been raised to say, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass
against us” (Matthew version), or “forgive us our debts as we also forgive our
debtors.” (Luke version) If they were raised in the Catholic tradition, they may
have been taught to end the prayer with the words, “Deliver us from evil.”
(Luke version) But if they were raised in the Protestant tradition, they may
have been taught to end with, “For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and
the glory, forever.” (Matthew version)
As a young boy, attending Sackett Street Elementary School in the 1950s
(a public school), I was first introduced to the Lord’s Prayer, which we said
every morning just before we saluted the flag. I remember being both confused
and interested when we came to the part about, “For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory, forever.” The Protestant kids (about half the
class) continued to recite the ending, while the Catholic kids all stopped after,
“Deliver us from evil.” Because I was neither Protestant nor Catholic, I got
to choose – and I usually went along with the Protestants, just because that
ending sounded so good!
The Original Text
Disputes about the proper wording of any biblical text are usually settled by
attempts to go back to the source, or to the original documents. Of course,
a problem arises when there are different “original” documents. That’s when
new disputes erupt over which one is truly “the” original.
There are also many differences in translation. Take, for example the fifth
line of the Lord’s Prayer, which is the focus here:
ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς.
Literally, these words mean “as in heaven” [ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ], “so upon
earth” [καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς·]. Even so, they are often translated the other way around:
“on earth as it is in heaven.” In fact, most English translations of the Bible have
chosen “on earth as it is in heaven” as the preferred translation.
Early General Church scholars, after carefully examining the original
documents, came to the conclusion that our current version of the Lord’s
Prayer is probably the closest to the original Greek. See for yoursel f. Here is
the original wording, both in the Greek and in the Latin liturgical version. In
both cases, I have highlighted the significant phrase which is translated “as in
heaven, so upon the earth”:
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