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In the Original Lord's prayer Farther was not used. Abwum (Avoon) was used. It is without gender and the closest English translation is Creator a concept that contains both Mother/Father.
The Greeks and Romans were still hung up on God(swt) being a Zeus/Jupiter figure and the Early Greeks reflected this in their understandings of Christianity.
The Earliest known version of the Lord's Prayer as it was said by the Earliest Christians:
Transliteration and Translation
(in the original Aramaic)
Abwûn
"Oh Thou, from whom the breath of life comes,
d'bwaschmâja
Who fills all realms of sound, light and vibration.
Nethkâdasch schmach
May Your light be experienced in my utmost holiest.
Têtê malkuthach.
Your Heavenly Domain approaches.
Nehwê tzevjânach aikâna d'bwaschmâja af b'arha.
Let Your will come true - in the universe (all that vibrates)
Just as on earth (that is material and dense).
Hawvlân lachma d'sûnkanân jaomâna.
Give us wisdom (understanding, assistance) for our daily need,
Waschboklân chaubên wachtahên aikâna
Daf chnân schwoken l'chaijabên.
Detach the fetters of faults that bind us, (karma)
Like we let go the guilt of others.
Wela tachlân l'nesjuna
Let us not be lost in superficial things (materialism, common temptations),
Ela patzân min bischa.
But let us be freed from that what keeps us off from our true purpose.
Ummm men warping the translations of the Bible in order to establish themselves as superior to women?
Heh - that's probably a very good observation, but the warping probably happend when the books of the Bible were written, redacted and edited together on their way to becoming what we know as the Bible - long, long ago. Some translations DO obscur certain details, as will be seen below - but in a different fashion.
The Israelites had a rich Canaanite heritage and with this heritage came several important goddesses. Of course, the Biblical account roundly condemns worship of these goddesses, but it must be remembered that much of the historical writings were done under a royal ideology that stressed Yahweh for the official, or state cult -and Yahweh alone. Despite this, a glimpse of what one could tentatively call Israelite/Judahite religion emerges from the pages of the Bible, past the biases and rewritings and political and religious ideologies of the Yahweh-Alone cult.
The people of Israel and Judah frequently worshipped other figures besides Yahweh (LORD for those confused) - they had a history of 'El worship, who was the chief Canaanite deity, and portrayed as an old, bearded, sexually vigorous (with help from some goddesses), kindly, grey-headed figure. He was the "Creator (or possessor) of all things" and the "father of the gods". He had a wife named Athirat (the Biblical Asherah), and she was an important goddess in her own right.
Another important goddess in Canaanite religion was Anath - and a worship of her is attested in the Book of Judges with the mention of the Judge Shamgar ben Anath (Shamgar, son of Anath). Add to this the other theophoric names of Israelites and Judahites (Ishba'al - "man of Ba'al", for one example) and we start to see a "hidden" religion behind what the Bible initially presents us with.
By far - Asherah is the goddess most frequently mentioned in the Bible, but the references are still debated: do they refer to the actual deity, or do they refer to images of the deity? Mark S. Smith mentions that it might be the Zeitgeist of modernity to attempt to discover goddess worship in the Bible - many people are excited over such a proposition, for their own various reasons.
What emerges from all of this is a "people's" religion, but added to that a "state" religion as well, at least in Northern Israel. What the extremely Yahwistic prophets decry as a great evil commited by the various rulers of the two kingdoms, might have been standard Israelite/Judahite religion - as oppose to Mosaic Yahwism. The debate still rages in scholarship, and new finds constantly give us new information. The discovery of Ugarit in 1929 was a landmark for Biblical studies, as it gave us one of the first major finds of an essentially Canaanite (again, another debated issue - was Ugarit a Canaanite country?) corpus of texts - these texts containing much information on Canaanite religion. At last, scholars were able to view Canaanite religion without the lenses of the Yahweh-Alone authors of the Bible.
When exactly did Yahweh displace all these other deities? Possibly during the Exile, but that's another story. I think, though, that it would be a mistake to roundly assume that the Israelites had always worshipped a Patriarchal God as their only deity. It's been demonstrated that, like other countries in the Ancient Near East, the major aspects or powers of many important deities (whether in a monotheistic, polytheistic or monolatrous tradition) slowly become subsumed and given to the god who is considered to be the head of the pantheon. Thus, in Babylon, Marduk assumed many of the powers and aspects of other deities once he had defeated Tiamat and brought order to Chaos in Enuma Elish. The same thing happened with the Israelite/Judahite god Yahweh - he subsumed the qualities of Ba'al, Asherah, 'El. 'El, being the chief god of Canaan, was also the chief god of ancient Israel - this is seen especially in Genesis with the many epithets attached to 'El by different Patriarchs, and the general usage of 'El as the term for God or a god in the Bible. 'Elohim is another term used more frequently, but this is a strange construction of a plural noun used frequently in the singular to refer to the Israelite god.
That, at least, is a picture of the diversity of ancient Israel's religious practices - Yahweh, at some point, takes on the qualities of 'El the Father God of Canaan and also takes on the qualities of Ba'al, the important Storm God of Canaan.
I think to really pierce the mystery of the Father God figure of the Bible, one must at least delve into Canaanite religious ideas of 'El. 'El was an interesting deity of his own, and there are some fantastic stories about him and his children. My favorite is when his petulant daughter wants something done, and threatens to bash his head in if he doesn't do it for her. Ha ha! KIDS THESE DAYS! So precocious! I hope some of you are wondering what happened in this story - how does he respond?
Anyways - just my two cents on what modern scholarship has been finding about ancient Israel, it's close ties to Canaan (despite the Biblical protestations) and especially to 'El - Kindly 'El who ruled over the Divine Assembly, just like Yahweh/'El would do in the Israelite pantheon.
In the Original Lord's prayer Farther was not used. Abwum (Avoon) was used. It is without gender and the closest English translation is Creator a concept that contains both Mother/Father.
The Greeks and Romans were still hung up on God(swt) being a Zeus/Jupiter figure and the Early Greeks reflected this in their understandings of Christianity.
The Earliest known version of the Lord's Prayer as it was said by the Earliest Christians:
Transliteration and Translation
(in the original Aramaic)
Abwûn
"Oh Thou, from whom the breath of life comes,
d'bwaschmâja
Who fills all realms of sound, light and vibration.
Nethkâdasch schmach
May Your light be experienced in my utmost holiest.
Têtê malkuthach.
Your Heavenly Domain approaches.
Nehwê tzevjânach aikâna d'bwaschmâja af b'arha.
Let Your will come true - in the universe (all that vibrates)
Just as on earth (that is material and dense).
Hawvlân lachma d'sûnkanân jaomâna.
Give us wisdom (understanding, assistance) for our daily need,
Waschboklân chaubên wachtahên aikâna
Daf chnân schwoken l'chaijabên.
Detach the fetters of faults that bind us, (karma)
Like we let go the guilt of others.
Wela tachlân l'nesjuna
Let us not be lost in superficial things (materialism, common temptations),
Ela patzân min bischa.
But let us be freed from that what keeps us off from our true purpose.
Many religions characterize God as a father-figure. The Lord's Prayer is one obvious example....
Our Father, which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Why is there a need to view God as a father?
Because the ideas of these religions were born in a time where a male was an authority figure and the female was to be under the man. So of course they couldn't see God as the female
Ummm men warping the translations of the Bible in order to establish themselves as superior to women?
It's not "warping", it just is what it is. That was what it was intended to convey. Such a bronze age thought is just further evidence that it is nothing more than a fallacy, created by men.
Last edited by WhipperSnapper 88; 01-01-2012 at 12:47 PM..
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