Ab (Semitic)
Abba ("Father " ) is after a few passages in the New Testament the personal address of YHWH through Jesus of Nazareth, who narrated the early Christians in Aramaic.
Translations
The expression is found twice in Paul's letters and once in the Gospel of Mark. Their unit translation is:
The NIV translates all three primary positions with " Abba, Father." Also in Luke 22:42 and John EU 17.1 ff EU - the parallels to Mark 14:36 EU - is the simple Greek "father". The Luther Bible, however, translated differently:
In the first edition of 1534 Martin Luther lifted the title " MY FATHER " in the Gethsemane scene also in uppercase out and understand this particular father Jesus' relationship as a reason that Christians love God and style as "our " Father could.
The philologist for Aramaistik Günther Schwarz ( theologian ) pleads for the multiple meaning of Abba for letting this untranslated:
" Abba may mean in Jesus' words, depending on the context of meaning Father and the Father; but also mine, yours, ours, your father. Since all of these meanings of Abba resonate every time there can be nowhere with only a German expression reflect appropriate. It follows that: Who does not want to alien Jesus language use, which must leave the word untranslated Abba ".
Older interpretation
Joachim Jeremias supported Luther's translation philological with his book Abba ( 1st Edition Göttingen 1966). Then the expression is a childlike Lallform of the Aramaic word for " father " - Ab - was similar to the multilingual dad. This form only meet the lips of Jesus, nowhere else in Palestinian sources at that time so that it is an expression of the special intimacy of Jesus with God and his very own words.
This view has had a major influence on modern NT research and is about today represented by the Jesus Seminar. They attract Christian exegetes often in support of a particular image of God Jesus' approach, which differs from the traditional image of God in the Old Testament and the contemporary Judaism, represented approximately by John the Baptist, have clearly distinguished.
So Abba shows, for example, Paul Hoffmann for a novel trait of God: Jesus God first God of unconditional kindness and grace. Its proximity is not, as when John the Baptist, especially threatening. He seeking the lost (Luke 15.3 to 10 EU) and was ready to forgive (Luke 15:11-32 EU). This goodness sprinkle conventional limits, but does not mean that the man can stay or should, he is. Jesus, God put no less than the claim announced by the Baptist. But the gratitude for the experienced forgiveness and unconditional acceptance of the sinner move him to repentance and acknowledgment of God: not as a heroic feat, but as a simple re-action, the transferred God's love experienced by the standards of Jesus to others. The next one is also without an intermediary for living " text book of God's will " become so.
This relationship between God and Jesus is, as for gasoline Schwankl the " defining moment " of his work and the core of the " Jesus Movement ". From him to everything else, both the preaching and the life of Jesus and the Christian Church is clear. Jesus teaching in addition to the relationship with God is not other pieces and themes, but always get this in different aspects and for the various situations in which a person from birth to death, he lived - and made the mystery of existence. This ancient puzzles there and discuss Jesus on the basis of his special relationship with God and his own new relationship with God, which is in the salutation Abba - dear father expressions.
More recent interpretations
Recent studies put the thesis of a special address to God of Jesus against the contemporary Judaism in question. So reported about G. Schelber ( voice: A Brief History, Abba ', Freiburg, 1981) and E. Schuller (The Psalm of 4Q 372/1, 1992) on the philological only then fully developed Scrolls from the Dead Sea ( built around 200-100 BC AD) out there that the Hebrew God's address, my father and my God appears in a Psalm place. Translated Greek is the salutation in the Septuagint and in Ecclesiasticus ( 51,10 ), 3 Maccabees (6.3 f.8 ) detectable.
The salutation " my father " was common in everyday Aramaic and Hebrew at the time as Abi. The emphasis on the gracious care of God as father of his "children", especially to the weak, the poor and marginalized, was at the time around already commonplace in Judaism ( Angelika Strothmann, " You are my father " ( Sir 51,10 EU) For the meaning of the Fatherhood of God, Frankfurt / Main 1991). Jewish scholars such as Geza Vermes showed also that rabbi from Galilee before and after Jesus also God anredeten as Abba and God's messages with the salutation when my son received: so the miracle worker Honi by 60 BC, and his grandson Chilkija, the Hasid Hanina ben Dosa was wooed by 60 AD and Chanan Hannechbader that after the Babylonian Talmud ( bTaan 23a):
" Abba, Abba, give us rain! He said before the Holy One - blessed be He: Lord of the world: - Do it for the sake of those who can not distinguish between an Abba who gives rain, and an Abba who is no rain. "
The prayer for rain is back (1 Kings 19 EU ) up to Elijah, who in turn was addressed by his disciple Elisha with my father, my father ... ( 2 Kgs 2.12 EU).
New Testament scholar Martin Karrer Abba explained on this tradition-historical background in the mouth of Jesus no more than childish Lallform, but as emphasized prayer address at which the consonant was doubled b, as in Graecized Aramaic name Barabbas. The genitive suffix -i can be converted to a- sound; but also the simple title " father " without genitive is possible. In addition, the New Testament turn your Father, who often appears in Jesus words from the sayings source, considered original. Karrer concludes:
" A startling conclusion suggests itself: concerns the earthly Jesus is less, God the Father facing, exclusive to bind to itself than to speak his disciples so. For them, he condenses a familiar to them in Israel side of the image of God, the God who is inclined to like a father to his transfer in into it. "
Only after Easter had the Jerusalem church " reluctantly " distinction between Jesus' relationship to God and the disciples in order to bring Jesus Christ into the center of the faith. The salutation of the historical Jesus had been your father but not displaced: The Our Father is a prayer we. Recalling John 20:17 EU - I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God - he concludes:
" Jesus' relationship with God can not isolate yourself; Christology, heard the broadcast in ecclesiology. "
This view corresponds to the findings of the Pauline evidence of Abba, which this address is not being introduced exclusively for Jesus, but as a gift of the Spirit to all Christians, who freed as children of God. The basis for this is the obedience of Jesus Christ, who bent to the will of God, his will and the Deputy judgment of death took upon himself, while the disciples failed. However, the unique prayer in Gethsemane, the disciples should pray with and for the cross succession on the side of Jesus invite ( Mk 14,31.38 EU):