Addressing the question of Paul’s knowledge of Jesus in Gethsemane, New Testament scholar David Wenham wrote:
Abba in Paul and Gethsemane
What is the evidence that Paul reflected on the Gethsemane story? We know that Paul was aware of a tradition about Jesus being “betrayed” on the night following the last supper (1 Cor 11:23). We do not know what that tradition comprised, but, since his last supper narrative has much in common with the synoptic narratives and since all three synoptic narratives have Jesus betrayed and arrested in Gethsemane, it is a reasonable inference that Paul knew the Gethsemane story. But is there any evidence that he did? Paul’s use of “Abba” in Galatians and Romans may such be evidence:
“When the fullness of time had come, God sent out his Son, born of woman . . . that we might receive adoption [= sonship]. And because you are children [= sons], God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Gal. 4:4-6)
You did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption [= sonship], whereby we cry, “Abba, Father.” (Rom 8:15)
One of the intriguing agreements between these two texts is the use of the verb “cry” in connection with the “Abba” address for God. Paul’s use of this verb (krazō) has usually been explained as a reflection of the intensity of the Christian’s spiritual experience. But it is notable, first, that Paul uses it on both occasions when he refers to “Abba” and nowhere else of Christians praying; this may suggest a traditional link of the verb with use of “Abba.” Second, as we have seen, the only occasion where an Evangelist retains the Aramaic “Abba” is in the Gethsemane story (in Mark), and this may be because “Abba” was especially associated with Gethsemane and because that occasion was especially important in the memory of the church. Third, the Gospels make it clear that Jesus’ praying in Gethsemane was extraordinarily intense. And fourth, although the Gospels do not use “cry” of Jesus’ prayer, Heb 5:7 does use the word (in its noun form) quite probably with Gethsemane in mind: “Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears” (Hebrews does not say what he cried; it does go on to say that “although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered,” conceivably an indirect allusion to his cry of “Abba”).
It seems possible in view of this that the Gethsemane prayer may somehow be in the background when Paul speaks in Gal 4:6 and Rom 8:15 of the Christian “crying ‘Abba’.”
Other evidence of Gethsemane in Romans 8
This has added plausibility in Romans 8, since the reference to the Christian crying “Abba” comes in a passage that speaks of the Christian sharing in the death, sufferings, and resurrection of Christ. Paul has spoken just beforehand of the Christian “put[ting] to death” the deeds of the body and so “living” (v. 13) Then after the “Abba” statement he continues: “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (vs. 16, 17, RSV).
Not only does the Romans 8 context of the “Abba” cry emphasize the cross and the Christian as sharing in the sufferings of Christ (being reminiscent of Gethsemane in that way); it is also very much taken up with the question of the conflict between the Spirit and the flesh. In the immediate context of the “Abba” statement, as we have seen, Paul speaks of “the deeds of the body” and of the “Spirit” (v. 13), and earlier in the chapter he has spoken of the conflict of the “flesh” and “Spirit” and of the “weakness of the flesh” (vv. 3, 5-9). In the previous chapter, especially in 7:14-25, Paul described graphically the weakness of the flesh in a situation of spiritual conflict: “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it” (v. 18).
So in Romans 7 and 8 these all come together:
· the Abba “cry,”
· an emphasis on Jesus’ death and resurrection,
· the thought of the Christian sharing that experience of Jesus,
· the “spirit”/”flesh” terminology, and
· use of that terminology to describe spiritual conflict and weakness.
This all makes for a striking comparison with the Gethsemane story. And we might add:
· an emphasis in both traditions on praying in situations of weakness (Mark 14:38; Rom 8:26).
It seems quite possible, in the light of the evidence, to think that Paul’s reflections in Romans 7 and 8 on the Christian’s spiritual struggles in the time of suffering before the end have, at the very least, been influenced by the Gethsemane story. It is possible that he sees Jesus’ experience as a pattern for the Christian life: The Christian is called to face suffering and physical death with Jesus; the present is a time of temptation and of conflict between flesh and spirit; the way to ace it is, as Jesus did, y prayer through the Spirit to the Abba, Father; the present longing, but also confident expectation, is to share in Jesus’ resurrection and the redemption of the body. (David Wenham, Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity? [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1995], 277-79)
Elsewhere, Wenham provides some other evidence that, at least implicitly, Paul knew of Jesus’ suffering in Gethsemane:
There is a tiny amount of other evidence that could reflect Pauline familiarity with the Gethsemane narrative. The phrase in Phil 2:8 about Jesus being “obedient up to the point of death” is reminiscent of the Gethsemane story both conceptually—the idea of obedience—and verbally, since in Matt 26:38/Mark 14:34 Jesus is said to be grieved “to death.” Another possible echo of Gethsemane is in Col. 4:2, where Paul urges: “Perseverance in prayer, staying awake;” compare Matt 26:41/Mark 14:38: “Stay awake and pray.” This evidence does not add much to the argument. But we can conclude that the case for Paul being influenced by what was probably a well-known (and very striking) story of the Lord is at least reasonable possibility. (Ibid., 280)
