All Episodes
You Already Know the Answer
When a student plays teacher with an earthen vessel, there comes a moment in their imaginary dialogue when the trust they thought they had is broken. It's not broken, ...
Father of Peace?
Once you hear the biblical text and understand that the Bible satirizes and dismantles the arrogance and foolishness of war, political schemes, government powers, and ...
Why is There Violence in Deuteronomy?
Why is there violence in the Bible?Why did the authors of Deuteronomy present parables of genocide? Why did the gospel writers posit a story about tribal, religious, a...
The Battle is Literary
This week, Fr. Paul emphasizes that the hearing of scripture is a literary battleground where various traditions compete for control over its meaning. He critiques how...
A Sign and a Proof
The word “آية” (āyah) in Arabic refers to a “verse” in Scripture. It can also mean a “sign” or “miracle.” Its root in Semitic is ء-ي-ي (hamza-ya-ya) or ء-ي-ن (hamza-ya...
An Offer You Can’t Refuse
It’s difficult to be part of any relationship, at an individual or group level, without attempting to exert control. We rationalize to ourselves that we don’t want con...
It Exists to Resist
This week, Fr. Paul examines later additions to biblical manuscripts, such as Greek breathing marks and the differentiation between uppercase and lowercase letters, wh...
The Hand That Gives
If you accept the Bedouin axiom, “The tree begins with a seed”, you have taken your first step to joining the human race; to accepting that pragmatism is the currency ...
You Have Been Found
Am I humble?Am I arrogant?Am I pious?Am I blasphemous?Am I cruel?Am I kind?Who is the judge?Search me.Who can tell?There is only one who can tell.Any attempt to test, ...
Announcing: The Slow Bible Study
Subscribe: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/2350896.rssAll of us, like Job, “go about in darkness (qoder), without comfort;” we “stand up in the assembly and cry for help....
The Aleph is Not the Alpha
This week, Fr. Paul condemns the Masoretes for stamping vowels on the Hebrew consonantal text, arguing that it served as a method of control over the Bible and its lat...
The Prophetic Command
In this episode, Fr. Paul asserts that the prophetic function, particularly within the clergy, is crucial for dismantling entrenched religious practices and ideologies...
Observe the Faithful Swoon
I am a fortunate man because when I hit my twenties, I was exposed to teachers who refused to give praise or express gratitude. These were people who took their cues f...
The Only One Who Loves
One way or another, people want to control what the teacher says and what the teacher does.They want control.Every relationship, no matter what people tell themselves,...
Power Referential
When you hear someone say, “If we just stick together,” it is always spoken by an individual. In truth, this individual is saying, “If you just stick with me, I will p...
We Are the Evil
There’s a riddle I’ve been working out as a pastor for many years. I’ve accepted the biblical premise that the gospel is not about growing churches or building temples...
Necessity, the Mother of Obligation
In The Republic, the Platonic school discusses the origin of the state and the nature of human justice, implying that necessity drives the creation of human invention....
One of These Things
Things are never what they seem and your eyes can deceive you. Maybe that’s why Sesame Street was so important for so many of us growing up in the seventies.In 1968, J...
Needy Teachers
When you hear a parable on the lips of the Master, the worst thing you can possibly do is try to figure out what the parable means based on your understanding of the b...
If You Love Me
Institution and family (or tribe, or community, or friends, take your pick) are two sides of the same coin. Both mechanisms rely on ancient forms of currency to mainta...
Extrospection
What is self-righteousness? You hear the command of God, and refuse to introspect. You do not, as Paul teaches, “look to yourself.” You look to others. You gossip. You...
Excursus: Freedom in Christ
Father Marc Boulos provides an update on upcoming episodes of “The Bible as Literature Podcast” and makes an important announcement about Father Paul’s podcast series,...
How Could Architecture be Christian?
Years ago, when I worked in the city, I took perverse pleasure in the prophetic absurdity of a small, dilapidated, prewar brownstone jutting out against the pristine, ...
Paul Warned Us
The canon—not the text—of the Septuagint dates back only to the fourth century, to the area of, you guessed it, Alexandria. The canon—not the text—of the Septuagint co...
Origen Was a Monster
Imagine a monster whose primary interest is to embrace philosophy and then power—Roman power, Greco-Roman power, and Greek philosophy, in other words, human power.Orig...
If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Resist
No statement more fully captures the anti-scriptural sadism of colonial solipsism than the American expression, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” Unless, of course, t...
Stop Preaching Your Gods
It gets so old—your universal declarations, your philosophies, your ideologies, your heightened sensibilities, your values, your propaganda, your Kool-Aid. Your gods. ...
You Become What You Accept
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 th...