Old World Context: The debts and debtors was an ever-present reality for the people who tended to be Jesus’ audience. When Jesus preached it was not to those who were already powerful in the society, but rather to poor and unempowered. Thus a prayer concerning the ever-present pressure of the debts was an important reminder. The prayer did not ask for forgiveness of earthly debts, however. The debts in this case are those owed to God. The situation of the real world was applied to the vertical relationship with God. Rather than debts owed to Rome or fellow man, these are debts that we owe to God for the blessings he has showered upon us. Even though they are heavenly debts, they parallel the worldly debts in that also appeared to be impossible to pay off. In earth Jesus’ audience knew what it was like to be continually indebted, and they transferred that meaning to the Father as holder of eternal debts.
The difference with the heavenly debts was that they could be absolved, and the mechanism was simple. It was related to our own actions. At this point Jesus returns to the theme of one of the Beatitudes:
Matthew 5:7
7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Refer to the commentary on that verse for the way in which our actions form the model for the way God interacts with us. In a very real sense, we will obtain mercy in the same way we show it. We will receive forgiveness from God in the same way as we give it to others. Jesus equates the vertical and horizontal relationships, and indicates that we should act the same in both realms, and in both cases, we ought to imitate the characteristics of God.
Book of Mormon Context: Mesoamerica was not a monetary economy and therefore the particular debt-relationships that plagued Jesus’ Old World audience did not exist in the New World. We do not have any information about debt relationships directly in the Book of Mormon, though there is a hint that at least in surrounding cultures slavery was practiced. (Mosiah 2:13 and commentary on that verse) Later evidence of slavery indicated that it could be the result of indebtedness, but there is no direct evidence for that practice either earlier in Mesoamerican history, or in the Book of Mormon.
Textual: The 3 Nephi redaction deletes a phrase from the Lord’s prayer:
Matthew 6:11-12
11 (Give us this day our daily bread.)
12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
The removal of the Matthean verse is certainly not due to the lack of attestation in New Testament manuscripts, and is corroborated in the Lukan version of the Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11:3). Indeed, this forms an important part of the Old World prayer. It has been suggested that the removal in the New World prayer is a recognition of a differing context, where the Old World Sermon was given to the disciples who really would have to go without purse or scrip, and therefore needed to pray that they would be given their daily bread (see Joseph Fielding McConkie and Robert L. Millet, Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 4 vols. [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1987-1992], 4: 83; Robert J. Matthews, Behold the Messiah [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1994], 116; Paul R. Cheesman and C. Wilfred Griggs, eds., Scriptures for the Modern World [Provo: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1984], 91.). This suggestion is tempting, but it depends upon understanding the Sermon on the Mount as directed exclusively to the twelve, a situation that is improbable for the New Testament sermon. That sermon makes sense only when given to the assembled multitude. The assumption appears to be related to a particular reading of Matthew 5:1-2
Matthew 5:1-2
1 And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:
2 And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,
The twelve-exclusive reading of this passage has Jesus seeing a multitude and purposefully leaving them. To see the Sermon on the Mount as instructions to the twelve exclusively, one must read the term disciples here as meaning only the twelve. While the twelve were disciples, not all disciples were the twelve. In this case, the intent of Matthew is not show Jesus removing himself from the multitudes who were assembling to hear him, but rather teaching them. The multitude is the set of disciples, not just the twelve. Both the Old World and the New World sermon are given to a multitude of believers, and we cannot lean on the assumption of the missionary assignment of the twelve as a reason to explain the absence of the phrase “give us this day our daily bread.”
The contextual argument is absolutely untenable in the face of the next phrase that is retained. If there are consistent contextual differences between the Old World and the New World, then we should also expect some alteration to the phrase “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” That phrase is absolutely dependent upon an economic context that existed in the Old World, but not in the New World. Without a monetary economy, the concepts of indebtedness were very different in the New World. If we were to use context as the explanation for inclusion or exclusion, we might actually see the need for daily bread as constant across to the two worlds, and the indebtedness as the variable.
The original context for “give us this day our daily bread” has a purposefully dual referent. Bread is not only the physical staff of life, it is the symbolic staff of life. Jesus himself was the “bread of life” in John (John 6:33-35). Manna was the bread from heaven that symbolized the protection and care of the Father. In the particular setting for the Sermon where so much of the imagery rests on the nature of the poor in first-century Israel, the requirement for daily bread was an important concern. It is particularly important that the current “daily bread” follows the prayer for the arrival of the kingdom. In the social context of the original prayer, the kingdom is in the future, and the need for bread is present. The prayer hopes for the glorious fullness, but requires the immediate necessity.
What creates the reason for the exclusion of this phrase from the 3 Nephi redaction? If we attempt to recreate a condition that would have altered the text as it was given to the Nephites, we encounter the interpretive problems noted above. However, understanding that Joseph is interacting with the Old World text suggests that the reason for the removal of the phrase is the presumption of the request that the bread be given. It is likely that the exclusion comes from the difference between the assumption that one must work for one’s daily bread as opposed to having it given to us. It is certainly possible to incorrectly read this petition as one that requests manna-like deliverance. Our reality is much more closely tied to our use of agency to accomplish our ends. More relevant to our experience is God’s command in Genesis:
Genesis 3:19
19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread…
The most likely scenario for the exclusion of the phrase from the Lord’s prayer is this perceived conflict with the need to earn bread and the presumption that the phrase in the Lord’s prayer suggested that there was no need to work for one’s daily bread.