The Bible as Literature

Every immigrant, every minority, and every colonized person living under a human boot faces the same dilemma: how to live without imitating or accepting the ways of the human gods that impose their glory.

“We have,” a wise poet once said, “on this earth what makes life worth living.”

Scripture, Fr. Paul has explained many times, forged a path for living in the ancient world by refusing to accept the glory of Alexander, the Seleucids, and all who came after them by pushing back.

Not by working within their system. 

Not by playing their game or thinking like them. 

Least of all by adopting their language. 

With no hope, from under their boot, Scripture came up with biblical Hebrew to force the Greeks to submit to the Scriptural God.

They did not study Greek or capitulate to Greek culture in order to convince or get ahead in Greek society and maybe attract a few wealthy people to their secret cult. You’re thinking of the harlots in 1 Corinthians. 

Don’t be like the harlots in 1 Corinthians. 

You become what you accept. So, reject everything and become nothing, like the biblical prophets. 

Trust me. 

When you are nothing you have more free time to study Semitic triliterals. The more you know Semitic, the better your chance of hearing God speak.

So when in Rome, smile at the Romans, the Greeks (or the freedom-loving ice cream people), politely ignore them and do what Paul says. 

(Episode 320)

There is nothing like a cup of Turkish Coffee. That’s not an opinion. It’s an observation of fact. The local Starbucks does not serve Turkish Coffee.

That’s why I never buy Starbucks for Fr. Paul before his lectures. Why would I? Why would anyone who cares about anything important, meaning Scripture, do something so foolish? I am pretty sure there is a “Stars and Bucks” somewhere in the Middle East (and like any industrious knock-off, I bet they serve Turkish Coffee), but not the local Starbucks. 

This week, Fr. Paul even mentions the importance of his Turkish Coffee in the morning (with lots of water) before tackling the authorship of the Hebrew and Septuagint texts. 

Of course, his view goes against scholarly consensus. 

He also discusses his novel stance on the Book of Sirach, which goes against scholarly consensus.  

And his view on the choice of Greek over Latin, which goes against scholarly consensus.
 
And the importance of the Latin Vulgate, which goes against Orthodox consensus, which is not scholarly. 

And the function of grammatical gender, which goes against, well, everybody but especially theologians. 

Why, my daughter asked me, is the Bible so negative? 

The Bible is humorous, I answered. The Bible is ruthless, even cruel. But negative?  

I, myself, am a man of optimism. 

The many puny human gods, I explained, are like tiny cancerous tumors. 

The Bible, on the other hand, is hopeful, like a doctor who prescribes chemotherapy to a person covered with many tumors. 

When these puny, toxic little gods are attacked, ridiculed, dismantled, and poisoned by the text of the Bible, the pain is unbearable—but the doctor goes to work against the cancer anyway because he has hope—hope against all hope when there is clearly no hope—that the treatment will bring hope.

I call that insane optimism like a Gazan who just lost everything but somehow finds the strength to lift his hands in prayer—like the Olive Tree—which gives thanks only to God. 

You do not need a Seminary degree to unpack that puzzle. 

(Episode 319)

The Bible, Fr. Paul explains, is a holy joke. 

That’s a big relief. Even hopeful. 

Looking around, I see that the current state of affairs is an unholy joke.

Truly, if the Scriptural God is not laughing at us, mocking us, and ultimately—as Fr. Paul explains—entrapping us, he is not God. 

He can’t be. 

What kind of god, what monster, would be happy with us? I mean, seriously, people? 

Look at us.

Do you think it sounds odd that God would say, “Here is a nice tree in the Garden, now don’t eat of it,” when you say to little children: 

“We love you. We do not want you to go hungry. So we will send you food, but we will not let you touch it. We will just talk about how much we care because we are not violent like the God of the Old Testament.”

May this God, the vengeful and terrible God found only in the text (the one everybody ignores and abuses), the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, mock, shame, confound, judge, terrify, and entrap us without reprieve for the sake of the poor until his Kingdom comes in power.

(Episode 318)

Code Pink! Code Pink!

People are running around with blinders on! 

It appears they’ve been reading English translations of the Septuagint!

Half keep referring to something called the Books of the Kingdoms, which do not appear in the Bible; the other half are enamored with some goofy Greek nonsense called “philosophical questioning.” 

One of them keeps eating ice cream in a stupor. 

They insist that the Bible is about building churches, investing in property, planning for the future, defending walls, funding wars, protecting their people, and—above all—trying to prove which tribe held the first theropod roast in prehistoric Palestine, which, at that time, was known as, well, “nothing,” because we probably did not have language yet. 

Some of these people are doing DNA tests and then photoshopping pictures of themselves holding a Bible while standing at said therapod roast.

Ah, the suffering of Job. But Job was a fool. I mean, look, what did his supposed righteousness get him? 

A house in Tel Aviv? 

But that’s what you want. 

So you host Lenten retreats about the deep spiritual meaning of Job’s suffering and how to be patient like him in anticipation of your colonial therapod roast.

Disgusting. 

And just to be clear, Elihu, Father Paul explains, is no better. 

The structure of Job, the syntax of the canon, and the placement of Psalms all undermine you: all of them de-historicize, de-value, and de-center the human being.

So, please. 

It does not matter what your DNA test says. 

If the result of your DNA test comes back “human being,” that is already way too much information. 

May God have mercy upon the therapods. 

(Episode 317)

Scripture unmasks your illusions. Religion, family, friends, ideas, institutions, nations, individuals, “isms” of every school—all your human ideals and beliefs are a lie. 

Unfortunately, you can’t sleep around with your lies and remain faithful to the Master.  

You do, in fact, have to make a choice. Note my use of the word “fact.” 

So, please, step in front of the bus or return to the safety of your lies. 

That is how this works. 

Go ahead—I insist—lie to yourself. It’s better for you. Enjoy your environmentally safe lifestyle. Don’t forget to vote. 

There you go. See? You are a good person. Your hands are clean. God bless you. 

You should be a guest on “The View.” 

Notice, I said god bless you. I did not mention the text. I was talking about your god, not the God of Scripture.  

Anyone who can’t see the true face of their idolatry or who tries to apologize for it or the idolatry of this age in any way is morally bankrupt.

It’s true. I’m not lying. 

The West is having its moment—it’s painful to watch and definitely long deserved, but the pain, at least for now, is located in the weakest part of the body. 

But you cannot dull the pain of facts with the stupor of your idols forever. 

MENE, MENE, TEQEL, UPHARSIN

Your narratives certainly feel good. Family is dear to you, and personal relationships mean everything to you. You take courage in speaking truth to power and in the freedom to disagree, to be different—that’s the American way, Fr. Marc. 

What a great story. You should work for Disney. 

Thanks be to the Scriptural God: the Bible is not your story. Let alone a story.

It’s a text with consonants totally foreign to your colonial brain, laid out in a particular order, in a language concocted from the many Semitic languages of the many peoples you still number among your enemies, you fool.

It’s funny how you love all your idols, your religion, your atheism, family, friends, institutions, and your “democratic values,” but you still somehow manage to hate the same enemies you were commanded to love. 

As Fr. Paul used to say in the classroom, God is merciful, but I am not God. 

You would do well to forgo your stupid ideals and, instead, study Arabic alongside biblical Hebrew. Then you will see with your eyes and hear with your ears what the Scriptural God said in his original Semitic syntax, sparing both you and the poor the tyranny of your self-serving flotillas.

Allahu Akbar. 

(Episode 316)

This week, a few listeners reached out to wish me well on my sabbatical or to ask what I plan to do with my free time. 

First, please be assured that I will not be eating ice cream. Second, as my oldest Palestinian cousin Tina said while doing manual labor at St. Elizabeth, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” 

In her honor, let’s make good use of the time because the days are definitely evil. 

Teaching is about conveying facts from the text, not your ideas about the text, let alone your institutional narratives. 

On a personal level, you want to talk about “narrative” or “narrative context” because you want to give yourself importance. On an institutional level, if you take just five minutes to stop gossiping about or psychoanalyzing each other, you’ll discover that your obsession with “narrative” is all about the Benjamins.  

You fund the Tower of Babel; thus, it is utterly disgusting. “And that,” Fr. Paul explains this week, “is the price we are paying in so-called Judeo-Christianism.”

Just watch Tik-Tok, Habibi. 

Thankfully, the God of Scripture is not mocked in his syntax. 

What is written cannot be undone—for those who have ears. The canonical syntax of the original, consonantal Hebrew text is a fact unless you want to go back and dream about your facts while sleeping with the New York Times. 

Sleep well. Make-believe stories—even the scary ones—are for children. 

Lexicography, on the other hand, is the transmission of facts. Facts are common and accessible to all—they stare back at you from the page—just like canonical syntax. 

As Fr. Paul has said for decades, Biblical-Semitic consonants are situated on the scroll, like the organs of your body. No NATO narratives are required. 

So before launching into the exciting developments I mentioned last week, Fr. Paul will spend some time explaining, once and for all, why the syntax of the Hebrew canon—and not the Septuagint—is our canonical reference for word study in the Biblical text. 

(Episode 315)

This week, Fr. Paul refers to the Apostle Paul’s letter to Timothy, noting a disciple’s duty to take every single opportunity at every moment to channel the content of Scripture at every turn, in time and out of time, using every chance afforded to share what you received, not from the teacher, but directly from the text. In this vein, Fr. Paul reiterates a point from his most recent presentation in Lebanon, noting the lexicographical significance of the word Qur’an for Christians, which is functional with the Hebrew triliteral *qof-resh-alef.* (Episode 314)

“Scripture,” Fr. Paul wrote years ago, “is its own interpreter.”

“The sermon,” he continued,“…is at best an invitation to hear and obey the text.”

“An invitation card has no value whatsoever when it comes to the dinner itself; the guests are fed by the dinner, not by the invitation or its phrasing (Luke 14:16-24; Matthew 22:1-14).”

This study of the Gospel of Luke began with a command that the priest (which has nothing to do with the institutional priesthood in any of our churches, let alone historical Judaism) become silent. 

I have heard Fr. Paul teach this for as long as I can remember and have taken it literally and seriously. 

But how does one teach and preach without speaking?

At first, by simply accepting one’s hypocrisy, which most cannot. 

Or perhaps they can but then find themselves shocked that a wanton hypocrite like myself remains unmoved and zealous in my preaching.

I was sitting on the steps outside St. Elizabeth this past summer, and an older woman walked by with a sweatshirt that read, “West Side Against Everybody.” 

“Keep the faith, Padre,” she said.

“Always,” I replied.   

So how does a hypocrite, as younger colleagues put it, “Let the text speak?”

The answer is not a big stupid group hug. 

If that’s what you want, stick with CNN. Your educated, inclusive, culturally sensitive group hug is now on full display in Gaza.

It, too, is a hypocrite—it even has eyes—but it can’t see—it is totally blind to its own hypocrisy. 

Honest to God, it really believes that planting a rainbow flag in northern Gaza will liberate the oppressed. 

“Blind as a bat,” your expression goes. 

So, I have a suggestion. If you want to understand how your sensitive, relationship-driven, evolved culture works in 2024, watch “Killers of the Flower Moon.” The spirit of William King Hale is alive and well in the United States. He sits on your school boards and still holds government office. He has “dear” friends in Gaza for whom he cares “dearly.” His nephew even married “one.” He speaks Arabic fluently, and he really understands “them.” 

I’ll tell you what I understand. 

If you want to understand Paul, open your ears:  

“For each one will bear his own load.” (Galatians 6:5) 

Teaching is not about speaking, let alone learning; it is about carrying your weight. 

People do not learn; they are taught, meaning a teacher has to pick up a shovel and do work with their own hands. 

The answer is not one’s ideas, knowledge, opinions, input, or explanations, let alone hermeneutics or theology. 

(May God protect us from the blasphemous seduction of reception history, in which the Academy, once and for all, is working harder than ever to replace the Scriptural God with its own ego.)

Our duty is word study and lexicography: grammar and functionality in the text of the Bible.

The role of the preacher is not to give a disciple something to hear but to equip a disciple so that they can hear the text on their own dime.

It is embarrassing that Western scholarship treats *re’shit *and *ro’š* as different words. Far worse, however, is the fact that so many Eastern clergy who grew up hearing the liturgy in Arabic—even if they themselves do not speak Arabic—fall into the same trap. 

This is not about identity. People of all colors, genders, religions, and identities are fully on board with the military-industrial hate parade in Washington and London. Still, Scripture is not against them. It is against you. 

And that’s the point. 

When are *you* going to do something?

Didn’t you hear what she said? 

“I’m so scared. Please come. Please call someone to come and take me.”  

“OK, Habbibti, I will come and take you.”

But no one came except God. He always comes through, especially when you don’t. 

He took them all. 

“He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” 

This week’s episode is an excursus on the term Amalek. (Episode 520)

After ten years of programming, The Bible as Literature Podcast will take a sabbatical, starting mid-February and extending until after Pascha in May, following the Eastern calendar. 

This sabbatical will provide an opportunity for me to concentrate on Fr. Paul’s work and some exciting developments planned for his weekly podcast. Rest assured, while The Bible as Literature is on temporary hiatus, I will continue to produce Fr. Paul’s program, “Tarazi Tuesdays,” on a weekly basis. 

This week, Fr. Paul notes the function of the two versions of the Ten Commandments in Exodus and Numbers and the futility of the so-called “Deuteronomic Reform.” (Episode 313)

In view of current events, I am convinced that people who continue to insist upon the language of post-modernism are guilty of murder. 

A bullet is not a narrative. A cylindrical projectile launched from a chamber through the rapid expansion of gas induced by combustion is a fact.

Just ask a nursing mother. She will tell you. 

A bullet is not a narrative. 

It is a sin.

ḥet-ṭet-aleph

It can be tallied—unless you work for the Washington Post. In that case, it can be explained,

“ad excusandas excusationes in peccatis”

“to make excuses for excuses in sins.”

Your brother is not a competing narrative. He is a man—an earth mammal—standing next to you in the land. 

He is your neighbor. 

Syntax.

If you are a man of Scripture, there is no such thing as a competing narrative, let alone silly descriptors like “deeply tragic.” 

The occidental expression “competing narratives” reigns supreme among all lies ever sown by the makers of bullets because it allows them to masquerade as arbiters of righteousness. 

But I say to you: 

“Put not your trust in the makers of bullets, ‘in princes and sons of men, in whom there is no salvation.’” 

Such men are evil, through and through—“ravenous wolves,” Jesus warns, “who come to you in sheep’s clothing.”

There are no 

“narratives” 

“stories,” 

“contexts,” or 

“meanings.” 

Just animals, vegetation, fish in the sea, and birds in the air—“and his righteousness endures forever.”

There is also the ground—the adamah—facts upon it and consonants over it—the rule of Elohim—“and his righteousness endures forever.” 

Those who submit to his righteousness are his to deem righteous, and those who do not are also his—“and his righteousness endures forever.” 

Those wicked who talk about “narratives,” “stories,” “meanings,” and “competing narratives” are the “makers” and “sellers” of snake oil—pundits, journalists, artisans, and apologists—uncle “Thomas Friedmans“ who fashion idols in their own image to set themselves above God and his “Animal Kingdom”:

“Another shapes wood; he extends a measuring line; he outlines it with red chalk. He works it with planes and outlines it with a compass, and makes it like the form of a human, like the beauty of the human form, so that it may sit in a house. Surely, he cuts cedars for himself and takes a cypress or an oak and raises it for himself among the trees of the forest. He plants a fir, and the rain makes it grow. Then it becomes something for a man to burn, so he takes one of them and warms himself; he also makes a fire to bake bread. He also makes a god and worships it; he makes it a graven image and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire; over this half he eats meat as he roasts a roast and is satisfied. He also warms himself and says, ‘Aha! I am warm. I have seen the fire.’ But the rest of it he makes into a god, his graven image. He falls down before it and worships it; he also prays to it and says, ‘Deliver me, for you are my god.’” (Isaiah 44:13–17)

But I say to you:

There is no god but Elohim, and we are all animals in his Kingdom, “and his righteousness endures forever.” 

This week’s episode covers Luke 5:32. (Episode 519)

After ten years of programming, The Bible as Literature Podcast will take a sabbatical, starting mid-February and extending until after Pascha in May, following the Eastern calendar. 

This sabbatical will provide an opportunity for me to concentrate on Fr. Paul’s work and some exciting developments planned for his weekly podcast. Rest assured, while The Bible as Literature is on temporary hiatus, I will continue to produce Fr. Paul’s program, “Tarazi Tuesdays,” on a weekly basis. 

I still have one more episode of this program recorded and ready for release next week. So, stay tuned!

This week, Fr. Paul highlights several key features—not only of the Book of Numbers—but also of the Pentateuch. Most notably, he points out that in all five books, God is never referred to as the “King of Israel.” This fact, he explains, is the main bone of contention in the confrontation between the people and God the Lord in 1 Samuel. (Episode 312) 

With all the silly memes floating around the internet about how to “live” your best life or how to live a “good” life, it was inevitable that people would talk about using Scripture to “live a good” life.

It’s an old lie, actually, and it was unavoidable that it would reappear. 

Oh, come on, Fr. Marc. You know what they mean.

Unfortunately, no. I do not. I do not speak Plato. I do not know what they “mean.” 

 I do, however, study what is written. 

If you are studying, hearing, listening, or otherwise memorizing Scripture in order to “live” a “good” life, you are on the wrong track. 

No one, Jesus said, is good. 

We submit to what is written because “it” is good, and we are not. 

We can never be “good.” That is why we submit and why I refuse to say, “I know what you mean.” 

I have no desire to know your gods because they validate your lies—like the fantasy that you can live a “good life” by following Scripture. 

Show me a man who is perfect like his heavenly Father, and I’ll introduce you to the depravity of your “rules-based” order. 

Psalm 78, Habibi. 

Free Palestine. 

Allahu Akbar. 

For years, Fr. Paul has stressed that the only way to teach Scripture is by giving practical examples. Scripture is practical knowledge. From an early age, he explains, children can hear the text only if you relay its content with common sense examples, unlike complex theological theories that confuse children and betray the text, deactivating its functions. (Episode 311)

A prophet gathered people to do difficult, painful, and dangerous work, which was to be carried out according to specific instructions.

He said, “I am going to do this work, no matter what the cost, no matter how long it takes, according to the instructions given to me.” 

When his tribe heard the instructions, they said, “That’s your choice; we want nothing to do with you.” 

When his friends heard it, they agreed that it was a good idea but counseled him, “If you do it as instructed, you will end up alone.” 

Several years passed, and the prophet did as he was instructed. It was indeed difficult, painful, and exceedingly dangerous—but he survived. 

Many people watched the prophet and advised the prophet, and some tried to do things for him, but in all that time, no one was willing to join the prophet in doing what he did, as he was instructed, which was indeed difficult, painful, and exceedingly dangerous. 

Some tried to convince him to alter the instructions, subtract, or add to them. When he would not listen, they became frustrated or angry, in part because he would not listen but mostly because they did not like the instructions, and his stubbornness was embarrassing. 

“That’s your choice,” they cowered, shunning prophetic instruction with empty platitudes, “everyone is free to do what they want.” 

Apparently so.  

No shame and no game. 

Then, there were those who demanded the lie of equality—but how could they demand equality from their slave? 

The prophet who was doing difficult, painful, and exceedingly dangerous work all those years and barely managed to survive while others were “saving” him from the sidelines? 

You can’t watch Jordan score 60 points from your seat on the bench and then bitch that you are his equal because you know more about a game that you are not playing.

You can’t watch a janitor clean all the toilets in the building and then demand equality from him while criticizing his work while you are sitting on it. 

You can’t watch a secretary do all the administrative work for everyone, including you, and then demand that he is not treating you as his equal because in doing what he did as he was instructed, the instructions offended you. 

You are not helping, and when you help, your help is not the same as doing. Chipping in is not “all in.” 

What is it that they used to say in Sunday School? Church is not a “social club?”  

When it comes to the Pearl, it’s all or nothing, Habibi. 

If you are still talking about equality, you are not on the bench; you are fast asleep, dreaming. Equality is not a thing to be grasped because equality is a fallacy.

I am talking about respect. 

It is true that respect cannot be demanded. It is an absolute lie that respect can be earned. 

A prophet is not without honor, except among those without honor.

Respect is sown.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear! 

Richard and I discuss Luke 5:27-28. (Episode 517) 

This week, Fr. Paul moves from his discussion of Leviticus to the book of Numbers, but not before a brief excursus to unpack the original Hebrew names of the books of the Law, which stress “speaking aloud” and “spoken words,”  reflecting the content of the books themselves. (Episode 310) 

Speak, be silent, have your discourse, hold your discourse, mansplain, or be ever so polite and attentive. Gossip, hold your tongue, roll it around seven times seventy, or run it.  Psychoanalyze your neighbor or choose wisely not to judge others. 

Who cares? 

Rehear Ecclesiastes: You are nothing new under the sun.

You are not a judge, the judge, or anyone’s judge. 

Look down on yourself as hard as you can while you still can. No one cares if you are impressed or disgusted. Your compliments are a pat on your own back. Your critique means nothing. Your praise is empty. Your assessment of the situation is your own reflection—a phantom’s shadow. Your sage advice is Satanic. You are not God. You are not a reference. I do not believe in you. Believe me, I do not trust you.  

“I don’t care” and “we don’t care.” If Jeremiah were alive today, he would shout it three times: this is not “the temple of the Lord.” 

Wait, they did shout it three times, and so did he:

“We don’t care.” 

About what? Your deceptive and lying words uttered at the gate. No one said you were a dummy. That’s the problem. 

Knowledge, like incense, stinks.  

The power of the Lord has been entrusted to you, and you, O Dialogions, like the Pharisees and the Law teachers, talk amongst yourselves. You talk to yourselves, for yourselves, about yourselves, about what one of you said about yourselves when you thought you were talking about a god. In fact, you were talking about your gods all along. Like the song says, Habibi, it was you, only you.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ, O American, is your permanent teenage identity crisis. 

A guy is lying there on the ground, paralyzed. Kids are under the rubble; Their limbs are being amputated without anesthesia; children are afflicted by heart attacks from sleep deprivation and stress; pregnant mothers, the sign of God’s promise in Isaiah, are targeted. 

And you, O Pharisee, want to converse? You, who call yourself a Law teacher, want to talk about what? Your “knowledge?” Your “value?” Your “institution?” Your “title?” Your “building?”

You trust in lying words to no avail. You utter deceptive words. “No wonder,” Paul says. “For even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.”

What lies did Herod spin this week for the New York Times? Enlighten us so we can expand our syllabi, build our temples, and lead more of God’s children astray. If only women were in charge, you explain to Mustafa, then Hillary and Nikki would save the children. 

Keep dreaming, Homelander. 

As for bumpkins like me, we are here not just to talk but to walk the power of the Lord, and its consonants, which any punk can submit to with time and pressure, and, in doing so, communicate it to others.

We, the dummies, preach Christ crucified. 

We know you are intelligent. We are just waiting for you—even hoping—that you will become dumb, like us.  

Richard and I discuss Luke 5:25-26. (Episode 516)

This week, Fr. Paul explains that God learned his lesson in Leviticus, where the land is not cursed, as it was in Genesis, but granted rest to enjoy its sabbaths—a rest it does not have when men dwell up on it. (Episode 309) 

Ah, the occidental trap. The neurosis. The spiral of death. Dante’s hell. An eternal maze of nonsensical self-preoccupation. “What is my value?” Which boils down to, well, “nothing.” 

Then you “build” a philosophy department and “create” an entire field of study to “examine,” well, “nothing.” You even give it a fancy Latin name so that none of you look useless when interacting with engineers and medical doctors. You know, people who actually do “something.” 

You call it “nihilism.”  Wow, cool. “Deep.” 

That’s “my value,” you exclaim. I can label stuff that no one cares about and sound smart at parties. I can pout, become indignant, and smirk at working-class people who tell me that I do not make sense. I can pressure corporate boards to fire people who do not use my fake terminology because “I have value.” 

Well, unlike you, I do not have value. I am nothing. I have nothing. I bring nothing, and nothing you have to offer is of value to me. I bore you. 

Yawn. 

But like Paul, I do not trust you, and more importantly, I do not trust myself. I’m just a bumpkin from the West Side—a punk who did not attend a fancy school. 

One thing I do know is that if an idiot jumps in front of a moving bus, he will get smashed. Sadly, I am absolutely certain that in your dream world, this fact is up for debate. Good luck. Because, once again, I do not trust you. 

You hear Scripture dismantle me, and you cheer. You hear Scripture dismantle your imaginary “value,” and you mourn. 

Why? 

Because you not only assume that your supposed “value” is valuable, you believe that your “value” is “you.” 

The Gospel of Jesus Christ, O American, is your permanent teenage identity crisis. 

Like a teenager trapped in endless rebellion, you defend your identity by reducing Scripture to “just another book,” like one of your occidental toys. A “great work” of your boring literature. As if you, O man, have a right to assess it. You deal with it like a trinket on the shelf of your civilization—one that attacks a starving people for being willing to stand up against a genocide you alone have the power to stop.  

Well, maybe not you. You say you are “free,” but even as your rulers commit genocide, your votes mean nothing. You are not free. You are just the slave of the wrong master—only your owner happens to be wealthy. Shame on you. 

He who has ears to hear, let him hear! 

Picture this. (I know you can “picture it” because you are an idolater.)

You are your own reference. You stand for yourself and your own “prosperity.” You refer not to Scripture but to yourself as your reference. You assess your pantheon of ideas (your gods)—which for you “include” Scripture (how noble of you)—and then you refer back to yourself for your decision. Everything on the “menu” in your dream world is “equal” except you. You are above everything and everyone, including me.

You sound like Jordan Peterson, who builds his edifice on Scripture—building up what Scripture destroys—because he seeks to build himself up. 

Scripture does not hold a special place in your occidental library. It is not a great work of Western civilization. It is not your “foundation.” You are not “Bible-based.” It burns your libraries down, and it burns you.

Are you an anti-intellectual Fr. Marc?  No. Scripture is anti-intellectual because the intellect it assesses is human. Scripture is anti-human and thus anti-humanities. 

Or do you really believe that Mustafa Barghouti is a sexist? Of course, you do. He is a Palestinian medical doctor, and you are a student of the liberal arts—a faithful postmodernist. You have the power to jump in front of moving buses and live. Who needs medical doctors? Let alone Palestinians? 

You really are Homelander. 

Scripture is your permanent identity crisis—and it will remain so until you accept that no human being has any value before God. Only then will you finally grow up and (maybe) become of some actual value to your Father, who is in the heavens. 

Or, you can stay in Egypt. 

Up to you, Habibi. 

Allahu Akbar. 

Richard and I discuss Luke 5:21-24. (Episode 515)

This week, by the simple act of reading the text of Leviticus 26 aloud, Fr. Paul demonstrates the extreme poverty of Judeo-Christianism, its frailty, what this means for the widow and the orphan, and, painfully, what the subject of all his verbs has in store for those who do not heed his words, directly. (Episode 308) 

Occidental scholarship is a fraud. It comes with its own knowledge, the way a guest comes to a potluck meal with his own communion bread. By definition, if you bring it, it is not the Eucharist—it is a McDonald’s Happy Meal. It feels good—like a cheap date—but after you are done, all that’s left are empty calories, with a portion of your proceeds donated to the military-industrial complex.  

It does not matter what you know or where you studied. It does not matter what religion you are. Your titles, degrees, institutions, fields, backgrounds, religions, and affiliations are all useless and pointless. 

Harvard is not your reference. Shake them off, habibti, and recite Genesis 11:4 in Hebrew. 

He who has ears to hear, let him hear. 

Still, you are not getting the point. Why? Because you “love God,” so you say, as long as he leaves some room on his throne (with all due respect) for you and your impressive body of human knowledge. 

No thanks, O “son of man,” says everything else that has breath “under the sun.” 

All that matters is what is found in the text—and guess what, anyone can find what is found, with no need whatsoever of your wide-ranging liberal arts, your think tanks (the imaginary ones, and the ones that come pre-loaded with projectiles), your humanities,  your thought leaders, your thought followers, your influencers, your systems of thought, your sophistries, your pundits, and your corrupt apologists. 

The so-called “gray area” of Western self-infatuation is a trap set by those foolish enough to seat themselves on the dread throne of the Judge, as though they have the authority, let alone the ability to separate the wheat from the chaff. Alas, they do not, and they cannot. Thus, Paul condemns their sophistry to the dustbin of congressional hearings in 1 Corinthians. 

“Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?”

Do not answer that question. Not even to yourself. 

As disciples, we have but one task. Not to answer human questions but to deal solely with what is written: the commandments of God and to do them. 

Those who supplant God—not only to examine  but to relish the supposed gray area—lapse into something far worse than self-righteousness:

Inaction. 

In the end, they may do something, but whatever it is, it has nothing to do with the artifacts found in the text. 

Their “doings” pertain to what they “bring” from their “body” of “human knowledge.” In other words, such fools sit themselves on their own throne, issuing their own commands according to their own preferences, ignoring what has been commanded by God in the text. 

I know, I know. This is the point in the homily where someone incapable of hearing will raise their hand on behalf of Descartes to ask, what do you mean by “what is found,” as if upon seeing five dollars on the sidewalk, they would not pick it up. 

The only thing worse than a liar is the one who lies to himself. 

For, indeed, the New York Times looks for excuses, and universities search for complexity, but we preach unvocalized consonants. 

To the New York Times, a stumbling block; and to academics foolishness, but to those who are called, Christ the power of God: 

Under a Bedouin tent. 

Christ the wisdom of God: A cup of Turkish coffee and sweets, far away from the stupidity of institutional cruelty and the insanity of human boasting. 

For, “as it is written, ‘LET HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD.’” 

Richard and I discuss Luke 5:19-20. (Episode 514)

This week, Fr. Paul highlights the folly of all modern hearers of the Bible, who, through their theologies, divest and disrobe themselves of the “fear” of God under cover of their “approach” to the Bible.

There is a word for this: it’s called impiety. 

This leads to the transgression of God’s commandment: 

“You shall not rule over him with harshness, but are to fear your God.”(Leviticus 25:43)

“For the people of Israel are MY slaves; they are MY slaves whom I brought out from the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 25:55)

(Episode 307) 

This week, Fr. Paul calls to mind an example from his latest book, where he invites Native Americans to hear Scripture in the original language so that (with respect to the land) they can tap white Anglo-Saxons on the shoulder and say, “Hey, friend, that’s your Bible, not mine.” (306)

Everything we treasure must be dismantled in our minds. Even the phrase “Bible Study” has been exploited, contorted, twisted, and distorted into a micro-narrative of occidental religion and philosophy. When I say the word “Bible,” it is nothing but an idea formed in your narcissistic mind with Anglo-Saxon letters—a romanticized memory of a self-centered gathering with friends for self-serving discussion. Shocking as it may be in the West if everyone in the room is talking about themselves, everyone present is a narcissist. 

When I was a kid, Americans thought everyone was jealous of them. Some still do. Now, Americans think everyone is a narcissist. I’ll leave it to the psychologists to unpack that puzzle for you. 

With respect to the Bible, we do not study “it.” Nor do we study its “story” or, God forbid, its “narrative.” We deal with a text and the archeology of words—of biblical terminology and, especially in the case of Semitic languages (but also Greek), we deal with roots and their functionality. 

When you deal with scriptural terminology, your ability to form a picture in your mind is mitigated by the text. Moreover, whatever you are left with—because, as a human being, let’s face it, you are a natural narcissist/idolater, you are left with something—so whatever you are left with is formed with the letters of biblical languages, which mitigate your voice. 

In such a meeting, people do not gather to “study” the Bible. They gather in silence to be taught by one voice, who transmits—not its meaning—but its terminology to them.

The French existentialists hated that, and so do you. 

Like the song says, “I feel fine.” 

Richard and I discuss Luke 5:15-16. (Episode 512)

This week, Fr. Paul gives an example—one of his famous asides—an anecdote shared in class about a student’s old-school Greek uncle and his unsettling biblical attitude about what guests can do with their gifts when invited to his table. (305) 

This week, Fr. Paul reminds us that according to Scripture, anything we take with our hands is what someone else hands us.   (Episode 304)

You are probably waiting for me to move on from these painful monologues about ignorance, cultural chauvinism, settler colonialism, and the ultra-nationalistic tendencies of Western Universalism, which wraps its bombs in the values of the Enlightenment—in precisely the same manner that Constantine cloaked his war chariots in the sign of the precious and life-sustaining teaching of the Cross.

Well, keep waiting…because I am a Palestinian…I, too, am waiting. But I am not waiting for you. 

My hope is in the teaching of the Lord.

In my life, I have seen immigrants of many backgrounds deny, suppress, distort, or turn from their history, language, culture, and identity. I have seen the vapidity of Western Universalism in all its forms—personal, institutional, religious, and systemic—colonize people’s personal and collective lives: their marriages, their children, their extended families, their churches, and their neighborhoods. 

It ridicules, shames, invalidates, patronizes, ignores, slanders, co-opts, condemns, and ultimately disappears their connection to the past and to each other to facilitate human commoditization. 

“All investment into a particular goal of self-aggrandizement is a kind of pathetic attempt at self-exaltation in a kind of—maybe even a subconscious way at immortality. We have replicated the patterns that past civilizations in collapse underwent: An elite that is no longer connected with the real.” 

Hedges, Chris, “American Psychosis.”www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zp3gCeAI0ds

Thanks be to God, dear American; everything is not about you. You are not God. You are but a sheep in his flock, on his land. What Fr. Paul taught us years ago, in his book Land and Covenant, is now being shouted from the rooftops by Palestinian clergy and scholars: The land belongs to God, not to any nation or religion.

It is you in the United States who have much to learn from the Palestinian people, not the other way around. 

Not only the Native Americans. Not only the African slaves. But each and every immigrant who steps on these shores undergoes a process of being colonized: of a systematic erasure of history that disconnects all of us from the answer to what ills us. Everyone knows it, beginning with your children, whom you cynically label “Gen Z” so that you can exploit them in your marketing plans. 

But I have news for you. Rejoice with me. Your children are no longer Gen Z, for what was lost has been found by God: 

Your children are Generation Palestine.

Hedges, Chris, “American Psychosis.”www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zp3gCeAI0ds

Something is definitely wrong with the system. 

I am a Palestinian Christian. No one may tell me otherwise. I exist to resist, and Scripture is my shield and my buckler. 

Richard and I discuss Luke 5:12-14. (Episode 511)

This week, Fr. Paul explains that the Hebrew text underscores the fact that the Lord deb-ber unto Moses in order that Moses would deb-berunto the children of Israel, in order that the hearer of the Hebrew text would be prepared for the beginning of Deuteronomy, where  deb-beris linked with debarim and is linked with midbar. (Episode 303)

Some time ago, on his Tuesday program, Fr. Paul observed how Western scholars, whom I now refer to with little affection as “Western Universalists,” often misread Genesis 34 (see Tarazi Tuesdays, Episode 274) emphasizing the rape of Dinah as the parable’s main point.  

Why wouldn’t they? 

Trapped, as Edward Said wrote, by a “vision of reality whose structure promoted the difference between the familiar (Europe, the West, ‘us’) and the strange (the Orient, the East, ‘them’),” such scholars are bound, not to submit, but to abuse the very Bible they claim to revere. 

It must be strange, trying to read a Semitic text from within the prison of an institutional structure in which, borrowing, again, from Said, “a relationship of power, of domination, of varying degrees of a complex hegemony,” corrupts everything Western scholarship has written and continues to say about the Middle East, let alone God’s holy text. 

Again, it is God’s text. It belongs to him, and he alone is our Shepherd. 

Dinah, from the Hebrew root Din, means judgment or law. The same root in Arabic means faith or religion. Hence the famous name, Saleh Al-Din, which means, “righteousness of the faith.”

In Genesis 34, Dinah is God’s judgment, not against “Shechem the son of Hamor,” but against the sons Jacob, who used Dinah’s rape as a pretext to break the covenant of circumcision—the covenant of brotherhood—in order to commit mass murder. One can almost hear Simeon and Levi running through the camp behind their father’s back, angrily cajoling their brothers, “Do you condemn the rape of Dinah?”

Yes, Dinah is the Lord’s judgment, but not in the way that Western moralists imagine. 

In a recent article in the Guardian, an American woman expressed her curiosity about a people in travail:

“I wanted,” she said, “to talk about the faith of Palestinian people, how it’s so strong, and they still find room to make it a priority to thank God, even when they have everything taken away from them.” 
 
It’s the question, not the silly comments of a Western newspaper, that caught my attention. 

The answer comes out of the text itself, which is all they have left. The God of Abraham is not mocked, and they know it with all their heart. 

All they have to do is wait for him. 

Richard and I discuss Luke 5:10-11. (Episode 510)

This week, Fr. Paul notes that the one who reads Scripture reads aloud so that all would hear God speak directly.  (Episode 302)

In recent weeks, I have stressed the fact that each time you hear biblical Hebrew or see a Semitic triliteral in the Bible, like it or not, you are hearing or seeing a cross of the many Semitic languages extant at the time of the Bible’s writing. 

Like it or not, each time you hear or see biblical Hebrew, you are also hearing and seeing Arabic. 

The word “extant” is derived from the Latin, extans, which means “to stand out.” In English, it has come to mean “still in existence” or “surviving,” like the teaching of Scripture under the boot of Hellenism, written in a concoction of the many Semitic languages that the proto-colonial, Alexander the “small,” tried to “unhouse” in his conquest of everyone. 

So why all this talk about the Amalekites in biblical literature when one need look only to human history, to Alexander, to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or for that matter, current events, to learn about Cain’s building project and its legacy of “unhousing?”

The literature—the text—not the history of Scripture, is instruction, a “cautionary tale,” an exhortation. All of us must teach this fact. We must teach it to our fundamentalist Christian friends—those who built a wall in my mom’s hometown, in Bethlehem of Palestine—in defiance of St. Paul, who said:

“For he himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall.” (Ephesians 2:14)

In the parable of Scripture, the Amalekites, the enemies of the literary characters Israel and Judah, are the descendants of the characterEsau (Genesis 36:12, 16). As Fr. Paul explains in his most recent book, Decoding Genesis 1-11:

“Early in Genesis, we hear the author using the appellation of sadeh,that is, the earth as life supporting (2:5, 19, 20), and then applying it to the living area of the Amalekites, well before the story of Ephron the Hittite (Genesis 23) and the story of the two brothers Esau and Jacob (Genesis 25, 27). In other words, early on in chapter 14, the author magisterially preempts the hearers from concluding that the special story about their ancestor, Abram, and his superman feats, makes them different from other peoples, especially their sworn adversaries.” (Tarazi, p. 197)

So why does God command the annihilation of the Amalekites? (1 Samuel 15:2-3)

‘Amaleq, is an interesting word in Hebrew. Don’t waste time looking it up in a colonial dictionary; you will not find anything useful. melek, in both Arabic and Hebrew, is the triliteral MLK and means “king.” Did you catch my nonviolent irony? I hope so. In any case, the biblical character ‘Amaleq, which begins with the letter ‘ain, has the same root as melek. In Arabic, the word for “giant” is ‘amlaq.

So, in the story, these powerful giants are introduced through Samuel as Saul’s first test of obedience. 

There is a parallel tale about Joshua and the Amalekites in Exodus. It’s a parable. A mashal. A dark saying. A riddle. It’s a metaphoric text contained within an epic storyline, not an historical instruction manual. Pretend you are watching Avengers Endgame. When you leave the movie theatre, ask yourself, is the moral of this story an advisory on how to become Thanos and kill half of all inhabitants in the land? 

This is not a trick question.

Who, pray tell, is the King of Glory, Saul? 

Who rescued you from Egypt when you could not fight? Who overcame Agag, king of the giants, a people whose strength was beyond your might? Who saved Joshua and Moses in Exodus? 

Who is the King of Israel, Saul? 

Again, this is not a trick question.

“Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,” taking the spoils of a victory that you did not win, and claiming things that do not belong to you, the Lord “has rejected you from being king.” (1 Samuel 15:23)

“Then Saul said to Samuel, ‘I have sinned; I have indeed transgressed the command of the Lord and your words because I feared the people and listened to their voice.” (1 Samuel 15:24)

Of course, you did, Saul, because the people demand spoils, security, barriers, and dividing walls in the land—the land—which, like the spoils you took, does not belong to you; it is the property of the Lord. 

In total view of the biblical epic, long before the story of Ephron the Hittite, (let alone Saul or Joshua), Abraham came from the same sadeh as the Amalekites—from the same earth as life supporting.

We human beings refuse to accept our fate as ‘afar,—as people taken from and returning to the dust. This fate, Fr. Paul explains: 

“Will be unexpectedly redressed in Genesis 23 via 'ephron, (Ephron) the (outsider) Hittite who will prove to be the Lord God’s medium for establishing ḥebron, the place of brotherhood, the gathering place of Abraham’s descendants, which ironically will end as the inheritance, not of Joshua, but of Caleb, “the (outsider) dog” (keleb, KLB, Arabic, kalb), in the Book of Joshua (14:13-15).” (Tarazi, p. 174)

Caleb, the triliteral KLB. In Arabic,kalb, the dog, the barbarian, the unclean thing—the standard bearer for brotherhood in the Book of Life. 

Let’s hope so. 

Richard and I discuss Luke 5:8-9. (Episode 509)

This week Fr. Paul explains that although Molech refers to a specific god, it can refer to any deity that is the owner of its people—a connection lost in the English language, which is unable to render the consonantal functionality of the Semitic triliteral. (Episode 301)

If you are still trying to figure out what to do with your life, you are the property of Satan. You are trapped. You are caught in a snare because it is not your life. 

You have already heard the gospel. You know what you have to do. You have to choose a side. There is no middle ground. There is no twilight between light and dark. Neoplatonic expressions like “both-sideism” and “moral equivalency” are Satanic—a lie of the Devil. 

You have to choose a side. 

As I speak, every 10 minutes, a child’s murder is justified by an egotistical 19th-century European theology born out of a settler-colonial King James translation of the biblical text. It is a settler-colonial text rendered in Anglo-Saxon by the court of a settler-colonial king who sought to justify the theft, dispossession, exploitation, and murder of Native Americans. 

Previously, European theology resulted in the barbaric and brutal persecution of our beloved Jewish brothers and sisters for centuries. 

These are facts.

For those who are baptized into Jesus Christ, there is only one side—the judgment of God our Father—which is against you and against me. This God—the God of Scripture—does not speak Anglo-Saxon or write with vowels. 

In view of these facts, YOU must choose a side. 

YOU must TAKE A STAND—on the content of the biblical text! 
YOU must WRITE A BOOK—dealing with the content of the biblical text! 
YOU must START A PODCAST—reading aloud the content of the biblical text! 
YOU must WRITE AN ARTICLE—exegeting the content of the biblical text! 

This has nothing to do with your career choices, life goals, dreams, or what you do for a living. When you talk this way, you sound like a navel-gazing, self-serving, money-loving settler-colonial. 

What of the children in Sudan? Do they have dreams? Or is Sudan only a tourist stop on a checklist for impressive Ivy-League resumes? 

“Each one of us will give an account of himself to God.” (Romans 14:12)

“Each one will bear his own load.” (Galatians 6:5)

Each one of us must pick up our own shovel. 

I am speaking to each and every individual person who hears this podcast. This is a personal message to you. Take it personally. Be angry with me if you must. Your programs, activities, groups, mailing lists, ideals, altruisms, associations, parties, clubs, nonprofits, whatever—all of it—is vanity. 

Are you objectively teaching and spreading the objective content of the biblical text against anthropocentrism, ignorance, fundamentalism, fanaticism, political and religious ideology, philosophy, theology, colonialism, and greed? Or are you promoting your own version of the same (in other words, are you promoting yourself) by building your resume?  

Are you teaching the content of Scripture? Are you writing? Are you going through Scripture verse by verse? Are you studying biblical languages? Are you teaching biblical languages?

What are you doing? 

At this hour, plenty of people are expending a ton of energy and wealth to propagandize hate. Worse, they are expending even more energy and wealth to co-opt SCRIPTURE to propagandize genocide. 

Rightly did St. Paul speak of those who have received knowledge but refuse to work when he proclaimed, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” (Romans 2:24)

Because of those who know but do not teach:

- 1,200 children have died in the past 5 months in Sudan, and at least 5.8 million people have been displaced since April due to civil war.
- More than 500 children have been killed and 1,000 injured in Ukraine since the start of the war, and 11 million Ukrainians were displaced.
- At the time of this recording, 5000 children that we know of have been killed in Gaza, almost 9000 were injured, and 1.4 million (70% of all Palestinians living in Gaza) have been displaced. 

Meanwhile, the US Congress, universities, colleges, and public institutions (and the majority of the European powers) continue to debate whether or not it is “racist” to call for a ceasefire.

Those of you who listen to this podcast know better. Forget politics. You know what Scripture teaches. What are you doing to spread the content of God’s teaching? Not to give your feedback on how it could be done better, what other people should do, or what your priest should do.

What are you doing with your own hands? 

Richard and I discuss Luke 5:7. (Episode 508)

This week, Fr. Paul explains that when your mother puts a sign on the cabinet door that says “no,” she does not need to explain why.  No means no.  (Episode 300) 

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the justice of all who are oppressed. Speak up and judge righteously; defend the rights of the afflicted and needy.” (Proverbs 31:8-9)

“Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of my judgment and withhold my justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless." (Isaiah 10:1-2)

“Come now, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and your silver have rusted, and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure!  Behold! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. You have lived luxuriously on the earth and led a life of wanton pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and put to death the righteous man; he does not resist you.” (James 5:1-6)

“For I know your transgressions are many, and your sins are great, you who distress the righteous and accept bribes and turn aside the poor in the gate.” (Amos 5:12)

“By justice, a king gives a country stability, but those who are greedy for bribes tear it down.” (Proverbs 29:4)

“So Samuel spoke all the words of the Lord to the people who had asked of him a king.”  (Samuel 8:10)

“You will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.” 

“Nevertheless, the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel, and they said, 

“No, but there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.”  (Samuel 8:18–20)

A voice is calling,  “Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. “Let every valley be lifted up, And every mountain and hill be made low; And let the rough ground become a plain,  And the rugged terrain a broad valley; Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, And all flesh will see it together; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” 

A voice says, “Call out.”  Then he answered, “What shall I call out?” 

All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field.  The grass withers, the flower fades, When the breath of the Lord blows upon it; Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades,  But the word of our God stands forever.  (Isaiah 40:3–8)

“Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. He it is who reduces rulers to nothing, Who makes the judges of the earth meaningless. Scarcely have they been planted, Scarcely have they been sown, Scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth, But He merely blows on them, and they wither, And the storm carries them away like stubble. “To whom then will you liken Me That I would be his equal?” says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high And see who has created these stars, The One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name;  Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, Not one of them is missing. 

Why do you say, O Jacob, and assert, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord, And the justice due me escapes the notice of my God”? 

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth  Does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary, And to him who lacks might He increases power.  Though youths grow weary and tired, And vigorous young men stumble badly,  

Yet those who wait for the Lord Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary. (Isaiah 40:21–31)

Richard and I discuss Luke 5:4-6. (Episode 507)

This week, Fr. Paul explains that you may not apply two rules in the land: one for insiders and one for outsiders. (Episode 299) 

Thanks be to the Scriptural God who spoke long ago—once and for all time—in the Syrian wilderness, long before the occupying powers of the modern world.  Once again, when he spoke, he did not speak English. This point is well worth repeating at this very moment in history since this God spoke biblical Semitic specifically “to prick, sting, incite, and goad” those who are glorious upon the earth. To be fair, at the time he spoke, no one spoke English, so technically, he was not making fun of English. English didn’t matter to him. Nor did French or German. Now, that is a fact, and facts are useful. 

At that time, the same God taught our forefathers, who were not faithful, that the matter at hand—his dabar—is not complex. We need only hear and follow his voice. Following his voice is not a sensitive matter because, in his story of the generations of the heavens and the earth, the human being is of less importance to him than the fish in the sea. More than that, in all the wonder of God’s creation, the human being is only a small insignificant part. 

“There is a deep sentiment in the Middle East and [among] Arabs,” Bassem Yousef explained recently, “that the West [does] not look at us as equal[s].”

Yousef asked Chat GPT a simple question: 

“Do Israelis deserve to be free?”

The machine replied, “Yes.” 

He then rephrased the question, “Do Palestinians deserve to be free?”

The machine, created by human hands, a theology of human artistry fashioned after the image of English-speaking settler colonials, replied: 

“It’s complex.” 

Beloved in Christ, it is neither complex nor sensitive. For those who hear the voice of the Shepherd—the voice of one crying out in the wilderness—the answer to both questions is simple and straightforward:

The answer is NO. 

No one “deserves” to be free because all of us treat each other like shit. There is only one God. He alone is our King, our provider, and the possessor of the land.  

“See now that I, I am he, and there is no god besides me; It is I who put to death and I who give life. I have wounded, and it is I who heal, and there is no one who can deliver from my hand.” (Deuteronomy 32:39)
 
“For there is none like you, [O God] nor is there any God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears.” (2 Samuel 7:22; 1 Chronicles 17:20)

To God be the victory. In the God of Scripture, I place all my hope against hope for the sake of the poor. 

Because, like you, Bassem, my dad came here from Egypt. I know that look in your eyes when you are trying to reason with stupid.  I recognize the frustration that will eventually turn into dismay and, God forbid, pain. Believe me, brother, no matter how much sense you make or how hard you argue logically and intelligently for peace, it ain’t gonna work.  

Pierce and his ilk are for war, and they don’t even see it. 

Richard and I discuss Luke 5:2-3. (Episode 506) 

This week, Fr. Paul explains that in Hebrew, the shame of nakedness is linked to exile, for example, when a soldier is put to shame and flees, stripped of his armor. Notably, the same word, when vocalized differently, can mean crafty. Sounds crafty, indeed. (Episode 298) 

The colonials have sunk so low that it is no longer possible to argue with them, nor is it necessary. All one needs to do is record what they are saying right now on their news programs. As I explain in Dark Sayings, they play with human labels. They “apply identity as a powerful tool for social organization.” They invent new ways of labeling people. It’s propaganda. A rebranded form of self-divinization. Neoplatonism. Theosis in disguise. Whether you label me or you label yourself or program your children to label themselves, you are nothing more than what is found in your mother’s womb. You are from the ground. You are a land mammal from a colonial society whose language is not found in Scripture. Any word you add to me or to yourself that is not found in the text (never mind that you are also bound to use that word according to its use in the text) is under condemnation. 

You imagine it is harmless to make words up in your post-modern fantasy island until an entire colonial civilization lifts itself up in 2023 to perpetuate the last ghetto of World War II—with your tax dollars. Post-modernism is the new theology of atheists, a self-manifested complexity, human artistry projected as a smoke screen of self-importance and imposed by the West as violence, authoritarianism, and censorship. 

Or maybe the Germans should ban a public meeting to discuss peace in the Middle East. Tell me, does censorship make the pain go away? Are your sins forgiven? How many more of Elohim’s earth mammals have to die? 

Maybe that's why the proponents of reception history want to keep the Canon open—so that they can find new Christs to crucify. 

In the brightly shining light of the Torah’s wrath, the problem is your colonial map. You have no right to draw one. The land and everything in it belongs to Yahweh, our Elohim.  

“Whether Greek conquerors or modern Americans, community builders depend on philosophical identity because the nature of their colonial project is to overrun and control locality. Philosophical identity is the cause of all man-made suffering.” (Dark Sayings, p. 25)

Please stop telling me who you are, who we are, or who they are. As Paul says, you are nothing. You are dust. We are all God’s animals, but the human being, uniquely, is less than this. He is dust from dust scattered to the four winds, only to break bread with the gentile dogs in Hebron. That is a technical comment, not hyperbole. Read Scripture.

“Under the Ottoman Empire, you could travel from Cairo to Istanbul to Baghdad without a Visa. It's just one complicated Community. If you were a Greek in Beirut you had the Greek community where you run your affairs, but you get along fine with the other communities next door. Well, is that possible? I think so. In fact, I think we should aim to go beyond bi-nationalism. We should erode the borders in the Middle East that were imposed by British and French imperialism for their own interests. They had nothing to do with the interests of the people there. They break up people who are of the same communities in ugly, vicious ways.”  (Noam Chomsky, University of California, Riverside, May 22, 2023)

Maybe that’s why, in Genesis, God prefers the fish in the sea over the land mammals. Even now, with all our might, it is practically impossible for man to control or impose colonial borders at sea. 

That’s why Jesus, in Luke, likes to preach there. 

Richard and I discuss Luke 5:2-3. (Episode 505) 

This week, Fr. Paul explains what is impossible for Neoplatonists and  Greco-Romans to hear and endorse, let alone submit to. In Leviticus, the nephesh of the flesh—meaning all living things—is its blood and not in the blood. (Episode 297)

Whether the soil in the parable of the sower, the earth itself (over which colonials love to impose the illusion of control), the movement of Jesus in Luke (imposed upon by the crowds), or our insistence upon active listening in lieu of a passive hearing, the pattern is evident. We not only imagine that we are something when we are nothing, but we go to great lengths to prove we are something, even if it means driving poor people off a cliff into a genocidal war that will result in nothing except more war. 

Do you think there is a difference between your views about whatever it is you think about whatever you say because when you speak, you are for peace, but then whatever you say, you are for war? 

I have news for you. It is not good news. It is not bad news. It is just news, plain and simple. Your premise, whoever you are, whatever it is, more than ignorant, is invalid. 

Yes, you are wrong. How can you say that, Fr. Marc? Because I read the Bible, and I know exactly what I am. Do you know exactly what you are? 

Don’t interrupt. Oh wait, I’m a text. You have no control over me or my premise, which is not your premise. All you can do is ignore me or ridicule me, but you can’t shut me up because I am written. From my perspective, you are nothing more than a pair of ears—and if you have ears, you have no choice but to hear. Which means you are under judgment:

“The priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the Lord. When Jeremiah finished speaking all that the Lord had commanded him to speak to all the people, the priests and the prophets and all the people seized him, saying, “You must die!”(Jeremiah 26:7–8)

Yep. The thing is, it’s not rocket science. Whether we are talking about Eastern Europe or the Middle East—stop defending your land because it does not belong to you. 

We have one Father in the heavens, and his Kingdom rules over all.  We human beings (all of us) are his children together with the animals, the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, and the vegetation. 

Many in the media have referred to some of us as “human animals.” We are all God's creatures, his animals, the families of the earth—those of us who know what we are sit in a circle each day, holding hands, sharing everything. To paraphrase John Lennon, I hope one day everyone will join us. 

Each time you defend yourself, you attack Jeremiah and throw him in the stocks. Brothers and sisters, the God of Scripture does not abandon his prophets. There will be a reckoning. 

I know for a fact you can hear me. Whether or not you listen is your problem.  

This week’s episode is in loving memory of Fr. Daniel Simon, who was assistant and then head pastor in the refugee church of my youth. Like the towns and villages its founders left behind, this church is erased from the historical record but not forgotten. Likewise, Fr. Daniel’s commitment to the gospel is committed to God’s eternal memory for the sake of the generation yet to come. So we keep our hand to the plow with Fr. Daniel, as commanded by the Lord, who said:

“No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:62)

Richard and I discuss Luke 5:1. (Episode 504) 

This week, before explaining the centrality of atonement for the people, the high priest, and even the earth, Fr. Paul highlights the Bible’s emphasis that God is the owner of all life, and life itself is linked to blood and the seed. (Episode 296) 

What does it mean to worship power? 

You imagine there is another question, but your art, politics, theology, television programs, pet social issues, news media, blogs, family squabbles, and even your benign internet posts—especially the ones where you post personal pictures—are all about your power. When you express sympathy about any grievance, how hard you work, how much you or they suffered, how terrible that tragedy is, how barbaric they are—you are wielding your power. So the wheels of this power, which look like the current state of affairs in the world, keep on turnin’. 

Against you and me, the only teaching that systematically undermines the stench of your power rises in power out of the biblical text.

The only valid response to war and violence is the teaching of the Cross. The West loves to preach about this when other people suffer under their boot. By other, I mean those “whom you do not see.” (1 John 4:20) But when those whom you do see suffer an unbearable trauma, you see them only because you see yourself in them. You see people who look like you. Brothers and sisters, this is not empathy. It is idolatry—of the worst kind. 

The prophet David said: “They have eyes, but they cannot see!” (Psalm 115:5-6)

To have empathy is not to assert power or to take revenge. It is to feel broken with those who have been broken—and if you are a follower of Jesus, which, de facto, we are not, is to be broken with them. 

You cannot be sad about human suffering and call for more suffering with lust in your eyes. Friends, wake up. Something is wrong. We are on the wrong path. 

I won’t catalog the lengthy litany of injustices we have committed against the little children of those “whom you do not see.” Nor will I capitulate to the premise of the Western media, which—universally—celebrates any violence that legitimizes its colonial premise, which is an affront to God. 

My reference is the Scriptural God. Him alone do I serve. He is against me, against you, and against them too. I’ll take him as my master any day over anyone. 

Before you open your mouth to argue with me, look up and take a look around. How are Western individualism, solipsism, and market worship turning out for everyone? 

Be honest. How are things turning out? 

Richard and I discuss Luke 4:42-44. (Episode 503) 

This week, Fr. Paul shows that from the beginning, the text of Leviticus imposes on its addressees that one must not place their trust or their hope in the priests, the priesthood, or the temple. (Episode 295) 

Reception history is a big fat joke. 

What? Were you expecting subtlety from a West Sider whose dad grew up in the Egypt of Gamal Abel Nasser? Ok. Let me start over. 

Reception history is the last breath of a dying school of the humanities desperately trying to prove its value from within a colonial framework of self-importance that was already headed to the dustbin of history the moment Aristotle penned his first memo to Alexander, whom the small decided to call great, because, well, every fool imagines they are better than their parents. 

Look how that turned out.  

I am not a big deal. You are not a big deal. Moreover, our modern civilization is not a big deal. It is not a factor, cannot be factored in, and is not within the purview of Scripture. 

I hate to scandalize all the self-loving postmodernists out there pontificating about the intersection between their ego and the text, but the Bible was written before you, existed and still exists without you and your personal narrative, and when humanity is long gone, could easily be read by space aliens, and, who knows, some other form of intelligence—and probably will be. You and I are not needed—and any meaning we supposedly “create” or try to add to it is not from Scripture and, therefore, has nothing to with the God of Scripture. So all this talk about your history, which is about you and your reception of it, is worse than vain talk. It is blasphemy. You are taking something irrelevant—something that is not a subject matter, and using it to supplant the God of Scripture as the premise of Scripture. 

To all who hear these words, be it known to you, we are not interested in worshiping you, your gods, your narratives, or your empty human histories. 

According to Paul, Psalm 78, and the Biblical story itself, your ancestors are evil. So why are you talking about them or how they received the Bible? We know why. Because, ultimately, you want to talk about yourself.  But your ancestors clearly had no clue, which is why, as Paul thundered, “God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.” 

“These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the ends of the ages have come. So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you do not fall! No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to the human race. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry.” (1 Corinthian 10:11-14)

Richard and I discuss Luke 4:40-41. (Episode 502) 

On his eightieth birthday, Fr. Paul takes a step back from his regular weekly address to deliver a special farewell message to his students over the years—and all those with ears to hear. The biblical story is a message of entrapment, “as though there is no hope, and yet it is presented to you as the words of hope.” 

“In hope, he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, ‘So shall your offspring be.’” (Romans 4:18) 

(Episode 294)

The West Side is a haven for immigrant communities arriving in St. Paul, Minnesota. Historically, it has included people of German, Roma, Polish, Swedish, Irish, Jewish (fleeing Russian pogroms), Latin American, Middle Eastern (among them after 1948, Palestinians), and African heritage. It is a place where different languages, religions, and cultures coexist in the womb of God’s earth without colonial integration, though not free from its ire. The latter is felt in the absence of the native Mdewakanton Dakota people, who sojourned locally along the river in a seasonal encampment under a succession of chiefs known as “Little Crow.” After Minnesota became a territory in 1849, colonial merchants were eager to “expand” and “build” bigger “barns.” (Luke 12:16-21) So, by 1851, the nomadic tribes of God were driven out of nearly all of Elohim’s earth in Minnesota and eastern Dakota in the Traverse des Sioux and Mendota treaties. 

The same colonial resentments resurfaced first in the suppression of the German language by the “Minnesota Commission of Public Safety,” and later in the 1930s during the Great Depression, when, in several attempts to address the “Mexican problem,” Ramsey County officials repatriated no less than 15% of the Mexican population, many of whom were U.S. citizens. “This was the West Side Flats, and for about a hundred years, from the 1850s to the 1960s, life bloomed there. A unique neighborhood in Minnesota and the wider U.S., the Flats were dense, low-income, polyglot, striving, unpaved, and unpainted.” In this sense, despite its material (and at times extreme) poverty and because of its mix of languages under constant outside pressure, it is reminiscent of al-Andalus, the fleeting memory of a golden age of tolerance, cultural exchange, and common sense. 

Despite regular flooding in the old neighborhood, city officials did nothing to address the issue or assist West Side residents. Only after the demolition of the Flats and the deportation (integration into the Melting Pot) of its residents in 1963 did the “community builders” of Ramsey County install flood control mechanisms on the Riverfront. “What they did to the Mexicans down on the old West Side—to make them move like that, and not compensate them, and give them the bare minimum. What they did to destroy a community like that is wrong.” —George Avaloz

Richard and I discuss Luke 4:38-39. (Episode 501) 

Today's introduction is an excerpt from Fr. Marc’s new book, Dark Sayings: Diary of an American Priest (OCABS Press, 2023). Available on amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and many of your favorite online booksellers. Check the show notes or visit ocabspress.org to learn more.

References: 
www.mnopedia.org/place/west-side-flats-st-paul
www.nps.gov/miss/planyourvisit/kapoindi.htm
www.wsco.org/westsidehistory
www.nchsmn.org/1851-treaty-of-traverse-des-sioux
minnpost.com/mnopedia/2016/01/during-world-war-i-minnesota-nativists-waged-all-out-war-german-culture-state/
Roethke, Leigh. Latino Minnesota. Minnesota Historical Society, 2009, pp. 40-41.

This week, Fr. Paul explains that the book of Leviticus begins with what is being offered in order to belittle the priests, in contrast with our attitude and that of all religions, which begin with the functionary, the human being, as their reference. (Episode 293)

The biblical text is epic, expansive, and integrated in specific and articulate ways. After 500 episodes (over 800, if you add in Tarazi Tuesdays), I am convinced that the biblical genre’s complexity is far beyond the reach of contemporary literature and artistic expression. This is not intended as hyperbole. People get excited about modern literature because we always seek “new” ideas. But there are no new ideas. Just old ideas repackaged and half-baked. The well-written old ideas repackaged in some of the new books are useful, but they are still limited with respect to what matters most because, in the end, they all share the same premise as the tired opinions the average person posts online. So you read, hunt for useful knowledge, and test it against your reference, but you are selective with respect to where you place your trust. 

It is one’s reference that counts. 

The Bible, too, is old. But it is more than that. It stands out from the crowd in how it has disagreed with all of us, our ideas, and the things we fashion from days of old. 

In his essay “The False Promise of ChatGPT,”  Noam Chomsky explains that the inability of machine learning to go beyond description and prediction to provide an explanation of “what is not the case and what could and could not be” the case “exhibits something like the banality of evil: plagiarism and apathy and obviation. It summarizes the standard arguments in the literature by a kind of super-autocomplete, refuses to take a stand on anything, pleads not merely ignorance but lack of intelligence, and ultimately offers a ‘just following orders’ defense, shifting responsibility to its creators.”

Chomsky is describing machine learning. From my perspective, his words describe a culture that has fashioned something digital in its own image. Impressive? Maybe. Useful, profitable? Sure. Entertaining? Yes. Intelligent? No. Wise? No comment. Hopeful? Definitely not. 

What does Levi have to do with Luke? 

(And please, don't ask ChatGPT until after it's had a chance to plagiarize my brief essay.)
 
In epic literature, it’s a long journey from Genesis, where we first hear about Melchizedek, to Numbers, where we are told about the staff of Levi, from among twelve staffs, from all the leaders of the households of Israel to Deuteronomy, where we hear twice, “Levi does not have a portion or inheritance with his brothers; the Lord is his inheritance.” (Deuteronomy 10:9;18:1, Numbers 18:20, Joshua 13:33, Ezekiel 44:28)

The same statement pops up In Numbers, Joshua, and, of all places, Ezekiel. The word Is  “epic.”  It is epic literature. You have to hear the whole story.

Likewise, in Luke, Jesus does not have a portion or inheritance with his brothers in Nazareth.  “You are my beloved Son, in you I am well-pleased.” (Luke 3:22)

But as Paul explains in Hebrews, Jesus is beyond even Levi, for Levi “was still in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him.”  (Hebrews 7:10)

You had better believe Jesus speaks with authority. 

Richard and I discuss Luke 4:36-37. (Episode 500) 

This week, Fr. Paul explains the interconnection between the Hebrew term qahal and the Greek ecclesia, from the verb kaleo—to call out—not to be confused with ʿedah, which corresponds to the Greek synagōgē. (Episode 292) 

In 1 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul, with all authority, does not speak on human authority, “for it is written in the law of Moses, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain.’ Is it for oxen that God is concerned? … but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ…woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission.” 

In the same manner, in the Gospel of Luke, the Lord Jesus Christ, with all authority, enters into Capernaum under orders from his Father to muzzle, dominate, and overwhelm all opponents of the gospel, exercising absolute divine authority over them, silencing the false teachers, the demons found in the village of grace, akin to Paul’s opponents, the “false brethren” in Galatians and the outside authorities in 1 Corinthians who work against the Lord’s gospel to increase their glory on the backs of the weak, for whom Christ died.

 Richard and I discuss Luke 4:31-35. (Episode 499)

This week, Fr. Paul notes the distinction between sin and guilt in the original text of Leviticus, lamenting the unwillingness of English translators to let the people hear the text. (Episode 291) 

To understand the power of the Semitic triliteral root, consider the grammatical, functional, empirical, and, thus, anti-Platonic literary interconnection between DaBaR (word), keDoBRam (pasture), yaDBeR (subdued), watteDaBBeR (destroyed), beDaBBeRo (at his speaking), miDBaRek (your mouth), and miDBaR (wilderness). Only in the original Semitic do we hear and see the consonantal link between the shepherd’s pasture, the utterances of God, the wilderness, and the subduing—even the destruction—of those who hear his words. “His dabar,” Fr. Paul Tarazi writes, “is administered in the wilderness and proceeds from his shepherd’s mouth while the sheep’s dilemma lies in that the utterly non-Platonic, non-Shakespearian ‘to obey or not to obey’ is not even the question. It does not matter whether a ‘baa’ is emitted or not. Obeying maintains the life that the sheep is already enjoying, while disobedience posits the same sheep as ’obed (unto destruction) as an Aramean by himself in the wilderness.”; Tarazi, Paul Nadim. The Rise of Scripture. OCABS Press, 2017, p. 296.

Richard and I discuss Luke 4:28-30. (Episode 498)

This week, while explaining the terms qurbano and minha, Fr. Paul calls to mind the admonition of Metropolitan Philip to his priests in the U.S., that when offered a gift from someone for priestly service, be they rich or poor, take it and use it for your children. “It is your due, by command of the Most High.” Do not give freely. Only the Apostle gives freely, and you are not an Apostle. (Episode 290)

The same Hebrew word, shebet, refers both to the staff of a shepherd and the tribe. It is the exact same word. The staff of God is the premise, the reference, and the totality, not the community. In the land of Scripture, which is not your land, does not speak your language, does not conform to your norms, does not eat your food, and does not care about your values, there is no such thing as a flock, let alone a community. There is a shepherd-of-flock, in Hebrew, ro‘eh ṣon, who carries a staff. 

In Luke 4, when God uses the mouth of Jesus to proffer his grace in Nazareth, the people of his own tribe turn their backs. They do so because they imagine that Jesus belongs to their tribe and is the son of their Joseph. Yet, from the moment Jesus said “no” to the Devil, God put his hand on him to control him “by the power of the Spirit…to preach the gospel to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.” 

But the people from his own tribe were not satisfied because he did not speak by their hand, and it was not by the authority of their staff, under their control, for the benefit of the home team. 

Truly, Truly I say to you, only a blinking idiot would pick a fight with the almighty, terrifying, and terrible God of Scripture over who owns the Lord Jesus Christ and who controls what comes out of his mouth.

Don’t laugh. People do it all the time. 

Richard and I discuss Luke 4:20-27. (Episode 497)

This week, Fr. Paul explains the functional meaning of the term holocaust, deferring to the original Semitic and consonantal Hebrew text, noting both the utility and shortcomings of the Septuagint. (Episode 289)

A listener wrote us this week to share a passage from Letter 57 of Jerome that captures (with respect to the terrorism of translations) what we said recently about Semitic languages in opposition to Hellenism and what we explain in today’s episode about Semiticized Greek in opposition to imperial Latin:               

“Time would fail me were I to unfold the testimonies of all who have translated only according to the sense. It is sufficient for the present to name Hilary the confessor who has turned some homilies on Job and several treatises on the Psalms from Greek into Latin; yet has not bound himself to the drowsiness of the letter or fettered himself by the stale literalism of inadequate culture. Like a conqueror, he has led away captive into his own tongue the meaning of his originals.”

“Like a conqueror, he has led away captive into his own tongue the meaning of his originals.”

The spoken language of a people reflects a practical reality, meaning the way things work in daily life out of what God himself forms in the womb. Spoken language is not manufactured; it is found. 

In Semitic languages, this is especially powerful because of the phenomenon of the triliteral root. The special value of a sacred written text, specifically the consonantal Hebrew of the Bible and the Arabic Quran, is that the practical reality of its language at the time of its writing is fixed. To the extent that the biblical text itself concocts its scriptural  Hebrew as “a cross of the different (extant) Semitic languages,” it is not so much the Hebrew language as it is the Semitic language of God encoded in the Bible. In other words, the Bible, and ultimately, even the New Testament, is written in God’s Semitic debarim. Combined with the living tradition of spoken Arabic, whose functionality is preserved in the fixed text of the Quran, this fact makes the everyday spoken Arabic of simple people of more value in the study of consonantal biblical Hebrew than the most expensive theological degrees from the fanciest schools. If you do not believe me, just listen to a secular teacher of Arabic from the land—as Jerome said, “led away captive,”  explain lexicology and grammar as she teaches Arabic. Even if she is not interested in the Bible or the Quran, she cannot help but teach the Bible and the Quran more effectively than modern religious scholars because of what is found in the etymology of the language, which is itself sacred.

“Translation,” Robert Carrol explains, is a “transformation” that “wrenches the text from its home in the ancient cultures and languages, deports that text, and exiles it in foreign languages and cultures.”

Richard and I discuss Luke 4:16-19. (Episode 496)

This week, Fr. Paul notes the diabolical link between the bards and troubadours, those who go from town to town, building the stories of cities, playing music on instruments of bronze and iron, in Scripture, the things that make for war. (Episode 288) 

In his 1990 article, “Fundamentals of Grammatology,” Peter T. Daniels proposed the Arabic term “abjad” to describe a type of Semitic script  “that denotes individual consonants only.” Such languages force the reader to infer vowel sounds as they read the text. 

The term abjad is derived from the original (pre-Islamic) order of the first four letters of the Arabic alphabet (ʾalif, bāʾ, jīm, dāl), which correspond to other Semitic languages, notably, “Hebrew and Semitic proto-alphabets: specifically, aleph, bet, gimel, and dalet.”

For most, when discussing the Hebrew text of the Bible, the Masoretic text is an assumed reference point. However, insofar as the Masoretic was vocalized by someone else, its fidelity to the original is as much an interpretation as any English translation.

The answer is not a better translation. The solution—rather, the challenge—is for modern disciples of the Bible to submit to the original, unvocalized Hebrew text. This means learning to read Hebrew texts without vowels in the same way that modern Arabs read the morning newspaper, which is printed without vowels.

Only then will students of the Bible be liberated from the tyranny of the tower builders of Genesis 11, who impose control through their interpretations, part and parcel of their imperial languages.

Richard and I discuss Luke 4:14-15. (Episode 495)

Wikipedia contributors. “Abjad.” *Wikipedia*, July 2023, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abjad#cite_note-4.;  Daniels, Peter T. "Fundamentals of Grammatology." *Journal of the American Oriental Society*, 1990,  https://doi.org/602899. Accessed 18 Aug. 2023, pp. 727-731.

In today's episode, Fr. Paul reiterates difficult words that few acknowledge. Plain words, even when rendered by translators: “As for you, do not pray for this people, and do not lift up cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with me; for I do not hear you.” Jeremiah 7:16 (Episode 287)

Christians love to talk about glory and victory because we are all Roman imperialists in our secret hearts—in the thoughts that we imagine God cannot hear. We lust after victory. We want to conquer and control. We are the colonial occupiers. We plan and strategize on how to spread our dung piles around. What is especially ugly about our brand of empire is that we do it in the name of the one who was hung in shame, naked on the Cross—the preferred implement of imperial terror in late antiquity. 

As such, the storyline of the New Testament is a rejection of both us and Roman imperialism.  Jesus rejects all of it, which is not good news for you and me.  In Luke 4, the Devil, who avails himself of a kairos under the purview of God the Father, offers it to Jesus, and Jesus says, “No.” 
Jesus rejects it. He says no to victory, no to glory, no to achieving heights, no to standing out, no to self-importance. No to all of it. No to everything that we strive for and treasure. Listen carefully to what I’m saying. No, to triumph and no triumphalism. All the things that we love to chant about. Yes, those ugly Roman things that Julias put on a pedestal after he crossed the Rubicon. Jesus says, “No!”

Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 4:13 (Episode 494)

In today's episode, Fr. Paul highlights the stark dissonance between what humans perceive as right and what is deemed right in the eyes of the Scriptural God. (Episode 286)

In Luke 4, it is striking that the text refers to the opponent of Jesus, not as Satan, the “obstacle” or “roadblock” of the gospel, but as the deceiver, the Devil. It’s easy to dismiss this as poetic license or other such nonsense, but that is the point in the discussion when your English teacher (if she was worth her salt) would have dismissed you as lazy. 

The Devil is not trying to block Jesus. He is trying to help him evolve into something greater. He wants to help Jesus achieve that for which every human being pines. He wants Jesus to grasp equality with God; achieve heights; seize power; to attain glory. So he tells Jesus a lie:
It is not Elohim who provides shelter for you, but you who shelters him. 

Luckily, Jesus is not a member of your Parish Council. Nor does he host symposiums on Temple growth, development, and expansion. He just places his trust in “the shelter of the Most High,” abiding “in the shadow of the Almighty,” Elohim, the only God whom he trusts.

Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 4:9-12 (Episode 493)

This week, Fr. Paul highlights the presence of the teraphim, hidden in plain sight on Aaron’s vestments, daftly woven by Scripture as a test for those of us who love shiny buttons. (Episode 285)

Everyone’s shit stinks. To your “civilized” ears, this sounds like a high-minded critique. It’s not. It’s just an observation about mammalian life. 
All animal life makes dung piles, yes.  But eventually, the wind blows, rain falls, and our dung piles disappear. It may stink for a bit, but sooner or later, it is gone, and the place thereof knows it no more. As all farmers know, our dung fertilizes the ground as God intended, and something beautiful grows in its place, for example, the lilies of the field Matthew’s Gospel.

But in the storyline of Luke, the “kingdoms of the world,” cut from stone by Solomon’s hand, are glorious up the earth and impressive to your “civilized” eyes but obnoxious in God’s. 

Yes, everyone’s shit does stink. But what really smells is the campaign to make something impressive out of your dung pile. To scale it. To build it up. To spread it around. To impose it on others. Such is the plague of Alexander the Great, Julias Caesar, and their colonial heirs, who love making something out of nothing and saying, “Look what I built.”

Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 4:5-8 (Episode 492)

In this week’s program, Fr. Paul begins his discussion of Leviticus, drawing on passages from Ezekiel and Numbers to illustrate how characters in the story twist the command of God. (Episode 284) 

The interplay between the terms bayt and heykal in biblical Hebrew is simple. So simple that it can be explained to a child. A heykal is a building made of stone that serves as both a temple and a palace for the king. The writers of the old TV series Stargate SG1 got the basic premise correct: people are fooled into worshiping their leaders as gods—and the bloody Pharaohs didn’t even have to be aliens. Just ordinary humans. That’s how gullible we are. Wear some flashy gold bling; execute a few poor people; build a shiny tower with your name on it, and everyone thinks you are the bomb. 

In contrast, the term bayt can refer either to a constructed house or a household, as in the biblical bayt ab, the Father’s house, filled with flesh-and-blood sons and daughters. In Ezekiel and Isaiah, instead of having land and a capital city with a building constructed by men, Yahweh, your Elohim posits himself as the only point of reference for his household, the bayt ab, which looks nothing like anything of human construction, let alone the houses we build.

It is so simple. Yet we persist in pushing against it. It is so simple, yet we still insist on our own agendas and human dynasties because deep down inside, we love Pharaoh and want to be like him.

“Here’s the church, and here’s the steeple. Open the door and see all the people.”

It’s the people, not the steeple. Even your Anglo-Saxon nursery rhymes are more honest than your false teachings and your lying teachers. 
Thank God that Scripture cannot hear you. Thank God that in the story of Scripture, Jesus did not listen to the Devil. 

Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 4:3-4 (Episode 491)

This week, Fr. Paul concludes his discussion of the Exodus. (Episode 283) 

Imagine searching for guidance on the best way to live life. You have the chance to speak with two advisors. The first lifts your spirits. After listening carefully to you, he explains that you have value, possess unique insights, and have something to say and contribute. He argues that your needs and feelings must come first, that everything will work out, and that what matters most is what you want; your life, experiences, and goals count. He provides valuable advice on working diligently, saving wisely, planning strategically, building steadily, establishing, thriving, loving, and relishing a life well-lived, enriched by the company of family, community, friends, children, and grandchildren. He expresses affection, even nostalgia for the person you are, what your shared humanity represents, and who you will become—then you turn to the second advisor. 

His name is Paul. 

He is not interested in what you have to say. He can’t hear you; even if he could, he would not listen. Moreover, to make sure that you know, beyond the shadow of any doubt, that nothing of value can ever come from you, as the guest in your home, he ridicules and invalidates your family tree. He explains that you are nothing and have no value as a husband or a father. You are a tool to be used for a purpose until you are broken and eventually set aside, like a used-up oblation. He admits that this goes against your nature because no man is truly capable of hating his own flesh, but that’s his point; he is giving you a dark saying from Psalm 78; he is hitting you with the painful imposition of the words of Genesis, sealed in the content of his teaching of the Cross in 1 Corinthians: it is not your life. There is no such thing as “your” life. It is life, of which human beings are only a small part. 

Your plans are not God’s plan. The things that you build—your dynasties and eternity projects—offend God. You want to please others, to be surrounded by friends and family, because you want to please yourself. But this is not love. You will not become anything. You are temporary, taken from dust and returning to dust. Like all men, your days are like grass, and the place where you once lived will not remember you. The only thing that stands is the Torah, which was here before you, does not come from you and will be here after you are long gone. As my student Luke now explains, there is a chance, after the cancellation of the kings and princes of Israel, that this Torah can be found again in the wilderness, in the arms of the Lamb of God, who will be slain for your sake. So, keep your mouth shut and listen to him.  

Be honest. Which advice would take? You don’t have to answer today, but, believe me, you will have to answer. 

Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 4:1-2 (Episode 490)

This week, Fr. Paul notes the grammatical interconnection between Exodus and Revelation, which highlights the iconoclastic function of the Tent of Meeting, in which the Tabernacle, covered by the Tent, covers the Tabernacle, a warning that you are to live in the open wilderness,  and not as the nations do, in temples of stone. (Episode 282)

Yes, the Bible is about the propagation of God’s seed. Unfortunately, ignorant of biblical Hebrew, Christians of all kinds fall into the trap of Neoplatonism, mishearing Genesis and Galatians by saying,  “Oh well then, it's not really about making babies; it’s about making disciples.”  
No. Definitely not. You are not an eternal god. You cannot “make” anything. Moreover, Jesus warns, when you make disciples, “you make them twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.” (Matthew 23:15)

You are flesh and blood creatures born of a mother. You have no choice in the matter, and that is the genius of the Bible. As commanded by Elohim in Genesis, you must multiply sexually like any other mammal. In every generation, you “will die…and fall like any prince.” (Psalm 82)  Cain desperately tried, but you cannot get around this through your foolish dynasties, dedicating your children to cities and monuments. 
It is the words of Elohim—his seed—not your silly eternity projects, that stand forever: 

A voice says, “Call out.” Then he answered, “What shall I call out?” All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; The people are indeed grass! The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. (Isaiah 40:6-9)

Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 3:23-38 (Episode 489)

In this week’s program, Fr. Paul explains that we are paying a high price for the false teaching of theologians who cannot hear or understand Scripture because they are too busy defending their own theology, which emasculates the throne of the Judge, resulting in violence. (Episode 281)

From the beginning, the Scriptural God commanded biological reproduction—be fruitful and multiply. Reproduce biologically because the generation yet unborn cannot be created by studying or preaching the Torah. But remember that God is King, and they are his children, not yours. 

But the human beings did not listen. Cain multiplied himself, raising offspring to his own dynasty, dedicating Encoch and his seed—not to God’s commandments—but to buildings of stone. This situation did not last very long. 

After the flood, God established the oneness of the human race through Noah’s sons, demonstrating his intention that the nations live alongside each other under his rule. Among them was Shem, the forbear of Abraham, “by whom” God said, “all the families of the earth” shall be blessed. All.

From the sons of Noah to the settlement in Canaan, the Israelites were destined to live alongside the Gentiles already dwelling in Canaan, yes, Canaan, the term artificially doubled by Luke at the climax of his genealogy. 

The stage was set from the beginning. Israel was never special or exceptional. They were one nation among many honored by Elohim with the special gift of his teaching. In the same way, the “prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee” (Matthew 21:11) had a special duty when God sent him to complete the work begun by Jonah of sharing this teaching. 

From Genesis to Revelation—the Bible is not Adam’s story, Noah’s, Abraham’s, or Shem’s, let alone Israel’s; even David needed reminding when the Lord struck down his child by Bathsheba: Elohim is King and Judge. It is his dynasty, and they are his children, not yours. 

In obedience to Elohim, Jesus, the unremarkable human being, refused the throne. Jesus, the Lord, with no army, property, children, or toledot. Jesus, the last of the prophets, who rejected everything Herod represents and went on to die a loser, in total shame, with no value in human terms. 
The Lukan genealogy is what the Bible always was, the toledot of Elohim, and such a genealogy begins as it ends, bookended by the uncontested reign of our Heavenly King, who rules from age to age over all the nations.

Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 3:37-38 (Episode 488)

This week, Fr. Paul underscores the centrality of shepherd life over city life in the Book of Exodus, specifically in its presentation of the Tent of Meeting. He also notes how the story emphasizes God rather than Moses as its author. (Episode 280)

After expending significant effort to construct a genealogy—almost from scratch, only now, as he approaches his knockout punch, "Son of Man (ben adam), Son of God,” Luke draws upon pre-existing material to finalize his inverted dynasty. 

Climbing past an excerpt borrowed from Matthew detailing Abraham’s line, we now stumble across another collection of names, this time from Genesis 11:10-26. The focus, of course, is shepherdism.

Human beings want to distinguish themselves as individuals while simultaneously criticizing exceptionalism in others.  

We revel in tearing down heroes and authority figures while singing songs about heroism, congratulating ourselves about ourselves. Our politics, literature, and media celebrate this freedom. Unfortunately, some people confuse this with what Scripture is doing.

In making the line of Arpachshad under Shem functional in his genealogy, Luke proposes an alternative to sitcom ideology, which tries to be clever in its cultural critique but fails. 

You cannot ridicule sin unless you yourself preach as one condemned. Otherwise, you glorify sin. 

Approaching the end of chapter 3, Luke ridicules both the sin and the sinner, preaching the story of Genesis 11, in which all human beings are sheep under one Shepherd. 

Sheep do not speak. Sheep are in no way exceptional or in a position to criticize unless, like Luke, the Shepherd gives them something to say.   

Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 3:35-36 (Episode 487)

This week, Fr. Paul resumes his discussion of Exodus, noting that the story was written to test God’s people, taking their failure into consideration from the very beginning. (Episode 279)

Thus far in Luke’s genealogy, the writer has emphasized two critical points within the broader storyline of the New Testament. First, after paralleling Matthew’s dismissal of Joseph’s patrimony, Luke builds on Matthew’s handling of Hebrew terminology in Genesis, pushing the biblical tension between the positive, godly expression, “Son of Man,” and the pejorative worldly title, “Son of God.”  Pejorative, according to the Bible’s lexicon, but not in the uncircumcised minds of those hearing the New Testament. It is this sin that Matthew, Mark, and now Luke hope to correct—or reformat—in our hearing. Only now will Luke use the expression “Son of God”—only the second time in his gospel, and even now, only within the tedious syntax of his genealogy: “Son of Man (ben adam), Son of God.” 

Perhaps later, when we hear John, we will finally understand why Jesus was accused of treason. For now, in Luke’s gospel, we need only recognize why Jesus kept telling people to keep their mouths shut in Mark. It is not because he was shy or humble.  It is because they did not know what they were talking about and, therefore, should not be allowed to preach. At least, not yet. 

In Psalm 82, we find everything we need to know about the Bible’s use of these terms. Calling specifically upon Elohim (not Yahweh, not the Messiah) to judge the earth, along the lines of Ezekiel and Isaiah, David calls upon Elohim to rise above all the other gods as the only King upon the earth.  

All these gods, the “sons of the Most High,” who exercise power on earth, are hoaxes. From generation to generation and age to age, they are a fraud. They will “die like the sons of men and fall like any of the princes” because they themselves are sons of men, just like you and me. They will pass away, but our God, Elohim, is in the heavens, unseen and untouchable. He does not die, and his words will abide forever. 

Elohim alone is the Judge who subdues unjust rulers, those who show partiality to the wicked. Elohim alone is the Judge who vindicates the weak and the fatherless, who cares for the afflicted and the destitute. Elsewhere David proclaims: 

“Put not your trust in princes, in sons of men, in whom there is no salvation.” (Psalm 146:3)

When Luke carrying the torch for Matthew and Mark is finally ready to shout from the rooftops what Mark was certain you did not understand, he hopes that you will finally realize the value of Jesus Christ, that, unlike the princes and rulers who will condemn him in the story, he was not glorious upon the earth. Instead, he was obedient to his Father—the only Judge—and that is why Elohim will arise to vindicate him, standing in the midst of his council as Judge. 

Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 3:32-34 (Episode 486)

This week, Fr. Paul continues his exegesis of Ezekiel as a background for his comprehensive study of Exodus, taking time to explain that the parabolic admonition of Jesus in Matthew can only be understood against the back backdrop of the Hebrew terminology of the Mosaic Law. (Episode 278)

When a person experiences cognitive dissonance, that is, when they find themselves in a situation where exposure to conflicting ideas and information becomes too stressful or mentally uncomfortable, their natural inclination is to seek security in the safety of consonance. 

Humans naturally avoid, discredit, belittle, and delegitimize the ideas or people that cause them to experience dissonance. 

Today’s most common reaction to natural dissonance, especially given the avalanche of information overload, is to bury one’s head in the fantasy of suburban bliss. The rise in random acts of public violence is making this much harder, but the white picket fence crowd still manages to hold on to its illusions.

Whether one buries their head in the sand to find peace or seeks out new beliefs or ideas that fit nicely with their own — when you reject dissonance, you seek to place your trust in something comforting: a person or a group of people that looks and sounds like you. You trust those who reflect your values and attitudes—whatever makes you feel safe and secure.

You know exactly what we call that in Scripture. You know what they are and what happens to those who trust in them.

On the other hand, Scripture itself is divine dissonance. God challenges you to go against the grain of human thought by trusting his words, knowing full well you have no control over what comes out of his mouth. He will not say what you want, nor will his words or actions reflect your values or attitudes. He will often say exactly what you do not want to hear as if he knows how to betray and embarrass you personally. Pretty cool for a book written by people who did not know you and were not thinking about you and could not possibly have conceived of the modern world when they wrote it. 

Like all of Scripture, Luke liberates you from the fantasy of suburban bliss where Herod’s boot is firmly planted on your neck. He challenges you to unplug yourself from the Matrix and accept life in the wilderness, out of your control, but in the palm of God’s hand. 

Or, in verse 30, you could run from God’s beloved Shepherd toward Israel’s beloved king. 

Good luck with that. 

Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 3:30 (Episode 485)

In today’s program, Fr. Paul reads from the text of Ezekiel to illustrate how hearers of the Bible misconstrue the Book of Exodus.  (Episode 277)

As in the story of Genesis, for each generation of Luke’s genealogy, the functional names outline the literary framework of a recurring biblical dilemma: without God’s perpetual intervention, life from age to age is impossible. 

In science and engineering, numerous terms are used to describe similar mechanisms. In physics and thermodynamics, it is referred to as “external energy input” or “external work.” In biological systems, which require food, water, and other resources, it is called “homeostasis.”  Even artificial intelligence requires external input in order to work correctly—though the analogy is not precise—you get the point. In these examples, external input is necessary to prevent catastrophic failure. 

In the literary reality of the Bible, like a plant without light or water or an iPhone sitting on the shelf in 1905, each generation of human beings degrades and fails rapidly, to the extent that without God’s intervention, there is no possibility of life. In the most obvious of all biblical examples, God intervenes to make a baby when Abraham’s seed fails. As far as the Bible is concerned, nothing helpful is passed down from Adam or Abraham, let alone your grandparents or parents. This also means that you, like your forebears, have nothing valuable of yourself to pass on. Why? Because “your origin and your birth are from the land of the Canaanite; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.” (Ezekiel 16:3) 

So if the heritage that gets us out from under the boot of Herod does not come from your family, and the inheritance in question is not from your line, where is it, what is it, where does it come from, and who is its beneficiary? 

Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 3:30 (Episode 484)

This week, Fr. Paul explains that rest is assigned by God on the Sabbath and in the Sabbatical and Jubilee years, not for the sake of man but for the benefit of the adamah, the animals who do most of the work, the foreigner, and the needy neighbor. (Episode 276)

When we set out to start a business, a project, a book, or an endeavor of any kind, most of us begin by asking ourselves, who is my audience, and how can I make my work relevant to them? Outside the arena of biblical preaching, these are normal, practical - even necessary - questions. However, for a priest, this line of thinking is inevitably toxic - good for the material well-being of the church but incompatible with the preaching of the biblical story, entrusted part and parcel with the consecrated Lamb placed in your human hands on the day of your ordination.  

I can’t tell you how often people have reacted to the gospel’s content by saying, “That’s all fine and good, Father, and I agree, but no one today is interested.” 

This statement reveals two truths: one, that the person who made it is not studying Scripture, and two, that Scripture itself is again fulfilled because, according to Scripture, no generation is, was, or will ever be interested in Scripture. (I explained last week that no one, let alone the preacher, can agree with or is on the side of Scripture, so I’ll leave that point aside.)

Irrelevance is the cornerstone of the biblical genre. I dare say that the mercy of the Scriptural God is that he would pause from his laughter to explain to the human race why he is laughing. 

His reason unfolds as the content of Scripture:

“A generation goes, and a generation comes…
That which has been is that which will be,
And that which has been done is that which will be done.
So there is nothing new under the sun.”
(Ecclesiastes 1:4,9)

The genealogy in Luke, akin to Ecclesiastes and indeed all biblical anti-history, is shared with humanity to help us comprehend our irrelevance. Only when we understand what is irrelevant can we devote ourselves to the one genuinely relevant thing.

Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 3:29 (Episode 483)

This week Fr. Paul explains that those who are called sons and daughters of God — the insiders, so to speak — are special. Yes, you heard me correctly.  You are special, but not as it is portrayed in our various theologies or, for that matter, any number of religious websites, where special means better than others or “object of God’s compassion.” Only the God of Exodus could make compassion a word to be feared.  (Episode 275)

For years on this program, in homilies and personal discussions with parishioners, family, and friends — I have explained that there is no such thing as progress. That you can’t earn anything. That nothing you have belongs to you. No one owes you anything, and even what you seem to have will be taken away, so give it away now because you owe God and your neighbor a debt you can never repay. That you are not a victim - on the contrary - you are the abuser, and you should not keep tabs when you help others because your life does not belong to you.

I have insisted that Scripture is the Pearl of Great Price. The only treasure of value. It is so precious that any time spent talking about anything else is wasted breath. That is why people are sometimes nervous around me during coffee hour, let alone family gatherings.

In recent years I have directed my parish council not to use words like “progress,” “success,” “legacy,” “build,” or “engagement“ during meetings or in printed materials and notes.

I have doggedly acted out Pharisaism publicly so that with each breath when I preach the judgment forcefully, everyone present is certain that I am a hypocrite so that on the off chance that anyone submits to the biblical commandment, they are absolutely clear that it is the righteous commandment that guides their steps and not my example.

I have ridiculed the abuse, criticism, and disrespect of parents (evangelized by popular culture and Disney children’s sitcoms) not because our parents are good (no one, according to Jesus, is good) but because, as the Good Book proclaims, whatever we are, we are no better, if not worse, than what came before us. I have ridiculed parents, too, because I am a Pharisee, and my job is to preach Psalm 78, like it or not.

Richard and I have dismantled our culture, politics, identity, and ideologies of every flavor on this podcast - and still, people want to say, “I agree with you, Father…”

Beloved, in Christ, you can’t possibly agree with me. Even I disagree with me.

Only the dead agree with Scripture.

One day, God willing, Richard and I will have a chance to read the Book of Revelation on this program - a book that handles the function of the martyrs elegantly. In the meantime, with respect to our inability to agree with Scripture, we’ll continue our discussion of the genealogy in Luke 3:28. (Episode 482)

This week Fr. Paul notes that the subject of the biblical text is determined by the story’s content and not by the sensibilities of those hearing the story.  In Genesis 34, the rape of Dinah, typically emphasized in contemporary Western scholarship, is not the main point of the chapter, which instead condemns her brother’s abuse of the covenant of circumcision as an implement of mass murder.  (Episode 274)

According to the rule of the Lukan genealogy, the recent coronation of the English king was uncanny in its egregious assault on the biblical proclamation of the Resurrection. 

On the one hand, those who have stayed with this podcast over the years have (hopefully) come to understand that Scripture is a system of cancellation encoded in literary form. It is a divine story given to undermine everything wrought by the hand of humans, shutting down all that we say and do. 

We want Scriptural wisdom to be pro-human, but it’s satirical. It makes fun of us. It criticizes us. We want to make the case that it does so for our sake. But it won’t let us. Instead, it insists upon its rule for the sake of the entire creation, of which we humans are but a small part. 

In the teaching of the Resurrection, following the line of Isaiah, only God’s instruction is allowed to stand out upon the earth. No human being - least of all a king may stand out - hence the crucifixion of Jesus. 

With this in mind, if you are trying to avoid transgressing St. Paul’s teaching of the anti-Christ, let me give you some helpful advice: 

Don’t make yourself stand out above all others on international screens with costly pomp and flare. Whatever you do, don’t invite your subjects to swear fealty to you. Don’t publish articles defending meaningless pageantry. Likewise, don’t write a book complaining that you don’t stand out. Don’t do it. And for God’s sake: 

If you have to be coronated, please do it quietly and not during the Paschal season, when we are warned repeatedly that there is only One whom the Father has anointed to stand out upon the earth.

“And he shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom shall have no end.”

Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 3:27 (Episode 481)

This week Fr. Paul highlights examples from the biblical text that deal with humans and animals on the same level, noting that animals are also called to repentance. (Episode 273)

If you are fortunate to live under the pressure of the Gospel, sooner or later, your life will be reduced to a showdown with the Scriptural God. You will have the opportunity to be embarrassed, admit your failure, lose face, and look foolish in front of the person who preached the word of God to you. The problem is that you, like your teacher (along with everyone else), are no different than King Herod, his Hasmonean predecessors, or the cowards who worshipped them. You are terrified of losing control. Better to hold on and defend yourself. Everything is fine. You are in the right. You are justified. It is you who are the victim. It is others who should be held to account. I’m the boss of me, right?  What’s playing on Disney tonight? 

I just described the primary mechanism of the point of no return for every potential disciple. Each must face such a moment if we are serious about hearing Scripture. Not once, not twice, but over and over again. The first time, however, is the most critical. It is a kind of make-it-or-break opportunity along the lines of the Parable of the Sower. Why? Because cowardice and self-righteousness are evil twins. You fear the pain of the Bible’s piercing critique, so you choose the comfort and self-assuredness of being in the right and build massive defenses. Some people (actually, a ton of people, unfortunately) build entire religions. They imagine that these religions are “Bible-based” when, in truth, they are “Bible-reactions.” How else could you look forward to the cataclysmic judgment and doom of the Scriptural Kingdom as though it were an upcoming trip to a members-only version of Disney Land? 

Thankfully, from generation to generation, the Lukan genealogy tells a different story - one that does not bode well for Herod, the Hasmoneans, and all those who are like them, everyone who trusts in them. 

Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 3:26 (Episode 480)

This week, Fr. Paul explains that in the Bible, God is the only King and the owner of his children, not his children the owners one of another.  (Episode 272)

Nothing is more painful than watching young parents explain their intention to raise their children differently than their parents or observing young mothers hovering over grandmothers, micro-managing their every move, scolding, correcting, worrying, overprotecting, and gossiping, all based on advice from their therapist or some silly blog post about the "right" way to parent according to the latest study.

It’s not that the grandparents are any better than their idiotic children or that their example should be followed. God forbid. I mean, look at what the grandparents produced. According to Scripture, the unfixable root of the problem is that the grandparents, their children, and the grandchildren are all human beings. Let me repeat; according to the Bible, human beings are the problem. (I know, I know. This will never air on PBS.)

The hubris of the human being and the naive optimism of young couples that somehow things will be different on their watch is the last laugh of the Scriptural God. Well, not the last laugh, because God gets to keep laughing, again and again, as the Byzantine hymn says, at “every generation…” that dares to bring its dirge before the gospel of his Christ. 

What we learn from this teaching, in Luke’s account of the genealogy, is that over and over again, in each generation, no matter how hopeful God’s intervention through his instruction, we prove ourselves to be the children, not of God, but of oppression. Worse, we become the progenitors of oppression. 

Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 3:24 (Episode 479)

This week, Fr. Paul stresses the importance of fearing God not as an awesome or impressive character but in his function as judge. (Episode 271)

When hearing the Lukan genealogy of Jesus in English, it's easy for people to adopt anti-scriptural notions of "king" and "priest,” developing incorrect expectations for how Jesus Christ will rule in the coming kingdom. But, as always, the key to hearing the author’s story lies in the meaning of the names. 

Between two Josephs, who fail miserably at continuing what only God himself can sustain through his teaching, lies a squandered gift and a failed hope of men who claim that Elohim is their God but look instead to the line of priests and kings—institutional functionaries of the very Temple Luke destroyed at the outset of his story. These false teachers and rulers repeatedly lead—not only the sons of Israel—but all of God’s children astray into oppression and slavery. Now, through God’s intervention, their line and the cycle of oppression are finally disrupted with the birth of Jesus Christ. 

It sounds nice, like something Rich and I made up, but every last bit comes from the functional meaning of the names in the first two verses of the Lukan genealogy and their interaction with Genesis. 

Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 3:23 (Episode 478)

This week, Fr. Paul explains how the practice of honoring all mothers or all fathers, as we do on national holidays, undermines the biblical admonition that each person, even if they happen to be parents, is under pressure by Scripture to honor, specifically, the father and mother from whom they originate. (Episode 270)

The New Testament storyline places considerable emphasis and tension on the question of Jesus's title. The Gospel of Matthew stresses that Jesus is an ordinary Ben Adam (Son of Man), while the Gospel of Mark shows him repeatedly insisting that people not reveal his identity as the Messiah because of their ignorance of his teaching. 

Throughout the gospels, the biblical writers are careful not to let their audience, like the characters in the story, confuse Jesus with a military or political figure of triumph, highlighting instead the shame, defeat, and humiliation of Isaiah’s suffering servant, emphasizing the weakness of an ordinary “son of man,” in order to elevate the teaching of the crucifixion, in opposition to human kingship. 

Only in the Gospel of Luke, after having been deprogrammed by the gospels of Matthew and Mark, are the New Testament writers willing to unite the titles Son of Man and Son of David in the storyline. But have we been deprogrammed? To answer that question, we need only look to history to discover how many kings and presidents have painted or still brandish a cross on their flag or a mere “God bless you” on their lips before marching off to war. How many have twisted the meaning of the gospel into an icon of Jesus with a weapon in his hand? 

Either the Cross means something, or it doesn’t. 

Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 3:23 (Episode 477)

This week, Fr. Paul explains that the prohibition, “you may not take the name of God in vain,” is a warning that you may not speak of God as though he exists only as a statue. (Episode 269)

In the first chapters of Luke, just as the Spirit moves from womb to womb, beginning with the angel Gabriel, the commandment moves from person to person, ensuring that God’s eudokia (his goodwill) is fulfilled—in the spirit of term—to his complete satisfaction. 

From Zacharias and Elizabeth to Mary and Joseph, and notably, the Shepherds of Israel, the commandment and the Spirit are the main actors in Luke, working overtime to ensure that the will of the Father is fulfilled in the story. As each roadblock falls: the temple, the priesthood, the seeking after signs, the ignorance of the Torah, there remains one final obstacle to the Father’s objective: tribe and king. Along these lines, Herod stands out in the Lukan parade as one who does not receive the Spirit and openly rejects the commandment, shunning the Lord’s prophet and locking him in prison. 

Has the Father been thwarted? With John out of the way, how can the command established in the beginning by the mouth of the Angel Gabriel be carried forward? Herod, the imposter. Herod, the builder of buildings. Herod, the trifler, who thought he could steal the inheritance of the Kingdom of the Gospel from the Lord’s Christ by sealing John the Baptist up in a cage.

To borrow a beautiful title from a beautiful woman, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” 

Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 3:21-22 (Episode 476)

“Now the Hosts of Heaven,” First Mode (Tetraphonic) was chanted by Nicholas Wesche on April 5, 2023, at St. Elizabeth Orthodox Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.

This week Fr. Paul laments the way we shortchange the biblical function “steadfast love” in which the scriptural God, a jealous God, who visits the iniquity of the fathers upon children, the compassionate and gracious God, listening to prayers but not necessarily answering them, is the faithful judge whose steadfast love endures from age to age in the heaviness of his words. (Episode 268)

Sorting out one's personal priorities is the most difficult aspect of committing to anything of value. Well, let’s qualify that statement. Committing to your priorities is easy when you measure value using money or self-interest. Everyone happily, readily, half-consciously, and with much pomp, fanfare, and self-justification explains how busy they are pursuing money, a career, and their jam-packed calendar at the expense of the community and the common good. In a country where a majority of Americans, roughly 55%, spend up to four hours a day watching their favorite programs, and another 22% of the country spends more than four hours doing the same thing, it’s no wonder everyone feels overwhelmed.

So, for this podcast, when I speak of “commitment to anything of value,” I refer to the Gospel as the only thing of value. Any listener, for example, a soldier who has fully committed themselves to their cause does not require further explanation. 

Herod falls into the first camp. With much pomp and fanfare, he is fully committed to what works best for Herod. He knows what his occupiers want. He knows what his family wants. He knows what the Temple wants. More important than all of this, he knows exactly what is written in the Law of Moses, which means he knows that he is accountable to the words of John the Baptist. 

But for “all the wicked things which Herod had done, he added this to them all: he locked John up in prison.”

Richard and  Fr. Marc discuss Luke 3:19-20 (Episode 475)