Prayer in the Wilderness Traditions: In Pursuit of Divine Justice

Abstract

The primary focus of this study is on prayer, its form and function in narrative texts. The wilderness traditions have been chosen as the particular setting essentially because they afford different perspectives on prayer~from J and P and Dtr-within the same context, thus providing different angles of vision on the same subject. Two preliminary qualifications are in order, one major, a second, relatively minor. First, how does one define prayer? By what essential characteristics can it be isolated and identified as distinct from other forms of human communication with the deity, such as oaths or vows or even simple dialogue? It must be acknowledged at the outset that the question is more easily articulated than answered. Primarily this is because exploration of this subject plunges the investigator into a kind of Catch-22 situation. On the one hand the prayers of the Old Testament cannot be isolated without some presuppositions about their distinctive features or characteristics. One must be looking for something which, defined by certain qualities, can be recognized as prayer. Thus, at the front end of the investigation there must be some working definition that will allow texts to be isolated and examined. On the other hand, as more texts are brought into the discussion, the working definition by which these texts have been isolated requires modification. When a variety of texts are available for comparison, then, and only then, can the boundaries of definition be drawn with some agreed upon precision. In the meanwhile the investigator must indeed proceed with caution. But without risking the investigation the research cannot proceed. With respect to the issue at hand, there is as yet nothing approaching a comprehensive, critical investigation of the form and function of prayer in the Old Testament. Thus the problem of an agreed upon