"A good life is the only religion." (Thomas Fuller)

.....In my blog the other day--or yesterday--I mentioned that the line, "....and lead us not into temptation," from The Lord's Prayer in the Sermon on the Mount that begins, "Our father who art in heaven...." is not very complimentary to God who is not supposed to lead people thusly. That's Satan's prerogative. However, I did receive a lesson about this problem from Cousin Ruth Grimsley in England, and I will share it with all who read this blog, and thus immortalize her once more:

.....The main purpose of my writing to you now is to acquaint you with the long debate about the meaning of "lead us not into temptation." It is to your credit that you have identified a real theological and philological difficulty here, all by yourself, without any knowledge of previous debate on the subject.

The first thing you must know is that Latin is the language of theological obfuscation: Greek is the language of enlightenment here, and the New Testament was written in this language. (By the time of the New Testament, the language is no longer called Ancient Greek (golden age - 5thC BC) but koine (common) Greek, as it was by then a lingua franca. Basically it's the same language, however - it's a bit simpler, and has lost some of its character, but you'd expect that.) So we must go back to it. The original Greek does NOT mean "temptation." We have a mistranslation, or at any rate an inadequate translation. The word is "peirasmos" which comes from the verb "peiromai" meaning to try, or test. (We get our word "pirate" from this: the best - but still not brill - English translation of this word has to be "chancer.") So the prayer really means "do not bring us to the time of trial," or it is sometimes translated as "do not bring us to the time of hard testing." (These are in modern translations of the New Testament.)

However, there are even more interesting aspects of this prayer. My koine Greek lexicon, which concentrates on the words of Jesus as being well within the Jewish tradition, states that the word originates in Hebrew, and refers to a state of trial into which God brings his people through adversity and affliction, in order to stimulate and prove their faith in him. (Btw, I don't know Hebrew - YET! It's next on the list!) Additionally, by metonymy, adversity, affliction, and sorrow. So, another reasonable translation would be, "do not place afflictions on us." And that, I think, wraps it up.

.....Yes, but the line still reads, "Lead us not into temptation...". Yep, I think that about wraps it up. Except that originally I called this prayer, Psalm 23, which it is not. Psalm 23 begins, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want..." I simply confused the two but I have since corrected the glitch in the blog.

.....On a more personal note, the Boomers Club held a picnic today which began at 11:30 and where hot dogs and hamburgers and soda were served. There were about 200 people there--I'm guessing--I couldn't count them all. I didn't go for the food served at that hour, so before we got there we stopped at Dunkin' Donuts and I ordered a bagel with cream cheese and a cup of coffee--to go. Before I stuff myself with hot dogs, I do have to have some semblance of a breakfast. (I wonder if they have Dunkin' Donuts in England??). Not only was picnic fare served, but raffle tickets were sold, clowns wandered among the tables, and games and entertainment was part of the $10 ticket sale. We didn't participate. We went home and Rhoda went to the Flea Market to get batteries for three of her watches. Remember--Beware the Ides of March!