As promised, we jump over to the religious-spiritual thread of my Substack Endeavor.
There is joke at the expense of American Christians - that we think Jesus spoke in English. Obviously we know that Jesus did not speak English, but I suggest that we typically do not take the Jewish, Aramaic speaking Jesus into our consciousness when we take his words into our minds and hearts, and share with others.
When we study the gospels and other writings about Jesus we need to evaluate the author’s credibility in terms of his proximity to the source - Jesus. How many people did a Jesus narrative pass through before a scribe wrote it down? In our world, the Bible was translated from Aramaic into other languages before it was translated to English.
Aside from attending church, religious education classes, and family discussions, American Christians rely on the English Bible as their main source of religious understanding. Christian church services include readings from the Bible, and church parishes often offer studies based on the books in the Bible. It’s certainly fair to say that the English Bible has long been the main source of American Christian religious understanding. Keep in mind the journey the English Bible took before it reached our hands.
I grew up attending Episcopalian church services on Sundays, and after I married, I converted to Catholicism. I have been privileged to attend the weddings, funerals, and baptisms of numerous friends and family in these churches. Among my life experiences, Sunday services and Celebrations of Life are near and dear.
My personal religious journey included participation as an acolyte (altar boy) while I was in Junior High and High School. As part of our training we were required to read and memorize texts from the Book of Common Prayer, a compendium of Episcopalian faith and liturgy, based on the King James version of the Bible. I still have my copy, signed by the Bishop of Los Angeles when I was confirmed at the age of twelve. And no, I was never abused. In fact, I still hold the pastor of my youth in the highest esteem.
All my religious undertakings and thinking about Jesus were conjugated in English like most Americans. The English speaking Jesus served me well for most of my life and I never gave it a second thought until I encountered a book titled The Kabbalistic Words of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas, subtitled Recovering the Inner-Circle Teachings of Yeshua, written by an Episcopal Bishop named Lewis Keizer.
Before I begin talking about this distinguished work I will brief the reader on my adult religious history to establish how I was guided over time toward a book which holds wisdom to raise our consciousness.
When an adult joins the Catholic Church she/he is required to take a course from a qualified instructor. The course is called Roman Catholic Adult Initiation or RCIA. The course begins in the fall and ends at Easter with Baptism and/or Confirmation. The weekly course meetings are a real commitment. I took the classes seriously, and was deeply moved at my confirmation during the Easter Vigil Mass that year.
Up to that point I was strictly a fiction reader with an occasional biography thrown in for good measure, but the experience of going through RCIA turned my interests toward reading about Catholicism and religion in general. I wanted to understand how Catholicism would impact my life, and how Catholicism related to the other Christian religions. I dropped my long held reading preferences and dug into Catholicism and the Gospels for the long haul.
As a result of my reading and the development of my beliefs, I decided to leave my retail career behind and go to work for the Catholic Church about fifteen years ago. It was a change in lifestyle, a departure from the travel, dining and drinking habits the multi-unit retail manager of a certain era was party to.
I was initially hired into an administrative role at the local diocese, and landed in a parish two years later in the position of Business Manager. I was there for ten years, fully ensconced in the Catholic life. Yet I feel the singular moment in that life was the day a flier crossed my desk inviting me to explore something called Centering Prayer.
Centering Prayer is the Catholic version of meditation, yet it is so much more than simple meditation. Centering prayer is a full-on practice with a rich history and a large organization operating within the Catholic Church, though not as part of the official Church organization. I look forward to telling you the history of Centering Prayer at another time. For now, suffice it to say that it was another life-changer for me. A brief look at my personal Centering Prayer experience follows.
After a six week training course at a parish close to my workplace, I joined a Centering Prayer group that meets not far from my home. I have belonged to this group for about ten years now, and my practice has evolved with grace. Our meetings begin with a short reading, followed by a thirty minute meditation and five minutes of appropriate music to ease us back to “normal” consciousness.
We spend our remaining time, usually 45-50 minutes, sharing our personal thoughts about a book we are reading as a group. Our books are related to what is known as “The Wisdom Path” of the religious-spiritual life. Through these books we have acquainted ourselves with all the major world religions and numerous related topics. Our current study is The Kabbalistic Words of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas. As a group we are ecstatic about the new information we are receiving about Jesus, his teachings, and his life, and I am ecstatic about bringing some of these teachings to you.
The book is structured as an academic study, yet it is so much more. It was written in English, but explores the depths of how Jesus’ Aramaic spoken words were transcribed and translated into Greek, Coptic, and other ancient mediterranean languages leading up to the Roman led establishment of the Bible Cannon under Emperor Constantine. To understand how our American Christian Bible came to be formed can raise our consciousness to a new level, and expand our worldview and self-understanding.
Transcription and translation are similar to a thought in your mind that becomes speech heard by another, and told by that other to yet another. Each communication births a change of message - if only a slight change, yet sometimes to a major degree. Further, we can expand this experience to include how one generation passes an interpretation to the next and so on, but we’ll save this exercise for a future article.
As we go forward here be aware that I am not going to argue that the English Bible we use today has it all wrong and that we’ve been hoodwinked by translators, emperors, and time, as tempting as that rabbit hole may look. My objective for this writing is to draw your interest to new (for most of us) information about what Jesus said according to his closest, most advanced disciples and what he meant when he said it, based on the outstanding research of Bishop Keizer. My own experience reading the Bishop’s book has been an unequivocal consciousness expanding experience.
We will look at Keizer’s Logions (sayings of Jesus) 6, 14.a, and 14.c below to convey an understanding of his research and analysis regarding Jesus’ lessons on how to develop good interaction, right behavior, and a clear conscience.
If you are a Bible reader, you will recall similar sayings quoted by one of the four gospel writers from the Bible, which (though the debate still rages) were written most likely between 60 and 100 CE. These words from Thomas are said to have been laid down earlier, closer to Jesus’ death and resurrection.
The words and phrasing are different from the Bible you know because they come from Jesus’ disciple Thomas, who is likely the “Doubting Thomas” we know who put his hand into Jesus’ side, and the Thomas who spread the gospel throughout what is now Iraq and on into India.
Thomas Logion 6: His disciples questioned him and asked, Do you want us to fast? and how should we pray? and should we give alms? and what diet should we observe? Jesus answered, Do not fabricate a lie, and do not do what you hate others doing. For all deeds are manifest before the Face of God.
Keizer: He taught that his disciples should be single-souled, meaning to act only on the impulses of the Yetzer-Ha-Tov (inclination to do good) and without guile or double intentions. Let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no. Fasting should be a fast from sin.
Jesus knew that it is much easier for us to identify evil behavior in others than in ourselves, so he told them to use their dislike of sinful behavior in others as a standard to measure their own behavior.
The inner teaching of spiritual transformation requires that anger and all other negative impulses arising from the Yetzer-Ha-Ra (inclination to do evil) be recognized and acknowledged. It advises that once the destructive impulses arise, they must be sublimated and transformed. This is done by holding impulses in check while they can be analyzed. Simply looking at them can be transformative.
Thomas Logion 14.a: If you do a religious fast, you will beget sin for yourselves; if you pray, you will come under judgment; if you give alms to the poor, you will do evil things to your spirits.
Keizer: Ritual commandments like fasting promote pride rather than righteousness. Prayer for selfish or self-righteous motives engender negative judgements, as does alms-giving for show.
Thomas Logion 14.c: For what goes into your mouth will not defile you, but rather what comes out of your mouth - that is what will defile you.
Keizer: Purity and impurity arose from the yetzerim or impulses from the heart when the impure motivations of the Yetzer-Ha-Ra were overcome by those of the Yetzer-Ha-Tov or image of God in thought, word, and deed, an act of internal sanctification had been achieved. Therefore, what comes out, not what goes in (like food) is what sanctifies or defiles.
We can probably remember times when we took that moment, that breath, and remember a better result coming from it - better than what may have resulted if we had gone with our first impulse. I can remember noticing when my parents sometimes did this with me. Someday I hope to say that I have successfully employed this teaching from Jesus.
I personally find Kaiser’s breakdown to be a superior explanation to the confused understanding I would have taken home after hearing the similar gospel reading in church, and/or listening to a Catholic priest use something he found on “homilies.com” to explain the lessons or how to employ them. I do not recall ever hearing a homily that focuses in on this critical understanding of how we can transform our conscience and interactions with others.
As an American Christian I am finding these new yet closer to the original source lessons invigorate my passion for my faith. Further, the simple revelation that there is so much more to learn about Jesus is consciousness raising.
I hope you find inspiration to read Keizer’s book.
Buckle up!
Reading Thomas has changed my life. I feel like something is missing if I don't include this is my overall knowledge of Jesus. I hate catching myself doing what I hate seeing other people do! That is the worst feeling.