Loomis

The Jesus character (the guys who invented him) appear to be completely unaware that Yahweh had a name.

It’s probably because it wasn’t in the Septuagint.

Oops.

No Robots

From here:

William L. Lane, The Gospel According to Mark (or via: amazon.co.uk), page 518.

Some have challenged the notion that Jesus' address to God as abba in prayer was unique. Most notable of these scholars is Geza Vermes, who tackles the subject in Jesus the Jew and The Religion of Jesus the Jew. He claims that such an address was customary of "ancient Hasidic piety." Vermes, Jesus the Jew (or via: amazon.co.uk), page 210. But the only real evidence he offers is an episode about Hanin, the grandson of Hon the Circle-Drawer who lived near the end of the first-century BC:

When the world was in need of rain, the rabbis used to send school-children to him, who seized the train of his cloak and said to him, Abba, Abba, give us rain! He said to God: Lord of the universe, render a service to those who cannot distinguish between the Abba who gives rain and the Abba who does not.

BTTaan 23b.

Notably, this passage does not contain an address or prayer to God as to abba. Rather, Hanin is playing on the term the children use to refer to a popular Rabbi. But more important, when Hanin does pray to God, he is quite grand in his opening address: "Master of the universe." As Witherington explains:

Hanin does not here address God as abba in prayer. In fact, what we have is a play on words, so typical of Jewish teachers and hasids of that era. God is addressed with the proper title, "Master of the world." This text does illustrate, however, that abba was used by small children of their elders, in this case a revered teacher or hasid, but it was more commonly used of one's father.

No Robots

And my point is that when Christ was not quoting he used his own term, "Father".

Amaleq13

I can only assume that Lane hasn't actually read the book because Vermes explains exactly why the passage refutes the notion. I would think it obvious that, while Hanin is playing on a familiar term for a popular Rabbi, he is also quite clearly playing on a familiar term for God. That "abba" was used for both is necessary for the story to make sense.

No Robots

You will find a good summary of this discussion on page 260 of Systematic Theology. You will find there a list of the occasions in which God is referred to as father in the OT. For example:

When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.—Hos. 11:1

There is also mention made of the arguments of Rivkin and Vermes. In a footnote, there is a summary of the position of Merklein, stating that he, "thinks it distinctive of Jesus that he makes the occasional invoking of God as Abba into his typical form of address." I share this position of Merklein.

It seems that much of the controversy lies in the assertion of a special intimacy implied by Christ's usage. This is the position contested by Vermes. My own position, as derived from Brunner, is that the Christ's usage is apt not for its intimacy, but rather for its distancing:

This term of Christ's, "Father", is moreover better than all the rest of the terms employed by the others in that it brings into relief the power of engendering while not being in the engendered. And, as we have already remarked, Christ also keeps entirely away from any confusion of the Father with the God of superstition. (Our Christ, p. 21)

Brunner's main point is that Christ uses "Father" specifically to distinguish his poetical-mystical insight into the Absolute from the god of superstition.

Loomis

Wow! I just noticed that Hosea 11:7 is another one of those verses that portray El and Yahweh as two different gods.

Yahweh had a dad. How come Jesus didn’t know?

Ben C Smith

In some of those references he is not quoting.

Ben.

No Robots

For the meanings of the various names designating God in the Bible, see here and here.

Ben C Smith

I am going to dispute this just to see where it leads.

Taking up the discussion of the trial of Jesus in Gundry, Commentary on Mark (or via: amazon.co.uk), I propose that Jesus was quite aware of the divine name and in fact uttered it before the Sanhedrin.

Psalm 110.1 (109.1 LXX) reads:

Yahweh said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.

This is Yahweh speaking, so of course if one were to quote this verse in the third person it would come out as follows:

Sit at the right hand of Yahweh.

And if one were to follow the later Jewish convention of talking around the divine name, it would come out as:

Sit at the right hand of God.

This is the form in which we find this line in Mark 16.19; Acts 2.33; 7.55-56; Romans 8.34; Colossians 3.1; Hebrews 10.12; and 1 Peter 3.22. Other circumlocutions are also possible, including the right hand of the majesty on high in Hebrews 1.3 (refer also to 8.1).

Mark generally uses the typical LXX periphrasis Lord when quoting OT passages with the divine name in them; he quotes Psalm 110.1, for example, in 12.36 with this very term in place of Yahweh. Other instances of this substitute for Yahweh in Mark are 1.3; 11.9; 12.11; 12.29-30.

However, Mark 14.62 is a different story. Here Jesus is said to have stated:

You shall see the son of man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven.

Jesus is clearly alluding to Psalm 110.1 here, but neither Mark nor the Marcan Jesus uses this particular circumlocution, power, for Yahweh elsewhere.

Furthermore, the high priest in the very next line rends his garments and calls this blasphemy. Mishnah 7.5 declares that blasphemy consists precisely of the uttering of the divine name, and that the judge in a blasphemy case is supposed to rend his garments and never mend them:

The blasphemer is not guilty until he pronounces the name [Yahweh]. Rabbi Joshua ben Karcha said: On the day [of trial] they examined the witnesses with a substitute name: May Jose smite Jose! The trial did not end in a death sentence on the strength of the substitute, but they sent every witness outside and examined the main one among them, telling him: Say exactly what you heard! When he said it, the judges rose to their feet and tore [their garments] and did not mend them. And the second said: I too heard what he did! And the third said: I too heard what he did!

So we have the following data:

1. Jesus is accused of blasphemy in Mark 14.63-64 for what he said in 14.62.
2. Blasphemy consists of uttering the divine name.
3. Jesus has just quoted an OT verse that contains the divine name.
4. Mark has substituted the divine name in that verse with a circumlocution (power) that he never uses elsewhere.

I think that we are to understand that Jesus uttered the divine name at trial, and that Mark has glossed it, as he should, with a different word (power).

Ben.

gnosis92

Interesting. Do you think GosPeter did the same thing with "my power my power"
If what you say is correct, it's hard to imagine that GMark fabricated this as opposed to recalling genuine history.