- Theology and Identity
- Season 2
- Episode 0
- Airdate: 22 November 2024
- Please note this is a script, and not a transcript. There may be slight differences between this text and the actual broadcast.
- All Bible quotations taken from the English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016)
Audio Links:
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Hello, I’m Dr David Clark, and I lecture in historical theology at the University of Roehampton in London;.
I want to welcome to you to the second season of my podcast entitled Theology and Identity. Our aim in this project is to explore the interaction between the way we understand God and the way we understand ourselves.
In this second season, we’re going to focusing on the topic of prayer. Specifically, I want to explore how prayer – with the Judaic and Christian traditions – has been essential to the formation of community identity.
This is a subject that I’ve been studying for nearly 20 years. Prayer was the topic of my PhD dissertation, and I’ve published numerous books and articles on the theology of prayer.
I am convinced that prayer - even more than doctrine - is what holds communities together. It shapes their understanding of God. It tells them how to relate to one another. It defines their sense of purpose and calling. It makes sense of their past, and sets the direction for their future. Prayer is what carries communities through times of crisis and change.
Every community that has ever worshipped the God of the Bible has had its signature prayers. Whether it be the Psalms of ancient Israel, the prayer texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Lord’s Prayer, the rabbinic prayers or early Christian liturgy – it easy to see that a community’s self-understanding - the way they define who they are – is expressed through their prayers.
In this series of podcasts, we’ll be visiting early Jewish and Christan communities at prayer. We’ll look at why they pray, how they pray, and how the practice of prayer gives their community a sense of identity.
Let me give you a few tasters – examples of what we’ll be talking about in our upcoming episode.
I’ll begin with the Jewish community that we now associate with the DSS. The term they used to identify themselves was the YAHAD, or union.
Sometime in the mid 2nd century before Christ, there was a dispute in Jerusalem over the priesthood and the temple sacrifices. On the one hand, we had the ruling group of priests who had the backing of the Judean government, the Hasmonean dynasty. On the other hand, we had a group of (what I’ll call purist priests) who claimed that the ruling priests were illegitimate. The Temple priests didn’t follow the right calendar, they were celebrating the festivals at the wrong times. And most importantly they didn’t descend from the true priestly line – the line of Zadok.
In the conflict that ensued, the group of purist priests broke away. In area along the dead sea now known as Qumran, this group of priests founded a rebel community. According to Bertil Gartner:
The Qumran community now attempted to set itself up as the true Israel, and it is probably true to say that the leaders of the community were temple priests who had settled down by the shores of the Dead Sea in the hope of creating a new spiritual centre to replace the desecrated temple until the day when God would finally reveal himself and confirm Israel’s victory.
This is to say that they saw themselves as a community in hiding. They were the true priests in the eyes of God. A group of usurpers had taken over the sacrifices of the Jerusalem temple. And therefore, they would ‘wait it out’ along the dead sea until the time came for God to restore the true priests to their rightful place in the Temple.
But this whole scenario presented them with a complex theological problem. If the Hasmonean priesthood in Jerusalem was corrupt and illegitimate, then of course the sacrifices they offered were invalid. And if no one is offering legitimate sacrifices, then according to Leviticus 16 there can be no atonement for the sins of Israel. Animal sacrifices are an indispensable part of the whole system of worship. They are the lifeblood of Israel.
One possible solution might have been for the priests living in Qumran to offer their own sacrifices. They could build a miniature of the Temple, and carry out sacrifices until the time would come that they were restored to the Jerusalem temple. The only problem here was that this was against the rules. Deuteronomy 12 expressly forbids the offering of sacrifices in any place other than the temple in Jerusalem.
So what could they do?
In the absence of animal sacrifice – they had to find a substitute. A way to maintain relationship with God even without animal sacrifice. And the solution they found was prayer. Listen to this passage from the DSS, 1 QS 9:3-5
They shall atone for the guilt of transgression and the rebellion of sin, becoming an acceptable sacrifice for the land through the flesh of burnt offerings, the fat of sacrificial portions, and prayer, becoming — as it were — justice itself, a sweet savor of righteousness and blameless behavior, a pleasing free-will offering
So what the Qumran community believed was that their prayers had become an acceptable sacrifice in the eyes of God. Prayer was replacing ‘the fat of sacrificial portions. The flesh of burnt offerings.’ Prayer was the ‘sweet savour of righteousness and the ‘pleasing free will offering’ to God.
Now, for the past 2000 years, Judaism has been growing and thriving without animal sacrifices. So for Jewish people today, the idea of forgiveness without animal sacrifice really isn’t that controversial. But when we go back to the era of the Qumran community – we have to realise that this was a really radical move. The Qumran community was probable the first group of people in history to say ‘we’re going to worship YHWH the God of Israel without animal sacrifice.’ They represented the first wave of what would eventually become a major transformation in Judaic identity and practice. And what was the key ingredient in this transformation - Prayer. So we see here the power that prayer has to take on a central, defining role in the creation of community identity.
Let’s look at another example on how prayer drives identity formation.
This time we’ll look at an example from the Christian tradition.
One of the key elements in Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness was the idea that getting forgiveness from God was dependent on our willingness to forgive others. In Mt 6;14-15 he said
‘For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.’
This was a radical teaching. No where in the OT had anyone ever suggested that forgiving others was a requirement for getting forgiveness of God.
Now – there are several examples of texts that teach on the importance of forgiving others. For example, Lev 19:18 states
‘You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
So clearly there was a tradition in the Hebrew scriptures that forgiving others was really important. But Jesus upped the ante. His teaching, by Jewish standards, was even more radical. Not only is forgiving others commanded. Its essential to your own salvation. If you don’t forgive others, your sins aren’t forgiven. And if your sins aren’t forgiven, where do you stand with God?
Jesus wanted to create a community that would be different than other communities of his day. And one of thing to set them apart would be a radical commitment to forgiveness. And how did he reinforce this commitment among his followers? He taught them to pray it out.
He taught them a prayer where they would declare ‘forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.’
The early Christian church would prayer the Lord’s Prayer 3 times a day. In the morning, afternoon, and evening. Three times a day the would be reminded that if they wanted to get forgiveness from God, they had to give forgiveness to others.
That’s the way to get an idea engrained in someone’s head. Make them repeat it 3 times a day. And this was happening through prayer.
Once again we see how prayer is an essential ingredient in shaping a community’s identity. In this case – it shapes the Christian community’s understanding of God. And it shapes the way that their supposed to relate to one another. We as Christians worship a God who is infinitely merciful. And he expects us to show this same, unrelenting, unconditional willingness to forgive others. And don’t even try to call yourself a Christian if you’re not willing do that. Jesus wanted forgiveness to be a hallmark of Christian identity.
So I’ve here given you two examples to illustrate just how powerful prayer is in shaping a community's identity. We’ve looked at the example of the Qumran community and the DSS. And we’ve looked at one petition within the Lord’s Prayer.
Later in this season, we’ll be coming back both of these topics. What I wanted to do in this first episode is just give you a sample of what we’ll be exploring throughout this season.
Over the course of this season we’ll explore various texts within the biblical, early Jewish, and early Christian traditions. Some examples include the Hebrew Scripture, texts from the Pseuedepigrapha like Enoch, Apocrpyphal books like Tobit, the Gospels, rabbinic literature, texts from the apostolic fathers like the Didache, and finally patristic texts like the writings of Tertullian and Ireanaeus.
In all of these instances, our question will be: how did prayer shape community identity?
I hope that this brief introduction has been helpful, and I hope you’ll join me for this season.