τοῦ πονηροῦ in Matthew 6:13

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RandallButh
Posts: 1105
Joined: May 13th, 2011, 4:01 am

Re: τοῦ πονηροῦ in Matthew 6:13

Post by RandallButh »

It helps to know some guidelines of Jewish prayer idiom.

We have אל תביאנו לידי נסיון do not bring us to (the hands of) temptation, into the power of the testing.
and הצילנו מן הרע 'deliver us from (the) evil'.
Again, as mentioned, by itself 'the evil' never refers to a personal entity in Hebrew. If it generated τοῦ πονηροῦ then the word is generic and abstract, which is one of the idiomatic uses of the Greek article.

If the Hebrew can only be taken one way, and the Greek is simply ambiguous, then I recommend reading along with the Hebraic understanding 'deliver us from evil'.

--

On the other hand, Matt 13:19 can only be taken personally, so that should be understood as a Matthean Greek idiom that replaced some other idiom in the Hebrew parable and in a source translation. If we look at Mark and Luke, we see that the Hebrew parable likely had just such an idiom. Luke has διαβολος and Mark has σατανας. Both point to a word like השטן or בעלזבוב, בעל זבול etc., in a Hebrew parable. Matthew probably saw both a source Greek text as well as Mark's version when penning ὁ πονηρός.
RandallButh
Posts: 1105
Joined: May 13th, 2011, 4:01 am

Re: τοῦ πονηροῦ in Matthew 6:13

Post by RandallButh »

It helps to know some guidelines of Jewish prayer idiom.

We have אל תביאנו לידי נסיון do not bring us to (the hands of) temptation, into the power of the testing.
and הצילנו מן הרע 'deliver us from (the) evil'.
Again, as mentioned, by itself 'the evil' never refers to a personal entity in Hebrew. If it generated τοῦ πονηροῦ then the word is generic and abstract, which is one of the idiomatic uses of the Greek article.

If the Hebrew can only be taken one way, and the Greek is simply ambiguous, then I recommend reading along with the Hebraic understanding 'deliver us from evil'.

--

On the other hand, Matt 13:19 can only be taken personally, so that should be understood as a Matthean Greek idiom that replaced some other idiom in the Hebrew parable and in a source translation. If we look at Mark and Luke, we see that the Hebrew parable likely had just such an idiom. Luke has διαβολος and Mark has σατανας. Both point to a word like השטן or בעלזבוב, בעל זבול etc., in a Hebrew parable. Matthew probably saw both a source Greek text as well as Mark's version when penning ὁ πονηρός.
Thomas Dolhanty
Posts: 401
Joined: May 20th, 2014, 10:13 am
Location: west coast of Canada

Re: τοῦ πονηροῦ in Matthew 6:13

Post by Thomas Dolhanty »

RandallButh wrote:It helps to know some guidelines of Jewish prayer idiom.

We have אל תביאנו לידי נסיון do not bring us to (the hands of) temptation, into the power of the testing.
and הצילנו מן הרע 'deliver us from (the) evil'.
Again, as mentioned, by itself 'the evil' never refers to a personal entity in Hebrew. If it generated τοῦ πονηροῦ then the word is generic and abstract, which is one of the idiomatic uses of the Greek article.

If the Hebrew can only be taken one way, and the Greek is simply ambiguous, then I recommend reading along with the Hebraic understanding 'deliver us from evil'.

--

On the other hand, Matt 13:19 can only be taken personally, so that should be understood as a Matthean Greek idiom that replaced some other idiom in the Hebrew parable and in a source translation. If we look at Mark and Luke, we see that the Hebrew parable likely had just such an idiom. Luke has διαβολος and Mark has σατανας. Both point to a word like השטן or בעלזבוב, בעל זבול etc., in a Hebrew parable. Matthew probably saw both a source Greek text as well as Mark's version when penning ὁ πονηρός.
It is helpful, and it reminds me in particular of the "kingdom" mindset of Judaism and Judaic prayers and expectations. The context of Matthew 6 is Kingdom, and the prayer in particular begins with Πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς ... moving on to ... ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου ...

I've been looking at Paul's remark in Galatians 1:4 which sounds quite similar to me: … ὅπως ἐξέληται ἡμᾶς ἐκ τοῦ αἰῶνος τοῦ ἐνεστῶτος πονηρου … ... I am beginning to lean towards the more general reading of τοῦ πονηροῦ in Matthew 6:13 - that which is opposite and opposed to the kingdom being described in Matthew 5-7.

Regarding how the source documents - Hebrew or Greek - influenced Matthew here I am a bit more circumspect. Noting how often there is a departure from texts where we actually know the source passage, I find this mushy ground. Maybe I just need better boots!
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