The Authentic Gospel of Jesus by Geza Vermes

Author:Geza Vermes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2008-10-22T16:00:00+00:00

9. The last prayer of Jesus (Luke 23:46)

Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!

‘Lama sabachthani?’, the heart-rending cry of incomprehension uttered by the dying Jesus according to the Gospels of Mark and Matthew (see chapter 5, no. 19), is replaced in Luke by pious words of resignation through citing Psalm 31:5 (see chapter 5, no. 41). This is the prayer of a textbook holy man and not of the fiery prophet from Galilee.12

REFLECTIONS

To summarize the contents of this chapter, five out of the nine literary units represent personal prayers pronounced by Jesus (cf. nos. 3, 4, 6, 8, 9). One of these, his last cry on the cross, is transmitted in two different versions (nos. 4 and 9). Another, the Our Father’, is a communal prayer he taught his disciples when, according to Luke, one of them requested him to do so (no. 5). The remaining sections contain advice on the nature of genuine devotion. One of the prayers is headed by the Aramaic invocation Abba (no. 3). Another starts with Eloi, Eloi, etc. (‘My God, my God’), and is entirely preserved in Aramaic (no. 4). The Lord’s Prayer, which has been transmitted only in Greek, also reveals an Aramaic linguistic substratum. The last exclamation of Jesus in Luke (‘Father, into thy hands’, etc.) offers a theological emendation of the final words of Jesus reproduced in Aramaic in Mark and Matthew in the form of a quotation from the Greek Psalms (no. 9).

Of the nine quotations, two appear to be inauthentic. It is hard to imagine that the quasi Johannine meditation in Matthew 11:25–27/Luke 10:21–22 (no. 6), totally different from the rest of his prayers, can possibly belong to Jesus. The authenticity of the prayer for forgiveness and the last cry of Jesus in Luke (nos. 8 and 9) is also difficult to maintain. However, the other seven passages can be retraced to Jesus with a high degree of probability. The supplication in Gethsemane, with its Aramaic invocation Abba followed by a humble submission to the will of God, expresses without a shadow of doubt the authentic religiosity of Jesus (no. 3). The same favourable conclusion applies, as shown in our sentence-by-sentence commentary, to the Lord’s Prayer (no. 5). God as Father, the sanctity of his name, the appeal for the instant coming of his Kingdom, the focus of prayer on immediate needs (the bread of today), the obligation to forgive in order to obtain forgiveness, and the hope in liberation from demonic powers: all these form a perfect synopsis of the doctrinal and moral message of Jesus.

Similarly, the counsels given by him to his praying disciples touch the heart of his teaching. The faith or trust in God of the charismatic almost miraculously brings about the fulfilment of what is expected of him. Faith is said to perform the miracles of healing. But there are conditions which must be observed. A person hoping to find God generous in regard to his offences must himself be generously forgiving to his neighbours.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.