Re: CHAT translating the Paternoster (was: Liturgical thou/thee etc. (was:Thorn vs Eth))

On Monday, July 15, 2002, at 12:59 , Matthew Kehrt wrote:

> Isn't this sort of thing normally translated as "let", as in "let your
> Kingdom Come."?  I remember having a discussion a while back on the
> phrase "Fiat Lux.", "Let there be light.".
> -M
Yes, good point.    "May there be light" would certainly give the wrong
meaning.   It would portray the Almighty as rather less than almighty -
"May
there be light [but perhaps there won't be]"

"Let there be light!" it must be - a definite imperative.

> Ray Brown wrote:
> [snip]
>>
>>>>> May your Kingdom come
>>>>> May your will be done
{snip}

>> Yes, but 'may' still seems to me to imply 'wish' which is rather more
>> remote
>> than the imperatives of the Greek.   We seem to have lost in our language
>> the
>> differences between what Greek could distinguish with optative,
>> subjunctive
>> and imperative.   I suppose this is the best we can do in modern English.
Yes, we can do better.  "May" IMHO is just symptomatic of the watering
down of
religious statement, almost apologizing for having a religious belief in
this materialist
society.

I don't know what the original Hebrew has here, but the Septuagint uses
exactly the same
verb & form in Genesis 1:3 as the Greek NT has in Matthew 6:10 -

genethé:to: phô:s   - let-there-come-into-being light

genethé:to: tò théle:má sou - let-there-come-into-being your will...

Maybe something more like this:
"Our father in heaven,
    let your name be kept holy,
    your kingdom come,
    your will be done........"

It is interesting that Matthew reminds us of "fiat lux".   In his "After
Babel" (a book all
would-be translators ought to read IMO), George Steiner spends two pages
(306, 307)
discussing the translation of Genesis 1:3 and comparing:
Latin:          Fiat lux.  Et facta est lux.
Italian:        Sia luce.  E fu luce.
German:    Es werde Licht.  Und es ward Licht.
English:     Let there be light.   And there was light.
French:      Que la lumière soit; et la lumière fut.

Maybe he should added the Greek & Hebrew.   I can't do the latter, but the
former is:
genethé:to: phô:s.  kaì egéneto phô:s.

Steiner finds a "memorable sequentiality" in the Latin, and he contrasts
the Latin with
the other versions commenting upon things like the "Es" which has to be
there in German.
He finds the French version the least satisfactory.   The definite article
which French needs
in his view 'posits a conceptual essence before phenomenality'.   The
conceptual pre-existence
is not there in the other versions: the creation of light is immediate &
stunning.

The original versions place the emphasis of the _verb_:
"let-there-come-into-being X. and
there-came-into-being X.    At least what the Greek has.   The Latin "fact
est" seems weaker.

Likewise, the three petitions following the opening vocative "Our father
in heaven" all begin,
and thus emphasize, the verb:
    hagiasthe:to:    - let-X-be-made-holy....
    eltháto:              - let-X-come...
    genethe:to:       - let-X-come-into-being......

They are each followed by the noun phrase which instantiates X.

But they are *not* pious wishes, as some of the modern translations seems
to imply.  E.g. 'eltháto: he:
basileía sou' is not a pious wish for some distant eschatological event at
the end of time; the Greek
is an imperative for the here & now and accords with Christ's words: "The
kingdom of God is among
you."   The petition is: "Let you kingdom come [among us now]!"

Likewise with the other three petitions.  Indeed the whole prayer is one
of imperatives; after the first
three 3rd person imperative ('jussive subjunctive' of Latin), come the
'normal' 2nd person imperative:
dòs - give...
aphès  - remit, forgive
mè: eisenégke:is   - don't lead (into)
rhûsai  - free, deliver

Translation is not easy.   It is difficult both not to lose something of
the original in the process & to add
something else.   The skill of the translator is in minimizing both.

Ray.

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