Bible Study: Parody and Subversion in Matthew's Gospel

Send us Fan Mail We finally come to the halfway point in the story, where it takes a turn toward Jerusalem. Geography in this story is not always exact, in fact the author takes literary license with the geographical facts, but it is always pregnant with meaning.

Send us Fan Mail What gets lost in translation, and why does it get lost? In this interview, we talk with Dr. James Fehr who is doing work on translating New Testament texts in a way that wrestles with the fact that these texts are from a completely different time and culture and that our modern translations have been translated by people with privilege who don't want to offend those in power...

Send us Fan Mail Jesus and his disciples travel north where a dead king is worshiped. Peter is declared to be the bedrock of the "church". . . or is he?

Send us Fan Mail How do you resist oppression? Is nationalism ever right? Can a group be nationalist while at the same time collaborating with the imperial oppressor? Can a movement draw deep from it's own national heritage but still be transnational? Those are the questions that today's episode wrestles with through this second passage of Matthew 16.

Send us Fan Mail The Pharisees and Sadducees join forces to challenge Jesus, but Jesus isn't interested in their credential system.

Send us Fan Mail The encounter with the Canaanite Woman in the last episode broke open a whole new frontier for the movement. The movement for a new society can now include all people.

Send us Fan Mail The story gives us a surprise twist. Is Jesus showing his humanity, or is he a really clever teacher?

Send us Fan Mail When an oppressed people express their desires for liberation, they often do it by demonstrating zeal for their national culture and traditions. But oppressed people are often divided into factions, each accusing the other of not being sufficiently dedicated to the cause, not demonstrating sufficient zeal for the national traditions. That is what we see playing out in the first pa...

Send us Fan Mail This second sea crossing recalls both Israel's seminal story of liberation and the boastful thoughts of a Seleucid emperor.

Send us Fan Mail The rich and the powerful party at the expense of the poor, but the common poor can create their own new society of abundance for all!

Send us Fan Mail This is a long episode, but a very important one. In this episode, I make clear something that I have been saying throughout the series, that Jesus, as portrayed in Matthew, is opposed to the power of Temples and Priests (all of them, not just in Israel).  This episode contains longer musical interludes (to break it up and give listeners time to absorb the concepts), all composed...

Send us Fan Mail This episode concludes a chapter in which Jesus speaks in riddles, revealing the hidden things, the wonderful secrets of the new society. Again, nothing is as it seems. Jesus attempts a great scribal reversal, making the peasants scribes, and leaving the scribal class on the outside, lacking understanding. This reversal is rejected...but wait...nothing is as it seems.

Send us Fan Mail The movement for the New Society is sneaky and spreads through the unwashed masses.

Send us Fan Mail Jesus starts talking in riddles to hide the wonderful secrets of the new society from those who would destroy it, but the wise will understand. This episode and the next two regular episodes, numbers 33 and 34, explore the parables discourse of chapter 13 (which begins at the end of chapter 12). Through this discourse, Jesus trains his disciples to be scribe of the New Society.

Send us Fan Mail (Edited version) In this special episode, I interview Dr. Sebastien Doane, Professor of Biblical Studies at Laval University, in Quebec City, and author of Zombies, Unicorns, Cannibals; Strange Tales from the Bible (published by Paulist Press).  We revisit episodes 1 (The Genealogy) and 4 (The Magi) of this podcast series in the light of Dr. Doane's work. Dr Doane reads the G...

Send us Fan Mail Ever wonder what that parable of the 7 demons is about?

Send us Fan Mail Jesus diagnoses the problem of demon possession differently than his upper class opponents. He finds the root cause of the problem not in the demon-possessed individual but in the situation of oppression. Special Music by Murry Hammond whose music can be found here .

Send us Fan Mail Jesus defeats the elite wisdom men of the old society in public debate.

Send us Fan Mail Jesus is the broker of God's wisdom to the people, a wisdom for a new society that is not oppressive.

Send us Fan Mail Ever wonder about that parable about the children playing games in the marketplace? I unpack that one in this episode.

Send us Fan Mail Just a clarifying thought that I had after I published the last episode...

Send us Fan Mail Matthew has been showing how Jesus and his movement fulfill the visions of the prophets. In chapter 11, the fulfillment theme gets stated so forcefully that it becomes evident that Jesus does not merely fulfill the visions of the prophets but reinterprets them. This reinterpretation is part of a larger program of reinterpreting the world in a way that will change it for all who pa...

Send us Fan Mail Jesus says that secrets will be revealed. Listen to this episode to learn what those secrets are!

Send us Fan Mail What does Jesus mean when he says that his disciples will not finish their mission of going through the towns of Israel "before the Son of Man comes"? Listen to this episode to find out.

Send us Fan Mail Jesus sends out an army of healers to retake Israel from those who have stolen it.