Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Supersubstantial!

I realize that every day you are just sitting around waiting to hear what I have learned from the latest installment of CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST THREE THOUSAND YEARS by Diarmaid MacCulloch. Today I learned that the word "epiousios" is very hard to translate, resulting in a late-16th-century English version of the Lord's Prayer that went "give us this day our supersubstantial bread." As MacCulloch writes, "Not surprisingly [it] never caught on as a popular phrase in prayer." Also: an interesting reading of Mark 7:24-30, in which MacCulloch says Jesus "met his match in wit with a Greek-speaking 'Canaanite' woman." I read the passage in my Bible, and it is true that there are some zingers flying! Read it for yourself and see what you think. Good night, everybody!