Mandela Effect was Debunked for Me When I Did the Research!

 

I fell down the "Mandela Effect" Rabbit Hole on June 3rd, 2016 when a combination of my viewing a YouTube Video and an old friend denying that she had visited the historic house in Deerfield, Massachusetts where my great-grandmother was born, prompted me to look through a 1950 King James Version Bible inscribed with my birth date and what I thought was "trespasses" in The Lord's Prayer was "debts." This put me into a slide zone ~ JDHWB-R

"Forgive Us Our Trespasses." Where'd That Come From?
Posted on 12.06.2012

Because this is the sort of thing I do for fun I thought I'd share a bit of sleuthing regarding the Lord's Prayer.

Have you ever noticed when praying the Lord's Prayer aloud that everybody does good until you get to the line "forgive us our..."?

At that point in the prayer cacophony breaks out as some people say "debts" and others say "trespasses."

The other day I got curious about that and went in search of the translations that render this differently. I started with the NIV:

NIV:
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors...

Okay, so the NIV has "debts." So I went on to look at other translations. And guess what? There is almost universal agreement among the major translations, all having "debts" like the NIV:

ESV, ASV, NASV, KJV, NRSV, NJ:
our debts...our debtors.

To be sure, some more modern, dynamic and contemporary translations have "sins" or "wrongs." But none of these, along with the more established translations, have "trespasses."

So that left me scratching my head. Where in the world did "trespasses" come from?

Given that I use the Book of Common Prayer I knew it had "trespasses." So my hunch was that "forgive us our trespasses" came from the BCP rather than from the bible translations. I'm using the 1979 BCP. But just to make sure I went back to the 1549 edition, the very first BCP. And sure enough, "forgive us our trespasses" is there:

Book of Common Prayer (1549):
OURE father, whiche arte in heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy kyngdom come. Thy wyll be done in earth as it is in heaven. Geve us this daye oure dayly bread. And forgeve us oure trespasses, as we forgeve them that trespasse agaynst us. And leade us not into temptacion. But deliver us from evell. Amen.

But that raises another question. Where did the 1549 BCP come up with this translation? Recall, the Authorized (King James) Version didn't appear until 1611.

After some sleuthing I learned that the 1549 edition of the BCP used the Tyndale Bible (1526). And checking the Tyndale Bible I think we find the origin of "forgive us our trespasses":

Tyndale Bible (1526):
And forgeve vs oure treaspases eve as we forgeve oure trespacers.

In short, from the KJV onward the translation of Matthew 6.12 has gone with "debts." But the 1526 Tyndale Bible had it as "trespasses." This translation was used in the 1549 Book of Common Prayer and is preserved in the BCP to the present day.

It's a Tyndale vs. King James thing.

And thus the cacophony in our churches.

Source: http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2012/12/forgive-us-our-trespasses-whered-that.html

Reading this explanation brought me to an understanding that two different translations of the Bible were confused in my reality: King James Version & the Tyndale Bible ~ JDHWB-R