Trials or Trial?
The last half of Luke 11:4 reads like this in the New Revised Standard Version (my favorite version for several years now):
"...do not bring us to the time of trial."
The famous and oft recited rendering of "do not lead us into temptation" makes this translation stand out as suspect. The definite article, "the," and the eschatological connotation of "trial" sends my mind and heart to images of THE apocalypse--the end of time. We can be so programmed by such popular verses to assume interpretation without deeper consideration, as stumbling upon this NRSV rendition revealed about my own study habits.
Was Jesus teaching us to pray for non-involvement in the end of time? Jesus does say elsewhere:
"How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath."
Bruce Metzger, the brilliant Greek scholar, oversaw the translation of the NRSV, and so I do not take its rendering lightly. I imagine there is good redaction criticism backing this English rendition, which takes us from the expected prayer of inward struggle and catapults us outward to the great and universal culmination of God's final eradication of evil.
If the article before "trial" was indefinite (i.e. "a time of trial"), then we could understand this in English as praying against being led by God into times of temptation. "A time" would refer to many indefinite struggles that we pray avoidance from. But the preceding article is definite--a strong, clear chiseling of singularity around the word "trial," giving it a distinctness that begs most for an understanding of apocalyptic experiences.
How unreasonable is such an interpretation? Jesus' advice throughout his ministry was full of the theme: awareness of the end. Was this yet another moment he intended to urge us for preparedness? He came to save us from the sins that would otherwise bar us from heaven. Why wouldn't he teach us to pray specifically for avoidance of a time that is so awful that even the elect might stumble toward ultimate destruction? He told us to pray that the women among us would not be pregnant at the time of apocalypse, why not also teach us to pray for non-involvement all together?
If this is so, an even bigger question awaits: why would Jesus teach us a prayer of such avoidance?
Created about 2 years ago
