The Ephesus School

People read religious and philosophical symbols into the Bible all the time. They study other traditions or the symbols of ancient mythologies and jump to conclusions, reading biblical metaphor against a non-biblical context. Worse, they make horrific assumptions about the supposed continuity between these traditions and the biblical tradition. God forbid.

When the Bible employs such symbols from the ancient world, it does so, not to endorse, but to co-opt in order to make its own point. For the Magi, this point is clear: the truth is definitely not in our stars, but in the hand of the one who both made the stars and controls them, the Father of righteousness.

Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Matthew 2:1-3.

Listen: https://tracking.feedpress.it/link/15937/9450787/tbal%20episode%20230.mp3

Episode 230 Matthew 2:1-3; Subscribe: http://feedpress.me/the-bible-as-literature; “Pale Rider” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com (http://incompetech.com/)) Licensed under Creative Commons: B.y Attribution 3.0 License http:// creativecommons .org/ licenses /by/3.0/

When we talk about children, spouses, siblings, parents, family, or even friends, we can’t help but refer to them as our posession: “My” son, “my” wife, “my” family–we arrogantly refer to individuals the same way that we refer to property. In the biblical tradition, nothing belongs to human beings: not the land, none of the things in our care, not the people in our path–nothing–and certainly, not the children whom the Lord provides. This plays out forcefully in Genesis, where human lines fail until God comes forward to plant a seed for the present generation, which is always in peril. But that seed can only save us when we understand its teaching, namely, that the seed itself does not come from us, does not need us to produce life, and does not belong to us.

Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Matthew 1:18-25.

Listen: https://tracking.feedpress.it/link/15937/9386895/tbal%20episode%20229.mp3

Episode 229 Matthew 1:18-25; Subscribe: http://feedpress.me/the-bible-as-literature; “I Can Feel it Coming” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com (http://incompetech.com/)) Licensed under Creative Commons: B.y Attribution 3.0 License http:// creativecommons .org/ licenses /by/3.0/

In the book of Leviticus, the Jubilee year is a time when everyone—even slaves—are restored to their families, their land, and their original homes. With this in mind, it is striking that Matthew draws a connection between the generation of Jesus Christ—the seventh generation in a genealogy built around multiples of seven—as the last generation before the Jubilee year. It is indeed striking, because the movement of the people, both Jew and Greek—slave and free—is not to Jerusalem, but to the wandering in the wilderness; not to the line of David, but to the King whom the people rejected when they asked for Saul: the God whose kingdom, in Matthew, is now at hand:

4 He who sits in the heavens laughs,
The Lord scoffs at them.

5 Then He will speak to them in his anger
And terrify them in his fury, saying,

6 “But as for me, I have installed my King
Upon Zion, my holy mountain.”

7 “I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord:
He said to me, ‘You are my Son,
Today I have begotten you.

8 ‘Ask of me, and I will surely give the nations as your inheritance,
And the very ends of the earth as yourself possession.

(Psalm 2:4-8)

Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Mathew 1:17.

Listen: https://tracking.feedpress.it/link/15937/9318185/tbal%20episode%20228.mp3

Episode 228 Matthew 1:17; Subscribe: http://feedpress.me/the-bible-as-literature; “Obliteration” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com (http://incompetech.com/)) Licensed under Creative Commons: B.y Attribution 3.0 License http:// creativecommons .org/ licenses /by/3.0/

In the first section of the genealogy in Matthew, the story behind the names helps readers piece together the puzzle of the book’s teaching; but what about the last section? What can be understood from a list of names with no backstory? If you think of names personally, yes, they are useless. On the other hand, if you think of them as functions; if you examine their Hebrew roots; if you remember that there are no capital letters in the original languages; if you read the words on the page as literature; the meaning of these names tells the story of God’s victory in the Bible. In keeping with the storyline of Matthew 1, that these names appear without infrastructure is par for the course.

Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Matthew 1:12-16.

Listen: https://tracking.feedpress.it/link/15937/9252196/TBAL%20Episode%20227.mp3

Episode 227 Matthew 1:12-16; Subscribe: http://feedpress.me/the-bible-as-literature; “Special Spotlight” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com (http://incompetech.com/)) Licensed under Creative Commons: B.y Attribution 3.0 License http:// creativecommons .org/ licenses /by/3.0/

When human beings discuss society and culture, we do so with an unstated premise: that there is such a thing as a correct society and that such a society is attainable through correct ideas or actions. Unfortunately—and far from its own ideal—this assumption bolsters self-righteousness, perpetuates societal ills, and amplifies suffering in the world.

The genealogy in Matthew’s gospel undermines and opposes this premise by recounting the perpetual decline of human kingdoms in the Bible, from generation to generation. In doing so, Matthew dismantles our dangerous belief in a utopia, paving instead a path to the Lord’s kingdom: a non-utopia that gives hope in the midst of–and in opposition to–the unideal reality in which every generation finds itself.

Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Matthew 1:10-11.

Listen: https://tracking.feedpress.it/link/15937/9186390/TBAL%20Episode%20226.mp3

Episode 226 Matthew 1:10-11; Subscribe: http://feedpress.me/the-bible-as-literature; “Secrets of the Schoolyard” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com (http://incompetech.com/)) Licensed under Creative Commons: B.y Attribution 3.0 License http:// creativecommons .org/ licenses /by/3.0/