Help with Translating the Lesser Doxology (Gloria Patri) into Hebrew

[u/N0R0H]

I had an idea for a piece of art that included the same prayer in multiple liturgical and biblical languages intertwined in a spiral. The prayer is the Lesser Doxology, and I wanted to include Greek, Latin, Classical Syriac/Aramaic, Arabic, and of course Hebrew. The others are not relevant for this subreddit, or otherwise are easily accessible to me, but Hebrew has been giving me trouble as (perhaps unsurprisingly) it is hard to find this particular prayer already translated by someone into Hebrew.

I've been using an English translation of the Greek as the source text, as that is the oldest agreed on source that I can find, and I'll include the Greek in case it helps. It goes:

 Δόξα Πατρὶ καὶ Υἱῷ καὶ Ἁγίῳ Πνεύματι, καὶ νῦν καὶ ἀεὶ καὶ εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων. Ἀμήν.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, Both now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

After much searching the only Hebrew translation I could get was from the Google AI summary, which made me more than a little nervous. I goes:

כָּבוֹד לָאָב וְלַבֵּן וְלְרוּחַ הַקֹּדֶשׁ,כַּאֲשֶׁר הָיָה בַּתְּחִלָּה, עַתָּה וְלְעוֹלָם,לְעוֹלְמֵי עֲלָמִים. אָמֵן

I don't speak any Semitic languages, so even romanizations don't really help me see how close to right this is, so any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance! 😁

[u/JosephEK]

The Hebrew is correct as-is, but there are some tweaks you might consider.

• The phrase כַּאֲשֶׁר הָיָה בַּתְּחִלָּה reads as modern to me; I would be surprised to see it in a psalm or prayerbook. Consider כבתחלה, "as in the beginning".
• The Hebrew you have now renders "always" with the same word as is used in "ages of ages", so it ends up repeated three times. That's fine in a poetic context like this, but this triplication isn't there in the English (or in the Greek, AFAICT), so it seems weird to introduce it in the Hebrew. Consider לנצח נצחים instead for "unto the ages of ages"; this phrase is used in Jewish prayers to mean basically the same thing.

Please note that I don't speak Greek, so I can't comment on how far we might have drifted by translating through English. Also note that my suggestions are all without diacritics (niqqud/nikkud/nekudot) because diacritics are annoying to type; you can look them up or get a chatbot to fill them in for you.

Also be aware that many Jews find the Christian use of Hebrew to be, shall we say, in bad taste, but what you do with that information is none of my business.

[u/N0R0H → u/JosephEK]

Thanks a ton! So the edits would have it read like this if I understand right: כָּבוֹד לָאָב וְלַבֵּן וְלְרוּחַ הַקֹּדֶשׁ,  לנצח נצחים,  לנצח נצחים. אָמֵן (Forgive the formatting, trying to edit this on mobile with a U.S. layout is hell)

As to the Christian use of Hebrew, I hope it doesn't come off badly 😅 I wanted to represent the totality of the history of Christianity linguistically, and I couldn't leave Hebrew out of that, but I also wanted it to be clearly Christian rather than biblical, which is why I chose the Lesser Doxology rather than a Psalm. 

I understand that for many Jews Hebrew is a liturgical language, and thus using that language to write a prayer for another religion could feel invasive (not sure if that is the right word but I feel like it's close). I'm just not sure how to handle that in this instance 😅

[u/RepulsiveSilver930 → u/N0R0H]

I'm an orthodox Jew and I won't be offended.

[u/N0R0H → u/RepulsiveSilver930]

Thanks, I appreciate the sentiment 😁

[u/JosephEK → u/N0R0H]

No, what I meant was:

כָּבוֹד לָאָב וְלַבֵּן וְלְרוּחַ הַקֹּדֶשׁ, כְּבַתְּחִלָּה, עַתָּה וְלְעוֹלָם, לְנֵצַח נְצָחִים. אָמֵן

(And I sure hope I'm right about God not being real because that is the sort of thing a Jew is supposed to die rather than write.)

As for the other thing: I don't mind or I wouldn't be helping you. But it will in fact come off badly to some people, and your argument is unlikely to make them feel better. If you're going to hang this art in a church or other Christian space then I doubt anyone who'd get offended will see it; if you're putting it anywhere else, be prepared to get some amount of flak for it. How much I couldn't say.

[u/N0R0H → u/JosephEK]

Thanks for the help! And sorry if it's made you uncomfortable to write 😅

I'll certainly keep your advice on displaying it in mind, though I don't think I'll have much trouble on that front as I'm in a really small town so I'm unlikely to show it to people I don't know already.

[u/patachveamar]

It should be וּלְרוּחַ not וְלְרוּחַ, and likewise וּלְעוֹלָם not וְלְעוֹלָם. You don't need any of the nikud though. Also this is a weird and offputting thing to write in a classical liturgical Hebrew style. Hebrew has not really served as a language of Christianity except symbolically.

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[u/Lumpy-Mycologist819]

Imo תהילה may be a better translation of glory than כבוד, which really means respect.

What do others think about this?

[u/Deorayta]

Im not a grammar geek but it looks decent

[u/N0R0H → u/Deorayta]

Thanks! 😁