and the glory, forever,” with a singular translation of the final Greek
word.
All these are worthy of discussion so that we understand the reasons
behind our translation.
I expect Mr. Silverman knows that the New Church version of the Lord’s
Prayer predates the formation of the General Church, going back to the early
days of The General Conference of the New Church in Britain. It was in the
late 1700s and early 1800s that the pioneer readers of Swedenborg’s Writings
began to meet for worship, and wished their rituals to be in accordance with
the Heavenly Doctrines.
Those early New Church scholars came to an agreement on an accurate
translation of the Greek form of the Lord’s Prayer, which became standard
across the fledgling conference of New Church congregations in Britain. It was
incorporated into early liturgies, and later “exported” to the English-speaking
world.
Your readers may be interested to see the following translation of the
Lord’s Prayer included in Robert Hindmarsh’s 1813 The Liturgy for the New
Church:
Our Father, who art in the heavens, sanctified be thy name. Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done, as in heaven, so upon earth. Give us this day our daily bread. And
forgive us our debts, as we also 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
ages. Amen. (Matthew 6:9-13)
The critical thing is for us to remind one another from time to time of the
reasons underlying why we do things in particular ways, so that our worship
may indeed be filled with the glory of God.
The Rev. Bruce R. Jarvis
Seaburn
Sunderland
United Kingdom
What is the Church not Growing?
To The Editors:
In the November/December 2015 issue of New Church Life on page 560 there
was a letter to the editors, “Our Loss,” by Peter Boericke. According to this
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