THE PRAYER THAT JESUS TAUGHT
Henry Ralph Carse
THE VERY WORDS?
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could hear a recording of Jesus himself teaching his disciples to pray? Or, at least, if we had a transcript? The ipsissima verba – the very words of Jesus himself – are the Holy Grail of New Testament study. But all we have are translations. The Greek of the Gospels is certainly not the mother tongue of Jesus and his disciples. It’s a lingua franca of the Graeco-Roman world, not the language Jesus spoke every day. What language was that? And can we find anything of the genuine original words of Jesus hidden in our translations?
This link (https://youtu.be/ROM5EpCQUlg) will connect you to a recording of a chanting of the “Our Father” (“Lord’s Prayer”) in Syriac Aramaic. For members of this eastern church, like thousands of Christians in communities where Aramaic is the language of prayer – this is the language of Jesus. If that is so, then Eureka! – here are the very words of Jesus.
Sadly, it’s not that simple. The Aramaic Gospel of these churches is called the Peshitta – and it was translated from the Greek around the 5th century CE (AD). Aramaic was certainly widely spoken at Jesus’ time along the Fertile Crescent - from Mesopotamia all the way to Alexandria. But – and this is a big “but” – Aramaic was most likely not the daily spoken language in the specific local community where Jesus lived. This seems to contradict what we are usually told, so let me explain.
THE LANGUAGES OF JESUS
The cultural world of Jesus was indeed – in the big picture – a world of Greek and Aramaic, the two major lingae francae of the time. Both were languages of caravans, of fleets, of cultural exchange, of rapprochement and of societies engaging each other in a process of constant enculturation. Greek predominated in the West, Aramaic in the East. The bridge where West met East was the “Levant,” a region called by the Romans “Palestine” – what the ancestors of Jesus called the “Land of Israel.” For centuries, Aramaic and Greek were heard here, along every roadway, spoken by merchants, invaders and pilgrims, right alongside the indigenous tribal languages of the old Land of Canaan, which were never forgotten.
Greek and Aramaic were spoken by sailors and soldiers and wanderers and philosophers. Alexander the Great brought Greek to Jerusalem 300 years before Jesus was born. The Greek translation (the “Septuagint”) of the Hebrew Bible was a bestseller in Jewish contexts. East of the Jordan, Jewish society had been speaking Aramaic for 600 years in “Babylon” – i.e. Mesopotamia. There are also rock-carved Aramaic inscriptions along camel-caravan routes from Petra through the Sinai wilderness to Egypt. The Magi spoke Aramaic, I am sure, and so did King Herod; everyone used it (and Greek!), in the way Latin was used for correspondence and legal matters in Europe for centuries after Rome’s fall. We can imagine people of all walks of life knowing smatterings of both Greek and Aramaic, anywhere in the Middle East.
ANCIENT CULTURE WARS
So - it would have been natural for Jesus to grow up in a Greek-Aramaic milieu. But something happened to change that, and that something was, well - Hanukah. It’s the story of a band of Jewish fighters called the Maccabees in the 2nd cent. BCE - waging war on Greek culture, and vice versa. In Jerusalem, more than anywhere, the enforcement of Greek norms was met with fierce local resistance. Two centuries of chaos followed. I hate to use the term, but it was a horrible “culture war.” Sure, Hanukah is a fun holiday to celebrate - but the original was no fun. It was a vicious culture war - not a good thing. This generally means the destruction (not victory) of culture, and it is not a war that anyone can really win.
Hebrew became a culture-war weapon, generations before Jesus. The old language of the Jewish Bible was a symbol of the “days of glory” – harking back to King David and his triumphs. In the throes of zealous battle against everything Greek, the descendants of the Maccabees (called Hasmoneans) minted their coins in the Hebrew of the Bible. For the next hundred years, Hebrew gained momentum, and became the spoken language of Jews living in Jerusalem, Judea and Galilee.
But not much of anywhere else. The “Hebrew Revival” was limited to the narrow east shore of the Mediterranean, and was largely ignored by Jews outside the Land of Israel. Paul’s first language was Greek, for he grew up in what is now Turkey. Philo – the Jewish philosopher of Alexandria – could read the Hebrew Bible, but taught and wrote in Greek. Aramaic also remained a mainstay of Jewish society world-wide. An Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible (The Targum) was as popular as the Greek Septuagint (LXX) – and Jesus could surely have quoted from both! Even in the Galilee of Jesus, many folks kept Aramaic names (Yeshu’a – in the case of Jesus himself) and everyone called their mother “Imma” and their father “Abba” – both Aramaic words. To draw a modern parallel, Aramaic was as common then in Jerusalem and Galilee as Yiddish was in Israel when the State was founded.
The Greek manuscripts of the Gospels have numerous Aramaisms – so much so that scholars have delved for centuries seeking the “original Aramaic of Jesus.” In Europe, these scholars were mostly Christians who saw Hebrew as an “Old Testament Language” and were convinced that Jesus spoke not Hebrew but Aramaic. No love was lost between Christians and Jews down the centuries; it is not surprising that the language of Jewish Scripture - Hebrew - was shunned by Christians. Aramaic, on the other hand, was known to be the language of Christians in the East. Until modern times there were, in effect, no Hebrew-speaking Christian communities, as there were and are Aramaic- and Greek-speaking churches. Hebrew was regarded as a “dead (Jewish) language.” This was a sad if understandable bias, which can be found in muted form in some circles even today.
The “Aramaic Approach to the Gospels” was “canonized” by Matthew Black in his book by that name, first published in 1946. Fifty years later, when I studied theology at the General Theological Seminary in New York, Black’s book was still taught. But, in 1946 most of our current data about Hebrew in first-century Palestine was still unknown. The Dead Sea Scrolls, for example, were discovered only in 1947, and did not begin to impact Gospel study for at least a decade. More than any other corpus of manuscripts, these ancient scrolls bear witness to Hebrew as a living idiom in the Land of Israel, for at least two centuries.
THE HEBREW “VOICE”
For the family and friends of Jesus, Hebrew was both prayerful tongue and mother tongue. It was the language of Jewish identity, of yearned-for Jewish sovereignty, of “The Bible and the Sword.” For many it became the language of revolt, not of compromise or co-existence. Zealots harked back to Joshua the Hebrew warrior, as well as to the Maccabee brothers Simon and Judas – the Hanukah heroes. The names “Joshua” (Jesus), “Shim’on” (Simon) and “Yehuda” (Judas) became so common that nicknames were needed (Which Jesus? The one from Nazareth! Which Judas? The Zealot! Which Simon? The one called Rocky!).
The period of this “Hebrew Revival” coincides with what non-Jewish scholars once condescendingly called the “Intertestamental Period.” Our sources from the time describe cultures at war, a Jewish identity in crisis, a community thirsty for new political resolution and new spiritual meaning. It is no wonder that the Hebrew teachings of Jesus of Nazareth ring of challenge and deep transformation.
But crisis was not the only context of Hebrew. Happily, it was not just the language of Wars in Canaan or The Jewish Revolt. It was also the language of Psalms, Proverbs, the Song of Songs, and always of Jewish prayer. It became a rich language of Jewish thought, well into the Common Era (CE). Revival of spoken Hebrew in the Land of Israel was a rich phenomenon, and outlasted the culture wars of the time. It voiced the spiritual genius of Hillel the Elder (the generation before Jesus) and Rabban Gamaliel (the generation after). It bore fruit not only in zealotry but also in the Jewish wisdom of the Mishnah and the Jerusalem Talmud (both composed in Hebrew). And – perhaps most revealing - it gave us that treasure-trove: The Dead Sea Scrolls. Here, we find scriptures, psalms, prayers, beatitudes, mystical manifestos, community rules, interpretations, apocalyptic scenarios, horoscopes and everything in between – almost 100% in Hebrew.
Wherever the New Testament is taught, we still find the “Aramaic Dogma.” It’s not entirely wrong, of course, but it is far from the whole truth. Proto-Mishnaic Hebrew was vibrant, idiomatic and expressive, however confined in geographical scope. Seeing proto-Mishnaic Hebrew as the mother-tongue of Jesus is still – I know – a “minority report.” Full disclosure - I had never heard of it until I had the good fortune to study the Gospels in Jerusalem with a small group of scholars who encounter Jesus in the timbre and resonance of the Hebrew sources. Scholars of this “Jerusalem School” are not fabulists. They use in their study the same Greek text (textus receptus) we all depend on. They don’t have access to any secret “Hebrew Gospel.” They do however take seriously early Christian witnesses, like Papias (quoted in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History iii 39, 16) who stated outright that “Matthew put down the words of the Lord in the Hebrew language…” – and also Origen and Jerome, who both might well have seen a Hebrew Gospel manuscript before it was lost to history.
The Jerusalem School is also attentive to Hebrew sources that formed the linguistic world in which Jesus taught. They often find themselves “restoring” Greek Gospel verses to something like their original Hebrew cadences. Of course, we are talking about reconstruction of lost prototypes – we have yet to discover manuscripts of a Hebrew Gospel. But as hypotheses go, this is a vibrant one. It gives a glimpse into the thought-world of Jesus, and an echo of his “voice” if not of his actual words. Attending to this Hebrew “voice” can, I think, certainly improve on the Greek textus receptus – at least in some cases.
Space does not permit more detail here, but google “Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research” and an interesting journey will ensue.
HOW DID JESUS PRAY?
It has been pointed out that this prayer was taught by Jesus to his followers as an example of how they should pray – so Brad Young calls it “The Disciples’ Prayer.” We know that the historical Jesus addressed his personal, private prayer to “Abba!” – but since he preferred to pray in solitude, we don’t know his words (the prayers put in his mouth in the Gospel of John are literary inventions). Still, it stands to reason that he would not teach in public something he would not practice in private. Whatever we call this prayer, it remains an authentic echo of the voice of Jesus of Nazareth, cherished by tradition from the early Jesus Movement until the present. There are small communities of faithful in Jerusalem (and elsewhere) today, who honor Jesus’ teachings by praying in Hebrew, as they believe Jesus and his followers did. This link (https://youtu.be/qToHoRxz3co) connects to a Hebrew tutorial on “The Lord’s Prayer” with a member of one of these communities.
Jewish prayer throughout history has usually been in Hebrew. This was probably especially true as long as the Temple stood in Jerusalem (it was not finally destroyed until 70 CE) – and also as long as the Hebrew Psalms were a mainstay of Jewish prayer in the many synagogues within walking distance of Nazareth. The Torah Portion (Parashah) which was read every week during the Sabbath synagogue service – and additional scriptures (Haftorah) like, for example (in the Gospel of Luke) the Prophet Isaiah - were all read in Hebrew, even if the Septuagint was available for reference (for visitors from distant Jewish contexts).
I take the position that the prayer found in Matthew 6 and Luke 9 was spoken first by Jesus in Hebrew, passed along orally in Hebrew among the first disciples, then translated by Christian translators into Aramaic and Greek, and thus transmitted to the Early Churches. These faithful communities spread the prayer, with other teachings of Jesus, eastward as far as India, and westward to the edge of the Roman Empire, and beyond. Eventually this prayer reached us in the West, through the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome, and then was further translated and taught wherever Christianity reached.
The Jewish world has its own fascination with this prayer, and with the Gospels in general. Sadly, this was mostly a defensive reaction of European Jewish communities to centuries of antisemitism – so Jewish Hebrew translations are primarily found in anti-Christian polemics. One scholar (Jean Carmignac - Paris 1969) identified fifty Hebrew translations of the “Lord’s Prayer” from the 9th to the 18th centuries. These are derived by translation from Greek or Latin manuscripts; it is extremely unlikely that the Hebrew in them goes back to the time of Jesus.
In 1873 the British and Foreign Bible Society commissioned Franz Delitzsch to prepare a translation of the New Testament into Hebrew. Delitzsch used his knowledge of mishnaic Hebrew to create a translation of the Greek text – as one review puts it - “back into an original Hebrew voice.” The final edition was published in 1890 under the care and supervision of Gustav Dalman. Delitzsch and Dalman figure prominently in 19th century efforts to preach the Christian religion to Jewish converts. Although a shadow of colonialism remains over these translations, they have served Hebrew-speaking believers over the years, and have become engrained in the minds of many as “original.”
The simple truth is, that the Greek textus receptus is our oldest complete text of the Gospels. We do not possess an ancient Hebrew document of the words of Jesus, including the prayer he taught his disciples. Still, the “Our Father” is a core prayer of the Christian faith, and invites our deeper study. If we gain more familiarity with it – both in the Greek text and through study of its Hebrew roots – we will be closer to hearing the voice of the historical Jesus, and understanding both his thinking and his deep spirituality.
THE PRAYER THAT JESUS TAUGHT
MATTHEW 6:9b-13
Proposed Reconstruction of a Possible Hebrew Original
9b ‘avinu bashamayim
yitkadesh sh-meikha
10 tavo’ malkhuteikha
ye’aseh retsonkha
bashamayin u-va’aretz
11 ‘et lechem-chukeinu
ten lanu yom yom
12 u-slach lanu chovoteinu
ka’asher solchim gam ‘anachnu la-chot’im lanu
13 ‘al-teviyenu lideiy nisayon
ki ‘im hatsileinu min ha-ra‘
[ki lekha ha-malkhut ve-ha-gevurah ve-ha-hod,
le-‘olamei ‘olamim. ‘amen.]
Adapted by Henry Ralph Carse -
based on the Delitzsch translation and on the version
commonly used in contemporary Hebrew-speaking communities
in the Holy Land and elsewhere.
January 2023