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How else do you think the Lord’s Prayer can be translated in English?
The original English has “which art”; this is an archaic 2nd person singular informal, I think. I think this can also be translated as simply “Father in Heaven”, “Father, the one in Heaven”, or “Father, You in Heaven”. I think “which/who art” is objectively bad, because it reads formal and alien to us, whereas prayer is decidedly non-formal. Prayer is intimate, as a child to a Father (that’s the first thing in the prayer!) so the language should be casual. Not so casual that it eschews the meaning. It’s important also, that we don’t privilege the brevity of the Prayer over the meaning. The prayer is already very short; you can add more words to clarify the meaning. English simply cannot, any way you slice it, convey the full meaning of the strange Greek constructions in the prayer. Attempting to do so is emphasizing brevity over the message, turning brevity into its own God, which is not justified.
I think I prefer something along the lines of: “Father to us, You in the Kingdom of Heaven”. “To us”, because because the beginning of the Greek emphasizes Father and then adds “of us”, but I think to us may be more meaningfully precise. Because importantly, the Father is not a Father in technicality (we state He is a Father) but in relation (He try is a Father to us in action/relation/will). So it is arguably more important to make clear the relation, which is “to us”. I will justify the inclusion of a new word shortly. “You in…” should be added because the following three lines are in — get this — Aorist 3rd person imperative passive.
Immediately it gets confusing. This is an imperative, like “open the door”, but the Greek has a special 3rd person imperative used in cases where the requested party is not close. Imperatives are used in prayer. This a command, a request to God. It is not “allow your name to be hallowed”, or “your name is hallowed”; we as we pray are requesting that the name be made hallowed. Hallow is a verb here: Aorist Imperative Passive - 3rd Person Singular. Obviously we don’t jace this in English.
I will boldly say, that this should be “hallow thy name”. Yes, we are asking God to hallow His own name — we are asking in this sense for God to reveal how sacred His name is, to remind us; so sanctified and special is His name that only He can truly hallow it. This has Biblical basis: “I am who I am” and other passages in the OT where God effectively hallows His name for Man. Chryosotom and Augustine also interpret this as a request made to God.
I would say that, “make sacred your Name” is best if I were to grab a random person off the street and wanted them to pray only once.
Lastly, this is in an aorist tense which is kind of intentionally vague tense, but does indicate that the action has a definitive completion rather than is an ongoing action. The early Christian writers most commonly interpreted the request as being completed in prayer, not in the end times (eschatologically). For reasons I will justify later, I would say “make sacred your Name here” is probably best.
Constructed the same as the above. “Have your Kingdom arrive” is good; “Have your Kingdom received” is okay. “Bring your Kingdom Here”. But note that Kingdom doesn’t refer to a bordered political state per se. It refers mostly to reign, to dominion. By specifying “Father in Heaven’s Kingdom”, above, we can now use another word for this line. Something like, “come with Kingly reign”. If you can find a way to make this palatable, it would be more like this than “thy kingdom come”.
Really I question whether “will”, which is hardly used in English in this sense, is best here. God’s wishes and desires are His will. Perhaps better is something like “enact your will”, or “do what you desire and will”. This last one is good.
Interestingly, the early writers see this as modified all of the requests above. Eg, “hallow your name on earth, as it is in your heavenly kingdom”. Note that Earth is not globe. Earth is more like ground. There is ground, here, and Heaven, which is metaphorically conceived as a Sky Kingdom.
Fine, except “daily bread” is more like “super-substantial”, it signifies a bread that nourishes spirit rather than body
Debts or sins is probably better. Perhaps, “just as we forgive those” is better.
Temptation should be “trial”, referring not just to temptations but the kind of trial Jesus went through.
I would prefer “safekeep us from evil”.
I actually like the archaic King James translation because it feels reverential and is language nearly exclusively used for spiritual speak today (in that sense I get why some Catholics prefer the Latin Mass).
If you insist on a form with modern, intimate language I'd try somethig like:
Related, I somewhat like the Message version because it's so different from the traditional form and that difference forces you to consider the words (though I'd probably not use the Hermetic phrase in the middle):
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Good work! A long while ago I came up with my own version that was a more meaningful translation to me personally. Here's my version, with notes:
Our Father, who is in Heaven,
I think "Our Father" actually gets across what you were trying to get across just fine: that "Father to us" understanding. To say "Our Father" is to say "my own Father who is also father to others".
Holy is your name.
I really appreciate the new information you've given me on this being a command rather than a description.
May your Kingdom come and your will be done on Earth, just as it is in Heaven.
I put the emphasis on the contrast between Earth and Heaven, and the desire for Earth to emulate Heaven. I often add to it "...on Earth, and in me, as it is in Heaven"
Give us this day our daily bread,
I never found a better version of this that wasn't also much more wordy. Like "give us this day all the things we really need" or something like that.
and forgive our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Sometimes I would swap out sins with debts, but sins just works better for me. Sometimes I'll add in a new bit right here: "Father, if there is anyone who I have not forgiven, please show me now so I may forgive them." I honestly want to live up to the prayer and forgive everyone who sins against me, but I'm not always great at recognizing that I am holding something against someone.
And lead us not into the time of testing, but deliver us from evil.
I had heard before that temptation was more like a trial in the original, calling it a trial is probably more elegant than my wording.
Its a pretty darn good prayer. I think you can get a good English translation out of it.
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Just hearing that fucking prayer gives me PTSD flashbacks of years spent standing out in the baking heat chanting it while under the hawkish gaze of a school marm. Dozens of hours of my life I'm not getting back anytime soon.
In lieue of dissecting it, I'll just say that my preferred translation of "Father, forgive me for I have sinned" is "Spank me daddy, I've been naughty*.
Why did this comment get 11 downvotes? It seems as though this community completely forgets about the guidelines to not downvote something just because they disagree with it whenever it comes to comments that are critical of christianity, and im not exactly sure why that is.
The Motte has a significant minority of Christians who are touchy about any blasphemy directed towards them.
I don't really care either way, unlike Reddit, I can see that a significant number of people have upvoted as well, and there's no karma to worry about either.
(I doubt most people really follow the guidelines on particularly emotional topics, certainly there's no means of enforcement!)
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