Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

FROM THE GOSPELS TO JESUS §8.5
prayer ('each day'). 231 That the process of liturgical development/modification
continued is indicated by the later addition of the final doxology ('for yours is the
kingdom and the power and the glory for ever, amen') to Matthew's version. 232 It is
not without relevance to note that such liturgical variation within what is manifestly
the same prayer continues to this day. For example, in Scotland pray-ers tend
to say 'debts', in England 'trespasses'. And contemporary versions jostle with traditional
versions in most modern service books. Since liturgy is in effect the most
like to oral tradition in modern western communities (regular worshippers rarely
need to 'follow the order' in the book) the parallel has some force.
One other point worth noting is that both introductions (Matt. 6.9a; Luke
11.1 -2a) confirm what was again likely anyway: that this prayer functioned as an
identity marker for the first disciples. 233 Christians were recognizable among
themselves, as well as to others, as those who said 'Father' or 'Our Father' to
God, whereas the typical prayer of Jewish worship had more liturgical
gravitas. 234 Moreover, both versions of the tradition attribute the prayer explicitly
to Jesus and report the prayer as explicitly given to his disciples by Jesus. 235
That no doubt was why the prayer was so cherished and repeated. It would be unjustifiably
sceptical to conclude despite all this that the prayer was compiled
from individual petitions used by Jesus 236 and/or emerged only later from some
unknown disciple. 237 Its place in the early tradition indicates rather the influence
of some widely and highly regarded person; among whom Jesus himself is the
most obvious candidate for the speculator. 238
231. See further Jeremias, Prayers of Jesus 89-94; also Proclamation 195-96. Fitzmyer,
though agreeing with much of Jeremias' case, thinks the Matthean variations are Matthean redaction
(Luke 897); but the hypothesis of liturgical development rather than of unilateral literary
redaction makes better sense.
232. Text-critical data in B. M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament
(London: United Bible Societies, 1971, corrected 1975) 16-17. Did. 8.2-3 indicates an
intermediate phase when the doxology was only 'Yours is the power and the glory for ever'.
233. Jeremias, Proclamation 196-97.
234. For example, the benediction before the meal begins, 'Blessed art thou, Lord our
God, king of the universe'. G. Vermes, The Religion of Jesus the Jew (London: SCM, 1993),
observes that 'the customary Jewish prayer terminology, "Lord, King of the universe", is nowhere
associated with Jesus' (136). See further §14.2b and §14.3d.
235. It goes back into good Aramaic; see Jeremias, Proclamation 196; Fitzmyer, Luke
901; Davies and Allison, Matthew 1.593.
236. Funk, Five Gospels 148-50; the discussion is vitiated by the assumption of literary
dependence.
237. Crossan, Historical Jesus 29'4.
238. 'Had it been usual to put prayers in the mouth of Jesus, we would have had more
Jesus prayers than just this one, which indeed is not specifically a Christian prayer' (Lüdemann,
Jesus 147); similarly Meier, Marginal Jew 2.294; Becker, Jesus 265-67.
228