When the Book of Common Prayer was reissued in 1979, it offered contemporary English usage (“Rite II”) as an alternative to the Elizabethan English usage (“Rite I”) that BCPs had used since the first in 1549. At Nativity we have almost always used Rite II in our worship services.
One interesting feature of Rite II, however, is that it provides a choice of wording for the Lord’s Prayer. The traditional version from Rite I may be used. It’s an anomaly in a rite that otherwise uses contemporary English. At Nativity in recent years we have alternated between the traditional Lord’s Prayer and the contemporary version first written by an ecumenical and scholarly group, the International Consultation on English Texts, in the early 1970s. The ICET version was adopted for the 1979 BCP.
There’s really only one substantive difference between the two versions. The traditional version reads “lead us not into temptation” and the contemporary version reads “save us from the time of trial”. What’s that about?
The translation of the first clause of Matthew 6:13 has been an issue for decades. The essential objection to the traditional language is that God would never tempt us – and therefore it’s inappropriate to pray that God not do something that God would never do anyway. The Letter of James says clearly, “No one, when tempted, should say, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one.”
The issue turns on the translation of two words in the Greek manuscripts, eisenenkes and peirasmon. Many scholars say that the meaning of “temptation” in English has shifted over the centuries and that peirasmon in this context is mainly an eschatological reference to the period immediately prior to the second coming of Christ. As you might imagine, however, traditionalists and particularly the evangelicals who see the Bible in general (and often the King James Version in particular) as literally true and inerrant have fervently defended “lead us not into temptation” – in particular the position that eisenenkes was accurately translated all along.
You see this split among bible publishers too. The 1952 Revised Standard Version, favored by The Episcopal Church at the time, retained the traditional wording. Nearly all bibles targeted for the evangelical community still do. However, the 1970 New English Bible wrote “do not put us to the test”. The 1986 version of the New American Bible of the Roman Catholic Church chose “do not subject us to the final test”. And finally the 1989 New Revised Standard Version, which we have read in public worship at Nativity since it was published, went with “do not bring us to the time of trial”.
Liturgical texts have different objectives. While a liturgical text must be faithful to the meaning of the Greek or Latin, it should also be easy to speak and sing, easy to hear clearly, and easy to remember. So far, The Episcopal Church has stuck with the ICET version and the traditional version in parallel. In its 1980 Alternative Service Book and again in its 2000 Common Worship, the Church of England split the difference by using contemporary language but retaining “lead us not into temptation”.
As a community, we use liturgical texts authorized by General Convention and chosen by our Rector, Stephanie, under the guidance of our Bishop. As an individual Episcopalian, you are free to take any position on this and to use either version in your devotions. Personally I prefer the ICET version because I find the scholastic arguments for it more compelling, but I acknowledge that there’s room for a different view. I encourage you to reflect on the two versions and see what the Spirit tells you.