Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE MISSION OF JESUS §14.1
is so much part of the Jesus tradition is certainly arbitrary, a judgment motivated,
it would appear, more by the desire to find a comfortable and coherent
Jesus, where coherence is determined by some later logic, than by consistency
of scholarly method. At the same time, we should recall that the Hebrew concept
of 'fear' includes the sense of 'be afraid of, stand in awe of, reverence,
respect'. 14
In the same vein the significance of the first petition of the Lord's Prayer
should not escape notice. According to this prayer, the first priority for Jesus' followers
is that God's name may be sanctified. 15 Integral to the petition are two ancient
concepts strange to contemporary ears. One is the 'name' as more than simply
an identifying label, but also as representing the person and embodying the
authority of the one named. 16 In the Hebrew Bible the name (shem) of Yahweh
'so plainly denotes the personal rule and work of Yahweh that it may be used as
an alternative name for Yahweh himself'. 17 In the first instance, then, the prayer
is that God may be acknowledged as God, or, more specifically, in his role as
Creator and God of Israel. 18
The second strange concept is that of 'holiness'. Basic to it is the idea of
otherness, set-apartness from everyday usage. 19 Used of God, it denotes the
wholly otherness of God, constituting, as we might say, a fundamental rejection
of any attempt to configure God as a projection of human ideals. 20 The point becomes
all the stronger when we realise that the petition is not for God's name to
be rendered holy by others or even for its otherness to be recognized by human
beings. The passive form of the verb ('be hallowed/sanctified') is a 'divine passive',
no doubt corresponding to the Hebrew qadash (Niphal), and echoing the
OT thought that it is God himself who demonstrates his holiness and sanctifies
his name. 21 There is of course also the thought that God should receive the
14. BDB, yare'; Wanke, TDNT 9.198-99. To be noted is the fact that fear of the Lord is
understood as going hand in hand with loving the Lord with one's whole being (Deut. 6.2, 4-5;
10.12) (Fuhs, TDOT 6.307-308). In the Psalms the community that worships Yahweh is described
as 'Yahweh-fearers' (308-309). But Fuhs also notes that fear of God as fear of the numinous
is still clearly visible in several OT passages (300-303).
15. Text cited in §8.5b, and see further § 12.4b.
16. H. Bietenhard, onoma, TDNT 5.242-83, especially 243, 250, 253-54. The nearest in
contemporary usage is 'name' in the sense of 'reputation'.
17. Bietenhard, TDNT 5.255-58.
18. Becker consistently insists on setting these two features in antithesis — creation versus
'salvation history' (Jesus here 270).
19. Cf. O. Procksch, hagios, TDNT 1.89-94.
20. This is the theological rationale for Israel's absolute refusal to make an image of
God and its unyielding opposition to idolatry (itself to be regarded as just such a projection).
21. Lev. 10.3; 22.32; Num. 20.13; Isa. 5.16; Ezek. 20.41; 28.22, 25; 36.23; 38.16;
39.27.
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