To the Editor of the Herald.
In your issue of September 2, while commenting upon the communication of "Uncle Toby," who maintained that honest men and women are above temptation,—and I fully concur with him,—you quote "Lead us not into temptation" as appropriate to the subject. With sincere deference to your opinion, as well as to the opinions of all educated men, however much their opinions may differ from mine, I hold the alleged text to be an ancient error and that Christ never uttered it.
Analyze the words and consider their true meaning. Clearly, that God has made us weak, erring children and placed us here to learn in a strict school the alphabet of existence; that He has permitted us to be surrounded with snares and pitfalls, and we must pray that He "lead us not into" them! The text as it stands clearly implies a reproach to the Almighty and constitutes a libel on Christ's teaching.
What has been the origin of the error? Christ was a Jew, and spoke in the Aramaic tongue—the Syro-Chaldaic dialect of the Hebrew. He was a scholar and understood Greek. Pure Hebrew was practically a dead language before the birth of Christ. The compilers of the Bible and the early fathers of the Church were not acquainted with Hebrew, and Jewish scholars refused to teach their language to any one not of their own faith. Hence the compilers had to rely upon Jewish translators, who, through incompetence or carelessness, discharged their duties in a very indifferent manner. An erroneous translation—and such were many—being thus once established, it was carried throughout the sacred Book from Genesis to Revelation.
In the Aramaic language the word temptation as we employ the noun does not occur. Even when that language had attained its meridian—before the fourth and eighth centuries—we look for it in vain, and nowhere in the valuable Greek translations of that literature do we find it. The original is an Aramaic idiom having no equivalent in any known language. It may be justly translated by the words, "bring us not into probation," or "bring us not into trial," or "judge us not severely for our faults," the first version being the most accurate.
Another unhappy mistranslation, for which there is less excuse, also occurs in the prayer of prayers, "Give us this day our daily bread." For "daily" we should read super-substantial, to signify sustenance for spirit and body.
New York, September 7, 1905 New York Herald
