Did Jesus Call God "Daddy"?

Mark 14 and the Meaning of Abba

In Mark 14, when Jesus went into the garden to pray, he fell to the ground and cried out to God, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will.

The Apostle Paul uses the same address in Romans and Galatians, where as the children of God, we also would cry out to him as Abba. German Lutheran New Testament scholar Joachim Heromias wrote in 1971 that Abba comes from the chatter of a small child.

Why “Daddy” Is a Misleading Translation

So for Jesus to call God Abba is the equivalent of calling him Daddy. In light of this understanding, some teachers and Christian literature, like William Young's The Shack, have referred to God by more intimate names, such as Papa.

Other Christians have contested this concept, saying it's irreverent and disrespectful, and they would be correct. Heromias' understanding of Abba has long since been corrected, but the myth of Jesus calling his father Daddy remains.

Abba is the Aramaic word for father, pater is the Greek word for father. So when we see Abba, Father in the text, what we're seeing is the Aramaic and the Greek words side by side. Jesus called his father Abba because it was the word to use.

That said, there's still something deeply intimate about referring to God as our Father. When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, Our Father who art in heaven, it was unheard of up to that time to call God Father.

Sonship Through Christ and Reverent Worship

It is through Christ that we inherit sonship and get to call God our Father, our all-loving provider, just as he did. But there's no need to have to contort words to meet our sensibilities. God the Father is not our cosmic dad.

He is our God, deserving of reverence and our worship when we understand the text.