, however, to connect this verse with the saying of Mark 13:32 and parallels. The alleged “subordination” of the one like a son of man to God through his angelic agents is perfectly compatible with an early christology in which the conception of the risen Christ is that he is the principal angel and a messianic figure like the Son of Man in the Similitudes of Enoch.¹⁰⁵

It is striking that the risen Jesus performs a task, the harvest of grain (14:16), parallel to that of an angel, the harvest of grapes (14:17-19). Hannah seeks to overcome this difficulty by inferring from 19:11 that Christ is the unexpressed subject of 14:20, the one who treads the winepress.¹⁰⁶ This argument makes sense because Revelation often presents an event in veiled form at first and in more detailed or direct form later on.¹⁰⁷ Thus the angel who carries out the vintage prefigures, and 14:20 more explicitly alludes to, the battle of 19:11-12.¹⁰⁸ The portrayal of the risen Jesus in that passage will be discussed in the next subsection. This link between the two passages, however, does not eliminate the impression made upon the audience by 14:14-20 that the risen Jesus is a kind of angel. (Adela Yarbro Collins and John J. Collins, King and Messiah as Son of God: Divine, Human, and Angelic Messianic Figures in Biblical and Related Literature [William. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., First Edition, First Printing, 2008], 8. Messiah, Son of God, and Son of Man in the Gospel and Revelation of John, pp. 189-198; bold and capital emphasis mine)

67. Carrell takes it for granted that Jesus and the angel of 1:1 are distinct beings, but notes a functional equivalence between them (Jesus and the Angels, 15, 119-27). Gieschen argues that the first figure mentioned in the opening Christophany is the Spirit, citing 1:10-11 (Angelomorphic Christology, 266). This argument is problematic, however, because “being in [the] spirit” (1:10) is more likely to mean being possessed by the spirit, as a power of God effecting an altered state of consciousness, than experiencing a vision of the Spirit as a heavenly being. He goes on, however, to argue that the voice of 1:12 and 4:1 belongs to or is the Spirit (ibid., 265-66).

68. Gieschen (Angelomorphic Christology, 261) points out that this joint sending would explain why John refers to what he received from this angel as both the word of God and the testimony of Jesus (1:2).

69. Hannah argues that Christ is neither identified with nor described as an angel in this passage (Michael and Christ, 151-55). (P. 190)

71. Both the Old Geek and Theodotion read hos hyios anthropou. Gieschen argues that the allusion is to Ezek 1:26 LXX (homoioma hos eidos anthropou); Angelomorphic Christology, 249. (P. 191)

79. Gieschen, Angelomorphic Christology, 248; emphasis his. He accepts the view that the angel of Daniel 10 is Gabriel and my suggestion that the author of Revelation considered Gabriel to be the principal angel and the risen Christ to be identified with Gabriel (ibid.); Yarbro Collins, “‘The Son of Man’ Tradition,” 558; Cosmology and Eschatology, 185. (P. 192)

82. Hannah argues that it was the preexistent Christ, “as the Exodus angel” who saved a people out of Egypt according to Jude 5 (Michael and Christ, 139-40); cf. Metzger, Textual Commentary, 657. (P. 193)

105. Carrell concludes that Rev 14:14 involves the risen Jesus temporarily taking on angelic form and function (Jesus and the Angels, 175-95, especially 194). Similarly, Gieschen interprets the scene as an “appearance of the angelomorphic Christ” (Angelomorphic Christology, 252). Hannah concludes that “it seems unlikely in the extreme that Christ here [14:15-16] is being depicted as dependent upon an angel for communication with God. The purpose of the angel issuing from the temple and relaying the command to Christ is probably only intended to emphasize the divine origin of the edict” (Michael and Christ, 155). (P. 198)

I now cite snippets from Yarbro’s section on the Synoptic Gospels’ portrayal of Jesus as the Danielic Son of Man. All bold and/or capital will be mine.

In the Gospel according to Mark, the Son of Man sayings are closely bound up with the theme of the identity of Jesus and the secrecy about it. The author of Mark takes Dan 7:13-14 as a prophecy and seems to see its fulfillment IN JESUS in two stages… The messianic use of the title “Son of Man” seems to presuppose a messianic interpretation of Dan 7:13-14. When Dan 7:13-14 is evoked in association with the passion predictions, a shocking a paradox emerges… Yet Mark portrays this Son of Man, identified with the earthly Jesus, as undergoing great suffering, rejection, and death…

The final the Son of Man saying in Mark occurs in the trial before the Sanhedrin, or, more accurately, the Judean council. When the high priest asks Jesus, “Are you the messiah, the son of the Blessed?” he responds, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven” (14:62). In one way, this saying is a turning point in the theme of Jesus’ identity in Mark. He reveals openly that he is the messiah AND WILL BE THE HEAVENLY, COMING SON OF MAN. In another way, this trial and the rest of the account of Jesus’ rejection, suffering, and death still portray him as the hidden Son of Man. This is so because the high priest and all the others in authority do not recognize him as messiah and Son of Man. For the audience, however, the saying makes clear that Jesus will exercise his messianic office WHEN HE COMES AS SON OF MAN.

The saying of Jesus before the high priest conflates allusions to Ps 110:1 and to Dan 7:13. Psalm 110 is used to depict the exaltation of Jesus after death, and Daniel 7 to portray HIS COMING IN GLORY. The introduction to the saying, “you will see,” makes clear that the emphasis in relation to the narrative context is on the public vindication of Jesus AS SON OF MAN. (Ibid., 7. Jesus as Son of Man, pp. 150-152)

… The portrayal of the Son of Man as judge is clearest in the response of Jesus to Peter’s question, “Look, we have left all things and have followed you. What then will be for us [in return]?” Jesus replies:

“Truly I say to you, that you have who have followed me, in the renewal of the world, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of his glory, will also sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” (Matt 19:27-29)

The phrase “the throne of his glory” also occurs in the Similitudes of Enoch with reference to the throne of “the Son of Man, that is, the figure of Daniel 7 whom the Similitudes portray as a preexistent, heavenly messiah.⁵ (Ibid.)

Another important feature of the Son of Man theme in Matthew is that the title “Son of Man” is so strongly associated with Jesus that it is equivalent to the first-person pronoun and is interchangeable with it… (P. 154)

In another context, the Lukan Jesus says that, as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so the Son of Man will be “to this generation”:

“The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with the men of this generation and will condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and look, something greater than Solomon is here.” (Luke 11:31)

The point is that the general resurrection and final judgment will reveal THAT JESUS IS THE SON OF MAN and thus confound those of “this generation” who rejected him. Not only will the wicked see that Jesus has been vindicated by God, but they will also discover that he has an exalted role as the agent of God in the process of the eschatological judgment. Although it is not explicit, it is likely that the implied role is that of judge. The queen of the South and the Ninevites will play the role of witnesses at the judgment.¹⁰ (P. 155)

The foregoing quotations demonstrate that Collins explicitly affirms that both Revelation and the Synoptic Gospels depict Jesus as identifying himself as that very apocalyptic, eschatological Son of Man of Daniel 7:13-14. Therefore, this is simply another instance of Shabir Ally deceiving his audience by grossly misrepresenting the scholars that he selectively references in debates with Christians since his aim is not at being honest.

Rather, Ally’s agenda is to cause Christians to lose faith and/or prevent unbelievers from embracing the truth. Ally has shown over years that he will do anything he can in his jihad to blaspheme the historical Jesus of the New Testament, even if that means he must outright lie and misquote sources to do so.

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