"Eli eli" at the ninth hour is a prayer? (Mark 15:34)

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Stefan Kristensen
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"Eli eli" at the ninth hour is a prayer? (Mark 15:34)

Post by Stefan Kristensen »

In Mark 15 and the other two synoptics, after three hours of hanging on the cross and being mocked comes three hours of darkness and then Jesus dies, at the ninth hour, i.e. at three o'clock. And Jesus' death comes upon his loud cry on the cross which is a citation of Ps 22:1: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!"

In Acts 3:1 we are told that "the ninth hour" is "the hour of prayer": "One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o’clock in the afternoon."

Does anyone know if that was a custom at the time? That the ninth hour was the hour for prayer for the Jews (or Christians)? Were there three daily prayers or something like that?

In Heb 5:7 it i said that: "In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission." Perhaps this is a reference to Jesus' citation of Ps 22:1 on the cross as related in the synoptics. Or perhaps (also) his prayer in Gethsemane. Note that Heb 5:7 here says that Jesus was saved from death, which is ironic because Jesus in fact died. If this verse is referring to Jesus' death, then he was saved from death through death. Being saved "from death", then, must surely mean eternal death, or the 'second death', i.e. the opposite of eternal life.



That Jesus' citation of Ps 22:1 could be understood as a prayer is not far fetched, considering that the psalm (Ps 22) belongs to a genre of psalms in which faithful prayers to God and subsequent salvation plays a central role. These psalms can be understood in themselves as prayers, exactly like Jonah's prayer from "Hades". This psalm, Ps 22, in its entirety is about God who saves fra mortal danger at the petition of the sufferer, and it's pretty clear that Mark has the whole psalm in mind throughout his crucifixion scene.

Jesus' cry, "why have you forsaken me", is often understood by Christians as showing, that even Jesus himself experienced a crisis of faith, and that God had abandoned him. And this give even more force to the resurrection, because this promises salvation to the Christians even as they experience a crisis of faith.

But is that the whole story? If this is all Mark wanted to show he could have had Jesus say a number of things, but he makes him cite Ps 22:1. I think it's clear that he wants to place Jesus as the sufferer who speaks in Ps 22 and who is saved because of his prayer. In the psalm the sufferer who has now been saved (v.22 LXX: "from the horns of the unicorns"!) praises God, because "when I cried out (κραζω) he heard me". And this is what Jesus does: "At three o’clock Jesus cried out (κραζω) with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

And clearly God also hears Jesus’ cry on the cross, because it is subsequent to this cry that God kills Jesus off in an act of mercy recognized by the centurion as divine favor. But I don’t think the first verse in Ps 22 (”why have you forsaken me”) is to be understood as a crisis of faith. On the contrary, this kind of psalm is about faithfulness and prayer. So it takes as its point of departure the despair of the sufferer, but the point is that the sufferer is faithful, and therefore God rescues him from death (beautifully phrased in the LXX v.22: ”from the horns of the unicorns!”) upon his faithful prayer.

So I don’t think we are to understand that Jesus has momentarily lost his faith, only that he doesn’t understand the counsels of God, and there’s a big difference. Because it is precisely from faith that Jesus is in fact saved, just as in the psalm and all the other psalms of the same genre. He is not saved from death, though, as in the original meaning of Ps 22, but ironically Jesus is saved by death.

In this way his cry, ”why have you forsaken me”, is to be understood within the frame of faithfulness to God. Even prayer, is we read the whole psalm into it. And that would go well with the idea that Jesus dies in the ninth hour, which is the hour of prayer.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: "Eli eli" at the ninth hour is a prayer? (Mark 15:34)

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Stefan Kristensen wrote: Wed Oct 31, 2018 5:38 amIn Mark 15 and the other two synoptics, after three hours of hanging on the cross and being mocked comes three hours of darkness and then Jesus dies, at the ninth hour, i.e. at three o'clock. And Jesus' death comes upon his loud cry on the cross which is a citation of Ps 22:1: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!"

In Acts 3:1 we are told that "the ninth hour" is "the hour of prayer": "One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o’clock in the afternoon."

Does anyone know if that was a custom at the time? That the ninth hour was the hour for prayer for the Jews (or Christians)? Were there three daily prayers or something like that?
At some point, yes, there were three tefilloth (תְּפִלּוֹת = "prayers") per day. Daniel was said to have prayed thrice per day (Daniel 6.10, 13). Refer also to this Psalm:

Psalm 55.10: Evening and morning and at noon, I will complain and murmur, and He will hear my voice.

I would guess that the timing of the morning and afternoon prayers probably had something to do with the daily sacrifices:

Josephus, Antiquities 14.4.3 64-68: 64 Ὃ δὴ καὶ Ῥωμαῖοι συνιδόντες κατ᾽ ἐκείνας τὰς ἡμέρας, ἃ δὴ σάββατα καλοῦμεν, οὔτ᾽ ἔβαλλον τοὺς Ἰουδαίους οὔτε εἰς χεῖρας αὐτοῖς ὑπήντων, χοῦν δὲ καὶ πύργους ἀνίστασαν καὶ τὰ μηχανήματα προσῆγον, ὥστ᾽ αὐτοῖς εἰς τὴν ἐπιοῦσαν ἐνεργὰ ταῦτ᾽ εἶναι. 65 μάθοι δ᾽ ἄν τις ἐντεῦθεν τὴν ὑπερβολὴν ἧς ἔχομεν περὶ τὸν θεὸν εὐσεβείας καὶ τὴν φυλακὴν τῶν νόμων, μηδὲν ὑπὸ τῆς πολιορκίας διὰ φόβον ἐμποδιζομένων πρὸς τὰς ἱερουργίας, ἀλλὰ δὶς τῆς ἡμέρας πρωΐ τε καὶ περὶ ἐνάτην ὥραν ἱερουργούντων ἐπὶ τοῦ βωμοῦ, καὶ μηδὲ εἴ τι περὶ τὰς προσβολὰς δύσκολον εἴη τὰς θυσίας παυόντων. 66 καὶ γὰρ ἁλούσης τῆς πόλεως περὶ τρίτον μῆνα τῇ τῆς νηστείας ἡμέρᾳ κατὰ ἐνάτην καὶ ἑβδομηκοστὴν καὶ ἑκατοστὴν ὀλυμπιάδα ὑπατευόντων Γαΐου Ἀντωνίου καὶ Μάρκου Τυλλίου Κικέρωνος οἱ πολέμιοι μὲν εἰσπεσόντες ἔσφαττον τοὺς ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ, 67 οἱ δὲ πρὸς ταῖς θυσίαις οὐδὲν ἧττον ἱερουργοῦντες διετέλουν, οὔτε ὑπὸ τοῦ φόβου τοῦ περὶ τῆς ψυχῆς οὔθ᾽ ὑπὸ τοῦ πλήθους τῶν ἤδη φονευομένων ἀναγκασθέντες ἀποδρᾶναι πᾶν θ᾽ ὅ τι δέοι παθεῖν τοῦτο παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς ὑπομεῖναι τοῖς βωμοῖς κρεῖττον εἶναι νομίζοντες ἢ παρελθεῖν τι τῶν νομίμων. 68 ὅτι δὲ οὐ λόγος ταῦτα μόνον ἐστὶν ἐγκώμιον ψευδοῦς εὐσεβείας ἐμφανίζων, ἀλλ᾽ ἀλήθεια, μαρτυροῦσι πάντες οἱ τὰς κατὰ Πομπήιον πράξεις ἀναγράψαντες, ἐν οἷς καὶ Στράβων καὶ Νικόλαος καὶ πρὸς αὐτοῖς Τίτος Λίβιος ὁ τῆς Ῥωμαϊκῆς ἱστορίας συγγραφεύς. / 64 Which thing when the Romans understood, on those days which we call Sabbaths they threw nothing at the Jews, nor came to any pitched battle with them; but raised up their earthen banks, and brought their engines into such forwardness, that they might do execution the next day. 65 And any one may hence learn how very great piety we exercise towards God, and the observance of his laws, since the priests were not at all hindered from their sacred ministrations by their fear during this siege, but did still twice a day, in the morning and about the ninth hour, offer their sacrifices on the altar; nor did they omit those sacrifices, if any melancholy accident happened by the stones that were thrown among them; 66 for although the city was taken on the third month, on the day of the fast, upon the hundred and seventy-ninth Olympiad, when Caius Antonius and Marcus Tullius Cicero were consuls, and the enemy then fell upon them, and cut the throats of those that were in the temple; 67 yet could not those that offered the sacrifices be compelled to run away, neither by the fear they were in of their own lives, nor by the number that were already slain, as thinking it better to suffer whatever came upon them, at their very altars, than to omit any thing that their laws required of them. 68 And that this is not a mere brag, or an encomium to manifest a degree of our piety that was false, but is the real truth, I appeal to those that have written of the acts of Pompey; and, among them, to Strabo and Nicolaus [of Damascus]; and besides these two, Titus Livius, the writer of the Roman History, who will bear witness to this thing.

The daily prayers, indeed, were intended to replace the daily sacrifices after the fall of Jerusalem:

Talmud, Berachoth 26b: It has been stated: R. Jose son of R. Hanina said: The Tefillahs were instituted by the Patriarchs. R. Joshua b. Levi says: The Tefillahs were instituted to replace the daily sacrifices. It has been taught in accordance with R. Jose b. Hanina, and it has been taught in accordance with R. Joshua b. Levi. It has been taught in accordance with R. Jose b. Hanina: Abraham instituted the morning Tefillah, as it says, And Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he had stood, and ‘standing’ means only prayer, as it says, Then stood up Phineas and prayed. Isaac instituted the afternoon Tefillah, as it says, And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at eventide, and ‘meditation’ means only prayer, as it says, A prayer of the afflicted when he fainteth and poureth out his meditation before the Lord. Jacob instituted the evening prayer, as it says, And he lighted [wa-yifga’] upon the place, and ‘pegi'ah’ means only prayer, as it says, Therefore pray not thou for this people neither lift up prayer nor cry for them, neither make intercession to [tifga’] Me.

Clement of Alexandria evidently witnesses the carryover of these prayers into Christian devotion, though the timing may have changed:

From Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies 7.7: Now, if some assign definite hours for prayer — as, for example, the third, and sixth, and ninth — yet the Gnostic prays throughout his whole life, endeavoring by prayer to have fellowship with God. And, briefly, having reached to this, he leaves behind him all that is of no service, as having now received the perfection of the man that acts by love. But the distribution of the hours into a threefold division, honored with as many prayers, those are acquainted with, who know the blessed triad of the holy abodes.

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Stefan Kristensen
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Re: "Eli eli" at the ninth hour is a prayer? (Mark 15:34)

Post by Stefan Kristensen »

Excellent, thank you very much. Do you know of any interpretations of Jesus' cry on the cross as a prayer? Could all three hours mentioned in Mark 15, the third, the sixth and the ninth have any connection with the liturgical practise of prayer, you think?
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Re: "Eli eli" at the ninth hour is a prayer? (Mark 15:34)

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Going with the allusion that Jesus is the Temple, of course
The metric to judge if one is a good exegete: the way he/she deals with Barabbas.

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Re: "Eli eli" at the ninth hour is a prayer? (Mark 15:34)

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perseusomega9 wrote: Wed Oct 31, 2018 7:46 am Going with the allusion that Jesus is the Temple, of course
I agree. The temple is the place where God has placed his authority, his name, the place in which prayers are heard. Whether it's the old or the new temple.
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Re: "Eli eli" at the ninth hour is a prayer? (Mark 15:34)

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Stefan Kristensen wrote: Wed Oct 31, 2018 6:26 am Excellent, thank you very much. Do you know of any interpretations of Jesus' cry on the cross as a prayer? Could all three hours mentioned in Mark 15, the third, the sixth and the ninth have any connection with the liturgical practise of prayer, you think?
Well, as you may recall, I am partial to Goodacre's surmise that the passion of Jesus may be liturgical in origin, the threefold mention of (evenly spaced) hours being one clue in this direction. But you have already stated that you cannot subscribe to such a view.

From my perspective, then, I am already predisposed to view Jesus' cry from the cross as a prayer (though I am not currently aware of an interpretation that views it as that apart from the liturgical interpretation). I am predisposed, in fact, to view the entirety of the passion scene in Mark as something drawn from liturgy, including prayer. The single best reason for integrating the narrative with the three hours of prayer (as described by Clement of Alexandria, for example), to my mind, would be either to reflect and facilitate a practice of reflecting upon different sequential parts of Jesus' passion throughout the daily prayers or to inaugurate precisely just that sort of practice. The noonday darkness of Amos 8.9 is not enough by itself to explain all three hours; at best it explains why Christians might have shifted the three Jewish hours of prayer from morning, afternoon, and evening to morning, noon, and afternoon.
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Re: "Eli eli" at the ninth hour is a prayer? (Mark 15:34)

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I think he/you is/are correct.
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Re: "Eli eli" at the ninth hour is a prayer? (Mark 15:34)

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SSee Hippolytus Apostolic Tradition for the prayers of the hours.
5If you are at home, pray at the third hour and praise God. If you are elsewhere at that time, pray in your heart to God. 6For in this hour Christ was seen nailed to the wood. And thus in the Old Testament the Law instructed that the shewbread be offered at the third hour as a symbol of the Body and Blood of Christ. And the sacrifice of the irrationalb lamb was a symbol of the perfect Lamb. For Christ is the Shepherd, and he is also the bread which descended from heaven.

7Pray also at the sixth hour. Because when Christ was attached to the wood of the cross, the daylight ceased and became darkness. Thus you should pray a powerful prayer at this hour, imitating the cry of him who prayed and all creation was made dark for the unbelieving Jews.

8Pray also at the ninth hour a great prayer with great praise, imitating the souls of the righteous who do not lie, who glorify God who remembered his saints and sent his Word to them to enlighten them. 9For in that hour Christ was pierced in his side, pouring out water and blood, and the rest of the time of the day, he gave light until evening. This way he made the dawn of another day at the beginning of his sleep, fulfilling the type of his resurrection.
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Re: "Eli eli" at the ninth hour is a prayer? (Mark 15:34)

Post by Secret Alias »

Which makes the change in Mark to third hour seem deliberately depreciative. Deliberate sabotage. An interesting question for we 'super gospel' proponents would be to see if any one gospel gets you to this formula or do you need all four.
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Re: "Eli eli" at the ninth hour is a prayer? (Mark 15:34)

Post by Stefan Kristensen »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Wed Oct 31, 2018 8:00 am
Stefan Kristensen wrote: Wed Oct 31, 2018 6:26 am Excellent, thank you very much. Do you know of any interpretations of Jesus' cry on the cross as a prayer? Could all three hours mentioned in Mark 15, the third, the sixth and the ninth have any connection with the liturgical practise of prayer, you think?
Well, as you may recall, I am partial to Goodacre's surmise that the passion of Jesus may be liturgical in origin, the threefold mention of (evenly spaced) hours being one clue in this direction. But you have already stated that you cannot subscribe to such a view.

From my perspective, then, I am already predisposed to view Jesus' cry from the cross as a prayer (though I am not currently aware of an interpretation that views it as that apart from the liturgical interpretation). I am predisposed, in fact, to view the entirety of the passion scene in Mark as something drawn from liturgy, including prayer. The single best reason for integrating the narrative with the three hours of prayer (as described by Clement of Alexandria, for example), to my mind, would be either to reflect and facilitate a practice of reflecting upon different sequential parts of Jesus' passion throughout the daily prayers or to inaugurate precisely just that sort of practice. The noonday darkness of Amos 8.9 is not enough by itself to explain all three hours; at best it explains why Christians might have shifted the three Jewish hours of prayer from morning, afternoon, and evening to morning, noon, and afternoon.
Ok, thanks. I agree, Amos 8:9 still leaves us lacking an explanation for Mark's whole three-hour interval scheme. Amos says nothing about the darkening beginning at noon lasting precisely for three hours. And there is also, I think, the symbolism involved in the whole of Jesus' passion, from Gethsemane to his death and resurrection, where Jesus' fate is paradigmatic of the eschatological suffering of the Church as described in Mark 13. After the great period of suffering where the gospel is preached to "all the nations", and before the parusia and the great day of the Lord, comes the darkness prophesied by so many prophets including Isaiah, Ezekiel, Joel, Zephaniah and of course Amos, who specifies it at noon.

This still doesn't explain the specific three-hour scheme, but if the darkness symbolizes the darkening which will precede the parusia, then Jesus' death on the cross symbolizes the event of the parusia. This is "the day or the hour concerning which no one knows", not even Jesus himself, 13:32. And on that background his cry of despair and incomprehension, "why have you forsaken me", would mimick that of the suffering Church. And upon that cry, salvation comes.

Because it is intersting to note this about Jesus' death in the ninth hour, which might easily be overlooked, that Mark seems to have thrown into the crucifixion scene a genuine salvation miracle from God. I think I'll make a separate thread about that, cuz there are some questions I'd really like to raise. In connection with that, there is one suggestion that I like concerning the darkness in mark 15, that the three hours are specifically meant to symbolize Jesus' three days in Hades, friday, saturday and sunday. But then we still need an explanation as to why there also had to be specifically three hours before that.


Where can I learn of Goodacre's hypothesis? I havn't seen the arguments for the 'liturgical hypothesis' concerning Mark's passion account, so I can't say that I reject it on my part. But because of my basic view of Mark's text, I'd really like a 'theological' explanation for the three-hour scheme in any case, something that comes from some reading in Scripture for example. I mean Mark's answer to the question: Why did God make things happen that particular way in three-hour intervals on that fateful friday. That's the basic question I believe we have to ask of the text everywhere: According to the author, "Mark", what is it that God wants to tell us here, what he wants us to understand.
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