All Episodes
Alexander's Seed
This week, Fr. Paul reiterates the importance of hearing Scripture within its historical and sociopolitical context. Beginning with Alexander the Great’s quest for div...
A Stranger and a Sojourner in the Land
What does it take to liberate people from exceptionalism? To liberate a teaching? Such a pernicious snare, that saying of yours, “family first.” It was your fear of l...
The Only Vote That Counts
Elitist intellectuals are drawn to the concept of a psychological trap because others’ suffering entertains them and because their perception of another's supposed tra...
Sola Syntaxis and the Honorable Man
The folly of human construction is similar to that of large language models. Noam Chomsky talks about this in his famous critique of the current state of artificial in...
Canon Disrupted
This week, Fr. Paul underscores how the Septuagint’s different ordering and classification of texts impact our ability to hear the words of God correctly, shifting Chr...
Thorny Trees Are Not for Normie Trees
For all you lost souls, reading books about how to be a better parent; For all you disciples of neoliberalism, believers in the new fascism, the elitist colonialism re...
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...