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Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Chicago, IL
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Quote:
Originally Posted by andrewcriddle
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson
I wonder if it's worth considering that according to the Synoptics Jesus was led into the wilderness by God where, at least according to Matthew and Luke, he was induced by an agent of God to put god to the test.
Jeffrey
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On the specific point, I'm doubtful whether in the Synoptics the Devil/Satan is an agent of God. His status in the Hebrew Scriptures is another matter. |
I think a good case can be made that he is so viewed in Matthew. But that's another argument.
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On the more general issue, from an eschatological interpretation it seems very plausible that the reason why the disciples are to ask to be spared from the coming tribulation is the risk that this will lead them to put God to the test. However, IIUC, this is different from your interpretation. You understand the petition as a plea to God that he will not himself induce us to put him to the test.
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I see no hint of inducing in the expression "lead us not".
In the FWIW department, here's something I wrote some time about the meaning of the expression -- which I obviously think has more of the sense that the parallel expression in Mk. 14:38 has than what we've traditionally thought it meant.
Jeffrey
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The meaning of the expression [Πάτερ (ἡμν)... καὶ] μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμς εἰς...
I do not think we need dwell long on the question of which of the two alternative views of the meaning of [Πάτερ (ἡμν)... καὶ] μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμς εἰς is correct. Two considerations make the former most likely. First, the verb employed within the expression (εἰσφέρειν) seems generally to refer to enforced movement of some one or something from one place or sphere of activity to, but, notably, not into, another.(1) So a plea such as we have in Q 11:4b, that is, a plea not to be ‘led/brought into’ (μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ... εἰς ...) something is a plea to be kept "outside of" or "entirely away from" that something. (2) Moreover, here the form of the verb is a negated aorist subjunctive in a prohibition. In this form and in this context it therefore carries with it a sense of how imperative the absolute avoidance of coming into any kind of contact with the object of εἰς is. Thus, even should some air of the permissive or "allowative" hang about μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς (3), the meaning of the full expression is still "Keep us away from" not "preserve us from succumbing to". Given this, we may say with some certainty that at base the objective of the petition has to do with securing for the disciples immunity or protection from their ever coming into contact with the phenomenon or experience denoted by πειρασμός.
1. K. Weiss, ‘εισφέρω’, TDNT 9 (1974) 64-65. Lohmeyer, The Lord's Prayer, 194-195; Grayston, ‘Decline of Temptation’, 279; Moule, ‘An Unresolved Problem,’ 73; contra Carmignac, Recherches, 396; Marshall, Luke, 462.
2. Weiss, "εἰσφέρω", 64, n. 2; Porter, "Mt 6:13 and Lk 11:4", 360; Moreover, as R. E. Brown observes (The Death of the Messiah, 2 Vols. (New York: Doubleday, 1994) 1:196), the view that a plea not to be "led/brought into" (μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ... εἰς ...) something is a plea to be kept "outside of" or "entirely away from" that something is reinforced by the fact of the double use of εἰς within the expression both as part of the verb and as a preposition. This, he notes, shows that the cental issue behind μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμς εἰς is one of avoiding the object of the expression altogether.
3. A position I find doubtful in as much as, to my mind, the assumptions standing behind each of the two arguments advanced in its behalf (cf. above, note 11) are extremely dubious.
Consider first the assumptions behind the semantic/grammatical argument that the expression μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμς εἰς [πειρασμον], which, prima facie has an unambiguously causative sense, nevertheless bears, and would have been taken by speakers or hearers of the phrase as having, a permissive nuance. These are (1) that μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμς εἰς is a translation of a Semitic original that ran very much like w'l tby'nw [bmsh] (so Carmignac, Recherche, 396, arguing that Hebrew would have been the tongue in which Jesus prayed) or wela' tha`elinnan [lenisyon] (so Jeremias, Lord's Prayer, 15, assuming Aramaic as Jesus' prayer speech)--that is to say, it is a translation of a phrase that contained a negated hiphil (aphel) which, given the supposed force of this construction, presented the effect of what was in view in the phrase, and not the main verbal idea, as that which the negative modifies, and therefore had the sense "cause us not to [succumb to...]"; and (2) that the sense of the original Semitic saying would have been perceived in its Greek counterpart.
Now, given the general consensus that Jesus' did not usually teach in Greek, it is reasonable to assume that if Q 11:4b represents authentic dominical tradition (cf. above, n. ), then μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμς εἰς [πειρασμὸν] is indeed a translation of an Hebrew or an Aramaic expression. But that this expression was one that contained a negated hiphil (aphel), let alone that it read anything like w'l tby'nw [bmsh] or wela' tha`elinnan [lenisyon], is far from certain. The claim that it did seems based not so much on a simple retrojection from the Greek -- since, as Dalman has shown (Die Worte Jesu mit Berücksichtigung des nachkanonischen jüdischen Schrifttums und der aramäischen Sprache erörtert, 3rd. ed [Leipzig: J.C. Hinrich'sche Buchhandlung, 1930] 344-347; see too Willis, "Lead Us Not Into Temptation", 282), the Semitic original can be reconstructed with an active/causative nuance -- as it is on a theological apriori which is grounded in two things. These are: (a) the unestablished assumption that the πειρασμός petitioned against in Q 11:4b (in both its Greek and Aramaic/Hebrew forms) is one that is (or will be) experienced by believers, and (b) a desire to resolve the theological conundrum that occurs when this assumption is set alongside the Biblical tradition that πειρασμός is not only God authored but something that, for the believer, is unavoidable (on this, see below).
But even assuming that the original Hebrew/Aramaic saying that stands behind the Greek version of Q 11:4b did contain, as Jeremias and others allege (e.g., also J. H. Charlesworth, "The Beth Essentiae and the Permissive Hipel (Aphel)", in H. Attridge, J. J. Collins and T. Tobin, eds., Of Scribes and Scrolls: Studies on the Hebrew Bible, Intertestamental Judaism, and Christian Origins, College Theological Society Resources in Religion 5 [New York and London: Lanham, 1991] 67-78, esp. 78), a negated hiphel (aphel), it does not follow that the saying possessed a permissive nuance. For, as C. W. F. Smith notes ("Lord's Prayer", 157; see also, John Lowe, The Lord's Prayer [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962] 43), Hebrew and Aramaic made little distinction between cause and result. So the claim that the Semitic verb form underlying μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς has a permissive nuance is of little weight as an argument against the expression's having a causative force. Moreover, the claim implicitly attributes a large degree of incompetence to whomever it was who originally framed the Aramaic/Hebrew original of Q 11:4b in the Greek form in which it has come down to us. For if the original form of the petition was an hiphil/aphel with a sense of permitting, then, as Willis notes, "it would have to be said that μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς is not an adequate rendering ("Lead Us Not Into Temptation", 282). But is it not more likely the case that this unknown translator got it right, and that the reason the Greek expression is in causative form is that the Aramaic/Hebrew original underlying it was too?
And if we assume that the Hebrew/Aramaic saying that stands behind the Greek version of Q 11:4b did originally possess a permissive nuance (as argued by Charlesworth, "The Beth Essentiae and the Permissive Hipel [Aphel]", 78; see also his "Jewish Prayers in Time of Jesus" in The Lord's Prayer and Other Prayer Texts from the Greco-Roman Era, 36-55, esp. 48 n. 36), it is difficult to think that its Greek form, which contains no notion of "allowability" within it, would have been recognized as having this nuance by any one except those already familiar with both the original Aramaic/Hebrew saying and Hebrew/Aramaic grammar.
Consider, too, the assumptions behind Jeremias' claim that the meaning of μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμiς εἰς [πειρασμον] is to be construed from the meaning that the parallel expression "Bring me not into the power of..., found in the Jewish Evening prayer as reproduced in b. Ber. 60b, bears. These are (1) that the prayer is "early", that is, 1st century in date, and something with which Jesus would not only have been familiar but in his phrasing of Q 11:4b was making "a direct point of contact" and (2) that the expression "into the power of" (l'yidei) and "into" (εἰς) are synonymous. But there are grave doubts that the Evening Prayer can be dated to the first century. And in any case, as Moule notes, "... `into the power of' (lydy) is not the same as `into', and it does not seem justifiable to render `into' as though it were `into the power of'" ("An Unresolved Problem", 73).
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04-18-2013, 12:47 PM
