A prophet, in his own words

Christmas will be here soon It is a good time to ask a question that pops into my mind from time to time Jesus did not speak English so how come the Bible we read is in English and nearly every other language you can nameIn humility my question is neither particularly clever nor even original Scholars and theologians have long debated how Jesusrsquo original Aramaic got translated into other languagesmdashand how much of his meaning and intent might have been lost misrepresented or even deliberately tweaked in the processIn the Jerusalem of Jesusrsquo time Greek was as common as Aramaic and many were bilingual so it wouldnrsquot be a surprise if his apostles took notes in Greek which some claim was the original language of the New TestamentImagine my delight and surprise when I discovered buried among my old files a manuscript that claimed to be a direct translation from the socalled Essene text of Jesusrsquo words in the original Aramaic that he spoke Its title readmdashThe Gospel of Peace of Jesus Christ by the disciple JohnThe Aramaic and Old Slavonic Texts compared and edited by Edmond Szekely Translated by Edmond Szekely and Purcell WeaverSzekely who was immediately debunked and trashed by the ruling Christian orthodoxy claimed to have found an Aramaic translation of The Essene Gospel of Peace and The Essene Book of Revelation He had come upon them he said while studying at the Vatican Library in 1923 and in old Slavonic language in the Royal Library of the Habsburgs now the National Library of Austria The Slavonic version according to him was a literal translation of Jesusrsquo spoken AramaicThe Vatican denied that the original manuscripts even existed or that Szekely had ever been admitted to the Vatican Archives A critic called it ldquoone of the strangest frauds we know of in the Biblical fieldrdquo and accused Szekely of writing it himself The documents he named have never been seen either lost or hidden if not fictitiousBook 1 of The Essene Gospel of Peace by Jesus Christ the translation Szekely published in 1936 represented about an eighth of the complete Aramaic manuscripts hersquod found He claimed it was the true undoctored New TestamentThe Essenes struck me as a remarkable community though there were no more than about 4000 of them and they are not heard of again after 70 AD Many of them practised celibacy and some observed the practice of being engaged for three years before marryingThey abjured swearing oaths and sacrificing animals practised vegetarianism and were required to control their tempers and serve as channels of peace carrying weapons only for protection against robbers They abhorred slavery and believed all humans were created equalJohn the Baptist a Jewish preacher and cousin of Jesus was believed to be EsseneI took some hours and slowly read through it It was lyrical poetic beautiful and profound It gently challenged the assumptions of conventional politicised established religious institutions about the life and teachings of JesusI am not particularly religious but something about the words of the very human Jesus in this controversial biblical text touches a deep chord in me Jesus addressed topics I never knew he hadmdashthe role of women gender and the importance of our relationship with nature and the environment Far from calling humans the ldquocrown of creationrdquo who could plunder the planet as they pleased he preached reverence and humility before Mother NatureWhether the document is a fake or not whether these are Jesusrsquo words or not they resonate with me Here is a sampling from just Book 1Your Mother is in you and you in her She bore you she gives you life It was she who gave to you your body and to her shall you one day give it back again Happy are you when you come to know her and her kingdom For the power of our Mother is above allNo one can reach the Heavenly Father unless through the Earthly Mother Even as no newborn babe can understand the teaching of his father till his mother has suckled him bathed him nursed him put him to sleep and nurtured himBooks 2 through 4 have also been published now and may be viewed or downloaded at httpswwwessenecomGospelOfPeace If that is too much work write to me at my email and Irsquoll gladly send you the partial text I haveThe part I love best is where Jesus says written scriptures are the work of men not gods ldquoGod wrote not laws in the pages of booksrdquo he said ldquoSeek not the law in your scriptures for the law is life whereas the scripture is dead In everything that is life is the law written You find it in the grass in the trees in the rivers in the mountain in the birds of heaven in the fishes of the sea but seek it chiefly in yourselvesrdquoThat is a Jesus that would make complete sense Even to an atheistYou can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper