Maranatha

Uncategorized 2 Minutes

Paul uses an Aramaic phrase in Corinthians, this happens to be a Greek transliteration of the Aramaic expression (Marana tha) used by early Christians. Maranatha (Aramaic: מרנאתא‎) māranā thā. Here is the verse:

If anyone does not love the Lord, let that person be cursed! Come, Lord! Μαράνα θά

1 Cor. 16:22

The amazing thing about Paul using that slogan “Maranatha,” is that it indicates that even those Gentile converts “in-Christ” had enough awareness of the Aramaic speaking movement to make use of that slogan in a language that was foreign to them and to know its meaning.

The meaning of that phrase is a hopeful early return of Christ and a Greek equivalent in Revelation 22:20 “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” has the same meaning.

This same expression is used in Didache.

If any man is holy, let him come; if any man is not, let him repent. Maran Atha. Amen.

Didache 10:13-14

Hurtado has noted:

It is widely accepted among scholars that we even have a linguistic fragment or actual artifact of the devotional practice of Aramaic-speaking circles of Jewish Christians preserved in 1 Corinthians 16:22. The untranslated expression found here, “Marana tha,” is commonly taken as a prayer or an invocation formula, and is probably to be translated something like “O Lord, come!” It is also now commonly accepted that it was the exalted Jesus who was addressed as the “Lord” in this formula. It is interesting that Paul does not bother to translate the expression here for his Greek- speaking church in Corinth, probably because he expected his readers to recognize it. This is likely because it was one of the devotional formulas from Aramaic-speaking circles of the early Christian movement that he conveyed to his Greek-speaking Gentile converts, as a gesture of their religious solidarity with believers in Judea, whom Paul refers to as predecessors of his Gentile converts (e.g., 1 Thess. 2:13-16; Rom. 15:25-27). Other examples of devotional expressions that derive from Semitic-speaking Christian circles and were circulated by Paul among the congregations that he established include “Abba,” as a devotional expression used to address God in prayer (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6), and “Amen.” To repeat the point for emphasis, the “Marana tha” expression must have been conveyed to Paul’s Greek-speaking converts as already a standardized devotional formula, which confirms that the devotional stance reflected in the expression was a familiar feature of Aramaic-speaking circles of Christians well before the date of 1 Corinthians. [2]

Dunn shows us the eschatological implications of this slogan:

“Paul strongly believed that Jesus’ resurrection and the gift of the Spirit were the beginning (the first-fruits) of the end-time harvest (1 Cor. 15.20,23; Rom. 8.23); and for most of his ministry Paul proclaimed the imminence of the parousia and the end (1 Thess. 1.10; 4.13-18; 1 Cor. 7.29-31). Particularly worthy of notice is his preservation in 1 Cor. 16.22 of an Aramaic cry from the earliest church – ‘Maranatha, Our Lord, come!’. It is scarcely possible that the earliest communities in Jerusalem and Palestine lacked this same sense of eschatological fervour and urgency.” [2]

[1] Larry W. Hurtado, How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God? HISTORICAL QUESTIONS ABOUT EARLIEST DEVOTION TO JESUS, pp.36-7.

[2] James D G Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament, An Inquiry into the Character of Earliest Christianity, p.19

Published by daveallens

Love history, have a degree in Irish history. Intrigued with early Christian history.

Published

15 thoughts on “Maranatha”

  3. I am now a member of the historical higher criticism Facebook group do you know any good post on there that refute Richard carrier on Romans 1:3 or any new blog post on that topic

    Like

    Reply

  8. I really don’t respond to comments much comment by that loser carrier piss me off Richard carrier to Tim O’Neil shows what a dick head carrier is tweak argument could you respond to Sometimes they are. Many Christians mean and meant them mundanely. And even when they didn’t, in those cases only the infused beliefs are weird. The beliefs infused with them are not weird. That’s my point. Not every belief Christians have or had is weird. Especially when we include all their moral teachings, all their mundane teachings about human nature, and so on. False is not the same as weird. Lunacy. Since I spelled it correctly (with two l’s) everywhere else in the same article, obviously the first dropped l was a typo. Which was easily fixed. I’m pretty sure he’s really an atheist. He defends Catholicism not because he is a crypto-Catholic, but because he’s a dick.

    This is different from what I do when I defend Christianity, for example, such as I often do in correcting false atheist narratives about Christians or Christian history (many examples have appeared on my blog). I correct the atheist errors and then acknowledge in what ways they remain correct in their critique of Christianity. O’Neill just likes trashing mistaken atheists without doing the careful research to actually land on the correct conclusion they should adopt instead.

    This is ironically due to a black-and-white bias he often complains about in other atheists, but is hopelessly enslaved to himself. He cannot see a middle position anywhere, where the atheist narrative is half right and half wrong. To him it can only be “atheists are totally right in their criticism, or Christians are totally exonerated.” The result is what you observe. Yes, that’s an idiom for all the authors of the Bible, not a literal claim that someone who knew Moses wrote any book of the Bible (which book could that have possibly been?). For those who want more detail on that, jump to this the amount of projection is incredible carrier does everything he accuses Tim of doing carrier promotes pseudo history like the library of Alexandria the dark ages and several other things in fact carriers such a joke in history studies they told him just to mock him here’s an example Christianity killed ancient science” schtick is held up for ridicule by actual historians of the subject. The first essay in Newton’s Apple and Other Myths about Science (Ronald L. Numbers and Kostas Kampourakis ed.s, Harvard, 2015 is Michael H. Shank on “Myth 1: There was no scientific activity between Greek Antiquity and the Scientific Revolution” (pp. 7-15). Shank opens with a quote from Carrier about how Christianity set back scientific progress by 1000 years as an example of people perpetuating this dumb myth. Carrier is not taken seriously on this stuff by his superiors in the field, largely because his crippling anti-Christian biases make him say stupid things. He’s a polemicist posing as an

    Like

    Reply

  9. could you respond to this garbage Yes, that’s an idiom for all the authors of the Bible, not a literal claim that someone who knew Moses wrote any book of the Bible (which book could that have possibly been?). For those who want more detail on that, jump to this comment on 2019/04/21.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment