From: Edgar M. Krentz (emkrentz@mcs.com)
Date: Sat Feb 21 1998 - 00:45:36 EST
>B-Greeks and Synoptic friends,
>
>Here's yet another LP question, this time regarding the meaning of Matt.
>6:9//Lk. 11:2 - the petition that God's "name" be "hallowed".
>
>The question is: who is envisaged here as doing the "hallowing"? Until
>recently I (and I think the majority of commentators) have thought that
>it is to be everyone in the world, for, at first glance, "Let your name
>be hallowed (hAGIASQHTW TO ONOMA SOU) has an apparent universalistic ring
>and seems to say "may it come about (soon?) that everyone in the
>world "hallows" your name, that everyone acknowledges you as God and acts
>accordingly".
I don't think it is the disciples, Christians generally, or any human being.
Read Ezekiel 36, Jeff, where Ezekiel describes how God must hallow his own
name which Israel has defiled. Ezekiel lays out an entire program of action
that God will carry out so that the name which Israel has defiled will be
hallowed among the nations. And that, I submit, is an eschatological
petition.
Then you may agree with me that every petition in the LP asks God to act,
not human beings. The prayer is, after all, addressed to hO PATHR hO EN
TOIS OURANOIS.
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Edgar Krentz
Professor of New Testament
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago
Telephone: (773) 256-0752
e-mail: Office: ekrentz@lstc.edu;
Home: emkrentz@mcs.com
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