Re: CHAT: Lord's Prayer

Bryan Maloney wrote:

> > to mind some sort of legalistic thing.  Not to mention that "lead us
> > not into" is *quite* different from "save us from".
>
> A literal interpretation of "lead us not into" is also an outright
> mistake.  Perusal of the original Greek, informed by a knowledge of the
> metaphor of the day and place, tells us that the phrase word-for-word
> translated as "lead us not into" is actually a poetic way of saying "lead
> us away from".
That's true.  But then, where do you stop?  What metaphors and
similes do you accept, based on what criterion?  Surely, it's not
a clear cut issue:  any criterion you create would be highly abstract
and largely ad hoc.

> > Or perhaps "your kingdom shall come...", but that doesn't have the right
> > prayery sort of ring to it.
>
> But that isn't subjunctive.  The original is subjunctive.
Well, that's not the point.  English no longer has a morphological
present subjunctive in main clauses, so unless you want to preserve
the archaism (which is always a possibility, since it does
exist in frozen phrases like "suffice it to say"), "shall" or
"will" come pretty close.   A helping verb like "may" would
capture the subjunctive better, IMO (as in "may your kingdom
come").

======================================
Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."

Non cuicumque datum est habere nasum.
It is not given to just anyone to have a nose.
        -- Martial
======================================