Matthew 6:13: “And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”

 

As I seek to understand a new dimension that God is leading me in my prayer life, I am finding myself using the Lord’s prayer more often.   In this use of the Lord’s Prayer I am discovering that I haven’t the foggiest idea of what I am saying.  One passage I am particularly troubled with is praying that God does not lead me into temptation.  Does not James teach in 1:3, “Let no man say he is tempted of God.”  Sounds like a contradiction.

 

One basic rule we need to keep in mind is that Jesus gave us the Lord’s prayer in Aramaic which was later translated into Greek. Something that seems to not be known among Christians is that until 1948 the Classical Hebrew had not been in the vernacular of the Jewish people for over 2,500 years. Classical Hebrew was a dead language only used for ceremonial reasons.  No one knows how the Hebrew was pronounced  in Biblical times as that has long been lost. We can guess but we can’t be sure.  So if anyone tells you that you can purchase a CD with the Psalms being spoken just as David spoke it, watch your pocket book. Unless the rocks can speak, we will never know what the original Hebrew sounded like nor will we know the correct way to pronounce God’s name or the name of Jesus in Hebrew.

 

By the first century the common language of the Jewish people was Aramaic.  The Hebrew script we use today is actually the Aramaic Square Script which Ezra used to replace the Phoenician script which some have called the Ancient Hebrew. It is the Square Script that I play around with and not the so called Ancient Hebrew script.

 

Greek was the vernacular of the West and the language of commerce for the West.   Aramaic was the vernacular of the East and the language of commerce for the East. The people of Israel spoke the Aramaic.  There were three main dialects of Aramaic during the time of Jesus, the Northern or Old Galilean dialect which Jesus and his disciples spoke, a Southern dialect which was spoken in Judea and a Western dialect which was spoken in the area of Babylon. Classical Hebrew did remain as the language used for scriptural and scholarly writings.  The synagogue readings and recitation of prayers were all in the Classical Hebrew during the 1st Century.  Although Jesus spoke Aramaic as the common language, as a rabbi He probably used many Hebrew terms in his teachings. Much of the writings of the Dead Sea Scrolls were in Hebrew but there was also many documents written in Aramaic, Arabic, Greek and Latin.

 

One such very recent discovery from the Psalms Scroll which shed some light on this very troubling passage in the Lord’s Prayer, Lead us not into temptation. Why would God lead us into temptation?  If it was His divine will to lead us into temptation, why would we pray for Him not to lead us into temptation. Was Jesus actually teaching us to pray and tell God to back off?  As mentioned earlier, is this in contradiction to the teachings in James 1:3 which tells us that we are not tempted by God?

 

An identical phrase was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls following a certain rhythmic pattern.  Another thing to keep in mind about this culture is that they had no recording devices and most of what was taught by the rabbis was put to a sort of rhythm, meter or rhyme.  Although not poetry, it did form a good device to aid in memorization. The  rhythm and rhyme of the Lord’s prayer was lost when it was translated into the Greek.  However, when transposed into Aramaic and even Hebrew you recapture much of the meter.  This is why you will find so many idiomatic expressions. It can be difficult at times to express you thoughts in a rhyme and sometimes the only way to make a thought rhyme is to create an idiomatic expression.

 

This passage, Lead us not into temptation that has been found in the Dead Sea Scrolls carries such a rhythm. When you transpose the phrase in the Lord’s prayer and the passage in James to Aramaic or Hebrew you get the same meter or rhyme as found with the identical phrase in the Dead Sea Scrolls. This helps to establish this phrase, Lead us not into temptation as an idiomatic expression.

 

The difficulty now lies in translation of the Aramaic word, the word most likely used by Jesus, for temptation which is nesiona into the Greek word peirasmon.  Nesiona in the Dead Sea Scrolls is found in the Hiphal form signifying a causative sense.  Hence using the Dead Sea Scrolls rendering as guide we would find a more proper rendering of this phrase: Lead us not into temptation to be: Do not allow us to enter wrongful thinking or testing.

 

As the Lord’s Prayer is given by Jesus we can assume it is an expression of God’s heart.  God wants us to pray that we do not enter into wrong thinking or wrong testing.  I just wonder how many of my testings were brought on by myself by my own lack of submission to God’s will or my own wrong thinking?

 

I know many of us recite the Lord’s Prayer on a daily basis. If you are Catholic you may recite it at every mass.  If you find the rendering, Lead us not into temptation a bit troubling, you might want to take advantage of the discoveries found in the Dead Sea Scrolls and offer an alternative rendering of Don’t allow me to enter into wrong thinking or testings.

 

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