I meant to add to the last post…
*I’m reminded of a line from Marilynne Robinson’s Genesis:
Jesus is attentive to the matter of debt. It figures often in his parables. He teaches his disciples to say, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” To some traditions, and to the translators of the King James Version, his language must have seemed unpoetical or inexact, and they have supplied sin or trespass in place of this blunt word, which, in context, might imply that we should, ahem, forgive our debtors. Trespass is an ancient term in European property law. It need not imply that any harm is done as ordinarily defined, only that there has been an undesired intrusion of some kind. Whether this is an appropriate metaphor here—those without property rights cannot be intruded upon, which certainly does not mean they cannot be injured—I leave to others. Sin is anodyne. The word in the version in the Gospel of Matthew 6:12 is the Greek word meaning “debt,” which is the word that also appears in the parables of Jesus where debt figures. The difference is significant. To forgive a trespasser might cost nothing. The law of Moses gives the poor and strangers access to fields and vineyards and the right to gather food in them, so the legal protections of property that lie behind trespass as a concept are biblically dubious. On the other hand, to forgive a debt means first of all to abandon the expectation of repayment of money or goods, at a cost that could be substantial. This sounds more like Jesus.