Neil Douglas-Klotz
Dr Douglas-Klotz is a student of Aramaic and Sufi teacher. He's done several works on Christianity, looking specifically at the Peshetta Scriptures of the Coptic Church.
If I'd been introduced to his work before being introduced to the 'high' Christalogical nonsense they teach as 'fact' (virgin birth, moving stars, dumb moves for tax purposes, the physical resurrection, the Trinity... stuff I'd more or less fully rejected before the age of 7) I'd probably be a Christian today.
The shades of meaning in Aramaic, coupled with the insights that would have been alien to a Middle Eastern mind set of the first century, make a whole lot of sense. Much of what is now called Christian would be unrecognisable to a 1st century Jew, since it's mostly Greek thought on balance of opposites rather than the unity ideas espoused by the limits of the Aramaic language. There is no concept of internal and external, spirit and flesh being together...
Quite an eye opener on a nearly wholly alien mind set.
If I'd been introduced to his work before being introduced to the 'high' Christalogical nonsense they teach as 'fact' (virgin birth, moving stars, dumb moves for tax purposes, the physical resurrection, the Trinity... stuff I'd more or less fully rejected before the age of 7) I'd probably be a Christian today.
The shades of meaning in Aramaic, coupled with the insights that would have been alien to a Middle Eastern mind set of the first century, make a whole lot of sense. Much of what is now called Christian would be unrecognisable to a 1st century Jew, since it's mostly Greek thought on balance of opposites rather than the unity ideas espoused by the limits of the Aramaic language. There is no concept of internal and external, spirit and flesh being together...
Quite an eye opener on a nearly wholly alien mind set.
posted by Roger O'Donnell at 3:25 AM
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