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371 386 [1.] NL, 58,1 (2); handwritten; published as a two-part volume in 1968 as Schöpfung und Fall—Versuchung (Creation and Fall—Temptation); also as a separate volume in 1953 as Versuchung (Temptation) and Predigten—Auslegungen—Meditationen [Sermons— Interpretations—Meditations], 2:247–85. Footnotes are in NL, B 9,7: stenographic notes taken by Erich Klapproth, “June 21, 1938 Bonhoeffer: The concept of peirasmov~ in the New Testament and the petition: Do not lead us into temptation” (Klapproth). Bonhoeffer gave this Bible study on Matt. 6:13a, the sixth petition in the Lord’s Prayer, during a retreat in Zingst, June 20–25, 1938 (see DB-ER, 518 and 593, for the participants of all five Finkenwalde courses. The concrete background of Bonhoeffer’s urgent exhortation to resist, in a narrower sense, “temptations,” was the offer made by the regional church consistories to “legalize” the illegal theologians of the Confessing Church. In a wider sense, there were temptations to succumb to the National Socialist ideology with its pseudomessianic “Führer” cult and its Germanic myths of struggle and redemption. There are also twenty-four extant pages (according to the archival pagination) of Bonhoeffer’s handwritten notes and preliminary drafts, NL, A 58,1 (1), especially on the biblical concepts of uJpomonhv (“patience,” “steadfastness”) and peirasmov~ (“testing,” “temptation”); cf. above 2/2.3. and 2/2.2. [2.] Matt. 6:13 [NRSV: “And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one”—VB]. Another alternative beginning of the text, deleted, is found later in this manuscript; see ed. note 50 on point “III.5” [3.] This Roman numeral—as also “II” below etc.—is added in the margin with pencil . Klapproth’s numbering—“1),” “2),” “3),” [IV] “c).” “V.”—corresponds to Bonhoeffer’s Roman numerals. B. Lectures and Essays 4. Bible Study on Temptation, June 20–25, 1938[1] Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.[2] I.[3] 1. The natural human being and the ethical human being cannot understand this prayer. The natural human being seeks the testing of his strength in adventure, struggle, and the encounter with the enemy. This is life. “If you never risk your life, you can never win life.”[4] Only life that is endangered[5] to the point of death is won. This is the knowledge of the 2/4 Bible Study on Temptation 387 372 373 [4.] The final chorus in Schiller’s drama Wallensteins Lager (Wallenstein’s Camp) (1798), scene 11. [5.] Deleted “submerged into death.” [6.] Cf. Bonhoeffer’s interpretation of Gen. 2:8–17 in DBWE 3:80–93, esp. 88ff. Concerning the person in the “situation of ‘ethical conflict,’” cf. DBWE 4:71–76 (the citation is from p. 71). [7.] The penciled addition “strengths of faith,” written above the line, was apparently meant to replace the words “good and pious strengths.” [8.] [Ps. 38:10 NRSV.—VB] The citation from Psalm 38 replaces: “the strength of the recognition of my sins rises against me, the strength of my faith in forgiveness by grace, given into the hand of the enemy, becomes . . .” [9.] Replaces: “A Christian who is tempted is engulfed in nothingness.” [10.] Deleted: “in this nothingness.” [11.] The citation from The Book of Concord is an addition in pencil. natural human being. The ethical human being also knows that human insights become true and convincing only when tested and proven, that what is good can only live from what is evil, and that the good person would no longer be good without what is evil. In this sense the ethical person challenges evil, praying daily: lead me into temptation in order that [I] may prove the power of goodness in myself.[6] If temptation truly were how the natural and the ethical human being think of it, namely, the testing of one’s own strength—be it vital or ethical or even Christian strength—against opposition, the enemy, then this prayer of Christians would make no sense. For it is certainly not a uniquely Christian insight, but also one of the world, that life is won only from death, and good only from evil. But all of this has nothing to do with the temptation Jesus is speaking about. It does not in any way touch upon the reality that is meant here. The temptation of which the entire Holy Scripture speaks does not at all concern the probation of my own...

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