The Bible as Literature

Latest Episodes:

You May Not Apply Two Rules Nov 07, 2023

Show notes

This week, Fr. Paul explains that you may not apply two rules in the land: one for insiders and one for outsiders. (Episode 299)

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It Is Neither “Complex” nor “Sensitive” Nov 02, 2023

Show notes

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 “to prick, sting, incite, and goad” those who are glorious upon the earth. To be fair, at the time he spoke, no one spoke English, so technically, he was not making fun of English. English didn’t matter to him. Nor did French or German. Now, that is a fact, and facts are useful.

At that time, the same God taught our forefathers, who were not faithful, that the matter at hand—his dabar—is not complex. We need only hear and follow his voice. Following his voice is not a sensitive matter because, in his story of the generations of the heavens and the earth, the human being is of less importance to him than the fish in the sea. More than that, in all the wonder of God’s creation, the human being is only a small insignificant part.

“There is a deep sentiment in the Middle East and [among] Arabs,” Bassem Yousef explained recently, “that the West [does] not look at us as equal[s].”

Yousef asked Chat GPT a simple question:

“Do Israelis deserve to be free?”

The machine replied, “Yes.”

He then rephrased the question, “Do Palestinians deserve to be free?”

The machine, created by human hands, a theology of human artistry fashioned after the image of English-speaking settler colonials, replied:

“It’s complex.”

Beloved in Christ, it is neither complex nor sensitive. For those who hear the voice of the Shepherd—the voice of one crying out in the wilderness—the answer to both questions is simple and straightforward:

The answer is NO.

No one “deserves” to be free because all of us treat each other like shit. There is only one God. He alone is our King, our provider, and the possessor of the land.

“See now that I, I am he, and there is no god besides me; It is I who put to death and I who give life. I have wounded, and it is I who heal, and there is no one who can deliver from my hand.” (Deuteronomy 32:39)
“For there is none like you, [O God] nor is there any God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears.” (2 Samuel 7:22; 1 Chronicles 17:20)

To God be the victory. In the God of Scripture, I place all my hope against hope for the sake of the poor.

Because, like you, Bassem, my dad came here from Egypt. I know that look in your eyes when you are trying to reason with stupid. I recognize the frustration that will eventually turn into dismay and, God forbid, pain. Believe me, brother, no matter how much sense you make or how hard you argue logically and intelligently for peace, it ain’t gonna work.

Pierce and his ilk are for war, and they don’t even see it.

Richard and I discuss Luke 5:2-3. (Episode 506)

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Adam Has No Clothes Oct 31, 2023

Show notes

This week, Fr. Paul explains that in Hebrew, the shame of nakedness is linked to exile, for example, when a soldier is put to shame and flees, stripped of his armor. Notably, the same word, when vocalized differently, can mean crafty. Sounds crafty, indeed. (Episode 298)

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We Are All Elohim’s Human Animals Oct 26, 2023

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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 for social organization.” They invent new ways of labeling people. It’s propaganda. A rebranded form of self-divinization. Neoplatonism. Theosis in disguise. Whether you label me or you label yourself or program your children to label themselves, you are nothing more than what is found in your mother’s womb. You are from the ground. You are a land mammal from a colonial society whose language is not found in Scripture. Any word you add to me or to yourself that is not found in the text (never mind that you are also bound to use that word according to its use in the text) is under condemnation.

You imagine it is harmless to make words up in your post-modern fantasy island until an entire colonial civilization lifts itself up in 2023 to perpetuate the last ghetto of World War II—with your tax dollars. Post-modernism is the new theology of atheists, a self-manifested complexity, human artistry projected as a smoke screen of self-importance and imposed by the West as violence, authoritarianism, and censorship.

Or maybe the Germans should ban a public meeting to discuss peace in the Middle East. Tell me, does censorship make the pain go away? Are your sins forgiven? How many more of Elohim’s earth mammals have to die?

Maybe that's why the proponents of reception history want to keep the Canon open—so that they can find new Christs to crucify.

In the brightly shining light of the Torah’s wrath, the problem is your colonial map. You have no right to draw one. The land and everything in it belongs to Yahweh, our Elohim.

“Whether Greek conquerors or modern Americans, community builders depend on philosophical identity because the nature of their colonial project is to overrun and control locality. Philosophical identity is the cause of all man-made suffering.” (Dark Sayings, p. 25)

Please stop telling me who you are, who we are, or who they are. As Paul says, you are nothing. You are dust. We are all God’s animals, but the human being, uniquely, is less than this. He is dust from dust scattered to the four winds, only to break bread with the gentile dogs in Hebron. That is a technical comment, not hyperbole. Read Scripture.

“Under the Ottoman Empire, you could travel from Cairo to Istanbul to Baghdad without a Visa. It's just one complicated Community. If you were a Greek in Beirut you had the Greek community where you run your affairs, but you get along fine with the other communities next door. Well, is that possible? I think so. In fact, I think we should aim to go beyond bi-nationalism. We should erode the borders in the Middle East that were imposed by British and French imperialism for their own interests. They had nothing to do with the interests of the people there. They break up people who are of the same communities in ugly, vicious ways.” (Noam Chomsky, University of California, Riverside, May 22, 2023)

Maybe that’s why, in Genesis, God prefers the fish in the sea over the land mammals. Even now, with all our might, it is practically impossible for man to control or impose colonial borders at sea.

That’s why Jesus, in Luke, likes to preach there.

Richard and I discuss Luke 5:2-3. (Episode 505)

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The Blood is the Nephesh Oct 24, 2023

Show notes

This week, Fr. Paul explains what is impossible for Neoplatonists and Greco-Romans to hear and endorse, let alone submit to. In Leviticus, the nephesh of the flesh—meaning all living things—is its blood and not in the blood. (Episode 297)

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In Memory of Fr. Daniel Simon Oct 19, 2023

Show notes

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 are something when we are nothing, but we go to great lengths to prove we are something, even if it means driving poor people off a cliff into a genocidal war that will result in nothing except more war.

Do you think there is a difference between your views about whatever it is you think about whatever you say because when you speak, you are for peace, but then whatever you say, you are for war?

I have news for you. It is not good news. It is not bad news. It is just news, plain and simple. Your premise, whoever you are, whatever it is, more than ignorant, is invalid.

Yes, you are wrong. How can you say that, Fr. Marc? Because I read the Bible, and I know exactly what I am. Do you know exactly what you are?

Don’t interrupt. Oh wait, I’m a text. You have no control over me or my premise, which is not your premise. All you can do is ignore me or ridicule me, but you can’t shut me up because I am written. From my perspective, you are nothing more than a pair of ears—and if you have ears, you have no choice but to hear. Which means you are under judgment:

“The priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the Lord. When Jeremiah finished speaking all that the Lord had commanded him to speak to all the people, the priests and the prophets and all the people seized him, saying, “You must die!”(Jeremiah 26:7–8)

Yep. The thing is, it’s not rocket science. Whether we are talking about Eastern Europe or the Middle East—stop defending your land because it does not belong to you.

We have one Father in the heavens, and his Kingdom rules over all. We human beings (all of us) are his children together with the animals, the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, and the vegetation.

Many in the media have referred to some of us as “human animals.” We are all God's creatures, his animals, the families of the earth—those of us who know what we are sit in a circle each day, holding hands, sharing everything. To paraphrase John Lennon, I hope one day everyone will join us.

Each time you defend yourself, you attack Jeremiah and throw him in the stocks. Brothers and sisters, the God of Scripture does not abandon his prophets. There will be a reckoning.

I know for a fact you can hear me. Whether or not you listen is your problem.

This week’s episode is in loving memory of Fr. Daniel Simon, who was assistant and then head pastor in the refugee church of my youth. Like the towns and villages its founders left behind, this church is erased from the historical record but not forgotten. Likewise, Fr. Daniel’s commitment to the gospel is committed to God’s eternal memory for the sake of the generation yet to come. So we keep our hand to the plow with Fr. Daniel, as commanded by the Lord, who said:

“No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:62)

Richard and I discuss Luke 5:1. (Episode 504)

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Yom Kippur Oct 17, 2023

Show notes

This week, before explaining the centrality of atonement for the people, the high priest, and even the earth, Fr. Paul highlights the Bible’s emphasis that God is the owner of all life, and life itself is linked to blood and the seed. (Episode 296)

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MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN Oct 12, 2023

Show notes

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 work, how much you or they suffered, how terrible that tragedy is, how barbaric they are—you are wielding your power. So the wheels of this power, which look like the current state of affairs in the world, keep on turnin’.

Against you and me, the only teaching that systematically undermines the stench of your power rises in power out of the biblical text.

The only valid response to war and violence is the teaching of the Cross. The West loves to preach about this when other people suffer under their boot. By other, I mean those “whom you do not see.” (1 John 4:20) But when those whom you do see suffer an unbearable trauma, you see them only because you see yourself in them. You see people who look like you. Brothers and sisters, this is not empathy. It is idolatry—of the worst kind.

The prophet David said: “They have eyes, but they cannot see!” (Psalm 115:5-6)

To have empathy is not to assert power or to take revenge. It is to feel broken with those who have been broken—and if you are a follower of Jesus, which, de facto, we are not, is to be broken with them.

You cannot be sad about human suffering and call for more suffering with lust in your eyes. Friends, wake up. Something is wrong. We are on the wrong path.

I won’t catalog the lengthy litany of injustices we have committed against the little children of those “whom you do not see.” Nor will I capitulate to the premise of the Western media, which—universally—celebrates any violence that legitimizes its colonial premise, which is an affront to God.

My reference is the Scriptural God. Him alone do I serve. He is against me, against you, and against them too. I’ll take him as my master any day over anyone.

Before you open your mouth to argue with me, look up and take a look around. How are Western individualism, solipsism, and market worship turning out for everyone?

Be honest. How are things turning out?

Richard and I discuss Luke 4:42-44. (Episode 503)

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The Cancellation of the Priests Oct 10, 2023

Show notes

This week, Fr. Paul shows that from the beginning, the text of Leviticus imposes on its addressees that one must not place their trust or their hope in the priests, the priesthood, or the temple. (Episode 295)

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‘abd allah Oct 05, 2023

Show notes

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 framework of self-importance that was already headed to the dustbin of history the moment Aristotle penned his first memo to Alexander, whom the small decided to call great, because, well, every fool imagines they are better than their parents.

Look how that turned out.

I am not a big deal. You are not a big deal. Moreover, our modern civilization is not a big deal. It is not a factor, cannot be factored in, and is not within the purview of Scripture.

I hate to scandalize all the self-loving postmodernists out there pontificating about the intersection between their ego and the text, but the Bible was written before you, existed and still exists without you and your personal narrative, and when humanity is long gone, could easily be read by space aliens, and, who knows, some other form of intelligence—and probably will be. You and I are not needed—and any meaning we supposedly “create” or try to add to it is not from Scripture and, therefore, has nothing to with the God of Scripture. So all this talk about your history, which is about you and your reception of it, is worse than vain talk. It is blasphemy. You are taking something irrelevant—something that is not a subject matter, and using it to supplant the God of Scripture as the premise of Scripture.

To all who hear these words, be it known to you, we are not interested in worshiping you, your gods, your narratives, or your empty human histories.

According to Paul, Psalm 78, and the Biblical story itself, your ancestors are evil. So why are you talking about them or how they received the Bible? We know why. Because, ultimately, you want to talk about yourself. But your ancestors clearly had no clue, which is why, as Paul thundered, “God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.”

“These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the ends of the ages have come. So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you do not fall! No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to the human race. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry.” (1 Corinthian 10:11-14)

Richard and I discuss Luke 4:40-41. (Episode 502)

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