Category: The Bible as Literature

When Christians talk about evangelization, they do so along the lines of the historical King Herod, who twisted biblical circumcision into a trademark of the temple cult, a stigma with which to brand people living outside of Judea as Jews, in order to extract wealth from them in the name of scripture—you guessed it—to build…

The behavior of the chief priests after the resurrection of Jesus in Matthew 28 is so cynical, so unredeemable, and so pathetic that the only bearable quality of the story is that in the victory of Jesus, the author gives us a little space to laugh. But here’s the rub, if you’ve been listening carefully,…

In Genesis, God is interested in the oneness of humans in the land, so much so that from a modern perspective, you might say that the Scriptural God is not only anti-institution but anti-family values. Not only Jerusalem, not only the Temple, not only Religious leaders and government, but even Jesus’ family is broken up…

Human institutions operate under the assumption that they are justified. I was going to say human communities, but let’s be honest, we no longer have communities. We have institutions. Thanks to Plato (and the US Supreme court), there is even such a thing as “corporate personhood.” So, according to American law, institutions are people too….

When we approach Scripture with human presuppositions, we inevitably and systematically mishear the topic of a given book, dislocating God’s agency in the story and silencing his voice in our ears. If your premise is you, the tale distorts and twists itself into a parable about you. If your premise is your king (in the…

When someone does something terrible, and you step in to clean up their mess, and then you explain what went wrong, and then you show them how to avoid making the same mistake in the future, and then they proclaim their immense gratitude and undying loyalty to you, and then they do the same thing,…

“Hear my cry, O God; Give heed to my prayer. From the end of the earth I call to you when my heart is faint; Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For you have been a refuge for me, A tower of strength against the enemy. Let me dwell in your…

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; A good understanding have all those who do His commandments;” “How blessed is the man who fears the Lord, Who greatly delights in His commandments.” (Psalms 111:10 – 112:1) “The fear of the Lord is the instruction for wisdom; before honor comes humility.”(Proverbs 15:33) “The…

In the book of Genesis, the sons of Cain seek divine status and an artificial life forged in everlasting stone. In Matthew, Jesus, like the sons of Adam in Genesis 5, is humanized and weakened on the Cross. The line of Cain ends in the abomination of human kingship; in the Crucifixion, Jesus is humiliated…

We modern folk like to think we invented confusion, but human beings have always been easily confused. We hear and see whatever we want, ignoring everything only to marvel at a phantom we mistake for our reflection. In Matthew 27, this behavior exposes the characters’ folly in the story. The bystanders are listening for something…