The Bible as Literature

Lies are comfortable. We lie to soothe feelings. To make agendas appealing, to sell things. We find lies so attractive that we bend our terminology to accommodate them. Instead of analyzing information, we discuss “narratives.” Instead of taking responsibility for our actions and their outcomes, we rush to share our stories and our vision. “The visionary,” Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “lies to himse...

This week Fr. Paul begins his discussion of Exodus 13. (Episode 255) ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Suppose you ask an American what's wrong with the culture and have enough patience to wade through people's anger and cheap sound bites. You'll find surprising agreement across all ideological boundaries: something is broken. Even those hell-bent on defending American exceptionalism will eventually contradict themselves and blame someone for why things are not as great as they should be. People fe...

This week, Fr. Paul explains from Biblical Hebrew the technical link between a full prostration and the immutable requirement that a judge adjudicates a case, not a person. (Episode 254) ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

This week, Fr. Paul explains that seven is the age of wisdom. (Episode 253) ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

During the Christmas season, when we use the expression “peace on earth,” we reduce it to a platitude, an absurd, utopian ideal where one day everyone will magically hold hands and get along—and then we congratulate ourselves for endorsing our correct view of how the world should work. We do this all the time with all our pet political issues. In doing so, we find ourselves, not on the side of God...

In today’s program, Fr. Paul explains the technical scriptural understanding of the assembly as being something to which the people are called, not a place at which they decide to gather. (Episode 252) ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

The Arabic expression *mashallah* which means "what God wills" or "what God desires has happened," may be the best chance English speakers have at unlocking the spirit of Luke's use of the Greek term, *eudokia*. The latter also pertains to the completion of God's will, what God desires by fiat, and his good pleasure in the biblical story, in opposition to the will of Caesar. Richard and Fr. Marc d...

This week, Fr. Paul notes the mistranslation of the term Passover in English, which refers to the feast of salvation from Egypt. (Episode 251) ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

A thousand years before the birth of Greek philosophy, the forbears of the biblical authors inhabited a world in which the families of the earth coexisted in the land with different languages and cultures. In the story of Luke, as with the rest of the Bible, the author’s focus is not on identity, but locality, the place where you are found.  Using the lens of language, food, skin color, beliefs, m...

What is Fr. Paul’s thing? Sometimes a thing is not a thing, especially when there is no thing in Hebrew, just a green.  (Episode 250) ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

“Each tree,” Luke will soon explain, “is known by its own fruit.” (Luke 6:44) When Gabriel speaks the command of God, a prophet is born of Elizabeth to “turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God.” (Luke 1:16) Likewise, at Gabriel’s command, the Messiah is conceived in Mary’s womb, to “reign over the house of Jacob forever.” (Luke 1:33)  The words of God bear good fruit, ushering i...

This week, Fr. Paul notes a clever “sleight of hand” employed by the author in the use of Moses’ staff in Exodus 9:23. (Episode 249) ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

When a character from Roman history appears in Luke, the worst thing any of us could ever do is go back to accounts of Roman history to try to piece together a timeline or historical framework against which we read the gospel text. On the contrary, when a familiar character appears, you can be sure Luke is using the character's backstory to turn Roman history on its head. Was the character well kn...

This week, Fr. Paul notes the significance of the term blood in the symbolism of the ten plagues in the story of Exodus. (Episode 248) ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

At the beginning of Luke 2, the author sets up an artificial parallel between the Lukan “things accomplished among us” and Caesar’s “decree that a census be taken.” Insofar as both attempts at setting the record straight take place under the authorship of the evangelist himself, far from an account of Roman history, the census set forth by Augustus is part of Luke’s clever anti-history of the Roma...

This week, Fr. Paul explains that the turning of the Nile into blood in Exodus is figurative, denoting destruction. (Episode 247)  ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

When biblical interpreters decide on capitalization when translating Greek or Hebrew to a modern language, they impose two layers of subjectivity. First, they impose their assumption about a word’s elevated or discounted importance, shutting readers out of the text and preventing them from hearing the author’s voice. Second, they create a distinction between words that does not exist in the origin...

This week, Fr. Paul observes that the best audience for the book of Exodus is made up of children, because they appreciate and are able to follow a good story. (Episode 246) ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

What do you get when you combine a cloud service provider outage,  one co-host recovering from illness, and the other recording from a parked car somewhere with only two bars on a mobile device? Not only a perfect setting for a discussion of tender mercies in Luke 1, but an excellent commercial for a return to shepherd life—not just for our sake, but as Zacharias proclaims with the sunrise, for th...

This week, Fr. Paul explains the irresistibility of the Scriptural God, who executes his will despite the stand of Pharaoh, unlike the other gods, who disappear with the crumbling of their statues. (Episode 245) ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

In the Gospel of Luke, the news of the forgiveness of sins is the knowledge that John the Baptist was born and commissioned to share with absolute urgency. It is the declaration of the King, meant to be circulated as widely as possible for anyone willing to listen. The news of this forgiveness, contained within the teaching of Scripture, is a spectacular victory in the ears of those it reaches. St...

This week, Fr. Paul reminds us, once again, that unless you hear the original consonantal text, you are hearing not Scripture but your own narrative. (Episode 244) ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Throughout the story of Scripture, it is the Lord who delivers his people from their enemies. This deliverance is not about victory in the conventional sense, where one group of human beings claims victory against another. On the contrary, it is God, in his unparalleled position of strength, who puts down all sides, leaving everyone, under the pressure of his might, free from conflict with each ot...

This week Fr. Paul explains that even if God understands your language he will only answer you in the Biblical Hebrew he wrote. (Episode 243) ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★