{"id":738,"date":"2008-07-14T09:58:45","date_gmt":"2008-07-14T09:58:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2008\/07\/who-didnt-write-what.html"},"modified":"2008-07-14T09:58:45","modified_gmt":"2008-07-14T09:58:45","slug":"who-didnt-write-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/07\/who-didnt-write-what.html","title":{"rendered":"Who didn’t write what"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NYTimes <\/em>ran a story about the “Serenity Prayer” and how it may not have been written by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, as has been believed. <\/a><\/p>\n

An article about the mystery of the prayer, by Fred R. Shapiro, associate library director and lecturer at Yale Law School, will be published next week in the Yale Alumni Magazine, an independent bimonthly publication. It will be followed by a rebuttal from Ms. Sifton.
\nMr. Shapiro, who edited \u201cThe Yale Book of Quotations,\u201d said in an interview, \u201cReinhold Niebuhr was a very honest person who was very forthright and modest about his role in the Serenity Prayer. My interpretation would be that he probably unconsciously adapted it from something that he had heard or read.\u201d
\nIn his quotation avocation, Mr. Shapiro says he has debunked claims about the provenance of other famous sayings, including Murphy\u2019s Law (\u201cAnything that can go wrong will\u201d) and P. T. Barnum\u2019s (\u201cThere\u2019s a sucker born every minute\u201d).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the “Catholic” section of this department, we can add:<\/p>\n