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The Interpretation of the Lord's Prayer, Q 11:2B-4, in the Formative Stratum of Q According to the Literary and Cultural

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The Interpretation of the Lord's Prayer, Q 11:2B-4, in the Formative Stratum of Q According to the Literary and Cultural Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2010 The Interpretation of the Lord's Prayer, Q 11:2b-4, in the Formative Stratum of Q According to the Literary and Cultural Perspectives Afforded by the Affixed Aphorisms, Q 11:9-10, 11-13 Richard Wendel Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the Biblical Studies Commons Recommended Citation Wendel, Richard, "The Interpretation of the Lord's Prayer, Q 11:2b-4, in the Formative Stratum of Q According to the Literary and Cultural Perspectives Afforded by the Affixed Aphorisms, Q 11:9-10, 11-13" (2010). Dissertations. 79. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/79 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 2010 Richard Wendel LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO THE INTERPRETATION OF THE LORD’S PRAYER, Q 11:2b-4, IN THE FORMATIVE STRATUM OF Q (Q¹) ACCORDING TO THE LITERARY AND CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES AFFORDED BY THE AFFIXED APHORISMS, Q 11:9-10, 11-13 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM IN THEOLOGY BY RICHARD WENDEL CHICAGO, IL DECEMBER 2010 Copyright by Richard Wendel, 2010 All rights reserved ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS While I was an undergraduate at Penn State University, I had the great privilege and pleasure to have studied under Dr. Lewis Ford. He taught me to think critically and to explore aspects of Christian tradition. Dr. Ford was also instrumental in guiding me to Princeton Seminary. At the time, the farthest thing from my mind was biblical studies. Yet by taking required courses at Princeton with Drs. Katherine Doob Sakenfeld, J. Christiaan Beker, and Donald Juel seeds were planted and a never ending curiosity began. I wish to recognize their influence and my gratitude. Through decades of private study, I became increasingly interested in the earliest layer of gospel tradition, the Sayings Gospel Q. The theology faculty of Loyola University Chicago was most welcoming and from my first meetings, I knew it would be a place to sharpen my mind and help me understand the evidence in its own time. Dr. Gregory Dobrov impressed me with the importance of language and especially the impact of Greek traditions on the entire Mediterranean basin in the era of my study. Dr. Robert Di Vito taught me to appreciate the diversity of Judeo-Christian communities in late Second Temple Judaism and to critically look beyond the words of the traditions to the ideological interests of ancient writers. One of the first scholars I spoke with at Loyola was Dr. Wendy Cotter. In every way, she has directed my studies and helped me appreciate the social desires and needs of the first century Christian iii communities. I express my immense gratitude to her for her wisdom, patience, and support. Lastly, I wish to thank my wife, Mina (“MK”) Dulcan who experienced my absence when I was in class, in my “study,” or writing, and had to endure long-suffering conversations about the origins of Christianity. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii ABSTRACT vii CHAPTER ONE: THE STATUS QUAESTIONIS 1 Introduction 1 Major Scholarly Contributions of the Lord’s Prayer: Matthew 6:9-13/Luke 11:2b-4 2 Chapter Summary and the Problem of Interpreting the Lord’s Prayer 53 CHAPTER TWO: THE Q DOCUMENT: FOUNDATIONS, RECONSTRUCTION, AND THE SCHOLARSHIP THAT LOCATES THE PRAYER SPEECH WITHIN THE FORMATIVE STRATUM OF Q 55 Introduction 55 The History of the Investigations of Q 56 The Synoptic Problem: The Relationships of the Synoptic Gospels 61 Challenges to the Two-Document Hypothesis: The Griesbach Hypothesis Revisited and Markan Priority without Q 70 The Modern Reconstruction of the Sayings Gospel Q 72 The Composition and Redaction of Q 86 From Redaction to Compositional History 108 Q as Expanded Instruction 109 Chapter Summary and Implications for the Dissertation 113 CHAPTER THREE: THE STRUCTURE, FORM, AND RELATIONSHIP OF THE Q CLUSTER Q 11:9-10, 11-12, 13 114 Introduction 114 The Form, Relationship, and Message of Q 11:9-10 115 The Form, Components, Relationship, and Message of Q 11:11-12, 13 126 Ronald Piper and the Four Step Argument of Q’s Sapiential Clusters 130 CHAPTER FOUR: INTERPRETING THE LORD’S PRAYER IN THE Q¹ SPEECH: Q 11:2B-4, 9-13 136 Introduction 136 Interpretations that Do Not Observe the Stratigraphy Establishing Q 137 An Interpretation of the Prayer in Q 138 Chapter Summary 163 CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS AND SUMMARY 165 Brief Summary of Conclusions 165 v APPENDIX A: ASKING AND SEEKING IN GRECO-ROMAN AND JEWISH PRAYER AND WISDOM LITERATURE 172 APPENDIX B: GOD AS FATHER IN JEWISH LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 189 APPENDIX C: GOD AS FATHER IN GRECO-ROMAN LITERATURE 206 APPENDIX D: THE FORM CRITICISM OF GRECO-ROMAN AND JEWISH PRAYERS 232 APPENDIX E: THE PROBLEM OF ASSOCIATING THE LORD’S PRAYER WITH JEWISH STATUTORY PRAYERS 265 BIBLIOGRAPHY 272 VITA 293 vi ABSTRACT The Lord’s Prayer is one of the most discussed texts within the Christian scriptures (Matt 6:9-13/Luke 11:2b-4). Most commentators have focused on the Matthean version of the prayer and have overlooked the source from which it comes: Q and its context. Both canonical versions of the prayer alter it and place it in different literary settings. This re-contextualizing of the original prayer has produced interpretations that either obscure or reinterpret the message from Q. These efforts have been overly influenced by extraneous source material, often subject to certain interpretative tendencies involving Jewish prophetic, Jewish intertestamental apocalyptic literature, and/or Christian eschatological pronouncements. However, recent scholarship on the Q Prayer Instruction (Q 11:2b-4, 9-13) has shown that the attached aphoristic commentary (Q 11:9-13) provides both interpretative guidelines and controls that limit the range of possible outcomes and points to how the community understood the prayer. Specifically, Ronald Piper has established that the aphoristic clusters in the formative stratum of Q exhibit an intentional and identifiable literary design with the last verse, in this case Q 11:13, serving as the “interpretative key” to the entire speech. This dissertation, following Piper’s work, has examined the images within Q 11:9-13, especially v. 13, in order to highlight its climatic function in the set of aphorisms. Within Q 11:9-13, each subunit vii (11:9-10, 11-12, and 13) builds to the conclusion (v.13). Q 11:13, therefore, controls the meaning of the entire Prayer Instruction (Q 11:2b-4, 9-13). Thus, it is the imagery of v. 13 that determines the parental behavior expected in vv. 11-12. This image is the attentive, providing, and protective parent. The meaning of and expected behaviors of the “father” in the invocation is defined by the responsive and generous parent of v. 13. Thus, in order to understand the Q “prayer” within its setting, (11:2b-4, 9-10, 11-12, 13) it is necessary to start with the attached aphorisms and grasp their contextual force and full meaning. This study argues that the complier of the Q speech intentionally attached the aphorisms to the prayer and structured them in a specific and progressive way in order to provide the lens through which the entire speech should be seen. viii CHAPTER ONE THE STATUS QUAESTIONIS Introduction The prayer ascribed to Jesus in Q (Luke) 11:2b-4, but usually quoted as the Lord’s Prayer from Matthew 6:9-13, has received a great deal of scholarly commentary. As a result, it is the Matthean perspective and context that controls the interpreter’s understanding of the praise and petitions that belong to Matthew’s version. One of the chief differences between the Matthean and Lukan forms of the prayer is the immediate contextual placement of the material. Luke creates a larger speech than is found in Q by inserting the “Friend at Midnight” pericope (11:5-8) in between the prayer (11:2b-4) and the accompanying aphorisms (11:9-13). These units are interrelated and create a unified message in the Luke’s gospel. In the reconstruction efforts of the Q Seminar, scholars view 11:5-8 as a Lukan insertion to an otherwise intact Q speech: the Q Prayer Instruction. Matthew, however, separates the prayer (Matt 6:9-13) from the sapiential cluster (7:7-11), thus disturbing the unity of the speech and the aphorisms that were designed to control the interpretative range of the entire unit. This will be discussed more fully in Chapter Three. Although Luke’s gospel disturbs the setting of the Q Prayer Speech less than Matthew, his insertion of the “Friend at Midnight” parable (Luke 11:5- 8) also separates the direct influence of vv. 9-13 on the prayer Q 11:2b-4. Scholars who discuss the Lukan version, likewise, address Lukan theology due to the placement of the prayer in his gospel, as will be more fully explained. Furthermore, there are many 1 2 scholars who address the prayer on its own, without any context at all. This freestanding prayer material is then associated with extraneous verses used to support particular, often theologically motivated, interpretations. Additionally, a few scholars use Q/Luke 11:9- 10/Matthew 7:7-8 in a general, de-contextualized way to support their arguments.
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