Prayers of the Cosmos:

Meditations on the Aramaic Words of Jesus

by Neil Douglas-Klotz

A pioneering book in the movement to recover the wisdom of Jesus as a Native Middle Eastern person. The Lord's Prayer and Beatitudes in new, multi-layered translations.

Douglas-Klotz's first book (1990, HarperCollins) has sold more than 100,000 copies worldwide in five languages. Prayers of the Cosmos retranslates the Lord’s Prayer  and Beatitudes six different ways, all of which would be possible ways that an Aramaic speaker could have heard it. Among his controversial translations for the first line of the prayer (“Our Father which art in heaven”) are, “O Thou the Breathing Life of all, Creator of the shimmering sound that touches us.”

Douglas-Klotz is co-chair of the Steering Committee of the Mysticism Group of the American Academy of Religion and also a member of the Society of Biblical Studies, at whose annual conferences he presents his scholarly work. He is also well-known in the field of spirituality and has worked with the Anglican theologian Dr. Matthew Fox. HarperSF, 90 pages,paperback. US $13. UK £8.99 ISBN:0-06-061995-3

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Reviews:

"This book compares with the Dead Seal Scrolls and Elaine Pagels' Gnostic Gospels in its revolutionary presentation of Jesus' most beloved utterances--and it goes beyond them in making the material experiential. Here we find a Lord's Prayer and Beatitudes that call even the most agnostic of ecofeminists and deep ecologists to reverence--and to a glad reconnection with forgotten roots of our shared culture. For the many of us who want to peel away centuries of dualistic, patriarchal forms and recover the life-affirming beauty of our Christian roots, nothing could be more welcome than this exquisite little volume. Breath a sigh of relief as you open Prayers of the Cosmos! It is high time we reclaimed the ecstatic love of creation that is at the heart of Jesus' mission and message.

--Joanna Macy, author of World as Lover, World as Self and Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age

" Reader beware: this book contains the seeds of a revolution! Prayers of the Cosmos embraces, surprises, grounds, challenges. It opens our hearts to cosmology once again--as Jesus was open to cosmology and all native persons are open to cosmology. It allows the mysticism of our scriptural heritage to move us once again. Maybe even to transform us. It welcome this book and the rich fruit it is sure to bear."

--from the Foreward by Matthew Fox, author of Original Blessing and Sheer Joy!

“[Prayers of the Cosmos] holds the power to lull the angel with the flaming sword to sleep and sneak us back into paradise..."

—physicist/ cosmologist Brian Swimme, author of The Universe is a Green Dragon and The Universe Story

"A new world view is emerging today to such an extent that the United Nations has proclaimed 1993 International Year for the World's Indigenous People, not only to defend their rights, but also to listen to their views, so much closer to nature than those of western humanity. Perhaps the time has come to turn similarly to the ancient texts of the world's religions in order to determine what their etymology had to say about the early perceptions of the mysteries of Creation and of human meaning and fate on this planet. This book by Neil Douglas-Klotz opens up this new field in which linguists should be given the first voice."

--Robert Muller, Chancellor, U.N. University for Peace, Costa Rica

“This small volume can change our whole manner of praying, and if we allow it, our lives as well.”
—Creation Spirituality magazine

"...versions striking in their boldness and poetry...prayer becomes a fully engaging experience, a seeking of direct personal inspiration..."
--New Dimensions

"...we learn to feel at the heart level the words and thoughts of Jesus... When you read this book you will have no further doubt that God loves you unconditionally.
--Science of Mind

"...opens a door of immense size--to invite further entrance into the real teachings of Jesus."
--Sufism

"...serves to remind us that Jesus is no comfortable figure. This book reinforces that Jesus is not "nice."
--Monos

"The poet, mystic, cross-culturalists, creation-spirituality-attuned will welcome this work as yet another instrument for recognizing the self-revelation of the Cosmic Christ."
--Catholic Times

"...a small book of the sort that in the end can provoke great effects"
--New Age Retailer

Entire Joanna Macy Quote:

For the many of us who want to peel away centuries of dualistic, patriarchal forms and recover the life-affirming beauty of our Christian roots, nothing could be more welcome than this exquisite little volume. Breath a sigh of relief as you open Prayers of the Cosmos. Only a "leader of the dance," in love with sound, music and body--and one who is also an Aramaic scholar--could have rendered us this gift. My gratitude to Neil Douglas-Klotz is boundless, for it is high time we reclaimed the ecstatic love of creation that is at the heart of Jesus' mission and message.

Douglas-Klotz's offering compares with the Dead Sea Scrolls and Elaine Pagel's Gnostic Gospels in its revolutionary presentation of Jesus' most beloved utterances. And it goes beyond them in making the material experiential, for this text is accompanied by "body prayers" that help us deeply integrate their good news.

Here we find a Lord's Prayer and Beatitudes that call even the most agnostic of ecofeminists and deep ecologists to reverence--and to a glad reconnection with the forgotten roots of our shared culture. For myself, as an ex-Presbyterian, Buddhist scholar and teacher, this book welcomes my home to my own Christian heritage.

Prayers of the Cosmos will be a source of happy replenishment for individuals and of joyful collective practice for groups inside and outside of the church.

--Joanna Macy, author of World as Lover, World as Self and Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age