Magdalenbrother
June 4th 2004, 12:44 AM
"And he said: Abba, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt."
How many times have I heard preachers and theologians tell me from the pulpit or from the pages of their books that "abba" means "dad" or "daddy", that it was an affectionate term used by little children to address their father, that it was a unique form of address showing how close Jesus and the Father were, etc ., etc., etc.
I more or less believed it but somehow wasn't entirely convinced. I remembered something from my stay in Portugal many years ago. There I had heard little boys call their father O pai ! In that form of address, there was a mixture of love and respect (or shall I say 'awe'? ) that I found very striking and totally different from French 'papa' or English 'daddy'. The fact is that in the eighties Portugal was still a very conservative country in which many habits dating back to the Middle Ages were still flourishing. Could it be, I wondered, that abba in Aramean had the same connotations as O pai in patriarchal Portugal ?
That was until I read the note on abba on the blueletterbible website. There I was apprised of the fact that abba, far from being a colloquialism, is in fact an emphatic form of the word 'father' in Aramean. 'Emphatic' means that abba is the equivalent of O father ! in English. The term denotes respect and was widely used by Jews in their prayers.
This throws some light I think on the relationship between Jesus and God. There was communion but also distance.
And no trace of infantilism: thank God !
PS:
This is the explanation for abba (from Thayer's lexicon)
father, customary title used of God in prayer. Whenever it occurs in the New Testament it has the Greek interpretation joined to it, that is apparently to be explained by the fact that the Chaldee "ABBA" through frequent use in prayer, gradually acquired the nature of a most sacred proper name, to which the Greek speaking Jews added the name from their own tongue.
How many times have I heard preachers and theologians tell me from the pulpit or from the pages of their books that "abba" means "dad" or "daddy", that it was an affectionate term used by little children to address their father, that it was a unique form of address showing how close Jesus and the Father were, etc ., etc., etc.
I more or less believed it but somehow wasn't entirely convinced. I remembered something from my stay in Portugal many years ago. There I had heard little boys call their father O pai ! In that form of address, there was a mixture of love and respect (or shall I say 'awe'? ) that I found very striking and totally different from French 'papa' or English 'daddy'. The fact is that in the eighties Portugal was still a very conservative country in which many habits dating back to the Middle Ages were still flourishing. Could it be, I wondered, that abba in Aramean had the same connotations as O pai in patriarchal Portugal ?
That was until I read the note on abba on the blueletterbible website. There I was apprised of the fact that abba, far from being a colloquialism, is in fact an emphatic form of the word 'father' in Aramean. 'Emphatic' means that abba is the equivalent of O father ! in English. The term denotes respect and was widely used by Jews in their prayers.
This throws some light I think on the relationship between Jesus and God. There was communion but also distance.
And no trace of infantilism: thank God !
PS:
This is the explanation for abba (from Thayer's lexicon)
father, customary title used of God in prayer. Whenever it occurs in the New Testament it has the Greek interpretation joined to it, that is apparently to be explained by the fact that the Chaldee "ABBA" through frequent use in prayer, gradually acquired the nature of a most sacred proper name, to which the Greek speaking Jews added the name from their own tongue.