                           19971014.01

     The text of Matt 6:12 which Steven Fagerhaug uses as an
illustration of undecidability seems to me in one respect much
less problematic, and in another respect much more problematic
than his exposition would indicate.

Less difficult in that the Greek text as printed in my
edition (Nestle, Stuttgart 1951) seems to me unambiguous:

kai aphes h^emin ta opheil^emata h^em^on,
^os kai h^emeis aph^ekamen [ta opheilemata]
tois opheiletais h^em^on.
                         Greek New Testament

Et dimittite nobis debita nostra,
sicut et nos dimittimus [debita] debitoribus nostris.
                         Vulgata

And forgive us our debts,
as we forgive [the debts of] our debtors.
                         King James Version

Vnd vergib vns vnsere Schulde /
wie wir vnseren Schueldigern [jhre Schulde] vergeben.
                         Martin Luther's translation


     We pray that God should forgive us our debts as we forgive
our debtors their debts to us.  In the "original" Greek, and in
the Latin version as well as in Luther's translation, the debt
which is to be forgiven by God is stated in the accusative case:
ta opheil^emata, debita, Schulde; while the reference to us who
are the anticipated beneficiaries of that forgiveness is in the
dative case (h^emin, nobis, uns).  That our debtors are not the
objects but the beneficiaries of our dismissal (forgiveness) is
unmistakably indicated by the dative case (tois opheiletais,
debitoribus, Schueldigern) by which they are denominated. The
objects of our dismissals are not our debtors, but the debts
which our debtors owe to us. Steven Fagerhaug's misunderstanding
reflects the circumstance that in English the dative and
accusative plural of the personal pronoun are expressed by the
single word: "us".

     The second issue on which I wish to comment is the assertion
both explicit and implicit in Steven Fagerhaugs comments that the
proper interpretation of this Biblical text is contingent on
"What Jesus meant".  To ask the question "What Jesus meant" is to
accept the Bible as a literal account of the words and deeds of
the men and women about whom its stories are told, of the words
and deeds of the Apostles and the Prophets, and most
significantly of the words and deeds of Jesus, whose appearance
in human flesh and blood appears to validate the anthropomorphic
nature of God the Father who sent him. Once one divests oneself
of the anthropomorphic presupposition and accepts the Messiah not
as biologic but as a spiritual phenomenon, the question "What
Jesus meant" is transmuted into the question of what meaning the
text might have for any individual reader.

     So much for the easy part. The difficult part is complying
with the injunction. The debt that I am required to forgive is
not the trivial theft by the neighbor who absconded with my
dilapidated trash can two nights ago; the trespass that I am
required to forgive is the crime that destroys my happiness, my
health, that mutilates me to the point of death. And it is on
this score that Jesus commands me:
                     Judge not that ye be not judged.

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