The Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6:9–13

A Socio-rhetorical Analysis of Identity Politics of the Matthean Community

F. Manjewa M'bwangi

• Éditeur: Pickwick Publications
• Année: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781666710205
• Sujet: Theology & Religion
• Sous-sujet: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

In this book, a socio-rhetorical analysis blending literary with social sciences approaches provides the exegetical leverage to explore Matthew's use of the Lord's Prayer in shaping the identity of his community in the antiquity. The book lays down a foundation for drawing insights from the Lord's Prayer concerning Christian norms, values, and traditions that are pertinent to pastors, students, researchers, and lecturers who are interested in exploring matters of identity in their communities, institutions, and society at large.

chapter 1

BRIEF TRENDS IN NEW TESTAMENT SCHOLARSHIP

To set the current findings of this study in the on-going context of New Testament scholarship, I shall briefly examine the research works of Sjef van Tilborg, Marius J. Nel, and Lyndon Drake regarding the semantic function of Matthew’s Lord’s Prayer. The purpose of this brief survey is to find the gap of knowledge regarding the role of Matthean Lord’s Prayer, which opens the door to the contribution of this book in Matthean scholarship.

1.1 Tilborg

Tilborg employs Althusser’s philosophical theory of ideology to analyze the Gospel of Matthew and defend his argument that the individual sayings of the SM (Sermon on the Mount) are always seen as ideological intervention in the context of an existing social practice.2 Tilborg further claims that the Lord’ Prayer is an ideological intervention, because it opens the way to envision the connection between mythology and ideology as understood by Matthew.3 Tilborg raises three main categories within this claim: place, time and remittance of economic debts. First, regarding place, Tilborg claims that because of the phrase Πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς (our father who is in the heavens) in Matt 6:9, the prayer creates opposition between two places—the heavens as the mythological place of God, and the earth as a place where men who recite this prayer live.4 Second, with regards to time; because the prayer is reformulated to and personified in the concept of “our Father who is in the heavens,” the prayer connects the mythological transcendence of God and the presence of those who recite the prayer to emphasize the nearness of family relationships, group determinants, and group exclusion.5 Third, because ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰ ὀφειλήματα ἡμῶν (forgive us our debts) in 6:12, a reference to remittance of “debt,” is set in the context of the financial condition of the Matthean community, it prevents us from taking refuge too quickly in the spiritual sense of forgiveness and enjoins us to forgive our neighbor’s debts as the condition for receiving God’s forgiveness.6 It is noteworthy here that Tilborg rightly sees Matthew’s ideological connection between sin- forgiveness and debt-cancellation as an aspect of empowerment to the community. However, Tilborg ignores two important aspects of the prayer. On the one hand, he does not clarify how the group determinant and group exclusion regarding the petition “our Father who art in the heavens” (Matt 6:9) points to identity formation. Tilborg also does not tell us whether the cancellation of debts in 6:12 refers to all or only some types of debts. However, Nel addresses this ambiguity on the types of debts.

1.2 Nel

Nel, using a combination of socio-historical approach, literary theory and argumentative textual analysis, attends to the question; “whether the fifth petition of the Lord’s Prayer (Matt 6:12) considers the remission of the monetary debt of others as a precondition for receiving the forgiveness from God.”7 Advancing beyond Tilborg’s failure not to elaborate or state the importance of the connection between the forgiveness of sin and debt cancellation, Nel rightly asserts that answering the question of debt and forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer helps to understand the socio-economic ethics of Matthew’s gospel regarding debt and interpersonal relations.8 Thus, on the question of the relationship between forgiveness and debts, Nel claims that

while the demand for the remission of every exploitative debt [or all moral transgression] would fit Matthew’s monetary demand for righteousness (Matt 6:33), the remission of all monetary debts does not, as Jesus neither forbade loans nor demanded a cancellation of every debt.9

Nel grounds his claim on three premises: the historical context of prosbul, the rejection of the Jubilee year interpretative lens, and the semantic role of debt in the narrative. First, Nel suggests that the prosbul, a pharisaic doctrine practiced in Palestine and Syria that transferred debts to the law courts to be paid beyond the Sabbatical Year, points to the cancellation of exploitative debt, but not all debt, fitting Matthew’s demand for righteousness.10 Second, he disputes the Jubilee interpretative context for Matthew 6:12 for three reasons: (1) Nel claims that Matthew 6:12 does not refer to Leviticus 25, where the details of the Jubilee year are set out, but instead it refers to Isaiah 61:1–7, “the release of prisoners without specifying that they were held captive because of debts.” (2) Nel fu...