Tuesday 29 October 2002
Identify the adjective…
Chris McGillion, who teaches in the school of communication at Charles Sturt University and moonlights as the Sydney Morning Herald’s religious affairs editor, set some of his students “a number of sub-editing exercises which included the following: Identify the sole adjective in the Lord’s Prayer.”
Surprisingly, none of the students who attempted this exercise got it right. The problem was not their command of the parts of speech as much as their knowledge of this seminal Christian text.
Many had trouble recalling the Lord’s Prayer, others confused it with the Creed; still others had no idea about what they were being asked to examine.
It seems from Chris McGillion’s opinion piece that the students were not provided with the text but were required to do the sub-editing exercise by reciting the Lord’s Prayer from memory. (I identified the elusive adjective the same way—or at least I think I did. Hopefully one or more visitors will offer their suggestions in the comments.)
McGillion makes the point that the lack of such knowledge has definite implications for social cohesion:
Implicitly we make assumptions about the widespread possession of this sort of knowledge all the time. Take last Thursday’s national memorial service for the victims of the Bali bombings as a case in point.
This service was a decidedly Christian affair. But if you don’t know the Lord’s Prayer what chance is there that you were likely to enter into the religious meaning of the service except at the level of simple decorative ritual?
I think he’s mistaken. I’ve attended Japanese and Jewish weddings and funerals and have had no problem entering into the spirit of each service, despite my incomplete understanding of the specific religious meanings. In every case my experience went far beyond the level of “simple decorative ritual.” You don’t have to be a believer to participate in an authentic manner. Or do you?
Permalink
Hallowed? As in 'Hallowed be thy name'.
Er, "daily" as in "give us this day our daily bread," I think.
Though I also think hairs are being split. "Hallowed" does come from a verb, but I don't have any particular problem considering it an adjective in this context.
I remember teaching my third-semester Spanish students a bit from _El burlador de Sevilla_ and asking for a list of the seven deadly sins (in English, of course). About a quarter of each of my classes self-identified as Catholic. In neither class could I obtain a complete list from my students.
I thought it was "daily" too Dorothea. But isn't "hallowed" a noun in this context?
Seven deadly sins. Hmm... pride, anger, gluttony, sloth, concupiscence, envy. What's the seventh? Or did I get one or more wrong?
Oh, dear; you asked for it, Jonathon.
First, for the record, though “hallowed” is functioning rather as though it were a predicate adjective in the English, the Greek form here is a third-person imperative (those always make my students’ eyes go crossed): "Be-hallowed your name." ACtually, the Grrk has a nice three-part parallel structure of third person imperatives:
"Be-hallowed your name;
Be-come your kingdom;
Be-done your will. . ."
The conventional English translations tread all over that, though.
And the adjective, “daily,” (Greek: epiousios, Im not fired-up enough to find the Unicode) is unattested before (and mostly after) its use in Matthew and Luke, so that we can’t be quite sure what it means. It is not a word meaning simply “day-by-day.”
Then, as to your claim that “[y]ou don’t have to be a believer to participate in an authentic manner.” A lot depends on one’s definition of “authentic,” and I’m not re-opening that one. But I would wonder how my Sri Lankan Buddhist colleague at Northwestern would “participate authentically” in a Solmen High Mass. I can easily envision him looking on with reverence and awe, just as I can imagine observing a Buddhist ritual appreciatively; but I wouldn’t measure my experience against a devout Buddhist’s one way or another.
Sigh—I’ll probably blog this, now.
AKMA, I think my previous comment falls into the category of "leading with your chin."
I'm sorry that your carefully crafted HTML was stripped out but I've turned off HTML comments (after some unescaped < and > entities broke a comment). When I move to my new hosting service, I'll restore HTML in comments and use Phil Ringnalda's MT plug-in to clean up any problems. (Not that your HTML is likely to cause problems!)
And the seventh deadly sin was?
I believe that would be "greed."
shit i thought it was spelling jonathan with an "o" instead of an "a"
oh well i'm off to have a nice up of tea
A third-person imperative, and not an ordinary subjunctive?
I always knew Greek was a deeply effed-up language.
Not a subjunctive, nor even an optative. Let Greek be learned throughout the world!
This discussion is now closed. My thanks to everyone who contributed.
© Copyright 2002-2003 Jonathon Delacour
Hallowed? As in 'Hallowed be thy name'.
Posted by: gilmae on 29 October 2002 at 11:30 AM