Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§8.5 The Tradition
What is the explanation for such variation? It would be odd indeed if Matthew
and Luke derived this tradition from a common written source (Q). 227 Why then
the variation, particularly within the prayer itself? Here again the curse of the literary
paradigm lies heavy on discussion at this point: the assumption that this
tradition was known only because it appeared in writing in a Q document! 228 The
much more obvious explanation is that this was a tradition maintained in the living
liturgy of community worship (as the first person plural strongly suggests).
Almost certainly, the early Christian disciples did not know this tradition only
because they had heard it in some reading from a written document. They knew it
because they prayed it, possibly on a daily basis. 229 In this case, in addition to the
curse of the literary paradigm, the fact that so many academic discussions on material
like this take place in isolation from a living tradition of regular worship,
probably highlights another blind spot for many questers.
The point is that liturgical usage both conserves and adapts (slowly). 230 As
Jeremias argued, the most likely explanation for the two versions of the Lord's
Prayer is two slightly diverging patterns of liturgical prayer, both versions showing
signs of liturgical adaptation: in Matthew the more reverential address and an opening
phrase more readily said in congregational unison, and the additions at the end
of each half of the prayer to elaborate the brevity and possibly clarify the petition to
which the addition has been made; in Luke particularly the modification for daily
227. As Streeter observed {Four Gospels 277-78).
228. Typical is the opinion of D. E. Oakman, 'The Lord's Prayer in Social Perspective',
in Chilton and Evans, eds., Authenticating the Words of Jesus 137-86, that 'the differences in
form are best acounted for by differing scribal traditions and interests' (151-52). For a full documentation
of the difference of opinions on whether the Prayer was in Q see S. Carruth and
A. Garsky, Documenta Q: Q ll:2b-4 (Leuven: Peeters, 1996) 19-33.
229. The likelihood of a primarily oral rather than literary transmission is however quite
widely recognized, particularly when Did. 8.2 is included in the discussion; it is 'most unlikely
that a Christian writer would have to copy from any written source in order to quote the Lord's
Prayer' (Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels 16); cf. also Luz, Matthäus 1.334; Crossan, Historical
Jesus 293; J. P. Meier, A Marginal Jew vol. 2 (New York: Doubleday, 1994) 357-58.
H. D. Betz, The Sermon on the Mount (Hermeneia: Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995) 370-71: 'It is
characteristic of liturgical material in general that textual fixation occurs at a later stage in the
transmission of these texts, while in the oral stage variability within limits is the rule. These
characteristics also apply to the Lord's Prayer. The three recensions, therefore, represent variations
of the prayer in the oral tradition. . . . (T)here was never only one original written Lord's
Prayer. . . . (T)he oral tradition continued to exert an influence on the written text of the New
Testament well into later times' (370). In Didache 8.3 it is commended that the prayer be said
three times a day (a good Jewish practice). For the relevance of Rom. 8.15 and Gal. 4.6 see below
chapter 14 n. 36 and § 16.2b.
230. Ritual formulae tend to be more fixed (Vansina, Oral Tradition 146-47). Orthodoxy
still celebrates the liturgies of St John Chrysostom and St Basil of Caesarea.
227