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The Decline of Temptation — and the Lord's Prayer

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Kenneth Grayston
Kenneth Grayston
Affiliation:
11 Rockleaze Avenue Bristol BS9 ING
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Extract

Twenty Five years ago the late Archbishop Ramsey went to visit Pope Paul VI in Rome. The two bishops discussed possible joint enquiries by their Churches into liturgical questions: for example, finding a common translation of the Lord's Prayer. As far as I know, they have not yet found it. That is not surprising since the Lord's Prayer presents several problems of interpretation and wording. In particular, the sixth petition ‘Lead us not into temptation’ has caused difficulty from very early times. Can it really be implied (it is said) that the Father will lead his children — deliberately lead his children — into situations where they will be enticed to do what they know to be wrong? And the usual answer is ‘Certainly not!’ Nevertheless, the petition cannot be avoided: it is present in both Matthew and Luke who offer divergent forms of the Prayer, presumably according to the traditions of their communities. It is present in the Didache which incorporates early and possibly independent material, and in the Letter of Polycarp from early in the second century. Two methods of solving the problem have been attempted.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , August 1993 , pp. 279 - 296
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1993

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References

1 Chadwick, O.Michael Ramsey — A Life (Oxford 1991) p. 320.Google Scholar

2 cf. cfEvans, C. F.Saint Luke (London/Philadelphia 1990) pp. 483–484.Google Scholar

3 Didache 8.2; Polycarp 7.2.

4 Nestle-Aland, 26ad Lk. 11:4 aphes hemas (eis)encchthenai. The Bible Society's version in modern Greek (Athens 1967) has me epitrepses na pestrme se peirasmon.Google Scholar

5 WordsWorth and White ad Ml. 6:13.

6 See Jeremias, J.New Testament Theology (London 1971) pp. 201–202Google Scholar; and Carmignac, J. in e.g. Marshall, I. H.The Gospel of Luke (Exeter 1978) pp. 464–465Google Scholar with respect to 4Q Flor 1.8, now cited as 4Q174 Vermes DSSE3 (London 1987) p. 293.

7 AV or Authorized Version; RV or Revised Version; RSV or Revised Standard Version; NIV or New International Version; NEB or New English Bible; REB or Revised English Bible; TNT or Translators New Testament; JB or Jerusalem Bible; GNB or Good News Bible.

8 Alternative Service Book of the Church of England.

9 O. Wilde iMdy Windermere's Fan Act 1; Picture of Dorian Cray ch. 2; Anthony Hope Hawkins Dolly Dialogues No. 14.

10 The article on ‘temptation’ in the second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (1989) is almost unaltered.

11 Tenak or Tanak is an acronym for the accepted body of Jewish scriptures comprising Torah (instruction given through Moses), Nebiim (interpretation of God's intentions in the history of the Kingdom and the initiatives of the prophets), and Kethubim (the liturgical, social, and reflective traditions of the community). To Jewish hearers the standard Christian expression ‘The Old Testament’ suggests not that these scriptures are old and therefore venerable, but (offensively) that they are old and superseded.

12 Driver, s. R.Deuteronomy (Edinburgh 1895, 3rd edn. 1908) p. 95.Google Scholar

13 Mockery is a proper meaning both of the Hebrew verb tsahaq and the Creek paizein (see for example Josephus War 4.157).

14 A strong variant reading has ‘Christ’ instead of ‘Lord’.

15 Acts 16:7; 24:6; 26:21; Heb. 11:29. Also ‘to make trial of’ i.e. to experience Heb. 11:36.

16 Lk. 8:13; cf. the parallel Mk. hardships, persecutions.

17 Mk. 8:11 and pars; Mk. 10:2 and par; Mk. 12:15 and par; Mt. 22:3–5. Cf. Lk. 10:25.

18 Cf. 1 Pet. 1:6–7; 4:13.

19 Note well the plural kakon. Clearly some thought that God was all too readily provoked to savage reprisals.

20 Mayor, J. B.The Epistle of St James (London 1892).Google Scholar

21 Absent from LXX, Ps. Sol., Tl 2P — present only in Matthew's temptation story (Mt. 4:3).

22 A common pagan and Jewish thought.

23 Kuhn, K. G. ‘New Lighton Temptation, Sin and Flesh in the New Testament’ ZTK 49 (1952), translated with some revisions in The Scrolls and the New Testament ed. Stendahl, K. (London 1958). Passage quoted p. 95.Google Scholar

24 Luz, U.Matthew 1–7 (Edinburgh 1990) p. 384Google Scholar. Marshall, I. H.The Gospel of Luke. (Exeter 1978) p. 461Google Scholar. Davies, W. D. and Allison, Dale C.The Gospel according to Saint Matthew I (Edinburgh 1988) find it hard to decide for or against the eschatological interpretation of the prayer as a whole (pp. 593–594)Google Scholar. Their decision to treat the sixth petition as eschatological is emptied of meaning when they say that ‘every individual test or trial would inevitably be conceived as belonging to the eschatological drama’. That is, peirasmos is mere histrionics.

25 Lohmeyer, E.The Lord's Prayer, transl. from German edn. 1952 (London 1965) p. 204.Google Scholar

26 A Deisler in The Lord's Prayer and Jewish Liturgy ed.Petuchowski, J.J. and Brooke, M. (London 1982) p. 15.Google Scholar

27 11 Q Ps aXXIV.II Vermes DSSE3 p. 210.

28 So Davies-Allison, Matthew I p. 615Google Scholar. Therefore in accepting the masculine, they regard this clause as a secondary addition, using the language of the Church. Luz p. 385 argues for the neuter.