Re: Matt. 6:3//Lk. 11:3 Another Lord's Prayer Question!

From: Edward Hobbs (EHOBBS@wellesley.edu)
Date: Sat Feb 14 1998 - 15:02:34 EST


This proposal by Jeffrey GFibson to understand the Bread petition in the
Lord's prayer as an echo of the Exodus & Israel's grumbling response to
the bread given them (Whatsit, or Manna), is wholly new to me--

--and strikes me as exactly right!

Once Gibson has written it, it seems so obvious. And, assuming EPIOUSIOS
means "for this day," "for the day," the parallel to Manna is all the more
obvious, since it was given only for one day at a time (Sabbath exception!)
and not for the future.

Since my work on Mark sees that Gospel as an exposition of the Exodus being
fulfilled/re-enacted/transformed, it is all the more exciting to consider
(1) that Matthew and Luke may have shared this motif, and more importantly,
(2) that it may go back to Jesus himself.

(Before someone points it out to me, I am well aware that Sir Edwyn Hoskyns
argued long ago --just 50 years ago, in fact: _The Riddle of the New
Testament_, 1948-- that ALL these theological motifs in the Gospels go
back to Jesus, the great creative mind behind early church theology. But
after many decades of form- and redaction-criticism, that position
has tended to fade from view. Perhaps the times they are a-changing.]

(But I don't mean to saddle Gibson with Hoskyns.)

Edward Hobbs



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