oa [The Jewish background of the Prayer in Aphrahat’s Demonstrationes 23.53-59, De joodse achtergrond van het gebed in Aphrahats Demonstrationes 23.53-59]

The prayer of the Syrian theologian Aphrahat in Demonstratio 23.53-59 displays at least seven analogies with the Jewish prayer Amidah. Textual analysis suggests that there are more instances of Jewish influence in this prayer. In this study it is considered plausible that Jewish prayers from the period after 70 AD or 135 AD, have found a way into the Christian liturgy of Syriac-speaking Persia through Jewish proselytes. It is probable that the borrowing took place in the short period between the outbreak of the persecutions in 340 under the Persian king Shapur II and the writing of Demonstratio 23 in 345.