Did Jesus get the 'Son of Man' title from the Parables of Enoch or from Daniel?

The textual evidence points to Daniel 7:13, and one specific detail makes this clear: the clouds.

Daniel 7:13 describes a figure coming "with the clouds of heaven" — 'anane shemayya (עֲנָנֵ֣י שְׁמַיָּ֔א) in Aramaic. That cloud imagery is the diagnostic marker. When Jesus stands before the Sanhedrin and tells them what they're about to see, he uses exactly that image:

"From now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven." — Matthew 26:64

He's combining Psalm 110:1 ("seated at the right hand") with Daniel 7:13 ("coming on the clouds of heaven"). The same double quotation appears in Mark 14:62 and Matthew 24:30. Every time Jesus invokes "Son of Man" in an eschatological context, the Danielic imagery is there.

Now, the Parables of Enoch (1 Enoch 37–71) also contain a developed "Son of Man" figure. Some scholars have argued Jesus drew from there. The problem is what's missing. The Parables' distinctive imagery — an enthroned Son of Man, pre-existent before the sun was created (1 Enoch 48:3), addressed as "Lord of Spirits" — never shows up in Jesus's Son of Man sayings. The Parables don't use cloud imagery in their Son of Man scenes. If Jesus borrowed from the Parables, it's strange that he used none of their signature content.

There's also a textual problem: the Parables are the one section of 1 Enoch with no Dead Sea Scrolls witness, no Aramaic or Greek manuscript, and no New Testament citation. They survive only in Ge'ez, the Ethiopian language, with no pre-AD 68 evidence they existed in their current form. That doesn't prove Jesus couldn't have known them, but it means the claim that he did rests on very thin ground.

Daniel is in the Hebrew canon. Daniel's clouds appear in Jesus's own words. That's where the evidence points.

Read the full argument in The Son of Man Who Wasn't There