"And forgive us our trespasses": The Lord's Prayer in English

If, like me, you have always wondered why the form of the Lord's Prayer commonly recited in church services does not correspond to any English Bible translation, you are most likely not an Anglican. Let me explain: Several years ago I decided to start a class on the Sermon on the Mount by reciting the Lord's prayer, but when I went looking for the traditional text in the King James' Version I was surprised to find it isn't (quite) there:

Our Father which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done, in earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

Where the KJV has "debtors," my students and I wanted to say "trespasses"--and the "trespasses" part comes from the 1662 edition of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer (BCP):

Our Father, which art in Heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
They Kingdom come.
Thy will be done in Earth, As it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive them, that trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation; But deliver us from evil:
For thine is the Kingdom, the Power, And the Glory, For ever and ever. Amen.

The earlier 1559 and 1549 editions contain the same text in more archaic spelling--except that they do not include the last line (which is also missing from our oldest and most reliable Greek manuscripts):

BCP 1559
Our Father whiche arte in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kyngdom come.
Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.
Geve us this day our dayly breade.
And forgeve us our trespasses, as we forgeve them that trespasse against us.
And lead us not into temptacion.
But deliver us from evil. Amen.

BCP 1549
Oure father whiche arte in heaven, hallowed by thy name.
Thy kyngdom come.
Thy wyll be done in earth as it is in heaven.
Geve us this daye oure dayly bread.
And forgeve us oure trespasses, as we forgeve them that trespasse agaynst us.
And leade us not into temptacion.
But deliver us from evell. Amen.

Brian Cummings notes that "The full English wording here [in the 1549 edition] follows the text of Matt. 6 in the King's Primer of 1545....The BCP form of the prayer (repeated in all services) effectively standardized usage until the 1960s."* The King's Primer was apparently the work of Thomas Cranmer, but the "trespasses" bit is indebted to William Tyndale, who was burned at the stake for translating the Bible into English, just a few years earlier. Here is the wording of Tyndale's translation (from 1526):

O oure father, which art in heven halowed be thy name.
Let thy kyngdom come.
Thy wyll be fulfilled, as well in erth, as hit ys in heven.
Geve vs this daye oure dayly breade.
And forgeve vs oure treaspases, even as we forgeve them whych treaspas vs.
Lede vs nott in to temptacion.
but delyvre vs from yvell, Amen.**

Sources:
*Page 691 in Brian Cummings, ed. The Book of Common Prayer: The Texts of 1549, 1559, and 1662. Oxford World Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Quotations from the 1562, 1559 and 1549 editions are from pp. 252, 104 and 7, respectively.
**Quoted on page 35 in F.F. Bruce, History of the Bible in English (3rd ed.; New York: Oxford, 1978).

P.S. If you are interested in reconstructions of the Lord's Prayer in Hebrew, I recommend this post.

Common English Bible: My New Favourite Translation

I am very tempted to acquire a printed copy of the Common English Bible to use in the classroom, because--based on my limited sampling--it is fresh, interesting, and seems often to go its own way. Take Acts 11:20, for instance: The CEB is the only translation ever (?) that says that in Antioch, the Christians from Cyprus and Cyrene broke new ground when they "began to proclaim the the good news about the Lord Jesus also to Jews who spoke Greek."

The NLT, by contrast, says they "began preaching to the Gentiles."

Behind these two opposing translations is a choice between the Greek words "Hellenist" and "Hellene." Most Greek manuscripts, including codex Vaticanus, opt for Hellenist. A few manuscripts offer the easier--and therefore less likely--"Hellene" or "Greek." In modern translations,  the NIV, NET, NAB and RSV choose "Greek," no doubt because it fits the context better (v. 19). The NLT equates Greek with Gentile.

The ESV, NRSV adopt "Hellenist", which is preferred by standard modern editions of the Greek New Testament. However, the ESV, at least, explains in a footnote that they take Hellenist to mean "Greek-speaking non-Jews." The problem is that in the two other instances where Luke uses the word, Hellenist clearly denotes Greek-speaking Jews, as the ESV note explains (see Acts 6:1; 9:29).

The CEB may be wrong here, but at least it is consistent--and thought-provoking!

A sarcastic Jesus?

I was reading Mark 14 this morning and noticed that the standard Greek editions (NA27 and UBS4) do not punctuate Jesus' final comment about the disciples' sleep with a question, as the translations I grew up with do.

According to the NIV, NRSV, NET, ESV, NKJV, and NASB, Jesus returns the third time and asks a variation on the question he addressed to Peter in verse 37: "Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners." (NIV)

The sentence could also be a command, however, since in Greek 2nd person plural indicative and imperative verb forms are identical, and the original text would not have indicated the difference between a question and a command by punctuation. A (sarcastic) command fits the context well. This was the interpretation that the KJV adopted, and that the NLT returns to:

And he cometh the third time, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest: it is enough, the hour is come; behold, the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. (KJV)

When he returned to them the third time, he said, "Go ahead and sleep. Have your rest. But no -- the time has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. (NLT)

He came back a third time and said to them, 'You can sleep on now and have your rest. It is all over. The hour has come. Now the Son of man is to be betrayed into the hands of sinners. (NJB)

On this interpretation, the disciples have missed their chance to watch and pray; they may as well sleep. It fits the context and is consistent with Mark's portrayal of Jesus. What do you think?

"Then are ye bastards and not sons": The Bible, Translations and Profane Speech

One of my acquaintances from seminary days wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on The Ethics of Obscene Speech in Early Christianity and Its Environment. The cost of the published monograph is itself obscene, but my recollection from looking at a copy at SBL a couple years ago is that the book deals with instructions about profanity in the NT.

Also worthy of study is the way modern translations handle biblical profanity. Why, for example, do most modern translations tone down the language of Heb 12:8, which was meant to be shocking, by rendering νόθος as 'illegitimate' instead of 'bastard'? Is it merely because language has changed--"illegitimate" is today's equivalent to King James's "bastard"--or because NT translations have toned down the force of the original out of deference to modern sensibilities? I suspect the latter.

Here's how the KJV renders the whole verse: "But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons."


The RSV, NRSV, ESV, NET, NLT, NIV, NASB and even the NKJV all read "illegitimate."

Only the NAB and NJB get it "right":

• NAB Hebrews 12:8 If you are without discipline, in which all have shared, you are not sons but bastards.
• NJB Hebrews 12:8 If you were not getting this training, as all of you are, then you would be not sons but bastards.