A little while ago I had a curious discussion with someone online. Commenting on one of the events for Remembrance, I noted that the prayer said by the Christian leader took the form of a general invocation of a deity, but wasn’t actually a Christian prayer. ‘What do you mean by a Christian prayer?’ came the response. ‘One that is Trinitarian’ I replied. ‘Well, in that case, the Lord’s Prayer isn’t a Christian prayer’.
I was rather struck by that, not just as I hadn’t considered it, but also because it explains something about how the Lord’s Prayer is commonly used. The Ten Commandments have been commonly thought of as a general set of rules for life that anyone can follow. In their location in Exodus 20 they begin with the explicit introduction that ‘I am the Lord you God who brought you out of Egypt, out of slavery’—yet the Commandments are separated off as if this story and context did not matter, and detached from the story of God’s dealings with his people Israel. In a similar way, the Lord’s Prayer is often treated as a general kind of prayer that anyone can say. It is that assumption which made the controversy, several years ago, about showing the prayer recited in cinemas rather odd. Even Richard Dawkins thought there could be little objection! The two belong together, not least because it was in the past traditional in many churches to have the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer displayed on either side of the Communion table at the east end of the church building.
But this raises the question even more sharply:in what sense is the Lord’s Prayer Christian? Is it a prayer that assumes or requires that the person saying it is a Christian? Is it Trinitarian—that is, does it bear the hallmarks of that thing which distinguishes Christian belief from all others? Kevin Giles, commenting on the historically orthodox understanding of the Trinity, comments on the ordering within the Trinity in the following terms:
Although the three divine persons are the one God, working inseparably with one will, their life is ordered. Both in eternity and in the world of space and time, how they relate to each other and how they operate follow a consistent pattern that is unchanging and irreversible. This order in divine life is seen in many ways. For example, there is a processional order: the Father begets the Son and breathes out the Spirit in eternity and sends them both into the world in time. ere is a numerical order: the Father may be thought of as the first person of the Trinity, the Son the second, and the Spirit the third. And there is order in how God comes to us and we to him: the Father comes to us through the Son in the Spirit, and we come to the Father through the Son in the Spirit. This order in divine life and operations, it needs to be stressed, does not envisage any sub-ordering in divine life. Ranking or hierarchically ordering the three divine persons in being or power introduces the Arian error.
I think this helpfully identifies the nature of Christian prayer, which is to the Father, through the Son, and in or by the Spirit. Mike Higton, in his explanation of the Trinity in words of one syllable, puts it slightly differently:
So there is God, the one to whom we pray, the one to whom we look, to whom we call out, the one who made the world and who loves all that has been made. And then there is God by our side, God once more the one with whom we pray; God in the life of this man who shares our life, this man who lives the life of God by our side, and who pours out his life in love for us. And then there is God in our hearts, God in our guts, God one more time, the stream in which we dip our toes, the stream in which we long to swim, the stream which filled the Son and can fill us too, and bear us in love back to our source.
Mike is here constrained in his language by the commitment to use only words of one syllable. And he is not suggesting any kind of modalism here; rather, these are the three realities of who God is for the Christian believer. This is what it means for prayer to be Trinitarian, and it is why some kind of Trinitarian formula is often included in Christian prayers—and at the very least a mention that we pray in the name of Jesus, and to the Father.
So in what sense is the Lord’s Prayer Trinitarian? Well, it is clearly addressed to God as Father, and the prayer is presented in the gospels as being taught by Jesus. But the question remains: where is the Spirit?
The first thing to note is the place of the prayer in Luke’s gospel. Matthew presents the prayer (Matt 6.9–13) in the context of Jesus’ teaching in the so-called Sermon on the Mount, and particularly in the context of Jesus’ teaching about the devotional practices of giving, prayer and fasting. It is clear (for the whole ‘Sermon’) that Matthew is organising his account of Jesus’ teaching according to thematic links, just as he groups together his parables about the kingdom in Matthew 13 and his teaching about eschatology in Matthew 24–25.
But the context of Luke’s slightly shorter version (Luke 11.2–3) is quite different. First, it actually springs from the example of Jesus’ own prayer, which his disciples observe, and then ask him to teach them to pray in the way he does (which raises the interesting question about the petitions for forgiveness of sins and resistance to temptation). But, secondly, Jesus then immediately follows the prayer by teaching about asking for the gift of the Spirit. There appears to be the implicit assumption that this is not a prayer you can prayer without the Spirit’s help.
What of the specific wording of the prayer? Can we find the Spirit there?
Our Father in heaven. Although addressing God as father was not unknown in first century Judaism, all the evidence suggests that it was Jesus’ distinctive and striking form of address to God, so that we have in Mark’s gospel the Aramaic term ‘Abba’ that Jesus actually used in Gethsemane (Mark 14.36). Moreover, Paul is clear that a key work of the Spirit is to grant us the same relationship with God after the pattern of Jesus:
Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” (Gal 4.6)
The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” (Rom 8.15)
Addressing God as father is something the Spirit works in us and, just as Paul says quite clearly ‘No-one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit’ (1 Cor 12.3), we might add by inference ‘No-one can call God “Father” except by the same Spirit’.
May your name be-known-as-holy. The Spirit is described as ‘Holy’ throughout the gospels, Paul, Hebrews and 1 Peter. A large part of the work of the Spirit in us is sanctification—make us more and more holy as God is holy—so that Paul addresses those to whom he writes as ‘saints’, holy ones. So we find the language of the people of God being ‘sanctified’ all through the letters (for example, 1 Cor 1.2, 6.11, 1 Thess 5.23, Heb 10.10) but there is also one occurrence which echoes the language here of God being sanctified: ‘In your hearts sanctify Jesus as Lord’ (1 Peter 3.15).
May your kingdom come. In the ministry of Jesus and in the growth of the church, under the leadership of the apostles in Acts, the coming of the kingdom and the ministry of the Spirit are intertwined.
If it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. (Matt 2.28)
It is rather poignant that, when the disciples in Act 1 ask about the kingdom of God in terms of Israel nationalism, Jesus’ response is offered in terms of their testimony in the power of the Spirit:
You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. (Acts 1.8)
The reason for this is that, both in Jewish expectation and in the narrative of the New Testament, the kingdom of God is brought to us by the one who has been anointed (the christos) by his Spirit. There is such a close relationship between these two that, though the kingdom is most often described as the ‘kingdom of God’ or (mostly in Matthew) the ‘kingdom of heaven’, it is occasionally described as ‘the kingdom of Christ’ (2 Peter 1.11, and implied in 2 Tim 4.1, ‘his kingdom’) or the kingdom of both Christ and God (Eph 5.5, Rev 11.15). In other places, the kingdom of God is equated with the ‘teaching about Jesus Christos‘ (Acts 28.31) or the ‘authority of the Christos‘ (Rev 12.10).
May your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Although ‘heaven’ and ‘earth’ refer in spatial terms to the realm of God’s presence, and the creation which has become estranged from him, in the New Testament they also have a temporal reference, in that the ‘age to come’ will involve heaven coming down to earth, depicted in Revelation 21 as the New Jerusalem coming to earth from God. Paul talks of the Spirit as the ‘deposit’, the first downpayment of that which is to come (2 Cor 1.22), so we have a foretaste now of the heavenly realm as we ‘walk in step with the Spirit’ (Gal 5.25). In other words, where the Spirit is Lord (2 Cor 3.17) there is a little oasis of ‘heaven’ on earth.
It is worth noting here that the structure of the prayer is quite different from how it is prayer in most English versions. In English, we tend to treat the opening solution and the first intention together as a form of address:
Our-Father-in-heaven-hallowed-be-your-name
after which we add the other two intentions. But the structure in Matthew 6.9–10 says something quite different:
Πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς·
ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου·
ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου·
γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά σου
Following the appellation ‘Our Father in heaven’ we then have three intentions, each of four words, in exact parallel with each other in their verbal structure. In other words, we cannot separate the hallowing of God’s name from the coming of his kingdom and the doing of his will. The second and third can never refer to mere social change, separate from the life of discipleship, but must involve the honouring of God as holy.
Give us today our daily bread. The term here translated ‘daily’ (ἐπιούσιος) is unusual, occurring only here in the New Testament (in Matt 6.11 and Luke 11.3). It has the sense of ‘bread of the day to come’, so is rendered by some as ‘bread of the morrow’—that is, bread of the heavenly age, gifted to us in the present that we might do the works of the kingdom. This, again, ties in with the gift of the Spirit, and particularly in Luke, Jesus’ teaching and ministry is exercised ‘in the power of the Spirit’ (Luke 4.14), even after his resurrection (Acts 1.2).
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. In Gal 5, Paul contrasts the impulses of the sinful human nature (‘flesh’) with the fruit of Spirit. In Acts 2.38, Peter links repentance, the forgiveness of sins and receiving the gift of the Spirit, and these are assumed links not only in John’s baptism of Jesus and the coming down of the Spirit (though in Jesus’ case this is not a ‘baptism for forgiveness of sins’) but also in the incident in Acts 8:14-17 when the Samaritans have been baptised but (oddly) not yet received the Spirit. In relation to forgiving others, Paul’s central meditation on love as the heart of true S/spirituality in 1 Cor 13 includes the qualities of ‘patience’ and ‘not keeping a record of wrongs’ (1 Cor 13.5).
When we receive new life in the Spirit, we are stepping into a life of forgiveness—that which we have received from God, and which we live our in our relationships with others.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. In all three synoptic accounts, the Spirit is integral to Jesus’ temptations in the desert and his resisting them. In Mark 1.12, the Spirit ‘throws’ or drives Jesus into the desert; in Luke’s account, Jesus enters the desert ‘full of the Spirit’ but returns from the experience ‘full of the power of the Holy Spirit‘ (Luke 4.1, 14).
The net result of all this is that, though the Spirit might not be named explicitly within the Prayer, the work of the Spirit is the essential corollary to every aspect of praying the Prayer. Perhaps that explains why so many find it an easy prayer to say, without fully realising the implications. It is only as we encounter God as Spirit that we really understand all that this prayer of Jesus, prayed to the Father, actually involves.
Do you see any other connections? Do please comment!
(Published previously.)
Isn’t the prayer centred on the desert wanderings, Exodus, and Gods provision, daily, with God’s Holy presence, Tabernacling, dwelling in their mist and his leading out of temptation in Egypt, his Holy Spirit, symbolised in the pillar of smoke by day and pillar of fire by night:
https://biblehub.com/study/isaiah/4-6.htm
The Trinity is scripturally in the prayer.
In the Orthodox Church tradition the petition “Thy Kingdom come” is understood as an invitation for the Holy Spirit to dwell in God’s people – the presence of the Holy Spirit being the presence of Christ and the Kingdom of God. The seal of the Holy Spirit on men’s hearts is the pledge and guarantee of the Kingdom of God still to come in all power and glory.
Interestingly, the Orthodox version of the final doxology includes the Holy Spirit, along with the Father and the Son. This reads, “For Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, now and always and forever.”
Good article on the Lord’s Prayer here:
https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/spirituality/prayer-fasting-and-almsgiving/the-lords-prayer
I wonder if “Give us our daily bread” is directly about the Holy Spirit because of what follows the Lord’s Prayer in Luke 11. That little story about getting bread from a neighbour ends with Jesus teaching “how much more will the Father in Heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”
The Greek we usually rendered ‘daily’ is “epioúsion”, which literally translates to “super-essential.” The Greek word for “daily” is “hemeran,” which is used in other places in the Greek texts. It seems the word appears nowhere else in other Ancient Greek texts, and so was coined by the authors of the Gospel. Jesus did not compose the prayer in Greek but in either Aramaic or Hebrew, so the authors of Scripture gave this word a unique Greek translation with a spiritual dimension. Both the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church appreciate the word has multiple layers, including spiritual, temporal, qualitative, and literal, with the word referring to the “Bread of Life,” “the Body of Christ,” or the “medicine of immortality.”
In this petition we therefore pray that God will provide for our basic needs each day, but also for that Bread which is ‘above the essence’, i.e., Christ Himself. It is understood in the spiritual sense to mean the nourishment of our souls by the Word of God, Jesus Christ, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This is the reasons the Lord’s Prayer is recited just before reception of Holy Communion in the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. Thus the prayer for “daily bread” is also a petition for our daily spiritual nourishment through abiding communion with Jesus Christ.
See: https://www.orthodoxprayer.org/Lords_Prayer.html
Thanks HJ for the simple yet expansive profundity; nourishing.
The citation of Greg of N exposes the high view of present day, now, over the unknowledgeable unenlightened earlier centuries- which can be dismissed as ‘received’ to be overridden by today’s superior and/or progressive scholarship- an outworking of what CS Lewis dubbed, ‘chronological snobbery’. Yes we must bash-on keeping up to date so that we wont get left behind and voiceless, irrelevant, on the wrong side of history yet embedded in eternity.
Geoff, I can see that you are being sarcastic, but I am not sure about the reason for it.
As a child, I always thought, because in the church we said, “As our father has taught us to say…” before the Lord’s Prayer, that Jesus was inviting his followers to pray a known Jewish prayer with him, one that I assumed anyone could say. Apparently that isn’t so, but that might be considered a “received” impression, and it certainly wan’t the result of modern scholarship.
Cynthia
‘Jesus did not compose the prayer in Greek but in either Aramaic or Hebrew, so the authors of Scripture gave this word a unique Greek translation with a spiritual dimension.’
I don’t agree. I think the structure, rhythm, and poetry of the prayer is prima facie evidence that Jesus taught in Greek. Why wouldn’t he?
I can accept that, Ian. Initially, I included the qualifier possibly. If anything it strengthens the points being made.
The Lords Prayer is fairly obviously a shortened variant of the Jewish prayer known as the Amidah, which is believed to date back to the Second Temple period and would have been in Hebrew, as it is today.
The translation of the Amidah that I looked up certainly has some similarities but to say the LP is “obviously a shortened variant” seems to overpress the case. It might be odd if they had nothing common.
“Pardon us, our Father, for we have sinned; forgive us, our King, for we have transgressed; for You are a good and forgiving G‑d. Blessed are You L-rd, gracious One who pardons abundantly. O behold our affliction and wage our battle; redeem us speedily for the sake of Your Name, for You G‑d are the mighty redeemer.”
That’s the moderann Amidah…
Both prayers certainly include praise, petition, and a desire for God’s will to be done. Some Rabbis do claim the Lord’s Prayer is a Jewish prayer and one would certainly pass as a Jewish prayer with any Jew.
Jesus was Jewish and came to fulfil the Mosaic Law, so it would be surprising if they were not some similarities with Jewish prayer. For me, the Lord’s Prayer is distinctly different in tone and meaning to the Amidah. It certainly doesn’t include petitions for the ingathering of exiled Jews, for the destruction of Israel’s enemies, the restoration of Jerusalem, or for the coming and reign of the Messiah as an earthly King from Jerusalem. This demonstrates it is not an abbreviated version of the Amidah and is indeed a Christian prayer. The Lord’s Prayer combines some existing Jewish formulas with Jesus’ unique emphasis on the coming Kingdom and the importance of forgiving others as the prerequisite of being forgiven by God.
There is no record of the Amidah itself existing in the first century.
Indeed, the Amidah wasn’t codified until after the fall of the Second Temple – perhaps because of the growth of Christianity as a distinct cult. The Talmud says that the 18 prayers it contains had fallen into disuse, and that Gamaliel reinstituted them and made it a duty to recite daily. He also directed the inclusion of a paragraph (making 19 petitions) inveighing against informers and heretics (Christians?).
the Amidah… certainly doesn’t include petitions for the ingathering of exiled Jews, for the destruction of Israel’s enemies, the restoration of Jerusalem, or for the coming and reign of the Messiah as an earthly King from Jerusalem. This demonstrates it is not an abbreviated version of the Amidah…
???
That is how Jesus abbreviated it!
For evidence that it dates to the Second Temple period, see
https://academic.oup.com/jts/article-abstract/54/1/25/1668553
Anton, this isn’t a particularly critical issue, but that’s hardly conclusive evidence: “appears to assume that the Temple is still standing, in two lines which are usually not printed.” In any event, wasn’t the Amidah a part of Jewish oral law and, therefore, not printed?
I take it we can agree that Jesus’ “abbreviation” (if that is what it is) was one suited to His New Covenant and for His then exclusively Jewish disciples.
Have you come across ?
“Did Jesus Speak Greek? The Emerging Evidence of Greek Dominance in First-Century Palestine By G. Scott Gleaves”
I literally wrote to the author an hour ago!! Do you have it?
Ian P… I have the Kindle version
Steve Walton put me on the it just after publication I think
A predecessor to Gleaves, maybe now forgotten, was “Jesus, Aramaic and Greek”, by G R Selby (Brynmill Press, 1990). “The likelihood is that Greek was the language of most of the public teaching of Jesus from the very beginning” (– from the front flap of the dustjacket).
I bought a copy of this book partly because Brynmill Press was co-run by the late Ian Robinson, former trustee of the Prayer Book Society, and published some PBS-sponsored material which was somewhat disparaging of ASB 1980 and Common Worship. Eg. the modern translation of the Lord’s Prayer “differs from the correct [BCP] version in changes so petty that only a fool would have thought of making them” (I quote from memory.)
Ian: It can be had via Anna’s Archive (google it!) if you are not too scrupulous about copyright.
Anton, are Ian’s books available on there free of charge?
Dunno Jack, why not check for yourself?
HJ is way too busy reading St Aquinas, Anton!
You can hear the original Greek spoken here: https://translate.google.com/?sl=auto&tl=en&text=%CE%A0%CE%B1%CC%81%CF%84%CE%B5%CF%81%20%CE%B7%CC%94%CE%BC%CF%89%CD%82%CE%BD%20%CE%BF%CC%94%20%CE%B5%CC%93%CE%BD%20%CF%84%CE%BF%CE%B9%CD%82%CF%82%20%CE%BF%CF%85%CC%93%CF%81%CE%B1%CE%BD%CE%BF%CE%B9%CD%82%CF%82%CE%87%CE%B1%CC%94%CE%B3%CE%B9%CE%B1%CF%83%CE%B8%CE%B7%CC%81%CF%84%CF%89%20%CF%84%CE%BF%CC%80%20%CE%BF%CC%93%CC%81%CE%BD%CE%BF%CE%BC%CE%B1%CC%81%20%CF%83%CE%BF%CF%85%CE%87%CE%B5%CC%93%CE%BB%CE%B8%CE%B5%CC%81%CF%84%CF%89%20%CE%B7%CC%94%20%CE%B2%CE%B1%CF%83%CE%B9%CE%BB%CE%B5%CE%B9%CC%81%CE%B1%20%CF%83%CE%BF%CF%85%CE%87%CE%B3%CE%B5%CE%BD%CE%B7%CE%B8%CE%B7%CC%81%CF%84%CF%89%20%CF%84%CE%BF%CC%80%20%CE%B8%CE%B5%CC%81%CE%BB%CE%B7%CE%BC%CE%B1%CC%81%20%CF%83%CE%BF%CF%85&op=translate
Thats interesting. Really demonstrates the threefold structure of the opening petitions.
Thank-you Ian. That was fascinating, and addressed in a most thorough way. Btw, is the In the Steps of Paul and John tour still going ahead, and is their still time to sign up for it? I heard the cruise ship was being sold or scrapped.
Yes it is, and yes there is space! I wasn’t aware we were using a cruise ship as such. Which one have you heard is being scrapped?
One of the distinctive things that makes it a Christian prayer is, as NIV has it, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” (Matt 6:13).
The definite article before ‘evil’, as I understand it, is not disputed in the MSS, but for some reason many English translations leave it out — part of the demythologising agenda of Western Christendom?
Satan is an office rather than an individual in much of the Hebrew Bible and thus is frequently referred to as ‘the Satan’ — thus, to my mind, it seems indisputable that it is Satan that Jesus is referring to in the prayer — and NIV has ‘the evil one’ — adding ‘one’ to make that clear.
PS: I really liked this comment: “the creation which has become estranged from him” — rather than speaking of a “fallen” creation — a concept the Bible never employs. But disappointed with “the impulses of the sinful human nature (‘flesh’)” — NIV has had its fingers burned with that translation, and surely ‘human frailty’ in this context is a better translation of ‘flesh’ (i.e. ‘sarx’).
The Greek word poneirou can be both masculine or neuter, and so ‘deliver us from evil’ and ‘deliver us from the evil one’ (i.e., Satan) are equally valid translations. Like you, I favour the latter rendering.
Similarly, with “lead us not into temptation.” Scripture is clear that “God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one” (James 1:13). The Greek uses the aorist subjunctive of eisphérō, and so the idea being expressed is therefore ‘Do not allow us to be tempted.’ Also, the Greek word peirasmos has broader connotations than the English ‘temptation’, means something like ‘trial.’
This is a petition to be protected from trials and temptations. Remember all the fuss in Catholic circles when, in 2017, Pope Francis proposed changing the translation of the phrase “lead us not into temptation” to “do not let us fall into temptation”? He did so to remove the implication that God might lead people into temptation.
How widely did this translation reach …
“Bring us not to the time of trial “?
The more one contemplates the Lord’s Prayer, the more one appreciates its profundity.
It shows the whole meaning of our lives as Christians. Delivered from the “evil one,” we are saved from temptation. We are merciful to all and receive the forgiveness for our own sins. Being forgiven our sins, by our forgiveness of others, we have all we need for life – our “daily bread.” And being nourished by God, we accomplish His will. and His Kingdom is made present. His name is sanctified and He becomes our Father as we show ourselves to His children.
Simple, profound, beautiful.
… show ourselves to be His children.
I am not convinced by Jack’s claim (common enough in Catholic circles) at 10.25, January 10 above, that ‘epiousion’ means ‘super-essential’. My reasons are these:
1. The sudden appearance of an adjective with a supposedly Platonic ontological significance in Jesus’ speech is completely without parallel. That simply isn’t the way he speaks.
2. While the adjective ‘epiousion’ is not otherwise attested in ancient Greek literature, the noun ‘ ‘he epiousa’ is very common and I have come across it many times in Homer. It means ‘the coming (day)’ and is derived from the fem. present participle from the verb epeimi with the understood substantive hemera (day). So the adjective means ‘for the coming day’, which fits very well with the simplicity and concreteness of the Lord’s Prayer.
The error comes from confusing the verb eimi which, with different stresses, means either ‘I am’ or ‘I will go/come’. Greek grammar books call the second form eimi /ibo to disambiguate.
Can we have that in English, please!
But why would Jesus (if He did indeed speak Greek), or the Gospel authors (if they translated Jesus’ words from Aramaic/Hebrew?) make up an entirely original Greek adjective? Surely there are clear words for “daily” in all these languages. Whatever way you look at it, the word remains mysterious and its understanding depends on one’s frame of reference. To listeners, Jewish and Greek, it might evoke recall of manna in the desert and also the Eucharistic meal.
James, it’s also the understanding of Greek Orthodox Church – and one assumes they understand the Greek language!
The understanding of *some, who have bern influenced by the Platonism of the Greek Fathers; but not the understanding of Greek lexicographers, such as LSJ, which I use. As I said:
1. Jesus does not use Platonic termini technici on ontology in instructing Galilean crowds on prayer. The Lord’s Prayer is very practical and concrete, not philosophical.
2. The noun ‘epiousa’ ‘the coming day’ is very common in Homeric and Hellenistic Greek. It’s everywhere in the last books of The Odyssey, as Odysseus and Telemachus make their plans to fight the suitors on ‘the coming day’.
3. The adjective ‘epiousios’ is not attested outside Matthew and Luke – but that includes in philosophical writings as well. But if LSJ and all the lexicographers are right, it doesn’t mean “daily” but “for the coming day”, iow, “give us each day the food we need to get through each day”.
I can check my Hebrew and Aramaic New Testaments later to see how translators have rendered this.
>>The understanding of *some, who have been influenced by the Platonism of the Greek Fathers<<
James, I wouldn't pull too hard at that thread or you'll find yourself in the camp of those who deny the Trinitarian formulation with claim this too was a Greek philosophical imposition on a true biblical understanding of God.
So onwards ….
According to Luke (11:3) the petition reads: “Tòn artón hemṓn tòn epioúsion dídou hemῖn tò kath`heméran.” Word-for-word: “Give us every day our epioúsion bread.” In Matthew’s version (6:11): “Tòn árton hemõn tòn epioúsion dòs hemῖn sémeron.” Literally: “Give us today our epioúsion bread.” In both, “epioúsios is the adjective that specifies kind of bread this concerns.
If “epioúsion” simply means “daily” in both Luke and Matthew, and the one you propose, we face a clumsy tautological rendering in “daily” – as “today” is already included. This suggests whatever characterises this bread it must be something unparalleled as the adjective describing it is unique.
One author, comments:
[Back to my opening remark – the Church Fathers used Greek concepts to help clarify mysteries in the face of heretical division- they didn’t take on-board their whole philosophical schema. But that’s a whole other debate!]
The author I quoted above, goes on to comment:
One doesn’t have to be Eastern Orthodox or Catholic to accept this understanding of the term “epioúsion”. However it does link it with both the “Bread of Life” discourse in John 6 and the Last Supper where Jesus breaks bread and declares “This is my body,” – whatever understanding you might have of these passages.
The eschatological subtext, which was certainly not made explicit enough in the formulation “cotidianum” (“daily bread”) could no longer be detected. Only now does “daily bread” decline to its surface meaning and become banal bodily nourishment. It would have to be (mis) understood so, and so do the majority of Christian worshipers understand it today.26 But Jerome with his “supersubstantialis” attempted to rescue and secure the original sense of the word.
Apologies for the repetition in last paragraph!
Thank you HJ for clarifying my questions to James in the last ‘discussion’!!! 🙂
‘>>The understanding of *some, who have been influenced by the Platonism of the Greek Fathers<<
James, I wouldn't pull too hard at that thread or you'll find yourself in the camp of those who deny the Trinitarian formulation with claim this too was a Greek philosophical imposition on a true biblical understanding of God.'
James, it seems that HJ also is encouraging you to think a bit more about about Open Theism and immutability. That is, the questions I asked but which you DIDN'T answer.
I have already explained that epiousion doesn’t mean ‘daily’ but ‘for the coming day’. It isn’t redundant but it is hard to render elegantly into English.
Personally, I would like it to mean something like ‘heavenly bread’, as a metaphor for grace. I just don’t see that meaning here, which plenty of adjectives could suggest.
I don’t see anything ‘banal’ about asking God for the physical wherewithal for living.
Nor do I have a problem with using (some) Greek philosophy for making sense of the NT. I just don’t see that kind of language on Jesus’ lips.
James, are you disputing the uniqueness of the neologism “epioúsion”? Surely we have to ask why did Jesus invent a word that has never appeared before? Can you really see Our Lord saying: “give us each day the food we need to get through each day.” Sure, it would allude to daily heavenly bread, manna, but it’s clumsy, tautological, and lacks eloquence. If that was His message, wouldn’t He simply say: “give us the food we need for each day”?
As for “banality,” in Matthew’s introduction Jesus informs us the Father already “knows what you need before you ask him.” Jesus is teaching us is to ask for something other than the “everyday” satisfaction of concrete needs. Later, in Matthew, we hear Jesus saying: “[D]o not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink.” (Mt 6:25)
Consider the allusion to manna, the heavenly bread, of which Moses told the Israelites: “This is the bread that YHWH has given you to eat.” Manna is not able to be stored; it quickly spoils, fall fresh from heaven daily and must be gathered daily. This is a daily, heavenly bread. There’s a connection to the bread of the Last Supper of which Jesus said, “This is my body.” Nor does the bread in “Bread of Life Discourse,” (John 6:22–59), deal with bread that merely fills one up.
Following the miracle of the multiplication of loaves, the bread there satisfied everyone, and Jesus wryly observes: “[Y]ou seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” (John 6:26) He then repeatedly identifies Himself with heavenly bread. The manna of the desert is a bread that saved the Israelites from starvation. The bread that Jesus has in mind must be some other kind of bread – “[M]y Father gives you the true bread from heaven.” Just like manna, He is a bread that “comes down from heaven.” The true heavenly bread is not bread that fills up, and it is with this bread that Jesus identifies Himself.
Besides, as proposed, the rendering outlined here fits the rhythm and pattern of the Lord’s Prayer, building, as it does, on the antecedent petition. As Eckhard Nordhofen comments in the paper linked to, the prayer is:
Paul deepens our thought on being a child of God, united with Him through the Spirit: “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” (Rom 8:15) And: “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Gal 4:6)
This is what the Lord’s Prayer about – and it is indeed Trinitarian.
The feminine dative form of the adjective, ‘epiouse’, is found five times in Acts and each time means ‘on the following (day)’. Acts 7.26; 16.11; 20.15; 21.18; 23.11.
James, there’s no end to this debate with numerous translations proposed!
Your suggestion, linking “epiousion” with the verb “epienai,” (“of tomorrow.”) is preferred by the Lutheran theologian Albert Schweitzer and by a majority of scholars today. This “for the future” leads to a cluster of related translations, including: “bread for tomorrow,” “bread for the future,” and “bread for the coming day.”
So we’d have: “Give us today our bread for tomorrow/the future/the coming day.” But there is an adjectival form for “tomorrow” in ancient Greek, “aurion,” used in Matthew 6:34, and this could have been used instead of our unique word “epiousion.” So what’s the intent behind Jesus/the Gospel authors inventing a new word? What could this “bread for tomorrow” mean – should it be taken literally as meaning necessary to subsist, or spiritually and above our subsistence needs?
It’s interesting to note that the one exception to manna perishing and needing to be collected daily by the Israelites, is the day before the Sabbath. On this day, they could collect manna both for their immediate needs and also for tomorrow/the future/the coming day. And, of course, this is the very “Bread from Heaven” that Jesus identifies Himself with in John 6, His “Word” and “Flesh” that needs to be eaten/chewed … fast forward to the Last Supper.
Full circle …..
Kenneth E Bailey in ‘Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes’ (2008) pp119 -123 discusses how “epiousios” might be understood .
He comes to the conclusion that a key to knowing what this unique Greek word means is to be found in how it was translated into Syriac in the second century when the Old Syriac translation of the Gospels was made. (This Old Syriac translation probably being the oldest and earliest translation of the Greek New Testament into any language: only two copies exist, one of which is in the British Museum).
“Jesus, of course spoke Aramaic, and Syriac is closely related to Aramaic. Syriac Christians, as they translated the Gospels into Syriac, were taking the words of Jesus out of Greek and returning them to a language very close to his native Aramaic. Most words are the same in these two languages and the Old Syriac translation of the Lord’s prayer reads: Lahmo ameno hab lan (lit. “Amen bread today give us”).
Lahmo means “bread”. Ameno has the same root as amen, and in Syriac ameno is an adjective that means “lasting, never -ceasing, never-ending, or perpetual” .
This Old Syriac second-century translation means, therefore, “Give us today the bread that doesn’t run out”.”
I leave others to explore Bailey’s exegesis and application for this phase in the Lord’s Prayer.
Well, I never.
Wonder if Jesus have all this flumoxing of scholars mind when he taught this prayer! Maybe it was just his sense of humour at future generations, rather than for his then disciples rooted in the scriptures (OT at that time). So where in the OT can the Trinity in this prayer: where there does Jesus ground the prayer that it it is necessary for the disciples to understand that differs souch from ehat they may have encountered in extant, set prayers of their times.
BTW, for all the digression over language and temple timing, is it a Trinitarian prayer, then and now; how and why?
The Lord’s Prayer is pre-Christian inasmuch as it does not envisage any mediation necessary for the forgiveness of sins. We need only ask G-d to forgive us as we also forgive, directly. No need for Jesus ‘to be made sin for us, who knew no sin, so that in him we might be made the righteousness of G-d’ (2Cor5.21) And its opening verses sound very much like the Kaddish, almost word for word: Hallowed be God’s great name throughout the world
which He has created according to His will. May He establish His kingdom in your lifetime and during your days…’
It can’t be pre-Christian if it is taught by Christ!
Everything in its right order.
Euclid doesn’t know calculus but calculus depends on Euclid.
It depends on how you understand the overall structure of the prayer and, in particular, just what “bread” Jesus is referring to. For St Paul, it seems it is very much Trinitarian – Rom 8:15; and Gal 4:6.
Nothing about bread in the Pauline quotes, but I agree that being able to call God ‘Father’ is a profoundly Christological privilege (John 1:12-13), and hardly a typical Jewish trope.
Janes, some of the best known Jewish prayers in the siddur call G-d Our Father, like Aveinu, malkeinu
Lorenzo – I know, my question was about how typical this usage was in pre-AD 70 Israel; to which we can add Jesus’s use of ‘Abba’ in prayer which Paul echoes in Romans 8.
How about bread = bread of his Presence.
That is God’s Holy Presence, manifest by Holy Spirit, a presence only possible through forgiveness and the sacrificial system fulfilled in Jesus.
https://biblehub.com/topical/t/the_bread_of_presence.htm
Good one, Geoff.
Perhaps there is a contextual reason for there being no direct mention of the Spirit. The OT understanding of the Spirit was a temporary experience for a purpose, usually prophesying. Understanding Him as a person and an indwelling divine person was not revealed until the Last Supper teaching and the outpouring of Pentecost. The “Lord’s Prayer” was taught to people with an OT understanding in that intermediate period in the Gospels. So, although the Gospel writers knew the Spirit as Trinitarian and indwelling, they recorded the Lord’s teaching in its context which was Him teaching them to pray before His further revelations of the Spirit’s ministry and importance recorded in John. Ditto, no mention of the Son in the “Prayer” and needing to pray in His name.