- It is what he says it is
- Greek to the rest of us
Pope Veritaspac I speaks
So our Illustrious Senior Editor (ISE)* initially responded to the matter of Pope Francis critiquing the Lord’s Prayer a.k.a. “The Our Father”. We were irritated by the Pope’s corrupting solution to a non-problem. As is every bombastic utterance of his taken for gospel (except the ones that conform to Scripture and tradition) the dominant leftist media treated it sympathetically and without analysis.
You can read the ubiquitous report (it is quite short) here. However it is not made convenient to find critiques of his utterances. The Google references are overwhelmed by the dominant media treatments which are regurgitations of the “‘seminal” AP report. It often requires scrolling through pages of a Google search to find anything but those regurgitations of the AP dispatch.
But we found a couple scholarly responses which included this excerpt from Christianity Today: Pope Francis wants to change the Lord’s Prayer – but has he got his Greek
wrong? It provides a short but systematic exegesis such as the Pope did not bother with. This excerpt might sum it up. The second paragraph reflects our understanding dating back to our religious instruction in Catholic parochial schools.
Clearly the Pope is a learned reader and conscientious thinker. He may have other reasons for expressing his interpretation, but from an initial reading at least, they don’t yet seem to find much source in the Greek text. It’s also worth noting that though God is the implied actor who ‘leads us not’ into evil that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a real danger of the believer being lead into evil by God unless they pray otherwise. It may just be the literary, poetic style of the prayer, making clear the contrast between walking into evil and being delivered from it – the challenge a disciple faces daily.
We don’t pray the prayer thinking that God might ‘push’ us into temptation, we simply ask for the mercy of being lead on a better path. And temptation itself is not damnable; acting on it is the vice. Jesus was ‘lead into temptation’ in his 40-day sojourn in the desert, but he never gave into it. Praying that we be ‘led’ does not negate the possibility of human freedom as well.
A less conciliatory critique is available in the pungent Protestant Pulpit and Pen
Pope Wants to Change Lord’s Prayer (bold our emphasis)
The author gets into the Greek which is the most contemporaneous, agreed authentic, and God inspired rendering of New Testament utterances. Would the Pope simply reiterated traditional ecumenical understanding rather than make an issue out of something that is dealt with at grade school level commonly and easily.
Pope Francis isn’t satisfied with the translation of the Lord’s Prayer, at least in Italian. Speaking of the translation, Francis said, “That is not a good translation, because it speaks of a God who induces temptation.”
He made the remarks during a television interview yesterday.
Francis is referring to Matthew 6:13, which is the “sixth petition” of the Lord’s Prayer. The prayer is so-named because Jesus prayed it to demonstrate to the disciples how they ought to pray. In English, the prayer says, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
In Greek, the Text says:
“καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμὸν, ἀλλὰ ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦπονηροῦ ὅτι σοῦ ἐστιν ἡ βασιλείακαὶ ἡ δύναμις, καὶ ἡ δόξα, εἰς τοῦςαἰῶνας ἀμήν.”
If you don’t understand Greek, you can use this handy resource to understand each word in the sentence here (bookmark the resource, because it’s handy). The phrase in question is εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμὸν and means – wait for it – lead us not into temptation.
Yeah. That’s what it means. That’s what it means in English, French, Spanish, Swahili, Mandarin or pretty much any language. You can check out this parallel Bible resource from Bible hub and see how all the translations translate it. But, if you do so, fair warning. It’s anti-climactic, because they all (except for The Message or New Living Translation nonsense) all say the same thing.
The Young’s Literal Translation, which is the benchmark for literality in English, says, “And mayest Thou not lead us to temptation, but deliver us from the evil, because Thine is the reign, and the power, and the glory — to the ages. Amen.”
The Pope pointed to the French Catholic translation, which he says doesn’t impugn God with temptation.
Currently, the Italian version endorsed by the Romish church is:
Padre Nostro, che sei nei cieli,
Sia santificato il tuo nome.
Venga il tuo regno,
Sia fatta la tua volontá,
Come in cielo, così in terra.
Dacci oggi il nostro pane quotidiano,
E rimetti a noi i nostri debiti
Come noi li rimettiamo ai nostri debitori.
E non ci indurre in tentazione,
Ma liberaci dal male. Amen.
E non ci indurre in tentazione means, “And lead us not into temptation.” The Pope feels it’s worded wrong.
Jesus worded it.
Sure, Jesus didn’t put his Aramaic words into Italian, French, or English (his Spirit put them into Greek, however, in written form). But Jesus did phrase the prayer the way he wanted to phrase the prayer. Because it’s his prayer. That’s why it’s called the Lord’s Prayer.
It’s not the Pope’s prayer. He doesn’t have the right to change it. Clearly, this is not an issue of translation. There is no alternative translation. This is an issue of the Pope simply not liking what Jesus said.
We would add that the Pope’s rendition does not solve anything profound. Francis apparently prefers “do not let us fall into temptation”. How is that not subject to any less theological confusion as to God ‘s “role”? God at the fall let us fall into temptation, the result of the whole free will thing he gifted us with, along with his image and likeness at creation. Arguably his rendition is like saying “God don’t be God . . . don’t allow us choices. The traditional understanding, the Jesus authorized understanding is just as effective – a simple admission and supplication that we be given grace and strength not to be tempted because we are weak, show us the way around temptation, give us strength to avoid it. At the very best the Pope’s remarks are unnecessary or confusing in their own right and dangerous as to implications.
So what is next . . . will the Pope endorse gender neutralization of the Bible because it is so confusing and non-inclusive causing people to reject it in their political correctness? Will the prayer reference be changed to “The Our Parent”??
R Mall
*Our Illustrious Senior Editor likes having ISE on his suite of offices here at V’pac HQ. He insists it keeps away at least the phonetics oriented illegal aliens. Of course the down side is the possibility it will attract a clueless counter terrorist SWAT team.
