You Become What You Accept

Every immigrant, every minority, and every colonized person living under a human boot faces the same dilemma: how to live without imitating or accepting the ways of th...

Against Consensus

There is nothing like a cup of Turkish Coffee. That’s not an opinion. It’s an observation of fact. The local Starbucks does not serve Turkish Coffee.That’s why I never...

The Bible is Making Fun of You

The Bible, Fr. Paul explains, is a holy joke. That’s a big relief. Even hopeful. Looking around, I see that the current state of affairs is an unholy joke.Truly, if th...

A Maskil

Code Pink! Code Pink!People are running around with blinders on! It appears they’ve been reading English translations of the Septuagint!Half keep referring to somethin...

Lie to Yourself, Please

Scripture unmasks your illusions. Religion, family, friends, ideas, institutions, nations, individuals, “isms” of every school—all your human ideals and beliefs are a ...

Facts Not Narratives

This week, a few listeners reached out to wish me well on my sabbatical or to ask what I plan to do with my free time. First, please be assured that I will not be eati...

In Time and Out of Time

This week, Fr. Paul refers to the Apostle Paul’s letter to Timothy, noting a disciple’s duty to take every single opportunity at every moment to channel the content of...

Scripture is its Own Interpreter

“Scripture,” Fr. Paul wrote years ago, “is its own interpreter.”“The sermon,” he continued,“…is at best an invitation to hear and obey the text.”“An invitation card ha...

Poor Josiah

This week, Fr. Paul notes the function of the two versions of the Ten Commandments in Exodus and Numbers and the futility of the so-called “Deuteronomic Reform.” (Epis...

Uncle Saleḥ

In view of current events, I am convinced that people who continue to insist upon the language of post-modernism are guilty of murder. A bullet is not a narrative. A c...

The Anti-Kingly Stance

This week, Fr. Paul highlights several key features—not only of the Book of Numbers—but also of the Pentateuch. Most notably, he points out that in all five books, God...

I Reject Your Gods

With all the silly memes floating around the internet about how to “live” your best life or how to live a “good” life, it was inevitable that people would talk about u...

Practical Examples

For years, Fr. Paul has stressed that the only way to teach Scripture is by giving practical examples. Scripture is practical knowledge. From an early age, he explains...

Respect

A prophet gathered people to do difficult, painful, and dangerous work, which was to be carried out according to specific instructions.He said, “I am going to do this ...

The Hebrew Names

This week, Fr. Paul moves from his discussion of Leviticus to the book of Numbers, but not before a brief excursus to unpack the original Hebrew names of the books of ...

We, the Dummies

Speak, be silent, have your discourse, hold your discourse, mansplain, or be ever so polite and attentive. Gossip, hold your tongue, roll it around seven times seventy...

Give the Land a Break

This week, Fr. Paul explains that God learned his lesson in Leviticus, where the land is not cursed, as it was in Genesis, but granted rest to enjoy its sabbaths—a res...

I Have No Value

Ah, the occidental trap. The neurosis. The spiral of death. Dante’s hell. An eternal maze of nonsensical self-preoccupation. “What is my value?” Which boils down to, w...

He Blesses and He Curses

This week, by the simple act of reading the text of Leviticus 26 aloud, Fr. Paul demonstrates the extreme poverty of Judeo-Christianism, its frailty, what this means f...

Your Knowledge is a Sin

Occidental scholarship is a fraud. It comes with its own knowledge, the way a guest comes to a potluck meal with his own communion bread. By definition, if you bring i...

You Shall Not Rule

This week, Fr. Paul highlights the folly of all modern hearers of the Bible, who, through their theologies, divest and disrobe themselves of the “fear” of God under co...

In One of the Days

Ask the Native Americans

This week, Fr. Paul calls to mind an example from his latest book, where he invites Native Americans to hear Scripture in the original language so that (with respect t...

Narcissism

Everything we treasure must be dismantled in our minds. Even the phrase “Bible Study” has been exploited, contorted, twisted, and distorted into a micro-narrative of o...

Take it Back Home or Leave it Outside

This week, Fr. Paul gives an example—one of his famous asides—an anecdote shared in class about a student’s old-school Greek uncle and his unsettling biblical attitude...

The Jubilee Year

This week, Fr. Paul reminds us that according to Scripture, anything we take with our hands is what someone else hands us.   (Episode 304)

What Was Lost Has Been Found

You are probably waiting for me to move on from these painful monologues about ignorance, cultural chauvinism, settler colonialism, and the ultra-nationalistic tendenc...

Listen to the Torah

This week, Fr. Paul explains that the Hebrew text underscores the fact that the Lord deb-ber unto Moses in order that Moses would deb-berunto the children of Israel, i...

It All Belongs to God

Some time ago, on his Tuesday program, Fr. Paul observed how Western scholars, whom I now refer to with little affection as “Western Universalists,” often misread Gene...

Meetings Proclaimed by God

This week, Fr. Paul notes that the one who reads Scripture reads aloud so that all would hear God speak directly.  (Episode 302)