Seems like a good change to me as a former Catholic
For those who might be interested, but not enough to click through the links, the change is from “lead us not into temptation” to “do not let us fall into temptation”. According to some biblical scholars, the new translation better represents the meaning of the Latin version.
“…Et ne nos inducas in tentationem…”
To my 4-years-of-high-school-Latin eyes, that looks like “lead us not into temptation.” But I’m not the Pope.
Hmm.
Yes, my non-infallible eyes tend to agree.
I guess the philosophical question is whether there is any distinction between “leading” and “letting” for an omniscient and omnipotent God.
For comparative reference, that has been the wording in Spanish for longer than I’ve been alive. I suppose the idea is that you are asking the deity to help you resist the temptation, rather than it sounding in Modern English like the deity is the one placing you under the temptation.
And come to think of it, the reference to original should be to the Koiné Greek in the Gospel texts, rather than to the Latin version, should it not?
Why would G-d lead us into temptation, anyway? I thought He outsourced that to S-t-n.
FWIW, here’s the Wikipediaentry on that phrase:
Maybe someone who knows Greek can look at Wikipedia and offer their interpretation.
Well, I think that’s rather the point of the change, isn’t it. But it seems to me to be wishful thinking on the part of “some biblical scholars” that letting rather than leading is what the Latin actually means.
It’s interesting that Psalm 23, generally recited on Shabbat, is thematically exceptionally similar to the Lord’s Prayer, with the exception of that line.
But it wasn’t originally in Latin. Latin was translated from Greek, which the evangelists wrote in as they transcribed Jesus’ Aramaic. Bible study can be like a game of Telephone.
From memory, or from secondhand recountings, decades later. Game of Telephone indeed (just ask the cheesemakers…).
Or possibly to ----, --------- or ----- — -----------.
From the OP’s linked article:
IANAC, so I don’t know exactly how “infallible” the Roman Catholic Church treats the Vulgate; but “the Latin says this” carries more weight with them than it would with a Protestant.
“Papal Infallibility” only applies to doctrinal matters in VERY limited cases, and this is not one of them.
Why in the world would you think this is true? Catholics are well aware the Latin was translated from the Greek. My parish priest was fluent in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew and knew a lot of Aramaic, and he often explained how the meaning of certain passages got altered in each of the translations.
Partly because of the sentence I quoted: “The Catholic Church is using the Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible to try to determine the best phrasing.”
Yeah, I know. I put the word “infallible” in quotes because I was using it very loosely (and certainly not in its literal or technical sense); but even so, it probably wasn’t the right word.
It sounds to me like the entire line is being taken out of context. “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
In other words, {Please be a just and merciful God and} lead us not into temptation, but {as a just and merciful God would do} deliver us from evil.
This proves the church just is getting too liberal for me.
First this, then women priests, then lions lying down with lambs.
I last went to a Mass for my grandmother’s funeral several years ago. I hadn’t been to one in many many years. A few of the passages that I knew by heart from when I was forced to go had been changed very slightly, some of them into less idiomatic English that I knew was because they were closer to direct Latin translations. The most hideous is the change from Priest: “Lord be with you”; Response: “And also with you” to Response: “And with your spirit”. That is literally what the response was in Latin (Et cum spiritu tuo, which my mother said was the only thing she remembered back from when all Mass was said in Latin) but, I don’t know, maybe it was just growing up with the original translation, it just sounds a whole lot more natural.
This is like the exact opposite. The old wording of the Lord’s prayer was seemingly stilted language where everyone knew what it meant, but the construction was not really used elsewhere. Very few people say these days things like “Touch me not!” as opposed to “Don’t touch me!” (Or “Noli me tangere”). I suppose the bigger change though is making it sound like the Lord must be asked to not lead us into temptation actively and prefer that he merely not let it happen to us passively, which is more in line with contemporary thought with regard to Free Will or whatever. Actively requesting that God not tempt us feels much more Old Testament. Obviously the prayer is part of the New Testament and English wasn’t around when it was being written so who really knows, but it certainly sounds better to me.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the prior change I mentioned was pushed by Palapati… er …Benedict while the more recent one is by the current Pope, but the current Pope is not a particularly great English speaker, so unless they are doing the same sort of change to Spanish (which reportedly already was that way, I guess?) it seems odd. Maybe the Pope was learning more English and realized that the English Lord’s Prayer was significantly different in that line than his native Spanish.