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Is the Kingdom of Heaven Mere Fantasy?
The tenth and final post in the series on the Jesus Prayer, otherwise known as the Lord’s Prayer. We interpreted the meaning of the prayer from three perspectives: Jesus as political revolutionary, Jesus as great moral teacher and Jesus as the Incarnate Son of God. The last phrase of the prayer summarizes the essential teaching.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever
This is the only part of the prayer that is controversial in whether or not Jesus actually spoke these words. That is because the earliest manuscripts do not include the phrase and because of that a number of the most popular English translations of the Bible do not include it. The King James version does and the New American Standard Version includes it in brackets with the information that it does not appear in the earliest manuscripts. This website has good information on where the phrase first appears and why it is controversial. It concludes:
“The question of whether or not ‘for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever’ was included in the Lord’s Prayer is not easily answered, as there is data to support both perspectives. The earliest evidence of the Greek Bible manuscripts supports the exclusion of the phrase, while its widespread presence in later manuscripts means the…
