{"id":148,"date":"2006-03-09T11:00:25","date_gmt":"2006-03-09T16:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/faithpromotingrumor.wordpress.com\/2006\/03\/09\/the-lords-prayer-in-the-heliand\/"},"modified":"2006-03-09T11:00:25","modified_gmt":"2006-03-09T16:00:25","slug":"the-lords-prayer-in-the-heliand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithpromotingrumor\/2006\/03\/the-lords-prayer-in-the-heliand\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lord\u2019s Prayer in the Heliand"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

What, you might ask, is the Heliand?<\/i> As good Saints, you will remember that Nephi \u201clikened scripture\u201d to himself, his people, and his situation. Well, he wasn\u2019t the only one. In the 9th century an unknown Northern European warrior-monk-poet took it upon himself to \u201cliken\u201d the Gospels to his own people and situation: a chieftain society, a defeated people, a nation forcibly Christianized by Charlemagne. The result was the Heliand,<\/i> a re-imaging of the Jesus story.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Heliand,<\/i> then, is a 9th century work in Old Saxon with a fair number of Latin loanwords for some, but not all, theological expressions. At 5984 lines, it\u2019s twice the length of Beowulf<\/i> and far more charming. Ever thought about the miracle at Cana as a mead-hall scene? Yup. All that Mediterranean imagery is now transplanted to the world of The Lord of the Rings,<\/i> more or less.<\/p>\n

So then in the original Old Saxon we\u2019ve naturally got \u201cNazarethburg,\u201d which comes into English not as the \u201ccastle\u201d of High Medieval times, but as the \u201chill-fort\u201d of the pre-Viking world. Like a good Saxon, Jesus was born inside the walls of a hill-fort. He was in and out of Fort Capernaum several times in his life and he taught in the shrine at Jerusalem, too. And of course, there\u2019s Pilate of Pontusland who is threatened by the Jewish warriors with the ill-will of the emperor at Fort Rome.<\/p>\n

As far as characters and characterization go, we have warriors, earls, and thanes. God is a Chieftain or Victory-Chieftain, or some such, and Christ is naturally \u201cthe Son of the Chieftain.\u201d After his resurrection, Christ joins the warrior-company of earls on the road to Emmaus. In short, the whole thing is addressed to the warrior-nobility of the era, and meant to be sung in their mead-halls, not liturgically. Some manuscript even have neums in certain places. Here\u2019s how the Sermon on the Mount begins:<\/p>\n

Heroes were very eager and willing to stand around God\u2019s Son, intent on his words. They thought and kept silent. They needed very much to think about the many brilliant things that the holy Child had told them this first time in words. Then one of the twelve, one of the intelligent men, spoke in reply to God\u2019s Son\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

N.B. The second and third sentences retain their force, no?<\/i><\/p>\n

And so we come to the Lord\u2019s Prayer. Now there\u2019s one aspect of that pericope that has bothered folks since about forever. It\u2019s the sixth petition, which reads in the AV \u201cLead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.\u201d Despite the fact that it\u2019s part and parcel of the OT that God is responsible for everything that happens to us, good or bad, folks don\u2019t like that sixth petition so they change it.<\/p>\n

As with the rest of humanity, the author of the Heliand<\/i> was very solicitous of God\u2019s reputation. Here\u2019s his version of the Lord\u2019s Prayer:<\/p>\n

Father of us all, the sons of men
\nYou are in the high heavenly kingdom
\nBlessed be Your name in every word
\nMay Your mighty kingdom come
\nMay Your will be done over all this world\u2014
\njust the same on earth as it is up there
\nin the high heavenly kingdom.
\nGive us support, each day, good Chieftain,
\n Your holy help, and pardon, Protector of Heaven,
\nour many crimes, just as we do to other human beings
\nDo not let loathsome wights lead us off
\nto do their will, as we deserve,<\/b>
\nbut help us against all evil deeds.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And there you have it \u2013 a \u201clikening\u201d of the scriptures, brought to you from 9th century Northern Europe. You can find a complete copy by searching under either Heliand<\/i> or, as it is more commonly called in English, The Saxon Gospel.<\/i> I used a translation by G. Ronald Murphy (NY: Oxford Press, 1992), but if your German is up to it, that\u2019s also a great experience. It\u2019s a treat in either language.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What, you might ask, is the Heliand? As good Saints, you will remember that Nephi \u201clikened scripture\u201d to himself, his people, and his situation. Well, he wasn\u2019t the only one. In the 9th century an unknown Northern European warrior-monk-poet took it upon himself to \u201cliken\u201d the Gospels to his own people and situation: a chieftain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":457,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marginalia"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Lord\u2019s Prayer in the Heliand<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What, you might ask, is the Heliand? As good Saints, you will remember that Nephi \u201clikened scripture\u201d to himself, his people, and his situation. 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