Kata Markon

[phil AT sedona.net (Philip B Lewis)]

>Friends,
>
>I am presenting a paper at the November SBL on the Lord's Prayer in
>which I am going to argue the following thesis:
>
>For Matthew and Luke the background and horizon of the prayer is not the
>future coming of God as King, let alone any zealous longing for it; nor
>is the prayer's primary concern to voice the desire for a speedy
>realization of the blessings that the elect would experience once God
>finally and decisively manifested himself in all his transcendent power.
>Rather, the prayer is grounded in (and arises from) a perception on the
>Matthean and Lukan Jesus' part that his disciples are in grave danger of
>becoming members of "this generation", that is, those among Jesus'
>co-religionists who reject what Jesus shows is God's will for Israel;
>and the prayer's focus and concern is that the disciples invoke God's
>protection against engaging in this apostasy.
>
>One of the considerations I will be offering in support of this
>contention is  that a concern to secure divine aid to be obedient to
>God's will is the center both of the petitionary prayers which the
>Matthean and Lukan Jesus himself prays as well as of those which he
>elsewhere urges upon the disciples
>
>So why post this here? I am interested in knowing whether what I detect
>with respect to petitionary prayers in GMatt and GLuke is also the case
>in GMark.
>
>I'd be grateful, therefore, if List members would (a) list for me what
>they consider to be all the petitionary prayers in GMark engaged in by
>Jesus or urged by him upon the disciples; and (b) tell me what
>they think the center of each of these prayers actually is.
>
>Thanks in advance for any help you might be able to give me in this.
>
Jeffrey:  GMark does not have any "instructed prayer".  Jesus is presented
in the posture of prayer three times: 1. as he withdrew from Simon's house
where he had healed S's mother in law, 2. as he went into the hills from
which he would watch the disciples struggling against a strong east wind
(N.B.) and 3. on the Mt. of Olives after the Eucharist.  In this last
readers were expected to understand that they, like Jesus, were to be
submissive to God's will.

N.B. However, GMark does imclude "No sign will be given to this generation,"
Mk.8.12, which is expanded by Matt. to "this evil and adulterous
generation", to which your argument refers.  In GMark's *thematic*
organization, the saying counter-balances the "sign" given to Israel of
Jesus' walking on the sea ala the Angel of God's Presence who stood between
Israel and Pharaoh's hosts in the exodus from Egypt.  So your association of
"this generation" with the culture from which believers were to be protected
through prayer is a good insight.

Philip

>
-phil AT sedona.net
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