Prayer, In Other Words:
New Testament Prayers in Social-Science Perspective
Jerome H. Neyrey
University of Notre Dame
1.0 Introduction: Status Quaestionis and Proposal
What is prayer? How do we interpret individual prayers? Biblical interpreters are grateful heirs of Gunkel's description of the psalms.(1) His work and that of his followers provides us with analyses of various types of psalms, identification of their formal elements and indication of their respective purposes. In addition, productive attention has been given both in antiquity and in modern criticism to understanding the premier Christian prayer, the Our Father.(2) Scholars have also examined topics related to prayer, such as the Israelite roots of Christian prayer,(3) the prayers of Jesus,(4) prayer in the Pauline letters,(5) the function of prayer in Luke's gospel,(6) and the shape of New Testament doxologies.(7) Of course there are many fine works examining prayer in the Bible,(8) the Greco-Roman world,(9) as well as the early church.(10) Recently, a working group in the Society of Biblical Literature undertook to study "Prayer in the Greco-Roman Period" (1989-92), the results of which appeared in The Lord's Prayer and Other Prayer Texts from the Greco-Roman Era.(11) While this volume contains seven articles on different ancient authors and their prayers, its major contribution lies in the rich bibliography of the text and history of interpretation of these select prayers. Yet it is fair to say that in terms of methods of interpreting prayer, even this latest effort prayer brings little new to the table. Current scholarship on biblical prayer operates from the perspective of form criticism and history-of-religions examination of background, but not necessarily from the perspective of interpretation, since its aim continues to be some form of history, not interpretation.
Yet there are available to scholars fresh and productive ways of interpreting prayers, namely the resources of cultural anthropology. Bruce Malina in particular has digested and made available to biblical scholars many of the basic, reliable models from the social sciences for understanding the communication which is prayer and the social exchange which occurs during it. Hence, if imitation is the sincerest form of praise, then the use of the materials which Bruce Malina has introduced to scholars is the sincerest form of praise I know. Other scholars have employed social science models for interpretation, whose suggestions will be considered as well.(12) This article, then, aims systematically to introduce readers to these cultural ways of interpreting prayers by providing an appropriate set of social and cultural lenses.
2.0 Prayer as Communication.
Twenty years ago in an article much too large for the journal in which it was printed,(13) Bruce Malina analyzed prayer as an act of communication. Typical of Malina, but unlike most commentators, he offered a definition of prayer:
Prayer is a socially meaningful symbolic act of communication, bearing directly upon persons perceived as somehow supporting, maintaining, and controlling the order of existence of the one praying, and performed with the purpose of getting results from or in the interaction of communication.(14)
This definition identifies the nature of the activity, its object and its purpose. Prayer may take the form of petition, adoration, contrition or thanksgiving, but it is always a communication. Since prayer always addresses the person perceived as supporting, maintaining and controlling the order of existence of the one praying, it presupposes a superior/subordinate relationship. Finally prayer aims to have some effect on the person with whom the pray-er communicates, that is, it seeks results.
Malina next classified prayers in terms of their purposes, identifying seven results or aims the pray-er desires through the communication which is prayer:
1. Instrumental ("I want..."): petitionary prayers to obtain goods and services for individual and social needs.
2. Regulatory ("Do as I tell you..."): prayers to control the activity of God, to command God to order people and things about on behalf of the one praying.(15)
3. Interactional ("me and you..."): prayer to maintain emotional ties with God; prayer of simple presence.
4. Self-focused ("Here I come. . .; here I am..."): prayers that identify the self -- individual and social -- to God; prayers of contrition and humility, as well as boasting and superiority.
5. Heuristic ("Tell me why...?"): prayer that explores the world of God and God's workings within us individually and collectively; meditative prayers, perceptions of the spirit in prayer.
6. Imaginative ("Let's pretend..."): prayer to create an environment of one's own with God; prayers in tongues and those recited in languages unknown to the pray-er.
7. Informative ("I have something to tell you"): prayers that communicate new information: prayers of acknowledgment, praise and thanksgiving.(16)
This taxonomy differs in many ways from the standard classification of psalms, and the differences are worthy of note. On the one hand, psalms are said to be either lament (complaint + petition) or praise and thanksgiving. But "prayer" is a more complex phenomenon than psalms, and needs a more discriminating classification. The lament and praise categories are further broken down by form critics of the psalms into six or seven types of psalms: 1) praise, 2) petition, 3) royal psalms, 4) songs of Zion, 5) didactic poetry, 6) festival psalms and liturgies.(17)This classification is based on several criteria: 1) instructions to the pray-er ("Praise the Lord!"), 2) repetitive formal characteristics, 3) differing sitze-im-leben (royal wedding, coronation of the king, festivals), 4) wisdom instructions, and the like. While such criteria are useful in classifying psalms, they prove less reliable in sorting out the communication which is prayer. Malina's taxonomy, however, builds on previous form-critical insights and provides a more discriminating classificatory system which focuses on the desired results of the communication and the social relationship between pray-er and deity.
Whereas psalm critics speak of psalms of lament, Malina's taxonomy more critically distinguishes the "lament" as interactive prayer and the petition as instrumental prayer. Psalms of "praise," "thanksgiving" and "trust" are informative prayers, a category which includes acknowledgment, blessing, honor, glory and the like. Communication classification aids greatly in appreciating prayers such as Ps 84 ("How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, God of hosts!) as both heuristic meditation which explores the world of God and imaginative construction of a personal environment with God.
In regard to prayers which are not psalms, the taxonomy based on communication theory allows those who read biblical prayers to analyze and classify them in more accurate and informative ways. For example, instrumental prayer describes the petitions in the Our Father for bread, debt remission and deliverance (Matt 6:13), as well as the charge of Jesus to his disciples in Mark 14:36 that they "pray" to escape the coming crisis. But the first part of the Our Father contains interactional prayer of praise and benediction. Interactional prayer captures Mary's sentiments of blessedness, as well as her informative thanksgiving to God (Luke 1:46-55). Self-focused prayer describes both the Pharisee and the publican in Luke 18:10-13.(18)Heuristic prayer identifies well Job's many requests to God to know the reason for his suffering. Speaking in tongues provides an example of imaginative prayer (1 Cor 14:6-26); and informative communication describes thanksgivings offered to God,(19) doxologies proclaimed,(20) and praise extended to Him.(21) Communication taxonomy also aids in interpreting prayers such as Simeon's address to God in Luke 2:29-32 (informative and interactional), Jesus ' "acknowledgment" of God in Matt 11:25-26 (informative), and Zechariah's canticle extolling God's faithfulness in Luke 1:68-79 (informational).
3.0 The Value System of Addresser and Addressee.
In his work on the anthropology of illness and wellness in antiquity, John Pilch introduced to biblical scholarship a cross-cultural model which aids in the discovery of different configurations of values which characterize social groups.(22) Anthropologists originally developed this model to differentiate and understand the four different cultures found in New Mexico (Native American, Spanish, Mexican-American, and Anglo). Health-care deliverers then successfully utilized it for understanding the cultural variations among a host of immigrant groups in America in regard to illness and health care.(23) Recently John Pilch and Bruce Malina edited a volume entitled Biblical Social Values, to whose introduction we turn for a mature elaboration of a model of differing cultural values applicable to biblical literature. They define "value" as: ". . . some general quality and direction of life that human beings are expected to embody in their behavior. A value is a general, normative orientation of action in a social system."(24) Just as Americans consider money or wealth a "value," so early Christians held kinship and honor to be paramount values.(25) What, then, is value comparison all about?
The following diagram provides a productive way of discovering the value preferences of a group. In a given context and faced with a specific task, individuals prefer to act in certain predictable ways which would be recognized and approved by their peers; all three options are theoretically available, but generally one or two are more prevalent.(26)
PROBLEM / RANGE OF SOLUTIONSPrincipal Mode of
Human Activity / Being / Being-in-Becoming / Doing
Interpersonal
Relationships / Collateral / Hierarchical / Individual
Time Orientation / Present / Past / Future
Relationship of
humans to Nature / Be subject to it / Live in harmony with it / Master it
View of Human Nature / Mixture of good and evil / Evil / Good
In applying this to prayers in antiquity, one must distinguish the values of those praying from those attributed to the Deity, the object of prayer. 1. Activity Whereas the ancients themselves may be described as valuing "being," God is almost always described as "doing," whether creating and maintaining the universe or rising up to fight Israel's enemies (Acts 4:24-30).(27) All prayers of petition, then, ask God to "do something," that is, "be active" on behalf of the pray-er. 2. Relationships among mortals are both collateral and hierarchical; for, in addition to the vertical relationships people find themselves in (father/son; landlord/peasant; sovereign/subject), they also enjoy collateral relationships with friends and relatives. God, however, is generally addressed in terms of some hierarchical relationship, "Father,"(28) "Lord," "God of Israel," "Sovereign," and the like. The sense of social distance separating a pray-er and God is never made clearer than in prayers of petition, where the pray-ers confess that God alone controls the universe or at least their enemies, or the rain in their valley. Therefore God will be addressed and treated like the various patrons or sovereigns in the life of the pray-er. 3. In regards to time, ancient Judeans both appealed to the past (Israel's legal and wisdom traditions embodied in Scripture) and focused on the present. In contrast, the God of Israel enjoys an eternity which temporally reaches back and forward without limit: It is God alone "who is, who was, and who will be."(29) Unlike mortals who come into being and inevitably die, God -- the immortal one -- has no beginning and no end. Yet pray-ers ask God to act in the present; or, they call upon God to remember his actions "as of old" and to perform them now again. The future, however, belongs to God alone and it is sacrilegious to try and discover it; God alone knows the future, and those to whom it pleases God to disclosed it.(30) 4. Nature Native Americans are reputed to live in harmony with nature, whereas mainstream Americans consider themselves superior to it. Hence they dam rivers, tunnel under the seas, and make deserts bloom. But the ancients thought of themselves as subject to nature: storms wreck their vessels,(31) droughts cause terrible famines,(32) and the like. Yet God the all powerful rules sky, sea and earth; God can send rain as well as rescue people from shipwreck. God, who is both pantocrator and sovereign of the universe, can providentially aid pray-ers on land or at sea.(33) 5. Human nature. Whereas Euro-Americans are socialized to view their children as innocent and good, Sirach advises the wise of ancient Israel in regard to their sons, "Beat his ribs."(34) Yet certain strains of Christianity likewise believe that children are born in sin, and so must be treated accordingly. Ancient Israel in general seemed to consider human nature as a mixture of good and evil. In petitionary prayer, pray-ers regularly describe their oppressors as evil; yet pray-ers themselves on occasion seek forgiveness and reconciliation and so confess their own sinfulness, error or failure. Human nature for the ancients was, at best, a mixture of good and evil.
From this value map, we draw the following conclusions. (1) In both prayers of thanksgiving and petition God is always thought of as "doing" something, either in the past, present or future. Many prayers refer to past actions of God as warrants and proof of what God should presently do. (2) The vertical relationship between God and Israel or the disciples of Jesus expresses the transcendent distance between the Immortal One and His mortal subjects. In contrast, humans characteristically look laterally to their friends and relatives for aid, as well as hierarchically to their covenant Lord and Patron. (3) In terms of time, pray-ers in the Bible regularly looked to the past to clarify the present: i.e., reflection on God's faithfulness in the covenants with Abraham and David, the endurance of their ancestral law and the ancient system of worship as evidence of what God has done and should continue doing.(35) Yet if the roots of hope exist back in God's past actions, pray-ers expect God's assistance today ( "Give us this day our today bread," Matt 6:11; Luke 11:3 ) or stand under God's judgment today( "Today if you hear his voice. . ." Ps 95:7-11/Heb 3:7-4:13). They might also rejoice today that ancient prophecies or promises are now fulfilled (Luke 2:28; 4:21).(36) (4) All prayers of praise and petition celebrate God's omnipotence over nature, that is, divine power to make the rains fall (or not fall), to multiply food and to still storms. (5) With the story of Adam's sin, Israelites and early Christians thought of human nature as evil or a mixture of good and evil. In Romans Paul declared that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" (Rom 3:22-23).(37) But God of course is holy beyond measure, who forgives humans their sins and sends Jesus as their savior. God will also transform corruptible humankind and make them incorruptible, and have their mortality changed to immortality so that they may worthily enter the presence of God (1 Cor 15:53-54).
4.0 Honor and Shame and Prayer
To my knowledge, Bruce Malina pioneered New Testament research on the importance of honor and shame for biblical interpretation.(38) His synthesis of various field studies from countries bordering on the Mediterranean led him to develop a model of this "pivotal value." Honor refers to the claim of worth, value and respect which must be publicly acknowledged.(39) The claim may be made either by the person demanding respect or by others on his behalf, usually family or fictive-kin (co-citizens, co-members of the army); and the acknowledgment must always be public approval of this claim. The ancients used many different verbs to express this acknowledgment, such as to glorify, praise, acclaim, exalt, magnify, celebrate, make famous, declare the name of the Lord, know the Lord, and the like. (40)
4.1 Sources of Honor. A person acquires honor in two basic ways: ascription by another or achievement by the claimant. Most people in antiquity have honor ascribed to them first and foremost by the parents, family and clan into which they were born.(41) If the family belongs to the elite strata and ruling class, the offspring -- primarily the male ones -- are born with high honor manifested in the family's power, wealth, reputation and worth. Conversely offspring born of peasants share in their relative honor, symbolized by modest land holdings or modest flocks. We observe constantly that most people are introduced as the "son of so-and-so" or the "wife of so-and-so." Thus children inherit the social worth or honor of their parents. Adoption into a family provides a comparable process, as would commissioning as ambassador or assignment as procurator. On the other hand, individuals may acquire fame, glory and renown through military, athletic or aesthetic prowess. A city's benefactor may earn the its praise for gift of an aqueduct or theater. Or individuals may engage in the ubiquitous game of challenge and riposte.
4.2 Honor and Virtue. Honor in antiquity dealt with "excellence" of some sort, either the prowesses mentioned above or some socially-sanctioned virtue or uniqueness. The most common virtues meriting respect and honor are courage (military and athletic prowess) and justice. Because of its importance for assessing behavior in prayer, we take a closer look at what the ancients understood by "justice." Since discourse on virtue was taught by ancient rhetoricians, we take the remarks of a Roman writer close in time to the New Testament to illustrate the traditional understanding of justice. This author represents the utterly conventional, ancient discourse stretching back to Aristotle and forward into Byzantine times.