I think it was about six years ago that I first read the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew. When I read the "Lord's Prayer" (probably in the nineteenth-century translation of Delitzsch), I could not help but be impressed by how Jewish it sounded, and how natural within the context of Judaism. This was especially true of such phrases as "yitqaddash sh'mecho" (may your name be made holy). It sounded familiar to me, but I didn't make the exact connection.
Here are the first words of the Kaddish, which is actually in Palestinian Aramaic:
yitgadal veyitkadash shemé rabá (may his great name be exalted and made holy).
If you read the rest of the Kaddish, you'll see that some of its other themes are also reflected in the Pater Noster.
But some say that the "Our Father" is a boiled-down version of some of the blessings of the Amidah. While I was researching that, I was struck by the similarity of the first part of the Kedushah (the third blessing of the Amidah) to that part of the Catholic Mass called the Sanctus:
SANCTUS, SANCTUS, SANCTUS, Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua.Hosanna in excelsis.
קָדוֹשׁ קָדוֹשׁ קָדוֹשׁ יהוה צבָאוֹת מְלֹא כָל־הָאָרֵץ כְבוֹדוֹ׃
(qadosh qadosh qadosh adonai tz'vaot m'lo khol-haaretz kh'vodo.)
And when I was researching the Didache (perhaps the first Christian catechism), I found in it The Two Ways, a Jewish teaching document, a scroll of which was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran.
Sometimes there is continuity even when you're not really expecting it, and that is surely the way Rabbi Yeshua would have wanted it.
Text Copyright © 2020 by Donald C. Traxler aka Donald Jacobson Traxler.
