This week we continue our series on
the Aramaic translation of early Christian texts, and how those translations
parallel core aspects of Jungian thought.
Some main points so far:
- In the early years of the Church, there was a bias toward the use of Greek to write down and convey scriptures. But the original Christians, those first century Judeans, almost certainly did NOT speak Greek, they spoke Aramaic.
- Aramaic is an ancient language, well suited to conveying subtlety, layers of meaning, and words meant to mean many things at the same time. Greek – and the related languages of Europe, including English – are well suited to making narrow distinctions and describing polarities. Therefore, translation of Aramaic into Greek resulted in a narrowing of what was meant to be broad, symbolic language.
- The word “Alaha” in Aramaic means sacred unity, oneness, the All, the ultimate power or potential, and the One with no opposite. The Greek translations reduced it to Deos – masculine creator deity – and English translations used the word God, a word with Nordic origins, from the same root as “good.”
- Building from the Aramaic text, the familiar “Lord’s Prayer” becomes something very different from what we may have believed, having only heard the English translations. It becomes, instead, a calling out to the ultimate unity that underlies all reality – what Jung might call the transcendent Self – and an acknowledgement that true relationship with the Self requires a clearing out of complexes, finding a clear space within, and attending to both the world above and the world below – embodiment and spirit together, growing through life’s experiences, becoming more fully and completely who we really are while remaining deeply connected to the larger pattern of meaning.
This week we move to some more
passages from the New Testament that we may think we know, but perhaps don’t
really know, because we have been reliant on very skewed translations. These passages are known as the “Beatitudes,”
and together they are called the Sermon on the Mount. We will start with the first four this week
and finish the remaining five next week, using the magnificent and insightful
new translations from the Aramaic presented by Neil Douglas-Klotz in his book Prayer of the Cosmos:
The first beatitude is translated as
follows, in the familiar KJV:
Blessed are the
poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
In Aramaic:
Tubwayhun
l'meskenaee b'rukh d'dilhounhie malkutha d'ashmaya.
Douglas-Klotz’s translation:
Happy and aligned with the One are
those who find their home in the breathing;
to them belong the inner kingdom and
queendom of heaven.
Blessed are those who are refined in
breath; they shall find
their ruling principles and ideals
guided by God's light.
Tuned to the Source are those who
live by breathing Unity;
their "I can!" is included
in God's.
Healthy are those who devotedly hold
fast to the spirit of life;
holding them is the cosmic Ruler of
all that shines and rises.
Resisting corruption, possessing
integrity are those whose
breath forms a luminous sphere; they
hear the universal
Word and feel the earth's power to
accomplish it through their own hands.
Healed are those who devote
themselves to the link of spirit;
the design of the universe is
rendered through their form.
The combination of the words
“meskenaee” and “rukh” baffled the Greek translators. Meskenaee means solid base, resting point, a
numinous enclosure, or something to which one devotedly holds. Rukh means breath, spirit, animating soul,
whatever links one to life. The idea is that there is an all-pervading breath of
animating life which can become the center or basis of one’s being. When you come from that place, you cling less
desperately to egoistic concerns and ego inflation. In Jungian terminology, you become more
Self-oriented and less ego-oriented. To the outsider, this may appear as
humility, as reverence for something greater than oneself – hence “poor in
spirit.” But the interior experience is
so much more deep and expansive.
And what does the beatitude say
about the effects of living in this manner.
The lived experience of “I can” pervades everthing that one sees and
experiences. The world in which we live
our lives is enlivened with natural confidence.
Heaven – shmaya – is with us and pervades us with a sense of order and
confidence – malkutha.
The second beatitude is translated
as follows, in the familiar KJV:
Blessed are they
that mourn: for they shall be comforted
In Aramaic:
Tubwayhun lawile
d'hinnon netbayun
Douglas-Klotz’s translation:
Blessed are those in emotional
turmoil; they shall be united
inside by love.
Healthy are those weak and
overextended for their purpose;
they shall feel their inner flow of
strength return.
Healed are those who weep for their
frustrated desire; they
shall see the face of fulfillment in
a new form.
Aligned with the One are the mourners;
they shall be comforted.
Tuned to the Source are those
feeling deeply confused by life;
they shall be returned from their
wandering.
“Mourn” is a very narrow translation
of the word “lawile,” which means anyone who longs deeply for something or
someone that is lacking or missing, experiencing emotional turmoil, weakened by
such longing. And “comforted” is a narrow translation of the Aramaic word
“netbayun” which more fully means a return after a wandering, feeling inner
unity or continuity, seeing the face of what you have been longing for, and
being united inside by love.
Jung wrote about the ultimate
purpose or meaning of suffering, particularly mental or emotional suffering,
arising from those unhealed wounds we call complexes. The suffering that arises
from complexes is a motivation to resolve the wound, to complete or at least
move forward in the healing process. The complexes take us on mental journeys,
typically experienced as turmoil and longing for release. If we can persevere through this experience,
what was fragmented – our psyches – can regain wholeness, an inner union, which
is often described as a loving return home.
The third beatitude is translated as
follows, in the familiar KJV:
Blessed are the
meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
In Aramaic:
Tubwayhun l'mskikhr
d'hinnon nertun arha.
Douglas-Klotz’s translation:
Blessed are the gentle; they shall
inherit the earth.
Healthy are those who have softened
what is rigid within;
they shall receive physical vigor
and strength from the universe.
Aligned with the One are the humble,
those submitted to
God's will; they shall be gifted
with the productivity of the earth.
Healed are those who have wept
inwardly with the pain of
repressed desire; they shall be
renewed in sympathy with nature.
Integrated, resisting corruption are
those who have dissolved
heavy morality within; they shall be
open to receive the
splendor of the earth's fruits.
What was translated as “meek” from
the Aramaic to the Greek is actually more consistent with gentleness or
softness, especially the softening of something that has been unnaturally
hardened, a liquidification of something rigid, a surrender of a hardened
position to something greater, as in surrender to Higher Power. And the word translated as “inherit” is
actually a process of “receiving something from a source of strength.” So the
more nuanced Aramaic is something like “soften the hardness, and from that will
come openness to strength from a higher power.” And this will be experienced in
our embodiment, in our earthiness.
In Jungian terms, where complexes
dominate we harden. We cannot think or feel our way out of these wounds. They narrow and solidify what should be fluid
and flexible – our sense of who we are and what is possible for us. So, working with complexes may well be
thought of as softening was has become hardened in our psyche, and from that
softening comes a flow of psychic energy – libido – which enlivens our
thinking, feeling, and bodies.
The fourth beatitude is translated
as follows, in the familiar KJV:
Blessed are they
which do hunger and thirst after righteousness:
for they shall be
filled.
In Aramaic:
Tubwayhun layleyn
d'kaphneen watzheyn l'khenuta d'hinnon nishbhun.
Douglas-Klotz’s translation:
Blessed are those who hunger and
thirst for physical
justice--righteousness; they shall
be surrounded by what is
needed to sustain their bodies.
Healthy are those who turn their
mouths to receive a new
birth of universal stability; they
shall be encircled by the
birth of a new society.
Aligned with the One are those who
wait up at night,
weakened and dried out inside by the
unnatural state of the
world; they shall receive
satisfaction.
Healed are those who persistently
feel inside: "If only I
could find new strength and a clear
purpose on which to
base my life"; they shall be
embraced by birthing power.
Integrated, resisting delusion are
those who long clearly for
a foundation of peace between the
warring parts of themselves;
they shall find all around them the
materials to build it.
The word “khenuta” does not equate
very well to the English term “righteousness.”
Instead, khenuta comes closer in meaning to English words like natural
stability, equilibrium, foundation, even justice. Douglas-Klotz says that khenuta involves a sort
of harmonizing the different voices we feel within, which are also mirrored in
the outer world. The word “layleyn”
conveys the sense of someone who patiently awaits for this harmonizing to
occur.
And what about the “hunger and
thirst” mentioned in this beatitude?
Here is a quote from Douglas-Klotz:
The word translated
as “hunger” (d’kaphneen) may also mean “to turn the mouth toward something,” or
to long for strengthening the physical being.
“Thirst” (tzheyn) also conveys an image of being parched inwardly, dried
out (we might say “burnt out). When we long for and finally receive a sense of
inner justice and a reestablishment of harmony, we see the prpose of the hunger
and thirst. It has created an inner
sense of radiance and clarity: the letting go will have been for a purpose.
Another planting image from the Aramaic occurs in nishbun, satisfied, which also means to be “surrounded by fruit,” “encircled
by birthing,” and “embraced by generation.”
(p. 54)
In Jungian terms, again referring to
the suffering that comes from complexes, we all suffer from split
personalities. The only difference is
the degree, and how we deal with it. Complexes
compete with the ego to be the center of consciousness, and when that happens,
it affects both our physical bodies and our emotions. Healing involves a harmonizing of those
competing voices, and when it happens, it can be experienced as a release of
physical and emotional longing – satisfaction of physical hunger and thirst is
an excellent analogy.
In the outer world, this is the
experience of social activism. Something
is imbalanced in the world and we hunger and thirst for balance to return, for
justice to prevail. It typically
involves something physical and something emotional. We hunger and thirst for change to occur, and
we apply ourselves to that task. When justice does occur, it can be very
satisfying – especially if we are doing our own inner work at the same
time. If we are drawn to a problem in
the outer world, then almost certainly there is a parallel problem – a complex –
in our inner world, and to learn the lesson fully, inner and outer must receive
attention.
So, to wrap up, let’s hear
Douglas-Klotz’s new translation of those first four beatitudes:
Tuned to the Source
are those who live by breathing Unity: their “I can!” is included in God’s.
Blessed are those
in emotional turmoil; they shall be united inside by love.
Healthy are those who
have softened what is rigid within; they shall receive physical vigor and
strength from the universe.
Blessed are those
who hunger and thirst for physical justice; they shall be surrounded by what is
needed to sustain their bodies.
No comments:
Post a Comment