O Breathing Life,
Your name shines everywhere!
Make some space
To plant Your presence!
Imagine in your imagination
Your “I can” now!
Clothe Your desire in every light and form!
Sprout bread through us and
An epiphany for every moment!
Untie the knots of failure that bind us,
Just like we free the ropes,
with which we restrain the misdeeds of others!
Help us not to forget our Source.
But free us from the immaturity of not being in the Present!
Everything comes from You
Vision, Power and Song
From meeting to meeting!
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When and why did the reference to the evil one (Satan) appear in the Lord's Prayer?
In ancient Church Slavonic there is no evil: “... and do not lead us into attack, but deliver us from hostility.” Who added “onion” to the main prayer of Jesus Christ?
The Lord's Prayer, known to every Christian since childhood, is a concentrated statement of the entire Christian doctrine. At the same time, it is one of the most perfect literary works ever recorded in writing.
This is the generally accepted view of the short Lord's Prayer that Jesus taught His disciples.
How is this possible? Indeed, for a complete presentation of religious teachings in other religions, many volumes were needed. And Jesus did not even ask His disciples to write down every word.
It’s just that during the Sermon on the Mount He said (Matthew 6:9:13): 
“Pray like this:
Our Father, who art in heaven!
And forgive us our debts,
just as we leave our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.”
But this is not the only option for translating the Lord's Prayer into Russian. In the 1892 edition of the Gospel that the author has, there is a slightly different version:
“Our Father who art in heaven!
Hallowed be Thy Name; Thy kingdom come;
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven;
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our debts;
to our debtors;
and do not lead us into temptation,
but deliver us from evil;”
In the modern, canonical edition of the Bible (with parallel passages) we find almost the same version of the translation of the Prayer:
“Our Father who art in heaven!
Hallowed be Thy Name; Thy kingdom come;
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven;
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our debts;
just as we forgive our debtors;
And do not lead us into temptation,
but deliver us from evil;”
In the Old Church Slavonic translation, the Prayer (if written in the modern alphabet) sounds closer to the first version:
“Our Father, who art in heaven!
Hallowed be Thy name! Thy kingdom come;
Thy will be done as it is in heaven and on earth.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also leave our debtor.
And don't lead us into trouble,
but deliver us from evil.”
These translations use different words to refer to the same concepts. “Forgive us” and “leave us”, “attack” and “temptation”, “who art in heaven” and “he who is in heaven” mean the same thing.
There is no distortion of the meaning and spirit of the words given by Christ to His disciples in any of these options. But comparing them, we can come to the important conclusion that the literal transmission of the Words of Jesus is not only impossible, but not necessary.
In English translations of the Gospels you can find several different versions, but all of them can be considered authentic, because in them the meaning of the Prayer and its spirit are adequately conveyed.
The Lord's Prayer became widespread immediately after the crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus. This is evident from the fact that it was found in such distant places as the city of Pompeii (that is, it was there before Pompeii was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD).
At the same time, the original text of the Lord’s Prayer has not reached us in its original form.
In translations into Russian, the Lord's Prayer sounds the same in the Gospels of Matthew (6:9-13) and Luke (11:2-4). We find the same text in the KJV (King James Version) Gospels in English.
If we take the Greek source, we will be surprised to discover that the familiar words “who art in heaven,” “Thy will be done in heaven and on earth,” and “deliver us from evil” are absent from the Gospel of Luke.
There are many versions explaining the reasons for the disappearance of these words in the Gospel of Luke and their appearance in translations, and subsequently in modern Greek editions of the Gospel. We will not dwell on this, for what is important to us is not the letter, but the spirit of the great Prayer.
Jesus did not command us to pray by memorizing His words literally. He simply said, “Pray like this,” that is, “pray in this way.”
Konstantin Glinka
“Our Father” translated from Aramaic
This morning I dreamed that I was walking with someone I didn’t know through a rocky desert and looking into the sunlit sky. Suddenly I noticed that either a carved gilded casket or a book in the same binding was rapidly approaching us.
Before I had time to tell my friend that in the desert, objects easily fall from the sky and it’s good that they don’t hit my head, I realized that the object was flying straight at me. A second later he crashed to my right, where my friend should have been. I was so stunned that I woke up before I looked in the direction of my unfortunate comrade.
The morning started unusually: on the Internet I came across the “Our Father” in the language of Jesus. The Aramaic translation shocked me so much that I was late for work checking to see if it was a fake. I found that about 15 years ago theologians began to use the expression “primacy of Aramaic.”
That is, as far as I understand, the Greek source was previously the dominant authority in theological disputes, but incongruities were noticed in it that could arise when translating from the original language. In other words, the Greek version is not primary.
An Aramaic version of the Gospel (“Peshitta”, in the Edessa dialect of Aramaic) exists, but it is a translation from Greek.
True, as it turned out, not complete. And not only in the sense of the absence of some parts: there are passages in it that have been preserved in an older form, since they were already written down in Aramaic.
************************************
And if translated literally:
Abwoon d"bwashmaya
Nethqadash shmakh
Teytey malkuthakh
Nehwey tzevyanach aykanna d"bwashmaya aph b"arha.
Hawvlah lachma d"sunqanan yaomana
Washboqlan khuabayn aykana daph khan shbwoqan l"khayyabayn.
Wela tahlan l"nesyuna ela patzan min bisha.
Ameyn.
Abwoon d "bwashmaya (Official translation: Our Father!)
Literal: Abwoon translates as Divine Parent (fruitful emanation of light). d"bwashmaya - sky; root shm - light, flame, divine word arising in space, ending aya - says that this radiance occurs everywhere, at any point in space
Nethqadash shmakh (Official translation: Hallowed be Thy name)
Literal: Nethqadash translates as purification or item for sweeping away litter (to clear a place for something). Shmakh - spreading (Shm - fire) and letting go of inner bustle, finding silence. The literal translation is clearing the space for the Name.
Teytey malkuthakh (Official translation: Thy kingdom come)
Literal: Tey is translated as come, but the double repetition means mutual desire (sometimes the marriage bed). Malkuthakh is traditionally translated as kingdom, symbolically - the fruitful hand, the gardens of the earth; wisdom, purification of the ideal, making it personal for oneself; come home; yin (creative) hypostasis of fire.
Nehwey tzevyanach aykanna d"bwashmaya aph b"arha. (Official translation: Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven)
Literal: Tzevyanach is translated as will, but not strength, but the desire of the heart. One of the translations is naturalness, origin, the gift of life. Aykanna means permanence, embodiment in life. Aph - personal orientation. Arha - earth, b" - means living; b"arha - a combination of form and energy, spiritualized matter.
Hawvlah lachma d "sunqanan yaomana (Official translation: Give us this day our daily bread)
Literal: Hawvlah translates as giving (gifts of the soul and gifts of material). lachma - bread, necessary, essential for maintaining life, understanding of life (chma - growing passion, increase, increase). D "sunqanan - needs, what I can own, how much I could carry; yaomana - necessary to maintain the spirit, vitality.
Washboqlan khuabayn aykana daph khan shbwoqan l"khayyabayn.
(Official translation: And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors)
Literal: Khuabayn is translated as debts, internal accumulated energies that destroy us; in some texts instead of khuabayn there is wakhtahayn, which is translated as failed hopes. Aykana - letting go (passive voluntary action).
Wela tahlan l "nesyuna (Official translation: And do not lead us into temptation)
Literal: Wela tahlan translates as “do not let us enter”; l "nesyuna - illusion, anxiety, hesitation, gross matter; symbolic translation - wandering mind.
ela patzan min bisha.(Official translation: but deliver us from evil)
Literal: Ela - immaturity; symbolic translation - inappropriate actions. Patzan - untie, give freedom; min bisha - from evil
Metol dilakhie malkutha wahayla wateshbukhta l "ahlam almin. (Official translation: For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.)
Literal: Metol dilakhie is translated as the idea of owning something that bears fruit (plowed land); malkutha - kingdom, kingdom, symbolic translation - “I can”; wahayla - the concept of vitality, energy, tuning in unison, supporting life; wateshbukhta - glory, harmony, Divine power, symbolic translation - generating fire; l"ahlam almin - from century to century.
Ameyn. (Official translation: Amen.)
Ameyn - manifestation of will, affirmation, swearing of an oath. Infuses strength and spirit into everything created
The Lord's Prayer in Aramaic. The Native Language of Jesus Christ as spoken and translated by Neil Douglas-Klotz - Music by Ashana.
I was so inspired to combine both song and prayer into one. I don't own the copyright. Thanks to Ashana and Neil Douglas-Klotz. Lyrics below:
Abwoon d"bwashmaya (The Lord"s Prayer in the original Aramaic)
"In researching translations of the original Aramaic, I found discovered a teaching by Dr. Rocco Errico (www.noohra.com), an Aramaic scholar, who explains that the word "abwoon" is actually a term of endearment used by both men and women, and that rather than the word "father" a more accurate translation would be "beloved." - Ashana
The following translation/poetic rendering of the Lord's Prayer is by Dr. Neil Douglas-Klotz, and is one of my favorites.
Abwoon d"bwashmaya
Nethqadash shmakh
Teytey malkuthakh
Nehwey sebyanach aykanna d"bwashmaya aph b"arha.
Habwlan lachma d"sunqanan yaomana.
Washboqlan khaubayn (wakhtahayn) aykana daph khnan shbwoqan l"khayyabayn.
Wela tahlan l"nesyuna
Ela patzan min bisha.
Metol dilakhie malkutha wahayla wateshbukhta l"ahlam almin.
Ameyn.
O Birther! Father-Mother of the Cosmos/ you create all that moves in light.
Focus your light within us--make it useful: as the rays of a beacon show the way.
Create your reign of unity now--through our fiery hearts and willing hands.
Your one desire then acts with ours, as in all light, so in all forms.
Grant what we need each day in bread and insight: subsistence for the call of growing life.
Loose the cords of mistakes binding us, as we release the strands we hold of others" guilt.
Don't let us enter forgetfulness
But free us from unripeness
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.
Truly--power to these statements--may they be the source from which all my actions grow.
Sealed in trust & faith. Amen.
Transliteration and original translation of The Aramaic Lord's Prayer by Dr. Neil Douglas-Klotz from the Peshitta (Syriac-Aramaic) version of Matthew 6:9-13 & Luke 11:2-4 reprinted from Prayers of the Cosmos: Meditations on the Aramaic Words of Jesus (Harper Collins, 1990), 1990, used with permission.
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Early translations of the New Testament.
The translation of the apostolic writings into the languages of the then ancient world became a matter of course in the ancient Church. In particular, the first Christians saw in this the fulfillment of the Lord’s commandment: “ Go preach to all nations"(Matt.).
Accordingly, already in the II-III centuries. translations appeared into Latin, Syriac, and Coptic. Over the years, this process deepened; As the sermon spread, translations into other languages appeared, and previous translations were also refined. It is known that there were many translations. Somewhat later, at the turn of the IV-V centuries. blzh. Jerome, complaining about this circumstance, wrote to Pope Damasus that the number of translations would soon approach the number of manuscripts. Under these conditions, it was also natural that the translations were of varying quality, sometimes unsatisfactory. He wrote about the extremely low quality, for example, of Latin translations at the beginning of the 5th century. Blessed Augustine:
« No sooner does anyone have time to take possession of a new Greek manuscript and imagine that he understands both languages than he immediately dares to translate"(De doctr. Christ. II. XI).
There is a well-developed theory in biblical studies that the Proto-Gospel, which is the Gospel of Matthew, was originally written in Aramaic. However, this is only a theory related to the complex of the so-called synoptic problem. We cannot say unequivocally whether this is true or not.
But it would be surprising if the Gospel texts were not accessible to speakers of Aramaic. Indeed, scholars know translations of New Testament texts into Aramaic. The corresponding translation seems to be one of the most interesting. This is because the corresponding translation takes us back to the linguistic environment in which Jesus lived and preached.
It is surprising that there are no traces of any translations into Aramaic made in the first centuries of Christianity (however, this can be explained by the apparent failure of preaching among the Jews). The same translation that is known dates from the 4th or 5th century. This translation was found in the last century in the Sinai monastery, that is, in the same place where the Sinai Greek Codex was found. The text, an Aramaic translation, was restored from a polympsest of scraped text over which the lives of the saints were written
The same translation was partially preserved in later manuscripts. Researchers have at their disposal fragments from the Gospels, Acts and Pauline Epistles.
While traveling through the Internet, I came across one interesting note: “A literal translation of the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic.” I was interested in the name itself and, having opened the link, began to look for this prayer. To my surprise, I found something that I was not looking for, something that, in my opinion, went beyond the truth.
The translation of the Lord's Prayer from Aramaic into Russian was as follows:
"O Breathing Life,
Your name shines everywhere!
Make some space
Your “I can” now!
Sprout bread through us and
Everything comes from You
Vision, Power and Song
From meeting to meeting!
I could not believe my eyes, my spirit resisted accepting, reading such, I will not hesitate in expressions, nonsense that the author passed off as a literal translation of a prayer from Aramaic into Russian. I looked at various links on the Internet and was amazed at how many links said the same thing. People ignorantly copy the text and share it with others, passing it off as some kind of secret truth. Reading this “translation”, for some reason, I immediately remembered the Gnostics (a heretical sect of the 1st-2nd centuries AD), who propagated a certain secret teaching of Christ, giving enlightenment to man and an understanding of all things, and pantheism (heresy of the 4th century AD, exists to this day).
One of the authors who posted this nonsense on the Internet claimed that Aramaic was the dominant and primary version of the written text of the New Testament. The Peshitta (the Syriac translation of the Bible, an Aramaic dialect) was based on the translation of the Aramaic Targum, which means the Greek version of the New Testament was later than the Peshitta, and was only a translation from the Aramaic language, the same one that was native to Jesus Christ and the apostles. In other words, the Greek version is not primary. Assuring readers, the author shares a false “translation from the original language” into Russian.
Before we get into the actual separation of flies and cutlets, let me remember a little from Christian history:
There are several ancient translations of the Holy Scriptures into various languages: the Septuagint - a Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Targums - a general name for translations of the Old Testament into Aramaic, the Vulgate - a translation of the Bible into Latin, and the Peshita - one of the translations of the Bible into Syriac (Edessa dialect of Aramaic language). The author's hypothesis, according to which the Peshitta was based on a translation of the Aramaic Targum, does not stand up to criticism and does not receive the support of theologians, scientists, and history. However, elements of Targum influence are observed in the text of the Syriac Old Testament (especially in the Pentateuch of Moses and Chronicles). But the style and level of translation of the Old Testament books of the Peshitta varies quite a lot in different parts of Scripture. Some parts of it could have been translated by Syriac-speaking Jews before the emergence of the Christian church, while others could have been revised by the first baptized Jews.
Speaking about the Aramaic language, it should be noted that in the Hellenistic era and up to the Arab conquest, it successfully competed with Greek, reserving the role of local dialects for all other Semitic languages. But from the 2nd century, the ancient Aramaic language, in which the entire Middle East, including Egypt, was spoken, underwent changes and strong modifications under the influence of various cultures and subsequently the conquest of the Arabs (7th century AD).
Historically, it should be noted that the books of the Old Testament were translated into Syriac in the last quarter of the 2nd century AD. BC, the New Testament books were translated by the beginning of the 5th century AD. and were apparently grouped and revised by the Bishop of Edessa, Rabbula. That is, by the 5th century AD, the Peshita as such had already been formed (the very name “Peshitta”, in relation to the standard (generally accepted) Syriac Bible, appeared only in the 9th century AD).
But refuting the historicity, there are still people who claim that the entire teaching of Christ and the apostles was taught only in Aramaic, and it was he, being the language of the original text, that preceded the text of Scripture in the Koine Greek dialect. It is also surprising that this position is mainly adopted by those who share the views of Nestorianism (the heresy of the 4th century, dividing Christ into a simple man before baptism and the Son of God after that, i.e., rejecting one single personality and hypostasis).
Studying biblical studies, we remember that there is a synoptic problem (similarities and differences in the Gospels). And today there is no firm belief as to why it exists, there are only various hypotheses, each of which has its own pros and cons. Today, one of the most realistic hypotheses is that Matthew and Luke, when writing the gospel, used a certain source “Q”, from the German “Quelle” (source), whether this source was part of the sayings of Jesus Christ in Aramaic or not, it is not known, although some of the sayings of Jesus in the Gospels are translations from Aramaic, but be that as it may, it is believed that the text of the Gospel in its current form was compiled in Greek, like other texts of the New Testament. In addition, the Greek language of the books of the New Testament was accepted by the Church Fathers as the original language of the texts, without any discussion. There is a lot of other evidence that it was Koine (a dialect of the Greek language) that was the original text of the New Testament. I would also like to note that to this day not a single manuscript of passages of the books of the New Testament in Aramaic has been found, the text of which would date earlier than the Greek Koine New Testament.
Having remembered a little history, we understand that no “original text in Aramaic” has been found (based on my convictions, it does not exist, because God allowed Scripture to be formed in the form in which we see it, have it, and with the language found in ancient manuscripts). Now about the “Our Father” prayer and the author of this “translation”. To do this, let us again turn our attention to the “literal translation from Aramaic” presented to us:
"O Breathing Life,
Your name shines everywhere!
Make some space
To plant Your presence!
Imagine in your imagination
Your “I can” now!
Clothe Your desire in every light and form!
Sprout bread through us and
An epiphany for every moment!
Untie the knots of failure that bind us,
Just like we free the ropes,
with which we restrain the misdeeds of others!
Help us not to forget our Source.
But free us from the immaturity of not being in the Present!
Everything comes from You
Vision, Power and Song
From meeting to meeting!
Amen. Let our next actions grow from here.”
To begin with, it should be noted that the prayer “Our Father” was written in ancient Greek, and this translation is only a kind of “crooked reconstruction of the meaning” with deliberate misleading of the reader. We know that there are fragments, as part of the sayings of Christ, translated from Aramaic, one of such fragments is the prayer of Christ on the cross of Calvary, but among all the fragments familiar to us, there is not a single mention of the “Lord’s Prayer” in Aramaic.
In addition, in ancient Aramaic, as well as in ancient Hebrew and ancient Greek, addressing God always came in conjunction with masculine personal pronouns, but not feminine or neuter. Is it possible to imagine that a patriarchal culture, where the leading and dominant role in the family, state and politics belonged to men, suddenly allows an appeal to God as some unknown force of the feminine gender, without personality? Of course not! Not one Jew of a monotheistic religion, brought up in a patriarchal culture, who knows the books of the Law, will never allow himself to turn to God the Creator, as the author of this “translation” of the Lord’s Prayer suggests to us.
We say and understand that Scripture is interpreted only by Scripture. Jesus, in his teaching, repeatedly drew the attention of His disciples to the Father, from Whom He descended and to Whom He is coming again. He spoke about the Father's love in deeds, parables, in the history of the people, in Scripture. He emphasized His unity with the Father, but the Person of the Father as predominant in the Trinity. He never taught that the Father can be addressed as some unknown force. The Russian word “Father (parent)”, in Aramaic as well as in Hebrew, sounds like “Aba (Abba)”, in Greek “Pater”. Addressing God the Father as “Our Father” sounds like “Avinu” in Hebrew and “Avvun” in Aramaic. But what is surprising is that not once did the author of the so-called “translation” of the Lord’s Prayer use the word Father, and yet it is the main and central word in this prayer. On the contrary, I believe that the word “father” was deliberately omitted to show the false “greatness” of a literal prayer devoid of all meaning and the power of the Spirit, passing it off as a secret truth! Based on the teachings of Christ, we see how this “translation” destroys the essence of God the Father as a Person, presenting him as some kind of force, thereby undermining the relationship within the Trinity and with people. Presented to the masses, the so-called “translation” of the Lord’s Prayer is nothing more than a heresy, a fusion of Gnosticism and pantheism, a heresy with which the Church has struggled for centuries. Currently, one can see this fusion in movements such as the “New Age” (“New Age”), which with all its might declares the syncretism of religions, the destruction of true Christianity, and the rejection of the Christian idea of a personal God the Creator, contrasting it with the idea of an impersonal deity.
Now, as for the author himself who made this “translation” and threw it into the world: The author of this “translation” is a doctor of religious studies and somatic (body-oriented) psychology Saadi Neil Douglas-Klotz (Murshid Saadi Shakur Chishti). His main interests lie in the integration of ancient meditation techniques with modern psychology and body science. He is a specialist in the field of Middle Eastern mysticism, the author of several books devoted to the study of the so-called original message contained in the primary sources of world religions - “Prayers of the Cosmos: a meditation on the words of Jesus spoken in Aramaic” (by the way, it is likely that this presented “translation” is an excerpt from that very book), “The Wisdom of the Deserts,” “The Hidden Gospel,” “The Sufi Book of Life.”
Murshid Saadi (Neil Douglas-Klotz) is one of the senior teachers of the Ruhaniat Sufi order (Sufi Ruhaniat International), following the so-called “Sufi path” for about 30 years. In Russia he is known as one of the founders of the Universal Peace Dance Network. Using the Sufi technique of Zikr (the practice of remembering one's true nature, using meditation and chanting) and dancing using mantras from various religious and national traditions, he proposes to “establish a person’s real contact with himself, both with his depths and with his heights ..."
God is a Just Judge, He will judge everyone who rejects Christ as Savior and personal Lord. God will judge everyone who leads a person astray from the true path, passing off lies as truth. But no one removed responsibility for our salvation from us, as Christians who follow the Lord, no matter who or what we met along the way. Satan has not stopped walking around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour!
Studying the “literal translation of the Lord’s Prayer” offered for everyone to see, I also noticed that it is distributed mainly not on Christian resources, but on various heretical ones that have their affiliation with the “New Age” or share views with it - sites on mysticism , esotericism, meditation, parapsychology, talking about some secret teachings and truth. Some distribute these texts by copying them on the pages of their websites and blogs, others through statements in social network statuses. The surprising thing is that Christians, reading these texts, without delving into the very essence of what they are reading, themselves continue to spread this nonsense on the Internet, passing it off as truth, and others, echoing them, send it further. The spreading infection settles not only on the Internet, but also in the minds of many people. Some Christians, reading the text, manage to leave flattering comments on it like: “Cool,” “Amen.” It’s true,” “Thank you for the literal translation, now I’ll know.” What do you know? Why shout Amen? What's cool? They read and shout without knowing the Scriptures or the power of God! It’s a shame to eat everything without understanding what they feed you! (sorry for the directness of expression).
Now, knowing a little about the history of translations of Scripture and the author of this “translation” of the Lord’s Prayer, I think it is not difficult to understand that the so-called “literal translation of the Lord’s Prayer” distributed on the Internet has nothing in common with the real prayer of Christ, but is only a heresy, deliberately aimed at undermining Christian doctrine and destroying Christianity as a whole!
Due to the fact that the ancient Aramaic language is considered dead (Aramaic (the new Aramaic dialect) is spoken only in Syria), a rough translation of the Lord's Prayer in it would look like this:
“Avvun dbishmaya! nitkaddah shimmukh; aunt of the little boy; neve sovyanukh eichana dbishmaya ab para; Ha la lahma dsunkanan yumana; Vushuh lan khobein, eichana dap akhnan shuklan hayavin; vula taalan lnisyuna, ella pasan min bisha. Mudtul dilukh hai malchuta, uheyla, utishbukhta l’alam allmin. Amine". (Our Father who art in heaven! Hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven; give us our daily bread this day; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive debtors ours; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.)
To summarize what has been said, I would like to encourage everyone to comprehend everything we read. Dear friends, there are a lot of things being spread on the Internet, both good and bad, watch what you read and spread. Do not distribute the so-called “literal translation of the Lord’s Prayer” online, or in any other way, do not pass it off as a lost truth, it has neither the depth nor the power of the Spirit! After all, there will be those who are weak, who do not understand, who read everything and swallow everything they read, who cannot separate the wheat from the chaff, those who will be tempted, who will believe, and as a result may fall away, because... will allow doubts to settle in his heart. And the Lord will ask us for this.
Everything we need, Christ left in the Scriptures, transmitted through the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles! Do not mislead the weak sheep, do not think that there is some hidden meaning where there is none. When analyzing sermons, references, texts, people's statements, check them with Scripture, is it exactly as it is presented? Remember at least the fragments of the New Testament: “Those here were more thoughtful than those in Thessalonica: they received the word with all diligence, daily examining the Scriptures to see if this was exactly so” (Acts 17:11), “Pay attention to yourself and to the teaching; do this constantly: for by doing this you will save both yourself and those who listen to you” (1 Timothy 4:16).
Knowing the truth, let us hold fast to the Scripture, neither turning to the right nor to the left!
A.
> Languages of the Holy Scriptures
> No translation can fully convey all the features of the original text. Reading biblical texts in translation, we sometimes have no idea about all the diversity of the original; a detailed commentary is only to some extent able to compensate for the deficiency of our reading in the form of a description and analysis of these features.
> Thus, in many editions of Bible translations into modern languages, the entire text of Holy Scripture appears as prosaic. However, in the original, a significant part of the sacred texts are verses. This applies not only to the psalms and other monuments of Old Testament hymnography, which were designed for musical performance. The speeches of most prophets are also poetry. Attempts by modern scholars to reconstruct the Aramaic text of the speeches of Jesus Christ have also led to the conclusion that these were poetic texts. True, the ancient poetry of the Semitic peoples did not know rhyming or strict poetic meters: it was built on other principles, which included, in particular, rich alliteration repetition of homogeneous consonants, which gave the verse a special sound and intonation expressiveness. The poetic design of speech did not pursue purely aesthetic goals. It contributed to better memorability of statements - after all, in those days there were no tape recorders, and only a few knew shorthand. Nevertheless, it is certain that the listeners of the prophets remembered for a long time what they heard and passed it on to others word for word. (In some modern editions of the Bible including the Brussels editions in Russian the poetic sections of the text are given in a breakdown that allows the reader to at least take into account the poetic nature of the text.)
> In general, the impression about the literary merits of biblical books that appears to those who read them in translation turns out to be incorrect, if only because of the many inconsistencies in the grammatical structure of Hebrew and Aramaic, on the one hand, and most European languages, on the other. The apparent elongation and heaviness of many passages appears only in translations, but is absent in the original. For example, it seems to many readers that the Bible is overloaded with possessive pronouns (“my”, “your”, “your”, “his”, “our”, etc.), which appear in places where it would be quite possible without them. get by; at the same time, in the ancient Semitic languages, the role of these pronouns is played by suffixes attached to the root stems of nouns, which do not at all burden the text and do not give it additional elongation.
> For a person who has not studied the languages of the Bible, the most striking images of these languages are proper names - names, geographical names, etc. found on any page of Scripture. However, the appearance that they convey to us the sound of ancient languages is deceptive. Over the centuries, biblical names have become the property of all Christian peoples; Meanwhile, they all underwent serious changes in the course of the historical development of various languages. It is not immediately possible to guess that Ivan, John, Jan, Giovanni, Hovhannes and Jean are the same name; however, they are all transformed versions of the Hebrew name Yegohanan. In the Russian Synodal Translation of the Holy Scriptures, most biblical proper names are preserved in the form in which they appeared in the Slavic Bible. Only some Old Testament names and titles are verified according to the Hebrew text. The Old Church Slavonic translation, in turn, reproduced the Greek rendering of Hebrew and Aramaic names in its Byzantine sound; however, the phonetics of the Greek language has undergone some changes since Hellenistic times; some letters and letter combinations were read differently than in the time of the Seventy interpreters or apostles. Distortions also occurred at the previous stage: Hebrew and Aramaic words, when written in Greek, also underwent changes (for example, the Hebrew name Yehoshua[in Aramaic Yeshua] in Greek began to be rendered as Iesus; in Byzantine times, with the previous spelling, it was already read as Jesus hence the Slavic and Russian spelling Jesus[or Old Believer form Jesus]). Some names from the languages of neighboring peoples underwent an even more complex transformation: for example, the name of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, known to us from the Russian text of the Bible, has little in common with the sound of the name of this monarch in his native Akkadian language Nabu-kudurri-utsur(in Hebrew it was first rendered as Nebukadrezzar, and then distorted Nebukadnetsar; hence the Greek transmission Nebuchadnezzar, in the Byzantine reading included in the Old Slavonic and Russian translations).
> All of the above are only the most striking, superficial examples of the inferiority of translations. Of course, fluent reading of the Bible in its original languages requires many years of preparation and is not at all a requirement for studying Scripture. At the same time, at the present stage of development of biblical studies, serious research is unthinkable without a deep knowledge of the languages in which the holy books were written.
> 1. Hebrew language ()
> All the first canonical books of the Old Testament are written in Hebrew (with the exception of a few Aramaic inclusions...), as well as the original text of most of the deuterocanonical books If, Sir, Var, 1 Macc and, possibly, Tob <{книги Иудифи, Премудрости Иисуса, сына Сирахова, пророка Варуха, 1-я книга Маккавейская и книга Товита}> (it is possible that it was created in Aramaic); the original text of most of the deuterocanonical books has not survived (except for a number of passages, including large fragments of the Sir; however, the existence of some originals in the first centuries of Christianity is documented).
> Hebrew, called in the Old Testament itself “the language of Canaan” (Isaiah 19-18) or “Judean” (2 Kings 18.26), was the language spoken by the Jews until the last centuries of the old era, when it began to be replaced from everyday life by Aramaic and was preserved as colloquial in a rather narrow environment, mainly of educated Jews. However, apart from the books of the Old Testament (its vocabulary is approximately 8,000 words), almost no written monuments have survived from this period, with the exception of a few inscriptions. A significant proportion of the vocabulary of the spoken language remains unknown. Some words appear no more than once in the entire Old Testament, which casts serious doubt on the adequacy of their understanding. The surviving extra-biblical literature in Hebrew (the Qumran texts, the Talmud) was created already in the era when it was falling out of everyday use; therefore, the usefulness of this literature for understanding the language of the Old Testament is very small.
> It was the process of gradual disappearance of the Hebrew language as a spoken language that led to the emergence of the problem of editing the texts of Scripture. The ancient Hebrew texts of the sacred books continued to function in the Jewish environment, primarily in synagogue worship. Since Hebrew was not a spoken language for most Jews, difficulties arose in reading texts that were written in consonantal script (letters expressing only consonant sounds; vowels were not indicated). Therefore, approximately in the 5th century. AD The work of the Masoretic editors began, the result of which was the provision of the entire text with diacritics, indicating vowel sounds, as well as accents, marking intonation (which, in turn, brought syntactic clarity). In many places the Masoretic redaction is controversial among biblical scholars. A comparative analysis shows that many semantic differences between the Masoretic text and the Septuagint are caused by different vowels of the same words, as well as differences in punctuation marks. Thus, each such discrepancy poses a question for biblical scholars: which of the texts corresponds to the primary meaning in this case?
> 2. Aramaic language ()
> Since the time of the Babylonian captivity, Aramaic dialects began to spread among Jews, gradually displacing Hebrew as a spoken language. In several places in the Old Testament, this so-called biblical Aramaic is captured in writing, organically fitting into the Hebrew textual frame and being fixed in the canon of the Masoretic text: we are talking about several fragments Ezra 4.8-6.18; 7.12-26; Jer 10.11; Dan 2.4 7.28 (absent in the Masoretic text and preserved only in the Septuagint fragment of chapter 3, probably also based on the Aramaic original). There is an assumption that the Book of Tobit was originally written in Aramaic (by the way, its Aramaic version has survived).
> By the time of Jesus Christ, the main spoken language of Palestine had become Judeo-Palestinian Aramaic, distinct from the biblical Aramaic: it is this that is most often meant by the “Hebrew language” in the New Testament (cf. Acts 21.40; 26.14) and other texts of the time. The various dialects of this language were quite different from each other (as is clear from the New Testament, the dialect of the Galileans was different from the dialect of the inhabitants of Judea); in the Aramaic written monuments at the turn of the old and new eras (the apocrypha of "Genesis" from Qumran, targums, midrashim) different dialects were imprinted.
> Judeo-Palestinian Aramaic was the native language of Christ, His immediate circle, the apostles. In the Greek text of the Gospels, individual Aramaic words and expressions are recorded: cf. Mark 5.41; 7.34; 15.34 (the Russian translation brings them to us in a severe distortion). Attempts by scientists to recreate, at least approximately, the appearance of the speeches of Jesus, translating them from Greek back into Aramaic, gave results that exceeded all expectations: texts with very striking poetic features appeared before the eyes of researchers. It is the Aramaic “sayings” (logies) of Jesus that are reported in the beginning. II century Papias of Hierapolis (by “Hebrew” Papias means Aramaic), were preserved for quite a long time by the oral tradition of Christians; they also became the source of the Synoptic Gospels.
> The opinion that the texts of the Gospels themselves were originally written in Aramaic now finds almost no support among researchers.
> 3. Greek ()
> The common Greek language (Koine), into which the Hebrew and Aramaic sacred texts were translated, as well as other sacred books, became widespread in the Hellenistic era in many countries that emerged from the ruins of the empire of Alexander the Great. It was in Koine that such famous authors as Polybius ( 122 BC), Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BC c. 50 AD), Josephus ( approx. 37 approx. 100).
> In the III-II centuries. BC. in Alexandria, where most Jews no longer understood the Hebrew language, using mainly Koine, the sacred books were translated into Greek (the famous Septuagint, or translation of the Seventy Interpreters). Of course, the Greek text of the Septuagint reveals a clear influence of the Hebrew language in the abundance of lexical borrowings, Jewish syntactic constructions, and phraseology.
> In the same environment of Alexandrian Jews, books were created directly in Greek, close to the biblical tradition in content; two of them were included in the deuterocanonical books of Holy Scripture Wis and 2 Macc.
> All the books of the New Testament are written in Koine. They, in turn, show a noticeable influence from the language of the Septuagint.
> The Greek language of the various books of the Bible assigns different levels of literary quality. In the Septuagint, the language of the Pentateuch and the Book of Isaiah is distinguished by high literary merits, in the New Testament - the works of Luke and Paul.
B.
> Translations of the Holy Scriptures
> Already in ancient times, it was clear to the bearers of the religion of Revelation that in order for the Scripture to fulfill its function among different peoples, it must be translated into languages that they understand. This, in particular, is evidenced by the appearance of the translation of the Seventy back in Old Testament times. <{Септуагинта; обычно сокращенно обозначают буквами LXX}> There were other translations of the books of the Old Testament: the translation of Aquila, a Pontic Greek who converted to Judaism, done c. 140 AD and being a faithful reflection of the Hebrew text (of which only a few fragments survive); text by Theodosion, a Jew from Ephesus, edited around 180 AD. some Greek text, perhaps simply a reworking of the LXX text (with regard to the Book of Daniel, the Church gives preference to this text rather than the LXX); text by Symmachus, a Samaritan who converted to the Christian faith (from the very few surviving passages it can be concluded that he strived for careful literary treatment). In the 3rd century. Origen based his “model” work on the various versions of the Greek text of the Old Testament, comparing six or more major versions in order to identify their similarities with the Hebrew and create a uniform version. This monumental work was almost completely lost; Only fragments of it have survived. There is also another edition of the LXX, created by Lucian (after 300), which became widespread mainly in Antioch.
> In the first centuries of Christianity, Greek was a kind of international language, which was known in almost all areas of the Roman Empire, especially in its eastern provinces. This is precisely what explains the fact that texts that had a doctrinal meaning in Christianity were predominantly in Greek. At the same time, in the western regions of the Roman Empire, the main spoken language was Latin. Therefore, already from the 2nd century. Latin translations of the books of Holy Scripture appear. The earliest known Latin translation is conventionally called "Vetus Latina" (i.e. "ancient Latin" [version]), or "Itala" ("Italian"). Based on translation works begun in 382 by St. Jerome, another version of the Latin text was developed, known as the Vulgate (from the Latin “vulgata” “generally accepted”). All the books of the Old Testament (primary canonical texts), as they appear in the Vulgate, were translated by St. Jerome directly from Hebrew, and in many places the literal translation is supplemented by semantic translation. The Gospels, as presented in the Vulgate, are the result of the work of St. Jerome, who verified the Vetus Latina against the Greek text. All the other books of the Old Testament are also simply the result of a collation of the Vetus Latina against the Greek text, which may also have been done by St. Jerome.
> It was the Vulgate that was used by the Catholic Church throughout the Middle Ages and was officially proclaimed at the Council of Trent as the official canonical text. It should, however, be taken into account that the definition of the Council of Trent referred to the Latin text of the Vulgate as a model of legal, not critical authenticity - that is, what was meant primarily was the canonical list of sacred books and the completeness of their content. The translation itself was considered convincing, although not free from shortcomings (such as sometimes inaccurate or erroneous translation, some conjectures, short explanatory inserts, interpretations of an openly messianic nature, translation of proper names as if they were common nouns, not fully clarified geography, etc.).
> In addition to Latin, the Holy Scriptures were translated in the first centuries of our era into many other languages of Christian peoples. These ancient translations are not only valuable evidence for us of how the living word of God was preached to various nations; In many ways, they provide researchers with invaluable assistance in identifying the original text, as well as the correct interpretation of many controversial passages.
> Already in the 3rd century. Biblical texts begin to be translated into Coptic in the 4th century. into Gothic and Syriac, in the 5th century. ancient Armenian, Georgian and Geez (Ethiopian), in the 7th century. into Arabic, in the 8th century. into Nubian and Sogdian. ()
> In the 9th century. St. Cyril and Methodius, preaching Christianity among the Slavic peoples, begin translating the Holy Scriptures into Old Church Slavonic. In subsequent centuries, their work continues, improved and edited. Gradually, several versions of the Old Slavonic text are being formalized (this explains the difference between the texts now used by the Russian Orthodox Church under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, on the one hand, and the Old Believers, on the other).
> It is known that the translation activities of St. Cyril and Methodius was attacked by some of the contemporary clergy. At that time, the theory of “three languages” had already become quite widespread, according to which Scripture should not exist in languages other than Hebrew, Greek and Latin. Gradually, various modified versions of this approach, although they did not become official teachings, still prevailed as Both in the West and in the East of the Christian world, rare attempts to translate the Bible into new languages met with strong resistance from church authorities.
> A significant breakthrough emerged with the beginning of the Reformation. As Protestantism spread, translations of the Bible into living languages began to appear.
> However, in modern times, both Catholics and Orthodox Christians were able to gradually overcome the previous conservative approach to the problem of translating the Holy Scriptures and return to the practice of the first Church, which sought to bring the word of God to all peoples in their languages. Taking into account all the positive experiences of the past, the Second Vatican Council proclaims: “It is necessary that Christians have wide access to the Holy Scriptures. For this reason, the Church from the very beginning accepted as its own the most ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, called the translation of the Seventy; it has always treats with respect other Eastern translations and Latin translations, especially the translation called the Vulgate, but since the word of God should be accessible at all times, the Church takes care with maternal care that proper and accurate translations are made into different languages, mainly from the original texts of the sacred books. If, under favorable conditions and with the approval of church authorities, they are made in collaboration even with brothers separated from us, they can be used by all Christians" (DV, 22).
Literal translation of the Lord's Prayer from Aramaic, read and feel the difference:
O Breathing Life,
Your name shines everywhere!
Make some space
To plant Your presence!
Imagine in your imagination
Your “I can” now!
Clothe Your desire in every light and form!
Sprout bread through us and
An epiphany for every moment!
Untie the knots of failure that bind us,
Just like we free the ropes,
with which we restrain the misdeeds of others!
Help us not to forget our Source.
But free us from the immaturity of not being in the Present!
Everything comes from You
Vision, Power and Song
From meeting to meeting!
Amen. Let our next actions grow from here.
****
When and why did the reference to the evil one (Satan) appear in the Lord's Prayer?
In ancient Church Slavonic there is no evil: “... and do not lead us into attack, but deliver us from hostility.” Who added “onion” to the main prayer of Jesus Christ?
The Lord's Prayer, known to every Christian since childhood, is a concentrated presentation of the entire Christian doctrine. At the same time, it is one of the most perfect literary works ever recorded in writing.
This is the generally accepted view of the short Lord's Prayer that Jesus taught His disciples.
How is this possible? Indeed, for a complete presentation of religious teachings in other religions, many volumes were needed. And Jesus did not even ask His disciples to write down every word.
It’s just that during the Sermon on the Mount He said (Matthew 6:9:13):
"Pray like this:
Our Father, who art in heaven!
And forgive us our debts,
just as we leave our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.”
But this is not the only option for translating the Lord’s Prayer into Russian. In the 1892 edition of the Gospel that the author has, there is a slightly different version:
"Our Father who art in heaven!
Hallowed be Thy Name; Thy kingdom come;
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven;
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our debts;
to our debtors;
and do not lead us into temptation,
but deliver us from evil;”
In the modern, canonical edition of the Bible (with parallel passages) we find almost the same version of the translation of the Prayer:
"Our Father who art in heaven!
Hallowed be Thy Name; Thy kingdom come;
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven;
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our debts;
just as we forgive our debtors;
And do not lead us into temptation,
but deliver us from evil;”
In the Old Church Slavonic translation, the Prayer (if written in the modern alphabet) sounds closer to the first version:
"Our Father, who art in heaven!
Hallowed be Thy name! Thy kingdom come;
Thy will be done as it is in heaven and on earth.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also leave our debtor.
And don't lead us into trouble,
but deliver us from evil.”
These translations use different words to refer to the same concepts. “Forgive us” and “leave us”, “attack” and “temptation”, “who art in heaven” and “he who is in heaven” mean the same thing.
There is no distortion of the meaning and spirit of the words given by Christ to His disciples in any of these options. But comparing them, we can come to the important conclusion that the literal transmission of the Words of Jesus is not only impossible, but not necessary.
In English translations of the Gospels you can find several different versions, but all of them can be considered authentic, because in them the meaning of the Prayer and its spirit are adequately conveyed.
The Lord's Prayer became widespread immediately after the crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus. This is evident from the fact that it was found in such distant places as the city of Pompeii (that is, it was there before Pompeii was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD).
At the same time, the original text of the Lord’s Prayer has not reached us in its original form.
In translations into Russian, the Lord's Prayer sounds the same in the Gospels of Matthew (6:9-13) and Luke (11:2-4). We find the same text in the KJV (King James Version) Gospels in English.
If we take the Greek original source, we will be surprised to discover that the familiar words “who art in heaven,” “Thy will be done as in heaven and on earth,” and “deliver us from evil” are absent in the Gospel of Luke.
There are many versions explaining the reasons for the disappearance of these words in the Gospel of Luke and their appearance in translations, and subsequently in modern Greek editions of the Gospel. We will not dwell on this, for what is important to us is not the letter, but the spirit of the great Prayer.
Jesus did not command us to pray by memorizing His words literally. He simply said, “Pray like this,” that is, “pray this way.”
Konstantin Glinka
“Our Father” translated from Aramaic
This morning I dreamed that I was walking with someone I didn’t know through a rocky desert and looking into the sunlit sky. Suddenly I noticed that either a carved gilded casket or a book in the same binding was rapidly approaching us.
Before I had time to tell my friend that in the desert, objects easily fall from the sky and it’s good that they don’t hit my head, I realized that the object was flying straight at me. A second later he crashed to my right, where my friend should have been. I was so stunned that I woke up before I looked in the direction of my unfortunate comrade.
The morning began unusually: on the Internet I came across the “Our Father” in the language of Jesus. The translation from Aramaic shocked me so much that I was late for work, checking whether it was a fake. I found that about 15 years ago theologians appeared the expression “primacy of Aramaic "
That is, as far as I understand, the Greek source was previously the dominant authority in theological disputes, but incongruities were noticed in it that could arise when translating from the original language. In other words, the Greek version is not primary.
An Aramaic version of the Gospel (“Peshitta”, in the Edessa dialect of Aramaic) exists, but it is a translation from Greek.
True, as it turned out, not complete. And not only in the sense of the absence of some parts: there are passages in it that have been preserved in an older form, since they were already written down in Aramaic.
This also applies to the famous main prayer of Christians, “Our Father.”
*******
And if translated literally:
Abwoon d"bwashmaya
Nethqadash shmakh
Teytey malkuthakh
Nehwey tzevyanach aykanna d"bwashmaya aph b"arha.
Hawvlah lachma d"sunqanan yaomana
Wela tahlan l"nesyuna ela patzan min bisha.
Metol dilakhie malkutha wahayla wateshbukhta l"ahlam almin.
Ameyn.
Abwoon d "bwashmaya (Official translation: Our Father!)
Literal: Abwoon translates as Divine Parent (fruitful emanation of light). d"bwashmaya - sky; root shm - light, flame, divine word arising in space, the ending aya - says that this radiance occurs everywhere, at any point in space
Nethqadash shmakh (Official translation: Hallowed be Thy name)
Literal: Nethqadash translates as purification or item for sweeping away litter (to clear a place for something). Shmakh – spreading (Shm – fire) and letting go of inner fuss, finding silence. The literal translation is clearing the space for the Name.
Teytey malkuthakh (Official translation: Thy kingdom come)
Literal: Tey is translated as come, but the double repetition means mutual desire (sometimes the marriage bed). Malkuthakh is traditionally translated as kingdom, symbolically – the fruitful hand, the gardens of the earth; wisdom, purification of the ideal, making it personal for oneself; come home; yin (creative) hypostasis of fire.
Nehwey tzevyanach aykanna d"bwashmaya aph b"arha. (Official translation: Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven)
Literal: Tzevyanach is translated as will, but not strength, but the desire of the heart. One of the translations is naturalness, origin, the gift of life. Aykanna means permanence, embodiment in life. Aph – personal orientation. Arha - earth, b" - means living; b"arha - a combination of form and energy, spiritualized matter.
Hawvlah lachma d "sunqanan yaomana (Official translation: Give us this day our daily bread)
Literal: Hawvlah translates as giving (gifts of the soul and gifts of material). lachma - bread, necessary, essential for maintaining life, understanding of life (chma - growing passion, increase, increase). D "sunqanan - needs, what I can own, how much I could carry; yaomana - necessary to maintain the spirit, vitality.
Washboqlan khuabayn aykana daph khan shbwoqan l"khayyabayn.
(Official translation: And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors)
Literal: Khuabayn is translated as debts, internal accumulated energies that destroy us; in some texts instead of khuabayn there is wakhtahayn, which is translated as failed hopes. Aykana – letting go (passive voluntary action).
Wela tahlan l "nesyuna (Official translation: And do not lead us into temptation)
Literal: Wela tahlan translates as “do not let us enter”; l "nesyuna - illusion, anxiety, hesitation, gross matter; symbolic translation - wandering mind.
Ela patzan min bisha. (Official translation: but deliver us from evil)
Literal: Ela – immaturity; symbolic translation – inappropriate actions. Patzan – untie, give freedom; min bisha – from evil
Metol dilakhie malkutha wahayla wateshbukhta l "ahlam almin. (Official translation: For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.)
Literal: Metol dilakhie is translated as the idea of owning something that bears fruit (plowed land); malkutha – kingdom, kingdom, symbolic translation – “I can”; wahayla – the concept of vitality, energy, tuning in unison, supporting life; wateshbukhta - glory, harmony, Divine power, symbolic translation - generating fire; l"ahlam almin - from century to century.
Ameyn. (Official translation: Amen.)
Ameyn - manifestation of will, affirmation, swearing of an oath. Infuses strength and spirit into everything created
