Tuesday, March 31, 2015

The Lord's Prayer

Jeffrey Gibson was kind enough to send me a prepublication version of his forthcoming book on the Lord's Prayer. For the next few weeks or so, I'll be excerpting from it. Let's start with his translation of the prayer, which he calls (correctly, I think) the Disciples' Prayer. Jeffrey explains his translation over the course of the book.
I render these words, for reasons that will become apparent as we go along, as follows:

Our Father, the one in the heavens,
ensure that we “hallow” your name,
ensure that your reign “comes”
ensure that your will is done on earth just as it is done in heaven;
do indeed give us today our “daily” bread
and forgive us our sins
in the same manner in which we have forgiven
our enemies
and keep us from subjecting you to “testing”
but rescue us from doing evil.—The Disciples’ Prayer, page 28

<idle musing>
I have to admit that I was extremely skeptical of some of this when I started the book. But, 150 pages later (it's a short book), I began to agree with him.

I invite you to follow along and see if he convinces you...
</idle musing>

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