Several times in recent years, I’ve been in public settings where someone prayed, addressing God as “Daddy” or “Daddy God.” The looks on people’s faces after the “amen” indicated that many didn’t know what to make of it. Since then I've come across Christian songs with the same thing. I suspect the practice arises from a misunderstanding of one word in our most recent sermon stomping grounds…Romans 8.
Romans 8:15 reads:
For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
(See also Galatians 4:6 and Mark 14:36.)
It’s quite likely that a number of us have heard that abba is an original language word that a small child would have used as a term of intimate affection for a father. Unlike the more formal “father”, it conveys familiarity, like our modern word, “daddy.” If so, it’s no exegetical leap to understand Paul to be teaching in Romans 8:15 that the Holy Spirit moves us to relate to God in a very intimate fashion. Perhaps, even referring to God in prayer as “Daddy God”?
We should champion the desire to apply the Bible in practical ways…when that application is based on sound interpretation. So, is “daddy” the best way to understand abba? No.
The “daddy” understanding of abba originated from the work of the German New Testament scholar Joachim Jeremias. In the 1960’s, he published a number of works, including The Prayers of Jesus, in which he suggested that the ancient Aramaic word abba (for “father”) and imma (for “mother”) were among the first babbling words a child would learn. He argues that the words were then equivalent to daddy and mommy. Preachers and bible teachers picked this up—it certainly preaches well!—and the idea proliferates in many circles today.
What preachers and bible teachers did not pick up is the virtual tidal wave of scholarship in the following years that overwhelmed Jeremias’ assertion.1 These works collectively present a host of arguments against Jeremias. The most exhaustive of these responses came from Georg Schelbert.2 Schelbert conducted an extensive survey of abba in all known ancient texts. He proved that in no stage of Aramaic literature was abba an exclusive “baby-talk” word or the equivalent of “daddy.” He and other scholars have shown through historical documentation that mature adults used the word abba regularly to address their fathers, meaning the word carried no inherent childlike intimacy with a father. In fact, Aramaic has only the one word for “father”…abba. It communicates neither formality nor familiarity.3 It’s just the word for “father.”
I could find no modern scholars who hold to Jeremias’ view. In fact, the evidence against the view was so overwhelming that Jeremias himself later explicitly rejected the use of “daddy” to translate abba.4 Even still, the theory lives on like something of a hermeneutical urban legend.
But who cares? Why does it matter? Well, as some of these scholars have noted, “daddy” imports a level of familiarity into the text that the word abba doesn’t warrant. Surely, God is our Father, which itself communicates intimacy; but He is at the same time our God. There is room for familiarity, while worship requires also reverence. The understandable objection to the word “daddy” is that it undercuts an appropriate sense of reverence for our God and Father.
This concern is perhaps more easily grasped if we relate it to our relationship with Christ. Jesus is both our King (1 Tim 6:14-15) and our brother (Heb 2:11-12). We can and should hold both simultaneously. Yet, an overemphasis on the familiarity associated with brotherhood will likely diminish the honor deserved by the King. Can you imagine on the last day addressing our King as “bubby Jesus”? No? If that seems inappropriate, I suggest so also is “Daddy God.”
Some may still wonder…if abba doesn’t communicate familiarity or intimacy, why is it used? Well, we don’t know for certain, but we can speculate.5 The word under “father” in each of these texts is Greek. Greek does have the terminology to distinguish between the ideas of “daddy” and “father.” In other words, using Greek alone the NT authors could have conveyed familiarity or formality in the relationship with the Father. On the other hand, you’ll remember that Aramaic has just the one word, abba. Perhaps “Abba Father” communicates that we ought not choose one or the other—familiarity or formality. God is our intimate Father who deserves our worshipful reverence. We ought not regard Him one way at the expense of the other.
For this reason, some have suggested that the best way to render in English the sense of “Abba Father” is to say, “Dear Father.” I agree.
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1 Such works include: James Barr. “Abba Isn’t Daddy,” Journal of Theological Studies (39) 1988. Geza Vermes. Jesus and the World of Judaism, Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 1983. Mary Rose D’Angelo. “Abba and ‘Father’ in Context,” Harvard Theological Review (85) 1992. Willem A. VanGemeren. “Abba In The Old Testament?” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 31/4, December 1988.
2 Georg Schelbert. Abba Vater. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011.
3 Paul Y. Hoskisson. “Why is ABBA in the New Testament?” Religious Educator 6/1, 2005.
4 Joachim Jeremias. New Testament Theology. SCM Press, 2012.
5 This is the suggestion promoted by Hoskisson in “Why is Abba in the NT?”
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