First Things RSS Feed - Anthony Esolen

How Men and Women See

Tue, 24 May 2022 06:00:00 -0400

This essay is excerpted and adapted from No Apologies: Why Civilization Depends on the Strength of Men , out today from Regnery Publishing.

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Thou

Sun, 01 Nov 2020 00:00:00 -0400

One of the disappointing features of our controversies about biblical translations, the readings in the lectionary, the composition of our hymnals, sacred art in our churches, and gestures and actions in our liturgies, is that people in charge of things seem to be poorly versed in the humanities. They show little expertise in poetry, music, art, anthropology, history, or linguistics. Otherwise, they would not make absurd claims about what is vaguely termed the vernacular, claims that cannot be borne out by a close look at human practice. As they harbor a special animus against old grammatical forms and old poetry, I should like to focus on them, though I bid the reader to consider that the lessons are of broad application, both for my own church (Roman Catholic) and for others.

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Why We Shouldn’t Change the Lord’s Prayer

Mon, 11 Dec 2017 07:20:00 -0500

Pope Francis has caused another round of cheering and dismay by calling for a “better translation” of the words of the Lord’s Prayer. Specifically, he says that the line familiar to us English speakers as “lead us not into temptation” should be rendered as “let us not fall into temptation,” because a loving Father does not subject His children to evil. We may cite here, in apparent support of that statement, the words of St. James: “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one; but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire” (Jas. 1:13–14). It was not God who tempted Job, but Satan. It was not God who tempted David with the sight of Bathsheba bathing in her garden, but David himself, whose desire gave birth to the sins of adultery and murder. All Christians, I suppose, will agree.

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