Abba (Bible)

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Abba ( Aramaic : "Father") is according to some passages of the New Testament the personal address of YHWH by Jesus of Nazareth , which the early Christians handed down in Aramaic.

Translations

The expression is found twice in the letters of Paul and once in the Gospel of Mark . Their standard translation is:

Gal 4,6  EU : "But because you are sons, God sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts, the spirit that calls: Abba, father."
Rom 8:15  EU : “For you have not received a spirit that makes you slaves so that you still have to fear, but you have received the spirit that makes you sons, the spirit in which we call : Abba, father! "
Mk 14.36  EU par. Mt 26.39  EU : “He said: Abba, father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me! But not what I want, but what you want (should happen). "

The Elberfeld Bible translates all three primary passages with "Abba, Father". Also in Lk 22.42  EU and Joh 17.1ff. EU - the parallels to Mark 14.36 EU - is the simple Greek "father". The Luther Bible, on the other hand, translates differently:

Gal 4,6 EU and Rom 8,15 EU : "... Abba, dear father!"
Mk 14.36 EU : "Abba, my father, ..."

In the first edition of 1534 Martin Luther emphasized the address "MY FATHER" in the Getsemani scene in capital letters and understood this special father relationship of Jesus as the reason that Christians love God and can address him as "our" Father.

The Aramaic philologist Günther Schwarz argues that Abba should be left untranslated because of the multiple meanings of Abba :

Abba can mean Father and the Father in Jesus' words, depending on the context ; but also my, your, our, your father . Since all these meanings of Abba resonate every time, it cannot be adequately reproduced anywhere with just one German expression. From this it follows: Whoever does not want to alienate Jesus' use of language must leave the word Abba untranslated. "

Older design

Joachim Jeremias supported Luther's translation philologically with his book Abba (1st edition Göttingen 1966). According to this, the expression was a childish lall form of the Aramaic word for "father" -  Ab  -, similar to the multilingual papa . This form only occurs in the mouth of Jesus, and nowhere else in Palestinian sources of the time, so that it is an expression of Jesus' particular familiarity with God and his very own word.

This view has had a great influence on modern NT research and is still represented today , for example, by the Jesus seminar . Christian exegetes often use them to substantiate a special image of God, which was clearly different from the traditional image of God in the Old Testament and Judaism of that time , represented for example by John the Baptist .

So shows Abba z. For example, Paul Hoffmann suggests a new character trait of God: Jesus God is first of all a God of unconditional goodness and grace . Unlike with John the Baptist, his proximity is not primarily threatening. He seeks the lost ( Lk 15.3–10  EU ) and is ready to be forgiven ( Lk 15.11–32  EU ). This goodness goes beyond conventional boundaries, but does not mean that people can or should remain who they are. Jesus' God makes no less claim than that proclaimed by the Baptist. But the gratitude for the experienced forgiveness and unreserved acceptance of the sinner moves him to repentance and recognition of God: not as a heroic act of strength, but as a simple re-action that transfers God's experienced love to fellow men according to the standard of Jesus. The next one has thus become a living “text book of God's will” even without an intermediate instance.

For Otto Schwankl , Jesus' relationship to God is, as it were, the “key experience” of his work and the core of the “ Jesus movement ”. From him everything else results, both the preaching and the life of Jesus and the Christian church. In addition to the relationship to God, Jesus did not teach other pieces and topics, but always only these in different aspects and for the different situations in which man experiences himself from birth to death and is confronted with the riddle of existence. This ancient riddle exists and Jesus discusses on the basis of his special relationship with God and his new, own relationship with God, which is expressed in the address Abba - dear father .

Newer interpretations

More recent studies call into question the thesis that Jesus was addressed to God in relation to contemporary Judaism. For example, G. Schelber ( Sprachgeschichtliches zu 'Abba' , Freiburg 1981) and E. Schuller ( The Psalm of 4Q 372/1 , 1992) pointed to the Dead Sea Scrolls (written around 200-100 BC ), which were only fully understood at that time . Chr.): There the Hebrew address to God my father and my God appears in a psalm passage. Translated into Greek, the address can be found in the Septuagint and in Jesus Sirach (51.10), 3rd Maccabees (6.3f.8).

The salutation “my father” was common in everyday Aramaic and Hebrew as a high school diploma. The emphasis on the gracious care of God as the father of his "children", especially to the weak, poor and marginalized, was already common knowledge in Judaism at the turn of the times (Angelika Strothmann, "You are my father!" (Sir 51.10 EU ) the fatherhood of God , Frankfurt / Main 1991). Jewish researchers such as Geza Vermes have also shown that rabbis from Galilee before and after Jesus also addressed God as Abba and received messages from God with the address as my son : according to the miracle worker Choni around 60 BC. Chr., His grandson Chilkija , the Hasid Chanina ben Dosa around 60 AD and Chanan Hannechbader , who was implored according to the Babylonian Talmud (bTaan 23a): The request for rain goes back to Elijah ( 1 Kings 19  EU ), who in turn was addressed by his student Elisha as My father, my father ... ( 2 Kings 2.12  EU ).

Against this traditional background, the New Testament scholar Martin Karrer explains Abba in the mouth of Jesus no longer as a childlike lall form, but as an emphatic prayer salutation in which the consonant b has been doubled, as in the Graecized Aramaic name Barabbas . The genitive suffix -i could have been converted to the a-sound; but the simple form of address "father" without a genitive is also possible. In addition, the New Testament phrase your Father , which often appears in Jesus' words from the Logia source, is believed to be more original. Karrer concludes from this:

“A startling conclusion emerges: The earthly Jesus' concern is less to exclusively bind God, the devoted Father, to himself than to address his disciples. For them he condenses a side of the image of God that is familiar to them in Israel, that of God, who is inclined like a father right down to his instructions. "

It was not until after Easter that the early church in Jerusalem "hesitantly" distinguished between Jesus' relationship with God and that of the disciples, in order to place Jesus Christ at the center of faith. The address of the historical Jesus Your Father has not been suppressed: The Our Father remains a we-prayer. With reference to Joh 20,17  EU - I go up to my father and to your father, to my God and to your God - he draws the conclusion:

“Jesus' relationship with God cannot be isolated; to Christology broadcasting belongs to the ecclesiology . "

This view corresponds to the finding of the Pauline evidence by Abba , according to which this address is not introduced exclusively for Jesus, but as a gift of the Holy Spirit to all Christians, who frees them to become children of God. The basis for this remains the obedience of Jesus Christ, who bowed his will to the will of God and undertook vicarious judicial death while the disciples failed. But the unique prayer in Gethsemane should also invite the disciples to pray with them and to follow the cross on the side of Jesus ( Mk 14.31.38  EU ):

"Watch and pray so that you do not fall into temptation."

literature

  • Paul Hoffmann (ed.): Studies on the early history of the Jesus movement , from it: "He knows what you need ..." (Mt 6.7). Jesus' simple and concrete speech about God . In: Stuttgarter Biblische Aufsatzbände, New Testament, Vol. 17, Katholisches Bibelwerk, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-460-06171-5 , pp. 15-40 (article from 1981)
  • Joachim Jeremias : New Testament Theology, Part One - The Annunciation of Jesus , Guetersloher Verlagshaus, 1988, ISBN 3-579-04400-1
  • Otto Schwankl: The Sadducee Question (Mk 12.18-27 parr.). An exegetical-theological study on the expectation of the resurrection ; Bonn Biblical Contributions, 66; Frankfurt am Main: Athenaeum, 1987; ISBN 3-610-09102-9 ; P. 572
  • Geza Vermes : Jesus the Jew: a historian reads the Gospels. Neukirchener Verlag, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1993; ISBN 3-7887-1373-9
  • Martin Karrer: Jesus Christ in the New Testament. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1998; ISBN 3-525-51380-1

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Günther Schwarz: The Jesus Gospel . P. 448.
  2. quoted from: Gerhard Bodendorfer: Der Jude Jesus. (PDF) Reader Basic Course in Judaism. P. 12 , archived from the original on February 24, 2005 ; Retrieved November 4, 2014 .
  3. Martin Karrer: Jesus Christ in the New Testament , p. 204