Found in Translation

The Brandons are back! This season we are going through Matthew's Gospel again – this time, reading it under American authoritarianism, as literature written under authoritarianism, and written against authoritarianism. Get reintroduced to a Jesus whose social imagination was relentlessly critical of the attachments, avarice, and agendas of authoritarianism. This season we're going to do i...

We're back! Brandon and Brandon pop out of their winter hibernation to share how their plans for Season 7 changed after the US election. But will they see their shadows? ... Read LIT online:   www.litbible.net/matthew More about the Liberation & Inclusion Translation:   https://www.litbible.net/translation-commitments Support LIT & FIT:   https://donorbox.org/found-in-translation-1 ......

Paul wasn't only making a passionate theological argument this whole time. It shows up in the nitty-gritty of actual cultural difference: power dynamics, deeply-held customs around food and idols and sex and strangers. And that's how he concludes his letter to the Jesus huddle in Rome. We take this week as an opportunity to reflect on the entire flow of Romans that leads us to his final ar...

Romans has been a forceful ethical argument from the outset: arguing for a life beyond supremacism, exclusion, and domination that is made possible by God in Jesus Christ. A life together of peace. And yet Paul still desires to complete his letter with explicit ethical guidance: how to be a people of this kind of peace. Looming over it all is Rome. What of those who hope in the Pax Romana? Who con...

Translations and interpretations that make entire stretches of Romans incongruous seem to fundamentally be missing something. If your theory can't hold all the data, change the theory, not the data, right? Can the Liberation & Inclusion Translation help us make better sense of Romans 9 through 11? Will it be part of a seamless letter? We believe it must. It must be heard within Paul's...

We can't handle how excited this conversation got us. So many profound shifts come to bear as Paul brings the bulk of his arguments to a crescendo! more time exploring the oppressive legacy of sarx/flesh through a therapeutic lens; the full-hearted rebuke of accusation and judgement in those animated by Life-Breath; "everything collaborates for the benefit of those who love God" is lea...

Reflections on how deviation/sin lives within our bodies, if at all, have been sources of tremendous shame, self-distrust, and sex-negativity for centuries. Are we unable to trust our bodily desires? How do we learn to live with them? Shouldn't cues from our body be helpful, not harmful? And might there be a word-play afoot here that speaks to how our group identities ("my flesh and blood&...

You won't find "The Law" in the LIT Bible because a timeless, pristine moral law floating above and condemning all humanity has nothing to do with the early Christian mindset. What they were much more concerned with was what to do with Torah, the sacred writings of Jesus' own people. Jewish folk outside of their homeland equated reading Torah together to being in the Temple itself!...

Paul uses courtroom imagery throughout Romans. We're on trial, and the Life-Breath is our defense attorney. But who is the prosecutor? Is it God, upholding God's perfect law? Is it Torah? Is it... Jesus? Christ have mercy: too many theologies are built around God being the prosecutor. But... Satan's name is literally The Accuser . And in the wider argument of Romans, who is accusing us...

If our argument is that Romans is an anti-supremacism pastoral letter, not a manual for how to go to heaven, then what is all this business in other translations about "faith vs works?" Protestantism is built on a mountain of sermons about salvation by faith alone – sermons that point to passages like Romans 4 with glee and anti-Catholic smugness. Their whole thing is about Romans being ab...

Another week in Romans, another set of clobber passages to detangle from authoritarian and shame-based theologies. This time, we explore the wider context of that old "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" business. And wouldn't you know it – it's all about celebrating that we're all on a level playing field of God's love, and therefore particularity of divi...

"What determines our belonging" is the central question of Romans. We will always miss the mark if we think Paul's answer is about a cosmic 'LAW.' In truth he's discussing the place of Torah among the Jewish people, and the way that belonging-carrier now lives in the Jew-plus-Gentile community. He's arguing that cultural conformity and deep tradition ultimately excludes...

We are thrilled to be joined by the wise and winsome Micah Belong (they/them) to discuss the LGBTQ+ clobber passage of Romans 1:24-32. It's a spicy conversation that shows how Paul's words are about rape culture and power-reinforcing sexuality as emblematic of humanity's waywardness – NOT a blanket condemnation of same-sex intimacy. Micah hosts The Word in Black and Red , an outstandin...

Welcome to Season 6: Romans! It's time to journey through Paul's legendary letter, where we'll discover that this is a pastoral argument for overcoming ethnic supremacism in the local church. It's got nothing – NOTHING – to do with being saved from a violent authoritarian god's torture through ritual sacrifice. It gets better: even some of the most popular Christian sentiments...

Introducing the name and web presence of Brandon's work: The Liberation and Inclusion Translation of the New Testament, at www.litbible.net. We're thrilled to share this unfolding resource, complete with all of his footnotes in one easy to find place. We'll be back next week with season 6: Romans! Read online:   www.litbible.net/ More about the Liberation & Inclusion Translation:  ...

Hebrews' conclusion weaves together so many of its most potent ideas with an emphasis on the practical and communal. The Brandons take this opportunity to review the total flow of Priscilla's letter, touching on the most consequential translation changes and recapping what she was about. See you in 2024, for season 6: Romans! ... Translation (Google Doc):  https://bit.ly/FIT-Hebrews-GDoc T...

The slightest change in direction can have massively different outcomes. Change the rudder just a little and you end up far from port. This chapter is packed with that level of consequential changes. Understanding that holiness is about pursuing peace with everyone, particularly through the lens of economic justice and non-exploitation, is a watershed distinction that Brandon's translation arg...

One of the more tragic ways we misunderstand the Divine is in projecting our experience of harmful parents onto Them. Creator thus becomes the parent that beats us "out of love", parents us through punishment, and more. It leads to profound attachment insecurity, horrible parenting skills, and tasteless relationships to suffering. Translators have had a hand in this: translating "disci...

Is the Divine really after belief? Were all the saints of the past most remembered for their inner certainty of an invisible realm? That can't be what Priscilla or the other NT authors mean by faith, given the pervasive emphasis on communal solidarity, economic security, and a courageous belonging. In this episode we set our sights on faith vs faithfulness , and the transforming power that shi...

Does God need violence to forgive? Must something die for deviations to be dismissed? Seems like a shitty god that would need violence to be merciful. But thanks to how a certain verse in Hebrews is typically translated, many argue for just that. YUCK. Let's address that head-on and find out that not only is the Divine not shitty like that, but far more on the side of the sacrificed than the s...

All that Brandon Rhodes remembers about Hebrews from seminary was the debates Calvinists and others would have over Hebrews 6 – the whole "once saved, always saved" thing. Boring! This passage is far more revolutionary than that old pissing match. If our sacred story's sense of salvation is Creator inhabiting a community of love and solidarity – not rules and going to heaven – then thi...

Is our liberation collective or individual? According to the author of Priscilla, it is only individual insofar as it helps us reweave into the sacred fabric of God's belonging through liberation. But you wouldn't know it from most translations! The Brandons focus on how she uses language of hostility to understand this, and what role the ancestors have in that collective liberation. ... T...

Ever heard folks casually equate violence with justice? Or suffering and punishment as the necessary response to sin? Or Jesus' crucifixion into an altar to holy bloodshed? Hebrews quickly turns into a minefield of phrases that are typically translated to support retributive and redemptive violence. Who shall deliver us from this body of death, but the Brandons and a whole lot of coffee? ... T...

Priscilla begins the letter by arguing Christ is the tuning fork for how to be liberat ed and liberat ing creatures, and so goes deeper to the core of the cosmos than Messengers (angels). Leveraging Brandon Johnson's translation, we argue this stretch of the letter means all our systems of meaning and belonging and authority are penultimate, that all these things are bound up with the faithful...

Season Five is here! We're thrilled to begin this discussion of Brandon Johnson's translation of Hebrews. It's an esoteric, confusing, and mysterious text – and a bit of a minefield. We'll be cartwheeling through those mines with you, and we're wildly excited to explore its radical nature. For all that atonement language, who would have guessed it has some of the most explicitl...