Neil Douglas-Klotz - Revelations of the Aramaic Jesus: The Hidden Teachings on Life and Death

Copyright 2022 by Neil Douglas-Klotz

Foreword copyright 2022 by Matthew Fox

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photo-copying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC . Reviewers may quote brief passages.

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ISBN: 978-1-64297-041-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request.

Printed in the United States of America

IBI

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

And the Word is becoming flesh ,
dwelling within and among us....

It was my privilege years ago to write a foreword to Neil Douglas-Klotz's first book, Prayers of the Cosmos: Meditations on the Aramaic Words of Jesus . Today, thirty-two years and fifteen books by Douglas-Klotz later, I am honored to be asked to write a foreword to this book.

My original foreword began with these words: Reader beware: though this book is brief, it contains the seeds of a revolution. I do not think history has proven me mistaken.

To challenge language is revolutionary, for language is the basis of so much communication and worldview. We not only use language to converse with one another but to dream in and even to talk to ourselves. Language about religion and spirituality is especially fraught. This is why most authentic spiritual teachers choose to teach by way of art, poetry, music, and example rather than by words alone. The memory of Jesus's words and actions are especially compromised because he died so young and so suddenly, having walked his dangerous talk about justice and compassion.

Neil Douglas-Klotz has devoted his life to challenging the familiar patterns of thinking and languaging by which the Christian scriptures have come down to us. It is an act of valor to have done so. He is not saying that we need to reject all our previous translations of sacred texts but that we can easily miss the point when we leave out the language that Jesus spoke . As if we could ever receive the full nuance and expression from Jesus's heart to our own hearts by way of Greek (which Jesus did not speak but the Gospel editors wrote in) or Latin or German or English.

Douglas-Klotz therefore has gone back to the primary text . We can easily miss the meaning of a poetic or mystical text if we translate outside the context and culture of the person speaking. This is why Neil's method and purpose is so valuable.

To give just one example of the impact of his efforts, for years I have been trying to reinvent forms of worship in the West by working with young people to invigorate liturgy by incorporating dimensions of post-modern art forms including DJ, VJ, rap, rave, dance, and more. The results have been significant and exciting. Part of every mass has been our using Klotz's translation of the Our Father prayer in the service wherein the leader reads a line and the people echo it back. Invariably, after our Cosmic Mass is ended, people come up and ask: Where did you get that translation of the Lord's Prayer? I want a copy. The translation is from Neil's first book.

This has taught me a very valuable lesson: Much too much of religious language has become rote . Religion easily dies when it succumbs to rote. Neil's Aramaic translations cut through the rote and bring us to the deeper meanings of Jesus's teaching that can still touch our hearts, move our souls, and ignite our action. This book displaces rote with profound discourse and insight. It can open our hearts anew.

Neil Douglas-Klotz is a slayer of religious stories and prayers by rote. What does rote mean? What is Klotz slaying and replacing with his new translations and fresh spiritual languaging? Webster's Dictionary defines learning by rote this way:

Learn by rote means the use of memory usually with little intelligence; Routine or repetition carried out mechanically or unthinkingly;

A joyless sense of order;

A commercial hustle .

Do any of these observations speak to your experience of religion todaymemory with little intelligence? Repetition carried out mechanically or unthinkingly? A joyless sense of order? A commercial hustle? If so, then you, like me, will rejoice and thank Neil Douglas-Klotz for his life's work, which comes to so wonderful and full a crescendo in these pages, and also for the wonderful body practices and mantra practices he shares as well.

Many wise translators have translated the Gospels through the ages in numerous languages. In the pages of this book, Neil Douglas-Klotz links us directly to the language Jesus spoke and the culture he lived in as a Galilean peasant. He gifts us thereby with an indispensable contribution to knowing who Jesus was, how he thought, what he taught, how he lived and saw the world around him, and why he died so young.

MATTHEW FOX

January 17, 2022, Feast Day of Martin Luther King, Jr.

You shall know the truth and the truth will make you free. (John 8:32)

When or if Jesus said these words, he said them in Aramaic, one of several ancient Semitic languages rooted in thousands of years of Southwest Asian nomadic experience. In Jesus's Aramaic the word for truth (shrara ) means a light or clarity coming from the heart that leads one in the right direction for the moment. People who travelled seasonally, without any permanent dwelling, concerned themselves with finding such a light, an inner GPS. The word know, yida in Aramaic, means to grasp or hold something in one's hand so that one can use it. The word for free (ncharr ) points to burning or leaving things behind that one no longer needs.

Through Aramaic we can hear this saying tell us: If you find a light emanating from the heart, it will lead you in the right direction. You'll know what to hold on to and what to release. Jesus is not talking about knowing or believing particular ideas, but about a way of living freely from within a sense of divine guidance.

Over the past forty years of talking and writing about the Aramaic language and Yeshua (Jesus's name in Aramaic, which I use interchangeably with the English one), I have found people most frequently ask questions about universal themes and problems we all face today rather than about theology and belief. Among those I've heard are:

• What did Yeshua see as the ideal relationship between human beings and nature, as well as between people in a community?
• How do evil and injustice fit into Jesus's view of life? What was his remedy, and is it at all applicable now?
• Does life have a meaning and purpose in Yeshua's teaching?

An approach to Yeshua's recorded words and teaching through his native language answers these questions clearly and consistentlyeven if unexpectedlyno matter which Gospel you have in your hands.