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…
Category: Luke
Let’s Talk About the Amalekites
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…
Choose a Side!
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…
Wait for the Lord
“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…
It Is Neither “Complex” nor “Sensitive”
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…
We Are All Elohim’s Human Animals
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…
In Memory of Fr. Daniel Simon
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…
MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN
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…
‘abd allah
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…
The Function Little Crow
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…