THE TEMPTATION-CLAUSE OF THE LORD'S PRAYER

Abstract

<p>The thesis begins with an exegetical review of the Our Father as word of the historical Jesus. It progresses through exegetical reviews of the same prayer in the Matthean and Lucan traditions respectively. In all three analyses, the focus is on the sixth petition: "Lead us not into temptation." By focusing on the sixth petition, the study brings maximum attention, first, to the difficulties raised by this text from early in the life of Christianity to the present time. Some of the incentive of the study derives from C. F. D. Moule's treatment of "An Unsolved Problem in the Temptation - Clause in the Lord's Prayer," Reformed Theological Review 33 (1974): 65-75. The study offers an answer to this "unsolved problem." Second, it attempts to answer the question of what is meant by the sixth petition not only at three phases in the tradition (Jesus, Matthew, Luke), but by reflection on the petition in all its parts, e.g., examining each of the words "and lead us not into temptation" and how each functions in the whole petition. (Hence, treatment of the verb εỉσεvεykῃs, the preposition εἰs, and the noun πεipασμόv, their relationship to each other, and their collaboration to form one idea will be necessary.) In part two the object of reflection will be God's role in temptation as perceived in the Bible, and the point of praying "lead us not into temptation." The study does not neglect treatment of temptation in the Old Testament, nor does it fail to deal with the reasons accounting for why this theme has the distinct contour that it assumes in the New Testament.</p>