I am doing a little study on the history of Koine Greek and Classical Greek in the translation of the New Testament (Nothing high falutin', just Eugene Peterson's "Eat This Book").
In it Peterson describes daily bread and offers another way of translating the word "daily--epiousion in Greek" as todays or fresh. I have then started to think about the relationship between a request for daily bread and manna in the wilderness. Does anyone have any input on this or any resources to turn to?
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Since I minored in Classical and Koine Greek, and I have my Greek study aids handy, here you go:
the Greek word used in Matt. 6:11 and Luke 11:3 is "epiousios" - nearly all the dictionaries and lexicons have "of uncertain meaning" tagged next to this word. However, here's what I could dig up:
1. The Linguistic Key to the Greek New Testament (Rienecker & Rogers) gives these meanings:
"daily; for the coming day" (The New Linguistic & Exegetical Key to the Greek New Testament by Rogers & Rogers says basically the same thing).
2. Bauer's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testamen and Other Early Christian Literature (2nd edition - I wish I had a copy of the slightly more recent 3rd edition) has the most detail.
To summarize - the word appears nowhere else in the New Testament or Greek literature of the time. ("Origen was right. Found in our literature only . . . in the Lord's Prayer.") The following possible meaning are given:
a. "necessary for existence." (Today, give us the bread we need to live).
b. "for today" (Today, give us the bread we need today)
c. "for the following day" (Give us tomorrow's bread today)
d. "the future" (Today, give us bread for the future)
e. "belongs to" (Give us the bread that belongs to today - or, Give us today's bread)
2. Thayer's Lexicon mostly agrees with Bauer's (above) but there are a few others not in Bauer's:
a. "ready at hand" (Today, give us the bread that is ready at hand)
b. "allowance" (Today, give us our allowance of bread)
c. sufficient food (Today, give us sufficient bread - or bread that suffices).
3. Liddell & Scott's Greek/English Lexicon (which is focused on Classical Greek) says it means "for the coming day" and notes it only appears in the NT.
The disputes really fall over which Classical and Koine words are at the root of the evangelist's neologism. There are half a dozen good candidates, though no real consensus. I could bore you with all the geeky lingusitic details of the various possible roots, but I won't.
To sum up: "Today's bread" is a possible translation. "Fresh bread" stretches it a little bit, but works if you assume that "today's bread" is also "fresh bread." (of course, you know what happens when we assume . . . )
Or, in other words, "fresh" likely wasn't the original, intended meaning, but if (if!) "today's bread" is the correct translation, then "fresh" is okay by implication.
Hopefully that wasn't too much for you. I do this for fun, myself. I had to edit this post several times because I originally included discussions of the possible roots.
Have fun!
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