I enjoyed, and now rather miss, the thread on PEIRASMOS (though
perhaps we will return to it as we digest Jeffrey Gibson's recent
concluding statement?), and perhaps we might turn to one of the other
intriguing mysteries of the Lord's Prayer, the petition:
TON ARTON hHMWN TON EPIOUSION DOS hHMIN SHMEION (Matt. 6.11 and par.)
I have no strong opinion on this and would be most interested to hear
how people unravel it. The difficulty is the lack of occurrence
anywhere else of the word EPIOUSION - except in the later fathers who
were puzzling over what it might mean. I note from BAGD that Origen,
Chrysostom, Jerome, etc. all attempted to derive it from EPI + OUSIA,
hence 'necessary for existence'.
Of course the most famous interpretation is 'Give us this day
[SHMEION, cf. Luke KAQ' hHMERAN] our daily [TON EPIOUSION] bread',
derived, according to BAGD from the notion that it is a
substantivizing of EPI THN OUSIAN, sc. hHMERAN. I would have thought
that this is pretty unlikely, particularly given the fact that KAQ
hHMERAN (Luke) and SHMEION (Matt.) are supplied. What would 'for the
current day' add to the petition?
The third possibility, often found in the margin, is 'our bread for
the morrow', derived according to BAGD from hH EPIOUSA, sc. hHMERA.
Given that so many people pray this prayer KAQ' hHMERAN it is amazing
that the question so rarely gets asked about this rather mystifying
petition.
Good wishes
Mark
------------------------
Dr Mark Goodacre
Department of Theology
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham B15 2TT
Tel.: 0121 414 7512 Email: M.S.Goodacre@Bham.ac.uk
Fax.: 0121 414 6866 http://www.bham.ac.uk/theology/goodacre.htm