Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE MISSION OF JESUS §12.4
It can hardly be accidental that the first two petitions of the Lord's Prayer are so
similar to those of the Kaddish. This confirms the origin of Jesus' prayer within
Jewish circles and probably implies that Jesus was himself influenced by an early
form of the Kaddish' 38 in modelling the prayer he taught. 139 The point is that
both prayers look for an effective implementation of God's kingdom. As already
noted, the Lord's Prayer's talk of the kingdom 'coming' is distinctive of the Jesus
tradition; but bearing in mind the breadth of reference in the term (§ 12.2a above),
the petition would probably have been understood, and prayed, as an expression
of hope in God as king. 140 And the request would presumably be either that God
would exercise his kingship more fully, or more likely, as in the typical hope reviewed
above (§ 12.2b), that God intervene finally and decisively on behalf of his
people — as perhaps in the other ancient Jewish prayer: 'Reign over us, you
alone' (Shemoneh 'Esreh II). 141 At any rate, both the Kaddish and the Lord's
Prayer express a hope or expectation for the future — in the Kaddish for the near
future ('in your lifetime and in your days . . . speedily and soon'). 142
Do the other petitions of the Lord's Prayer help in clarifying the issue? The
question focuses chiefly on the last three requests. The fourth petition (in Matthew),
which includes the difficult phrase 'our bread ton epiousion', may well be
best rendered as 'Give us today our bread for the day ahead' (Matt. 6.11/Luke
11.3), 143 that is, as a prayer that can be prayed either morning or evening. In the
context of Jesus' preaching and of Israel's history, it would thus invoke either
138. Since the attestation of the Kaddish is late the issue remains in some doubt; see
J. Heinemann, 'The Background of Jesus' Prayer in the Jewish Liturgical Tradition', in J. J.
Petuchowski and M. Brocke, eds., The Lord's Prayer and Jewish Liturgy (London: Burns and
Oates, 1978) 81-89 (here 81); but there is no problem in hypothesizing a long period of oral use
prior to transcription. Heinemann also has no doubt 'that the prayer of Jesus in Matt. 6:9 displays
all the characteristics of Jewish private prayer' (88).
139. Perrin, Language 47; Schürmann, Gottes Reich 101. 'This way of creating prayers
was and still is characteristic of most prayers. In order to make new prayers acceptable to a liturgical
community, they must reflect the traditional language and form' (Betz, Sermon on the
Mount 372-73).
140. While the first Christians looked for the coming of Jesus (cf. 1 Cor. 11.26; 16.22)
(Lüdemann, Jesus 147).
141. Schlosser, Regne 258-59; Meier, Marginal Jew 2.298-300; 'In the final analysis,
"Your kingdom come" is a prayer for God himself to come and achieve his end in creating a
world' (Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom 151).
142. Becker may be pushing too hard when he observes that 'Jesus reversed a traditional
approach so that God's final demonstration of his rule as king came not at the end but at the beginning
of the prayer and thus forced the present into a secondary position' (Jesus 269).
143. R. A. Guelich, The Sermon on the Mount (Waco: Word, 1982) 291-93; Davies and
Allison, Matthew 1.607-609. But the matter is far from clear: see Fitzmyer, Luke 904-905;
Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom 153-54; Betz, Sermon on the Mount 397-99; 'the
bread that is coming' — lakma d'ateh (Chilton, Rabbi Jesus 77).
410