With Pope Francis proposing and the French Catholic church already implementing something as big as a change in the translation of the Lord’s Prayer (from “lead us not into temptation” to “do not let us fall into temptation” for us English speakers), does anyone suppose that discussion of this could eventually pave the way for Christians to be more open to alternative interpretations of Genesis 1-11, assuming this change happens or at least gets seriously discussed?
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That’s an interesting question. That topic came up in church today and the couple people I heard voice an opinion seemed to be of the general opinion that “change is bad” and “Why not throw out the entire Bible?” Which doesn’t really surprise me, I guess.
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I guess this might open up a question on whether or not God Himself was testing Adam and Eve by letting the serpent get in or if in fact this was just a fact of the matter event that God didn’t prevent.
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There is a difference between translation and interpretation. Bible translators try to do only as much interpretation as is necessary to render the translation comprehensible. You can see that other translators agree that “don’t let us yield to temptation” is probably a more accurate translation than the traditional “lead us not into translation” (which arose from a translation of a translation of a translation) as it was the choice of the modern English NLT. Some other translations have a footnote on that verse. Personally, I think it would be hard to argue that any valid translation changes in Genesis 1-11 would dramatically affect people’s interpretation of the verses. If people have examples otherwise, I would love to see them.
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Churches may have offical stances on things like alternative renderings of things like the Lord’s prayer, but people become aware of such alternatives all the time if they have friends that belong to other churches.
The RC church changed its stance on evolution a long time ago. During his lifetime Piere Teildhard de Chardin had his books banned by the church but this was reversed some years after his death. Its the more conservative Protestant and Evangelical groups that seem still to foster forms of Creationism in opposition to evolution and have more literal interpretations of Genesis.
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