(no subject)

[sophiaserpentia]

The other book that came on Friday was Neil Douglas-Klotz's Prayers of the Cosmos. Those of you who have been reading my journal for a while, or have looked through the memories, know I was extremely fond of his book The Hidden Gospel, as I have quoted from it several times.

Prayers of the Cosmos is I think best approached as a companion book to The Hidden Gospel, because it doesn't flow nearly as smoothly, and seems to presume the reader's familiarity with the material and themes raised in the latter book. This book contains a treatment of the Lord's Prayer and the Beatitudes, seen through the lens of Sufi mysticism and the fluidness of the Aramaic language. His work won't satisfy people who are looking for academic rigor (or mainstream Christian theology) but many of his sentiments have been influential on me, perhaps even transformative.

From Prayers of the Cosmos, then, here is an excerpt of Douglas-Klotz's treatment of the first line of the Lord's Prayer.

Abwoon d'bwashmaya (KJV version: Our Father who art in heaven)

The prayer begins with an expression of the divine creation and the blessing that emanates from all parenting. The ancient Middle Eastern root ab refers to all fruit, all germination proceeding from the source of Unity. [compare the use of germination metaphors in Valentinian Gnostic literature - SS.] This root came to be used in the Aramaic word for personal father -- abba -- but still echoes its original ungendered root in sound meaning. [Abwoon's] original roots do not specify a gender and could be translated "divine parent." Bwn shows the ray or emanation of that father/motherhood proceeding from potential to actual, here and now. ...

[T]he word abwoon points beyond our changing concepts of "male" and "female" to a cosmic birthing process. ...

a: the absolute, the Only Being, the pure Oneness and Unity, source of all power and stability....

bw: a birthing, a creation, a flow of blessing, as if from the "interior" of this Oneness to us.

oo: the breath or spirit that carries this flow, echoing the sound of breathing... This sound is linked to the Aramaic phrase rukha d'qoodsha, which was later translated as Holy Spirit.

n: The vibration of this creative breath from Oneness as it touches and interpenetrates form. ...

In d'bwashmaya, the central root is found in the middle: shm. From this root comes shem, which may mean light, sound, vibration, name, or word. The root shm indicates that which "rises and shines in space," the entire sphere of a being. ... The ending -aya shows that this shining includes every center of activity, every place we see, as well as the potential abilities of all things. In effect, shemaya says that the vibration or word by which one can recognize the Oneness -- God's name -- is the universe. This was the Aramaic conception of "heaven." ....

So Douglas-Klotz offers the following renderings of Abwoon d'bwashmaya, all of which apply simultaneously as different levels of meaning to the first line of the prayer:

O Birther! Father-Mother of the Cosmos, you create all that moves in light.

O Thou! The Breathing Life of all, Creator of the shimmering sound that touches us.

Respiration of all worlds, we hear you breathing --in and out-- in silence.

Source of Sound: in the roar and the whisper, in the breeze and the whirlwind, we hear your Name.

Radiant One: you shine within us, outside us -- even darkness shines -- when we remember.

Name of names, our small identity unravels in you; you give it back as a lesson.

Wordless Action, Silent Potency, where ears and eyes awaken, there heaven comes.

Comments

[ex-mommybir.livejournal.com]

Prayers of the Cosmos is I think best approached as a companion book to The Hidden Gospel, because it doesn't flow nearly as smoothly, and seems to presume the reader's familiarity with the material and themes raised in the latter book.

It's very curious that you should say this, as Prayers... is the older of the two books--it came out in the late Eighties, as I recall. I am very fond of it, yet I found The Hidden Gospel impossible to get into and sold it after owning it but not reading for several years.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is the older of the two, but I actually found The Hidden Gospel much easier to read, and having read it, I find Prayers more accessible as a result.

[alobar.livejournal.com]

I came upon this earlier. I have not even glanced at the text yet, but thought it sounded like something I should mention to you. Not sure if you read contentlove's LJ or not, so here is the post: http://www.livejournal.com/users/contentlove/202095.html

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Thank you... will have to try the link she links to again later, it made this computer crash.

[badsede.livejournal.com]

His work won't satisfy people who are looking for academic rigor

This sounds like a group of books that I have begun to call in my own mind pop-theology. It is a class of literature that seems to be more concerned with fostering thinking than knowledge - I don't know if this is applicable to this particular work as I have not read it, your mention just brought this to mind. The problem is that most people cannot discern the lack of academic rigor and simply accept all that they have to say as substantiated and True.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

seems to be more concerned with fostering thinking than knowledge

Freke and Gandy come to mind immediately, as does perhaps Matthew Fox and some others.

I would say that is also a fair assessment of Douglas-Klotz's work. He has tried to gain some academic support, but he's too given to mysticism, and too willing to gloss over a few problem areas. Like in the quote above, I'm not sure I'm willing to buy that Aramaic has a root word meaning "parenthood" free of the concept of gender.

He also included a quote from George Lamsa who argued to the effect that the entire New Testament was originally written in Aramaic. This is something I would also consider very problematic -- perhaps the sayings gospel Q MIGHT have been written originally in Aramaic, in fact there's good reason to believe so, just as there's good reason to believe GTh was originally in Aramaic. But I am afraid I would have a very hard time imagining the Prologue to John or anything by Paul in anything other than Greek.

But even with these caveats, I've found the mystical insight that Douglas-Klotz presents to be extremely profound and helpful to me. And that is where I think the real value of these works lie.

[badsede.livejournal.com]

And that is where I think the real value of these works lie.

I agree that fostering thinking as I put it does contain considerable value. My ownly gripe is that it is not readily evident where the value of the scholarship lies.

As an aside, I feel that Q likely was in Aramaic, but that it was a Greek translation that Mt and Lk had. I also feel that Th. is a redaction (or redactions) of that Greek Q.