The Non-Biblical Lord’s Prayer?

by Michael Shackleton · August 18, 2016

Why do we break up the Lord’s Prayer from its original text in the Bible? During Mass we say the words up to “but deliver us from evil”. The priest then says: “Deliver us, Lord, from every evil” Only then does the congregation carry on with: “For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and forever”.

The concluding words to the Our Father, “For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and forever”, are known as the doxology. They are, however, unscriptural.

There are two versions of the Our Father in the New Testament, in Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4. The one recited at Mass is closer to Matthew.

In neither of them is the doxology to be found, particularly in the earliest accepted copies of the gospels. The Vulgate, the 4th century complete Latin translation of the Bible from the original Greek Septuagint, also does not include it.

Contemporary scripture experts agree that the doxology has no place in the New Testament. There is no reputable modern translation of the Bible that I know of, Catholic or Protestant, that now includes it, except as a footnote.

Since it is very Jewish in its style, it might have arisen from Jewish converts to the faith who recited it in liturgical worship. It must have been in common use if it could have caused early copyists of the New Testament almost absent-mindedly to tag it on to the original.

Another possibility is that some early Christians did not like the idea of Jesus’ own prayer ending with the word ‘evil’, so they preferred to keep the doxology.

Catholics have not usually said the Lord’s Prayer with the doxology. The Roman Rite of the Mass to this day does not do so either. You have noticed that, after “deliver us from evil”, the priest carries on the same theme by praying: “Deliver us, Lord, from every evil”.

It is only then that the congregation responds and identifies itself with God’s coming kingdom by proclaiming: “For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and forever”.

The doxology, you see, is not part of Jesus’ prayer but a Christian and liturgical response to his prayer. Because it was considered to be sufficiently ancient and venerable, it was reintroduced in 1970 when the new order of the Mass replaced the old.