Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE MISSION OF JESUS §14.2
Christian usage certainly regarded as distinctive. 36 The other side of the same
coin is Jesus' characterisation of disciples as little children and his taking a little
child as the model of discipleship. 37 As the complex of Mark 10.14-15 pars,
shows, this tradition was rehearsed in different permutations, 38 but the one or
more incidents during Jesus' mission thus recalled evidently made a deep and
lasting impression on the Jesus tradition. 39
From all this it should be clear that Jesus was remembered as conceiving of
God's fatherhood not so much as a general corollary to his role as Creator —
God as Father of inanimate creation and humankind generally. 40 Nor was he simply
taking over the established Jewish motif of God as Father of Israel (n. 30). He
was remembered as inviting his disciples into a new relation, new in quality or
degree, to convert and 'become' as children (Matt. 18.3). At the same time, the
call can again be understood as a call to reclaim the relationship with God intended
for Israel, or better, to return to or realise afresh the relationship which
God intended for his people (rather like the righteous individuals in the Wisdom
literature). At any rate, whatever richer overtones may be audible, the tradition
36. Rom. 8.15-17; Gal. 4.6-7 (§ 16.2b at n. 48). Here I assume that Luke 11.2 is closer to
what Jesus had himself taught (see above, §8.5b) and that behind the bare Greek pater stands
the Aramaic abba, with its marked degree of intimacy (Jeremias, Prayers 90-91; see further below
§ 16.2b), whereas the developed liturgical form in Matt. 6.9 is closer to more formal rabbinic
usage (cf. Schrenk, TDNT5.981-82; Jeremias, Prayers 22-23). At the same time it should
be recalled that it is precisely Matthew who recalls Jesus encouraging prayer as a very personal
and private communication with God as Father (Matt. 6.5-6, in a sequence of teaching perhaps
echoed in GTh 6, 14).
37. Paidion (a very young child, infant) in Mark 9.36-37/Matt. 18.2, 5/Luke 9.47-48;
Mark 10.14/Matt. 19.14/Luke 18.16; Mark 10.15/Matt. 18.3/Luke 18.17; John 21.5. Nepios (a
very young child, infant) in Matt. 11.25/Luke 10.21.
38. Was there a Q version of Matt. 18.5/Luke 9.48, obscured now by Matthew's and
Luke's greater dependency on Mark? And we should not forget the development in John 3.3, 5
and the further echoes in GTh 22 and 46.2 (see also above, §13.2a).
39. Mark 10.15 'is perhaps the most memorable and pregnant of all the sayings of Jesus'
(Perrin, Rediscovering 146). The Jesus Seminar agree that Jesus probably said something like
Mark 10.14 pars., but consider it likely, from the way the saying has been drawn into the context
of baptism in John 3.5, that rites of initiation are in view in all forms of Mark 10.15 and that
therefore it is unlikely to have originated with Jesus (Funk, Five Gospels 89-90, 213, 486-87;
the oddness of the rationale offered reflects a very divided vote). In contrast, Lüdemann regards
Mark 10.14 as 'a community formation and therefore inauthentic', but finds that the criterion of
coherence favours the authenticity of 10.15 {Jesus 68); Becker, Jesus 311-12. See further
above, chapter 12 n. 163 and chapter 13 nn. 48 and 49.
40. Manson, Teaching 89-91; Schrenk, TDNT 5.978, 990-91 ('The word "father" is for
those who accept the teaching of Jesus about "your Father"', 991); Jeremias, Prayers 38-43,
who also emphasises that Jesus spoke thus only to his disciples (43 and n. 70), and critiques
H. W. Montefiore's attempt to demonstrate that Jesus nevertheless taught the 'universal Fatherhood'
of God ('God as Father in the Synoptic Gospels', NTS 3 [1956-57] 31-46).
550