It's Time To Rediscover The Beatitudes
Sermons For Pentecost (Last Third)
The committee responsible for the wording of the New Revised Standard Version did not replace the familiar word blessed in the Beatitudes with the word happy as has been done in some translations. They preserved an important meaning. The Greek word so translated blessed did bear the meaning of happiness in the wider Greek speaking world. That happiness was defined as a life beyond care, labor and death. A model of such happiness was the life of the gods on Mount Olympus who lived beyond the hassles of everyday mortal life. It became an everyday term that could also mean simply rich.
