Do We Need A New Bible?
Dear Reader,
From my earliest thinking years more than 60 years ago to the present day, I have wondered about the real nature of things. The sciences never attracted me as a source of truth as they seemed to dwell on physical issues, so I went within. At one point as a teenager, I was drawn to an evangelical church, but my ever-practical father debated with me for 12 hours one day.
I eventually succumbed to his argument, partly because in those days sons respected their fathers more than they do now, but also because something inside me said that there was something that made sense in his arguments: essentially that the church (in whichever form) rarely set a good example of Jesus's teachings. That was certainly true back then, ca 1960. And besides, he said, isn't it better to help with one's hands rather than pray?
Though I tried to shelve thoughts of religion and search for truth at that point, life's experience brought the search for meaning back to me time and again. And sometimes in remarkable ways. But the Bible never seemed to quite satisfy me and I learnt about other spiritual paths instead.
One benefit of that course of action was to discover that Jesus is mentioned in the Qur'an as a prophet and one to be respected and that he is equally respected in Indian spiritual philosophies.
Eventually, I realised that there was something about Jesus that stood out in certain respects, not because of his supposed divinity, but in the actual strength of his essential message in his parables, and one that reached out so far into so many ways of life. The Bible, however, still did not make complete sense to me thanks partly to the reasoned arguments of my father, and then (in about 1980) I learnt that the source of the New Testament originally lay in the Aramaic language. That fact alone made me query the authenticity of the Bible, as well as the means of its construction post-325AD.
A couple of years ago, an internet post emerged that contained this message:
Pope Francis has surprised the world today by announcing that The Bible is totally outdated and needs a radical change, so The Bible is officially canceled and it’s announced a meeting between the highest personalities of the church where it will be decided the book that will replace it, its name and its content. Some names are already being considered and the one that has more strength is “Biblia 2000”.
Of course, it had to be a hoax, but as it was at the start of Roman Catholicism that the Bible first appeared (resulting from the Council of Nicea, 325AD), a re-newed version from the same kind of source would not be altogether surprising in my view.
Be that as it may, I have long been aware that not only the content of the New Testament is highly selective, but that it also suffers from a mistranslation from the original Aramaic. To what extent I had not realised until now, thanks to the work of the Aramaic and Kabbalistic expert Lewis Keizer, M.Div., Ph.D. who says (about the New Testament in general):
1. The Aramaic language and meanings have already been forgotten or poorly translated into the Koine Greek of the New Testament, and,2. Most of the sayings and parables preserved in oral transmission were kabbalistic metaphors and allegories, often delivered with hyperbole, irony, and other proto-rabbinical rhetorical devices. Their meanings were comprehensible to the original hearers but beyond the understanding of the later gentile Christians who produced the New Testament writings.
Included in Dr. Keizer's purview is the Lord's Prayer. Keizer's rendering of The Lord's Prayer from Aramaic is (with notes at the end):
Our eternal Abba,Father-Mother of all,Who art within and beyond our understanding;May thy Way be hallowed in every heart,And thine interior guidance be known in every soul,And may thy spiritual sovereignty become fully realized,In us and on Earth, as it is in the heavens,As above, so below;as within, so without;as in spirit, so in flesh.Grant us this day our bread of the morrow;And release us from the consequences of our sins, and of all sin,As we forgive those who sin against us;And do not abandon us unto our tests,But deliver us from all evil, within and without.For thine is the eternal sovereignty,And the power, and the glory, always and ever.Amen, Amen, Amen.
- Here, the term Abba is used whereas we say 'Father'. It is easy to assume that Abba means the same thing, but Keizer says that this is not so - Abba connotes both masculine and feminine. Why, in fact, should God possess a gender?
- The original Aramaic prayer addressed our Abba “who art in the heavens.” In New Testament Greek this was changed from the conventional Aramaic plural shamayyim to singular ouranos, which was equated to the later idea of a Christian Heaven.
- To "hallow" the Name of Godhead meant to keep faith with all the divine realities: Wisdom, Mercy, Compassion, Justice, etc.
- The familiar “thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, in Earth as it is in Heaven” departs from the spirit and meaning of the original Aramaic in many ways. Yeshua never taught about a “Kingdom” of God or of Heaven. His term was Malkuth: sovereignty, rulership.
As an additional note, I happen to have a translation of the early Sanai Bible, which, interestingly, contains two versions of the Lord's Prayer, one to the Father and one to the Mother.
In the pre-formal Christian world, the notion of a female principle was firmly held, but. in the post-Jesus world that, and a lot of other things, such as reincarnation, were rejected by people to construct a new religion. It is incredible (to put it mildly) that this religion of Christianity was opposed to the real teachings of Jesus in many ways, cruelty being a central method utilised to help the Vatican keep control of its flock for most of 1500 years. The Protestant movement has not done much to bring their flock to an understanding of the original message.
A key point in the above rendering of The Lord's Prayer is in the words "May thy Way be hallowed in every heart, And thine interior guidance be known in every soul (etc)", words that, to me, indicate the unity of all souls (from one source) and also the potential divinity of every soul. Thus, who, really, was Jesus? Or Yeshua, as he was known amongst his own people.
As Keizer observes:
The earlier synoptic gospels do not present Jesus preaching himself as Christ. Scholars think that the sermons in the Fourth Gospel are based on teachings given by Yeshua about the Bar-Enash, New Adam, or heavenly son-of-mankind Messiah (“Son of Man”) that were later applied to the man Yeshua by his disciples—in this case the Apostle John, or perhaps his mentor Miriam the Magdalene who accompanied him and Miriam the mother of Yeshua to Asia Minor where the Johannine churches were founded.
According to ancient (pre-Biblical) teachings, and maintained by current esoteric teaching, the Christos can be attained through any sincere spiritual path of the heart. If that latter view were to be accepted, then all the sincere (essential) teachings of religion throughout the world would be able to see eye-to-eye. How sad that it is primarily the mainstream religious sects of Christianity and Islam that prevent a truly ecumenical view.
Keizer again: "Yeshua [Jesus], taught his disciples to imitate the Abba [Father/Mother], and that he could do nothing by himself, but only what he learned from his Abba. ... Self-realization through interior attunement with the Name, Way, or Will of Godhead is the ultimate goal of human conscious evolution in the illusory world of birth, death, and time. ... Yeshua taught mishqad - vigil, single-pointed meditation, ascent in consciousness into the divine world. The mindscape or map for this process derived from Enochian kabbalah concerning the Ma’aseh Merkabah or mystic Work of the Chariot".
Keizer understands enough of Indian teachings to see commonality, so Keizer says, about the after death question:
The “forever and ever” of the Christian version in Matthew’s Gospel misunderstands Hebrew ad ‘Olam ed, meaning “unto the Eternity of eternities” or “the ‘Olam of ‘olamim”—not a concept of aeons of time, but states of existence or reality not unlike the Sanskrit idea of lokas. For this reason I render it, “Always and ever.”
Finally, it should be said that the Jewish concept of Gehenna (the after-death Purgatory that Yeshua warns against) was interpreted by Christianity in terms of the Orphic Hades (Hell)—never-ending punishment under the Earth for those who refused to convert to Orphism.
In fact, however, Gehenna was understood in Yeshua’s day to be a state of purification of the neshama or soul after death to prepare it for sleep in the Paradise of the Third Heaven while awaiting reincarnation [my underline, JL]. It was understood to comprise a short period of time—days or weeks. Only the most evil of human murderers whose souls were in need of extreme purification would suffer the maximum period of time—twelve months in the state of Gehenna.
From all that, it is clear that gnosis was taught by Jesus as the practical, existential philosophy to be followed by all who could understand. Emperor Constantine and his 325AD committee caused the blocking of that concept except in its own terms - and it remains blocked.
The gnosis alluded to pre-existed Jesus. Jesus, in the way he lived his life, was the revival and fulfilment of the ancient Way. He proceeded, over time, to accomplish three states of the soul, culminating in his arrival as a Son of God. His presence also instigated a new time that will culminate - soon - into a New Age.
Lewis Keizer declares that the actual, pre-Christian, teachings of Jesus himself were more akin to the Jewish Kabbalah and Buddhism. I would add to that they are also akin to Islamic Sufi teachings, and also teachings based on the Upanishads. All teachings have been according to place (culture) and time (circumstances), with the addition that India is the scene of avataric missions of varying importance that have continued until now. India's spiritual energy is constantly renewed.
Is it not time that Christians, Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus all came together in the UK to bring their common heritage together for the peace and general welfare of mankind? The real spiritual teaching is based on the brotherhood of all men under one God: shouldn't we all wake up to realise that fact?
The events and circumstances of the past few decades seem to point to that, do they not? We certainly cannot leave it to unenlightened science and technology. But perhaps we all have work to do to ourselves before that common understanding is possible, as the teachings prescribe.
Whatever the situation, the world is in need of a new direction. And whether we consciously contribute to that or not, it will still happen. It depends on what part we want to play. Whether a new Bible is needed rather depends on perspective, for if the teaching is already amongst us ("seek and ye shalt find"), why should we need a further written directive?
Please see the complete work on the Lord's Prayer by Keizer. It's only 38 pages and can be downloaded from the internet. Keizer has also published other works of merit. Or better, perhaps, view his Yahoo site in which - over several videos - all his findings of Jesus (Yeshua) are better explained.
As one who has tried hard to find commonality amongst all spiritual paths over most of my 76 years - the issue has consumed me as I see all people as one: all are my neighbour - Keizer's findings make complete sense to me. As do my father's arguments of 60 years ago now make complete sense.
Thank you for reading this.
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