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BD: There is only one place that bar enash (son of mankind) is used in the scripture for Son of Man and that is Daniel 7:13 . In all other places “son of man” is a translation of ben adam.

Re: Dan 7:13

Bar enash is Aramaic for ben adam, son of man, (hu)man. It is true that it can mean son of mankind as well. Given the context, this son of mankind is the future Jewish King to whom God will give dominion over all nations* (verse 14), so he will be their first son . Read in context, it "de-christianizes" the previous verse .

*nations can also mean tribes, and could be limited only to Israelites.

“Bar” is the word used for son in Daniel 3:35 [should be 3:25] for “son of God”, (bar elahh) . That is why it is a title and not just a descriptive term, at least, it’s a good conjecture.

Re: Dan 3:25 [3:92 LXX]

Indeed it is a conjecture, but I am not sure based on what. Bar elah is also Aramaic for ben Elohiym (sons of God, angels, messengers of God). The unaccented and unparsed Septuagint (raw text), however, is much longer and this verse is in LXX Daniel 3: 92 rather than 25, and reads similar (or like) αγγελου θεου (angel of God).

Other (more chirstianized) versions of the Septuagingt read "like the son of God" obviously translating literally from Aramaic because it likes it to Christ. We have similar examples of different LXX versions especially in Isaiah (i.e. Osa 9:6-8), where one version is definitely christianized and the other is not.

Curiously, Protestants pick and choose from these variants, often ignoring that the Hebrew bible doesn't match what is said in Greek, as long as one is more chirstianized.

The English translation of Tanakh says "like [that of] an angel," leaving out of God altogether.

The "Hebrew" Bible reads demah bar elah (like the son of God), which simply means like angel , the same name given to angels and kings through the Old Testament in Hebrew, namely ben Elohiym .

(NOTE: both Hebrew and Aramaic [Chaldean] have another word for angel, namely malak, that is, mal'ak respectively, meaning messenger)

You do realize, I hope, that chapters 1 through 7 of Daniel were written in Chaldean (Aramaic) and not in Hebrew. You also do realize that the early Church used the longer (so called "deuterocanonical" LXX) of Daniel , because it bridges an important time span necessary for apocalyptic Christianity.

At the end of the 1st century AD, rejecting anything Christian, the Jamnia rabbis rejected the longer version of Daniel [curiously, their standard of acceptance was that anything that wasn't written in "Hebrew" was unacceptable; yet parts of Daniel and Ezra are written in Chaldean and are accepted! The same is true of many Dead Sea Scrolls].

Modern English bibles follow the Jamnia version but some "christianize" it, while others translate it in the spirit of the Old testament usage:

He said, "Look! I see four men loosed and walking about in the midst of the fire without harm, and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods !" [NAB]*

He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God . [KJV]

*Other sources list NAB (in the longer version) as saying "son of God"!

Clearly, such variations in length and translations are significant for theological constructs, but such variations also demonstrate that what we have in our hands titled the "Holy Bible" is not the pristine word of God everyone pretends it to be, but rather a product of various authors, altered for different agendas, written in different languages, under different influences and historical realities, and most of all translated in a variety of ways from an abundance of "variants."

Clearly, such variations in length and translations are significant for theological constructs, but such variations also demonstrate that what we have in our hands titled the "Holy Bible" is not the pristine word of God everyone pretends it to be, but rather a product of various authors, altered for different agendas, written in different languages, under different influences and historical realities, and most of all translated in a variety of ways from an abundance of "variants."

I've tried to say this on other threads and been told that I "don't respect the Jews for keeping accurate transcriptions of the OT".

Without desiring any thread/topic hijack here, I was wondering what is your take on the OT: Has that been accurately transcribed throughout the generations, and/or can we rely on, say, the Dead Sea Scrolls to "prove" that the OT has remained "infallible" (as some might use the term) throughout the centuries?