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From: hedrick@topaz.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Meditations/Questions on The Lord's Prayer
Message-ID: <6211@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Tue, 14-Oct-86 04:01:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.6211
Posted: Tue Oct 14 04:01:37 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 15-Oct-86 01:21:30 EDT
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Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
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Approved: christian@topaz.UUCP

The tendency in much current scholarship is to treat the Lord's prayer
as eschatalogical.  That is, it is looking towards the future, when
the Lord will bring his kingdom to pass on earth.  The TEV translation
is based on this interpetation:

     Our Father in heaven;
     May your holy name be honored;
     may your Kingdom come;

Name is a semitic idiom for his power and authority.  So these 2
sentences really say the same thing.  "May your authority come to be
acknowledged by all."  (The point is more general than cussing.)
Recall also that Jews tended to avoid the name of God, and so they
often used passive voice where God was meant.  E.g. "Happy are those
who mourn; they will be comforted" is translated by TEV as "God will
comfort them."  So this has the force of "God, establish your reign on
earth"

     may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
     ...
     Do not bring us to hard testing,
     but keep us safe from the Evil One.

Jewish and Christian ideas of the End both imagined that it would be
ushered in by a time of testing, in which evil forces, or Satan in
particular, would nearly be victorious.  So this last request may be
connected with the request for God to bring his kingdom about.  It
asks for protection against the time of testing that is expected, and
the temptations of Satan.

Note that it ends here.  "For thine is the kingdom..." is not in the
best Greek texts.