PRAYER'S ENDING AND BEGINNING (7 OF 10)
by Roger Thomas
Scripture: MATTHEW 6:13
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Prayer's Ending and Beginning (7 of 10)
The Lord's Prayer
Roger Thomas
Matthew 6:13
September 23, 2001
Tonight we will consider the doxology with which we traditionally end the Lord's Prayer. I refer to those words: for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever. A doxology, from the Greek term for glory or praise, is a brief statement of blessing directed toward God. If you look carefully you will note that these words are not found in the text of the New International Version. It is in a footnote at the bottom of the page along with the explanation that it is found in "some late manuscripts." It is in the text of the King James Version, however. The New American Standard Bible keeps in the text but puts brackets around it and includes a footnote that also says these words were not found in early manuscripts.
It is not really important for our purposes to dig into this issue very deeply. This controversy deals with a field of study known as textual criticism. Here is my short explanation: No one today possesses any of the original manuscripts of the New Testament. As far as we know those originals have long since deteriorated. Copy after copy, however, was made throughout the centuries. The earliest copies were by hand. Obviously human error in the copying process was a real possibility. Textual critics study these ancient manuscripts in an effort to find the oldest and detect any possible errors. The process has advanced greatly in the last couple of centuries as archeologists have unearthed older and older manuscripts. Four hundred years ago Bible translators only had a limited number of ancient copies available to work from. Today the resources have multiplied many fold. This is the reason the KJV which was translated in 1611 AD does differ in a few places from more modern works. The KJV translators did a marvelous job considering what they had to work with. The textual critics have ever found for the most part very fe ...
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