Eis Peirasmón
On the Quest for the Lost Message of Redemption and Damnation Contained in the Lord’s Prayer
- Biblical Studies & Commentaries
- Publisher: Resource Publications (Wipf and Stock)
- Published: 2022
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Publisher's Description
For the past two thousand years, theologians and biblical scholars have been furiously debating the correct interpretation of the sixth petition of the Lord's Prayer ("and lead us not into temptation"). Despite all the hypotheses proposed, no convincing solution has been found to date. In fact, every single attempt has crashed against insurmountable difficulties. Even within the church, the debate on this topic is far from settled. Recently, both France and Italy approved new translations that deviate substantially from the two-thousand-year-old traditional Latin version. Since God cannot be the one leading us into temptation (Satan is), it becomes necessary to reformulate the petition by hiding God's responsibility under convoluted permissive constructs. But can any of these interpretations have any exegetical justification? This book is an ambitious and reckless attempt--from the point of view of an outsider, of a theoretical physicist--to rethink the Lord's Prayer from the beginning, and with it, to come closer, if possible, to the authentic message of Christ. As a result of a rigorous, deductive, scientific approach that minimizes any hermeneutical bias, the meaning of the sixth petition will spontaneously emerge and appear to the reader in its simplicity and elegance.
Endorsements (4)
“Elmetti has written an important book which forces readers to grapple with the meaning of the biblical text rather than focus on what scholars have proposed. He clarifies the meaning and role of temptation in the Lord’s Prayer in the context of seminal Old and New Testament texts. Clearly written, this book is a thought-provoking pleasure to read!”
“A very thorough investigation that takes as its starting point the theological difficulty—within the church itself—of making sense of the traditional translation of the Lord’s Prayer. The study answers the question whether God can lead into temptation by applying a whole arsenal of accepted exegetical methods. The result is well argued and surprising: an endorsement of God’s grace in the time of peirasmós.”
“Elmetti problematizes the range of ways in which eis peirasmón in the Lord’s Prayer has been understood by scholars, and for that, he deserves our commendation. He then goes on to offer a fresh and quite distinctive understanding of this challenging phrase that warrants careful scrutiny.”
“Elmetti’s book is an innovative and thought-provoking search for the meaning of the sixth petition of the Lord’s Prayer, which audaciously moves to and fro from Semitic and Greek philology to theology, and discusses the Scriptures and the church fathers, as well as the religious poetry of Dead Sea Scrolls.”
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