Abba = Daddy? Part II

Well, after doing some "research" (essentially just reading a couple of articles/excerpts), it seems the whole "abba" meaning "daddy" debate could still be unresolved.

The whole thing generally started from someone named Joachim Jeremias who did a study back in the 1960s and found out that "abba" was what young children called their fathers, hence the idea that it means "daddy". Since then, it's been debated. The one my NT professor mentioned in particular was the article "Abba Isn't 'Daddy'", written by James Barr in the Journal of Theological Studies (1988) pp. 28-47. I didn't get into it too much as the read is pretty academic.

Gordon Fee has a response to Barr in his book, God's Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (1994) pp. 408-412. Fee claims that one of Barr's arguments against Jeremias is that not only could "abba" be what young children called their fathers, but also what adult children called their fathers, so the translation should be more "father", not "daddy". Fee says that although that may be true, just because adult children use it, it does not have to be an adult word. Children may have learned it from infancy and used it as adults. Fee also makes responses to Barr in a couple other cases. In the end, Fee's point is that though "abba" does not have a direct meaning as "daddy" in English (no direct meaning exists), there's enough evidence to allow for a translation of "daddy".

I don't claim to know in-depth the argument going on here (I only looked at two sources and don't have enough academic understanding to know the arguments fully), but it seems possible that "abba" could be used as "daddy", which is not what my NT professor thinks. Perhaps someone could check out these sources (and others) and give me a better analysis of the Abba-Daddy debate.