What does it mean to hallow God’s name?

    A rip-roaring discussion about what constitutes a better Bible has been going on of late, on two threads, one initiated by David Ker; another by Peter Kirk. The threads are replete with comments by those who think the better Bible is the one that can be understood on the fly by an untutored individual.

    I disagree. A better Bible is the one whose parts become clear in light of familiarity with the whole. A better Bible is the one that retains traditional diction where possible in order to actualize what classical Christians refer to as the communion of the saints. For those reasons, the Lord’s Prayer needs to read: “Hallowed be your name” (Matthew 6:9). All serious translations in my opinion read “Hallowed be your name”: for example, NAB (Catholic); NIV (evangelical); ESV (conservative Protestant); and NRSV (liberal Protestant). The phraseology goes back to KJV. Happy 400^th birthday, KJV! We love thee and need thee.