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For the record, I'm not saying you're wrong... TyrReborn Send a noteboard - 11/12/2017 07:11:59 AM

I'm just saying that I don't have the educational background to understand the intricacies of these languages.

I legitimately appreciate your explanations of these translations. I'm a professional student (at 27!) studying for an accounting degree; I try to live according to the Church's teachings, and I suppose it could be argued that to fully understand and abide, I would need to learn and understand the language of the root of the Faith.

That said, I have enough on my plate at the moment, so I hope my current attempts prove sufficient.

As for your response...



He says these colossally stupid things and yet the problem is that millions of Catholics don't know even Latin, much less Koine Greek (the original language of the New Testament). There are several sorts of translation issues that one can have with the Bible, but this passage has none of them. Just to be thorough, let's review:
  1. There are scribal errors in the Bible. This is the inevitable result of the process of having a text that was copied down in many languages in many countries by hand over two millennia. For example, in Genesis, the Masoretic Text and the Vulgate have God blessing the third day twice but not the second day, while the Septuagint has each day blessed once. It's likely that the Masoretic Text springs from an early error that the Septuagint sources didn't make, though Kabbalists and other Jewish mystics will try to spin this fact into a story about how 2 is the number of division and God could not bless division without a harmonizing third principle. Some Christian mystics then go on and say this relates to the Trinity. In my opinion, the Septuagint is probably right, the days each got blessed once. Similarly, in some versions of Revelation, the "number of the Beast" is listed as 616, rather than 666. This is an extreme minority position and has been discarded as an error.

In this case, pulling out the handy Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece, I can see that this passage is uniform in all versions of the Gospels. In other words, there are no scribal errors noted for this passage, no variants. "Lead us not into temptation" is not replaced with anything else in any version. The only variant in the phrase is that some texts add the later "for the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory are Yours, now and forever" at the end after "but deliver us from evil".


Indeed, this addition is how I grew up with the Lord's Prayer; I still get thrown for a loop when, while praying with others, they merely skip this final part.



2. There are passages that are problematic in translation. One such passage is the statement in the Gospel of John, Chapter 3, where Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born ανωθεν. In the original Greek this can mean both "again" or "from above" or "from on high". There is an ambiguity about the statement and we can argue about how best to translate this very difficult word, given that it doesn't correspond directly to an English word.

In this case, we don't have this problem. εις- as a prefix means "into" (as does the corresponding Latin in- ), and the verb used in Greek, αγειν, means "to lead" or "to guide", just as its Latin cognate, ducere. The words are not difficult or complicated words and their meaning is not the subject of disputes.


  1. There are passages where scholars suggest that the authors of the Greek original text made a translation error from the original Aramaic of Christ. This is extremely difficult to detect as there is no extant Aramaic work. To even speculate about translation errors is to start on dangerous ground because it is a hypothetical of a hypothetical. However, there are nonetheless a few points where it seems that perhaps there was a translation error from Aramaic to Greek. For example, when Jesus says that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven (Mt 19:24), we know that the Aramaic wordgamlameans both a camel and a type of heavy nautical rope used on seafaring ships in the Mediterranean. The passage seems to make more sense in this light: it's easier to put a giant nautical rope (as opposed to a thread) through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. However, even in this case, because there is no Aramaic original, we can't conclusively say anything, but merely speculate that it is a likely error.

In this case, there is no error that scholars have been able to point to that would lead to this sort of supposed and hypothetical mistranslation. The only Aramaic New Testaments, the old Syriac fragments and the Syriac Peshitta, use the exact same language as the Greek with the exact same meaning.


Setting aside the current issue, doesn't the lack of accurate translation from the original terminology allow for mistranslation of the entire Bible? Again, I do not know enough to state anything here.


  1. There are passages that have been translated from earlier liturgical languages into English with less than perfect accuracy. One example of this is the correction that Benedict XVI recommended for the Creed, where Christ is no longer spoken of as being "one in being with the Father" but rather "consubstantial with the Father". The latter means of one nature, the former is slightly more vague. In this case, the problem is that English doesn't have easy words that would convey the Latinconsubstantialisor its cognate, the Greekομοουσιος. The attempt at translating the Creed into English immediately following Vatican II sought to make the language easy to understand for the laity. However, Benedict XVI worried that the phrase was too vague and misunderstood.

In this case, the phrase is neither vague nor difficult to translate into English from earlier liturgical languages. The phrase is nearly identical to the Latin and Greek without losing any meaning.

Because none of the abovementioned issues can be identified, labeling the rendering of the Lord's Prayer in its current state as a "translation problem" is beyond that of a simple error. It's an intentionally misleading, weaselly thing to do. It is a perversion of the very words of Christ to suit an ex-janitor from Argentina who spouts off without thinking in his infinite stupidity.

That, my friend, is the very definition of heresy. He is choosing his own preferences over those of Christ and the Holy Church. He is choosing his own language over the words of Christ and the Holy Church. He is doing this and misleading the Faithful.


Let's set aside your statements earlier about the Pope usurping power from the councils.

I appreciate your clarifications of translations. I appreciate your distrust of modification to the Scripture. But, would God actually lead anyone into temptation? God would allow people to be tempted, of course; that's the whole reason Job is in the Bible. But allowing and leading are two entirely different things.

Once again, I do not have the educational background to dispute these issues. As someone who tries to live by the Faith, who tries to fully understand my own religion, as someone who believes that accuracy of language is vital, necessary to the understanding and belief of the Word, I am legitimately asking these questions not to debate or argue, but to understand.

So, why, (and I know this will sound counter-intuitive), is it blasphemy to say that God does not lead in to sin, but through his grace and love can help us avoid temptation?

Again, I understand that changing, removing, or adding to God's Word is blasphemous; I would never deny that. But, this does not entirely seem to be that situation, from my understanding.

Finally, and as an aside, I've not been a huge fan of this Pope regardless; I felt Pope Emeritus Benedict was a much more thoughtful and well-reasoned individual, who used his position for the betterment of the Church. As the priest and my mother brought up today, Pope Francis is far too Trump-like, saying his opinion without consideration for how it comes across or how much damage it may cause.

All opinions, understanding (or lack there-of), and beliefs not-withstanding, Pope Francis' call for this change will drive a wedge between the Church and the Protestant religions, and does nothing but to divide Christianity even more-so.

I do wish he'd shut his mouth.

This message last edited by TyrReborn on 11/12/2017 at 10:42:40 PM
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