This paraphrased version to my way of thinking is excellent clarification of the Prayer and the reason that I posted it. Further investigation shows various translations. Personally, from a spiritual viewpoint, the patriarchal structuring seems artificially imposed.
This paraphrased version to my way of thinking is excellent clarification of the Prayer and the reason that I posted it. Further investigation shows various translations. Personally, from a spiritual viewpoint, the patriarchal structuring seems artificially imposed.
In our email correspondence with Douglas-Klotz, we soon learned what appeared to be happening with the "O cosmic Birther" translation that was being shared on Facebook. He told us that there have been no shortage of what he termed "paraphrases" of his previous translations:
There have been an enormous number of "paraphrases” (in publishing terms plagiarism) of my multiple translations of the prayer floating around online for the past 30+ years. The one now floating around is the current one. As far as I can tell none of the people doing them know Aramaic. They are just improvising based on their own fancy, using material from the multiple actual translations from Aramaic in my first book (1990), "Prayers of the Cosmos." My methodology and sources are in "The Hidden Gospel" (1999).
He also said that the idea that there's one true and original translation of the Lord's Prayer just doesn't square with reality:
Ancient Semitic languages, their root-and-pattern system and their 'way of knowing' (epistemology) in the ancient world mean that the words of prophet or visionary would always be understood on multiple levels. The ideal of one, single "literal" translation did not exist. That comes later with Christian theology.
According to Douglas-Klotz's work, the "O cosmic Birther" variation on Facebook appears to simply be a paraphrased version of the translations he published in his book in 1990, meaning that it is not, in fact, any sort of an original, definitive, or literal translation of the Lord's Prayer.
"I have nothing against people improvising on what I’ve done for their own use, or composing their own prayers from scratch," Douglas-Klotz said. "It’s when they begin to post that something is the 'one, true' translation from Aramaic that I start getting a lot of email (or doing multiple posts on Facebook, which is what’s happening now)." So it is....interesting.
This paraphrased version to my way of thinking is excellent clarification of the Prayer and the reason that I posted it. Further investigation shows various translations. Personally, from a spiritual viewpoint, the patriarchal structuring seems artificially imposed.
In our email correspondence with Douglas-Klotz, we soon learned what appeared to be happening with the "O cosmic Birther" translation that was being shared on Facebook. He told us that there have been no shortage of what he termed "paraphrases" of his previous translations:
There have been an enormous number of "paraphrases” (in publishing terms plagiarism) of my multiple translations of the prayer floating around online for the past 30+ years. The one now floating around is the current one. As far as I can tell none of the people doing them know Aramaic. They are just improvising based on their own fancy, using material from the multiple actual translations from Aramaic in my first book (1990), "Prayers of the Cosmos." My methodology and sources are in "The Hidden Gospel" (1999).
He also said that the idea that there's one true and original translation of the Lord's Prayer just doesn't square with reality:
Ancient Semitic languages, their root-and-pattern system and their 'way of knowing' (epistemology) in the ancient world mean that the words of prophet or visionary would always be understood on multiple levels. The ideal of one, single "literal" translation did not exist. That comes later with Christian theology.
According to Douglas-Klotz's work, the "O cosmic Birther" variation on Facebook appears to simply be a paraphrased version of the translations he published in his book in 1990, meaning that it is not, in fact, any sort of an original, definitive, or literal translation of the Lord's Prayer.
"I have nothing against people improvising on what I’ve done for their own use, or composing their own prayers from scratch," Douglas-Klotz said. "It’s when they begin to post that something is the 'one, true' translation from Aramaic that I start getting a lot of email (or doing multiple posts on Facebook, which is what’s happening now)." So it is....interesting.