Don't trade in your old Bible

By Fr. Paul Mankowski, S.J. ( articles ) | May 01, 2003

Floating around the Internet recently is a so-called "Lord's Prayer based on Peshitta Gospels/Aramaic Texts," which is advertised as "translated by Dr. Neil Douglas-Klotz." Here is the version as it came to me:

Father-Mother! Birther and Breath of All, Create a space inside us and fill it with your presence. Let Oneness now prevail. Your one desire then acts through ours, as energy fills all forms. Give us physical and spiritual nourishment each day. Untangle the knots of error that bind us, as we release others. Don't let appearances make us forgetful of the Source, but free us to act appropriately. Age to age, from you comes the glorious harmony of Life. May these statements be fertile ground from which our future grows.

A fraud. As a translation, this "Lord's Prayer" is 100% bogus from beginning to end, and bears no relationship whatever to the Aramaic of the Gospel passages (Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4). The ancient Aramaic text differs in no substantive way from the ordinary Lord's Prayer we were taught, with the exception of the phrase "bread of our necessity" for "daily bread."