At coffee hour this past Sunday, a question came up about some of the new language used in the service. I took that as a cue to write briefly about the words used in the Lord’s Prayer. Currently, there are two versions of the Lord’s Prayer printed in the Book of Common Prayer (BCP). The language used in the traditional setting appeared in the 1892 BCP. The text for the contemporary version was produced by the International Consultation on English Texts (ICET). The ICET was established in 1969 for the purpose of establishing common liturgical texts for ecumenical use. This text for the Lord’s Prayer was released in 1970. While other ICET texts were incorporated into the 1979 BCP, controversy over deleting the traditional form of the Lord’s Prayer necessitated that both versions be included in the BCP.

Questions regarding what the words of the Lord’s Prayer should be are not new. As most of us are aware, there are two versions in the Bible.  Matthew 6:9-13 reads as follows:

“Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.” (NRSV)

The prayer found in Luke 11:2-4 reads:

He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.” (NRSV)

The differences in these two prayers are not simply a matter of translation, as there are differences in the Greek text also. And as we can see, neither of these versions is what we pray in church.

There are other difficulties in deciding how the Lord’s Prayer should be translated. The most problematic concerns the phrase we read as “our daily bread”. The word translated as daily, εριουσιον, is unknown outside of early Christian literature, where it is only found as part of the Lord’s Prayer, except for one usage from around the fifth century CE. This later usage most likely took the word from the Lord’s Prayer and sheds no light on its meaning.

So what does εριουσιον mean? Probably something close to daily, but other possibilities include “for today”, “for tomorrow”, and “for every day”. These are all similar, but become problematic if we insist on having one clear translation. A similar problem is seen in whether we are recused from “evil”, or “the evil one”.  In this case, either translation is correct, so the difficulty is deciding which might be closer to the original intent. These are only two of several questions that arise in translating this prayer.

So what does this mean for our worship? During Lent we will be worshipping using the prayers from Enriching Our Worship and putting the contemporary version of the Lord’s Prayer in the bulletin. I encourage you to use this text and see if God speaks to you in new ways while we pray with this newer version. However, whatever is printed in the service leaflet, please feel free to pray the Lord’s Prayer in whatever version, form, or language that speaks to and resonates with you

Peace be with you!

Rev Colby