This translation comes from Neil Klotz. Aramaic is the language Jesus of Nazareth spoke and is very likely light years ahead of the Greek version printed in everyone's bible:

quote:

O, Birther of the Cosmos, focus your light within us -- make it useful
Create your reign of unity now
Your one desire then acts with ours,
As in all light,
So in all forms,
Grant us what we need each day in bread and insight:
Loose the cords of mistakes binding us,
As we release the strands we hold of other's guilt.
Don't let surface things delude us,
But free us from what holds us back.
From you is born all ruling will,
The power and the life to do,
The song that beautifies all,
From age to age it renews.
I affirm this with my whole being.

That's amazing. It reminds me of the following quote by Rumi:

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

Language may be such a barrier. If we were to put as much passion into understanding each other as we are putting into misunderstanding each other, we could come a long way...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ariel23,

If you are interested, here are some more translations by Klotz

buteos, if you are interested here is a Link to a site that has the orginal Aramaic text of the NT, with the Nnglish translation written above it. You would have to read it right to left, and it's tricky because not everything will translate directly to English...but you get the idea. The Peshitta (means "straight") requires that the NT remain in it's original language, although I've wondered if Aramaic speaking people of that time weren't bilingual in order for the Greek/Romans to communicate?

Thank you for the link Buteos. I did a quick google-search on Klotz, interesting. In the above translation, I like it that there is no mentioning of "sins."

Lisa, thanks for the link. Aramaic is a very interesting language: depending on the inflection one uses on various words they can have very different meanings. Thus, a single word carries different meanings depending on its inflection and the way the speaker uses it.

The Peshitta is a well known source unlocking diverse understandings as opposed to the traditional western church which wrote the first narratives in the Greek. The gospels were written anywhere from sixty to eighty years after the death of Jesus. Those narratives relied on the oral tradition in the re-telling of Jesus' life, and scholars further have reached consensus on another source document which they refer to as Q.

There is a lively debate among scholars that the Peshitta was translated from the Greek into Aramaic and then from Aramaic into english and other languages. Others hold it comes from texts originally written in Aramaic. I tend to agree with the Aramaic to english side of the issue.

Thanks for the source. I hope to look it over in some depth.

It's so far out that the gospels were written so long after Jesus' death, considering the average life-span of a person in those days-- not to mention average brain capacity needed to recollect those teachings, and, in a language that differed from the language in which Jesus spoke. I think a lot of languages today still have this 'different inflection' aspect. For example, modern day Thai is very susceptible to inflection and height of the tone of voice. And the Scandinavian languages Norwegian and Danish are identical in the written word, but the pronunciation is completely different.

Ariel,

I have read somewhere years ago that memory was very strong before written word became common, so that traditions and stories were passed down from generation to generation, not necessarily with a lot of changing. It may have not been that big a task to keep those stories accurate over those years--our experience comes from centuries now of relying on our memory to be outside our minds. But, I think translation can lose a lot.


I love the prayer--Buteos--thanks!

eley

That's what's so fascinating about it. For, with the spoken word being common, the written word must have been very susceptible to "typos" when the first attempts were made to write down the gospels...
The complete movie "The Temptation of the Christ" by Mel Gibson was in ancient Aramaic too, by the way. So the language has been preserved that long and recollected, which is amazing to me.

That's interesting that "The Temptation..." was done in ancient Aramaic. I avoided that movie like the plageu, so I didn't know that.

eley

I'm sorry, I meant "The Passion of the Christ"...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Passion_of_the_Christ

My mistake...

I too made the mistake. I knew what movie you were referencing.

eley

Why did you avoid it?

Hi Ariel

I avoided it because it focused on a guilt motivation for relating to G-d. That is it focused on the idea that we have sinned, and as such G-d has asked for our payment of our sins in some form or another, and Jesus is fulfilling that payment with his life.

I wholey reject that idea. NOt that we haven't or don't sin, but that G-d asks for payment of such, and that g-d would have his Son sacrificed in-order to get it.

I could tell that it was also utelizing the appeal violence has to people in-order to sell big. I also wholey reject the use of violence appeal as an ethical way to gain profit--especially in relation to a sales job of Christianity.

The movie's focus takes out of context a small aspect of the story of Jesus' life as recorded in the Gospels--which to me is much more important than dying for our sins (I have heard that can easily be translated as dying because of our sins--which I prefer, because that is more accurate--the sins of those at the time that flipped their loyalty, etc.) He had a ministry that focused on justice and the concepts of loving God and your neighbor. As well as holding accountable those that plunder and steal with a facade of religious rightousness.

Will have to refine and finish this later.

eley

So, I much prefer the overall message that the man and his teachings (whom I believe was filled with the Christ Spirit) are much more important than this old guilt ridden mechanical story about how human beings failed G-d and have to pay for that failure. But, G-d in his goodness, lets his son stand in for the rest of us, and so then, in-order to be saved (from our sins--I believe) we have to accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour which these days translates into blindly follow the dumbest possible leaders out there and for heavens sack do not familiarize yourself at all with what Jesus actually had to say.

eley

Hi eley!

From what I saw of it, it was focused on representing the last hours of the life of Jesus. I do not support any type of guilt-inducement regarding religion, or anything else, either. Anyone who is trying to guilt or blame other people for something is really experiencing a severe victimization within themselves that prevents them from looking at their own roles in things. It is always a way to get a person further astranged from Who He/She Really Is.

This is rather tricky isn't it. I think it is important to differentiate between "sins" and "mistakes." Everyone makes mistakes. But, does to make mistakes = sinning?

This culture is very set on this binary form of classification. I can safely say that I've learned greatly from my mistakes. And I would not have wanted it it any other way. I may not have a need to repeat the mistake, but *that* may very well be G-d (Allah, Buddha, God etc.) granting me the opportunity to "pay", if you can catch my drift. A person's own awareness process can be described as a divine intervention.

Yes, it is a violent film, but it also represents people's ignorance and fear, the eternal struggle for Power, and how that corrupts the mind. It portrays how the human race is capable of these things, and it is still happening 2,000 years later.

But I agree with you that it induces the use of the morality finger and also with what you are saying about dying for our sins vs. dying because of our sins. I very much like how you describe this.

This is interesting:

quote:

we have to accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour which these days translates into blindly follow the dumbest possible leaders out there and for heavens sack do not familiarize yourself at all with what Jesus actually had to say.

What do you suppose is the pay-off for this behavior? And for whom?

Well, in the US the quality of life is going down. Where once it was a norm that everybody had nominally the same healthcare, and everybody had access to quality higher education, most of us are in debt above our noses, and that's just to get by. The cost of higher education has skyrocketed, and so has housing. Food is now going up, but....we can go to wal-mart and get all kinds of gadgets to play with. Cheap goods are about the only thing many Americans can afford. And because those cheap goods have kept many entertained, and cheap (heritical) religion has kept many confused, those other quality of life issues hadn't pushed hard enough to break through. I think they have now though. Maybe, just time, and enough evangelist taking a good look at what the teachings really are has probably helped.

The head of an American evangelical association--the biggest, was exposed as gay after a lifetime of gay bashing just recently. That's got to do something--I would think. I haven't had a lot of contact recently with fundy's though, so I don't know how they have responded.

Above is on the empiracle and societal level. I think the giving up responsibility to one's life by handing it over to these wolves in sheep clothing stunts their growth in about the same way other addictions do.


Hope I didn't offend you with my knee jerk reaction to the movie. It came out when religiouse propaganda was in full swing here, and so upon hearing a little about it, I could just see its pushing people further in that direction. One of the past ministers of our church was not happy with it either after watching it. He advised not seeing it.

eley

How could you possibly offend me by responding with such a well-thought of reply?

I think the real pay-off for the fact that people/ leaders are not familiarizing themselves with what Jesus actually had to say, is because they are enticed by fear. Fear, to people, is more familiar than anything else, it's why they allow themselves to be lured into and seduced by it. It's what keeps them coming to church. In some cases, I would even say that the church teaches different things than Jesus did, but I'm not qualified enough to discuss what the church does and does not teach.

What would you say?

Well, I'm glad that I had not offended you.

Ariel,

I know that here in the area of the US I live in, Catholic churches can be some of the strongest forces for social justice, while at the same time being very strong forces against it, as well as agianst women's rights to make their own decisions about their bodies and future responsibilities, and the dissimination of sex education in public schools. So I know that even within the traditional Christian Catholic church locally there is a great deal of variety in what is taught.

Then there are a gamut of protestant denominations and within each differences in what is focused on.

I believe the church (United Methodist) I have been a member of for 15 years is a very unique group. I sometimes forget this minor truth, because if it were not available, I probably wouldn't attend a traditional Christian Church. It's had some of the most progressive leaders, lay as well as proffessional, available. There is a real irony about West Texas in that it is probably about as conservative a place there is, but the people that aren't conservative, generally speaking are quite to the left of center. There is a University here, and that helps. One of the ministers several years back was a scholar and theologian. He was followed by his best friend--much more of an extrovert, but sharing the same theological leanings. Under his leadership we became a Re-conciling congregation, which is one that openly accepts and takes within those that have been marginalized, such as Gays and Lesbians, but any others as well.

So, I agree that many Christian congregations do not look closely at what Jesus teachings were, but rather are lead by fear, and focus more on mandates and rules, that miss the truly liberating aspects of the Christian message--to love your neighbor as yourself, etc.

eley

quote:

Aramaic

I found this prayer- hope this helps someone today!
Lord's Prayer
(as translated directly from the Aramaic into English, rather than
Hebrew to Greek to Latin.)

O cosmic Brother of all radiance and vibration!

Soften the ground of our being and carve out
a space within us where your Presence can abide.

Fill us with your creativity so that we may be
empowered to bear the fruit of your mission.

Let each of our actions bear fruit in accordance with our desire.

Endow us with the wisdom to produce and share
what each being needs to grow and flourish.

Untie the tangled threads of destiny that bind us, as we
release others from the entanglement of past mistakes.

Do not let us be seduced by that which would divert us
from our true purpose, but illuminate the opportunities
of the present moment.

For you are the ground and the fruitful vision,
the birth-power and fulfillment,
as all is gathered and made whole once again.

Thanks desertgoddess.

Nice!
Yes, thanx desertgoddess. _/\_