Facilitator: Dr Neil Douglas-Klotz.
Venue: The Scottish Poetry Library, 5 Crichton's Close, Canongate, Edinburgh.
Time: 6.30pm for 7pm.
Event Description: In 1990, Dr Neil Douglas-Klotz pioneered a poetic approach to interpreting and understanding the words attributed to Jesus in the Gospels from his native Aramaic language. Drawing upon the centuries-old Jewish tradition of midrash (interpretive translation), Douglas-Klotz used a traditional Syriac-Aramaic version of the Gospels to show how a non-Western listener might have heard the words of a Semitic prophet in a multi-leveled way.

His first book, Prayers of the Cosmos, became an international bestseller and led to subsequent works continuing the exploration, which have raised many questions for Biblical scholars about their own methodologies. Last year, Douglas-Klotz published a new collection of poetic renderings from the Aramaic words of Jesus entitled Blessings of the Cosmos. During this evening he will discuss the use of poetry to translate and interpret non-Western languages and read from a number of his translations from the Aramaic of the words attributed to Jesus.

Dr Neil Douglas-Klotz directs the Edinburgh Institute for Advanced Learning and co-founded the Edinburgh International Festival of Middle Eastern Spirituality and Peace. He is the co-chair of the Mysticism Group of the American Academy of Religion and has published several books on Middle Eastern spirituality and peace, including Prayers of the Cosmos, Desert Wisdom, The Hidden Gospel, The Genesis Meditations, The Sufi Book of Life, Blessings of the Cosmos and The Tent of Abraham. In 2005 he was awarded the Kessler-Keener Foundation Peacemaker of the Year award.
Cost: £5/£3. To book:
Contact: reception@spl.org.uk, 0131 557 2876.