All Episodes
One Text and the Beginning of Wisdom
This week, Fr. Paul notes that the commonly used expression “the original text” is misleading since there is only one text, which, in fact, is the original. (Episode 258)
Stand Your Ground
Scripture is clever. When Simeon stands in the temple waiting, he does so at the pleasure of his master. He has no agency, control, or personal expectations, yet he ha...
The Hand of God
This Week, Fr. Paul notes the importance of the hiphil and how English translations of Exodus fall short in rendering its functional meaning. (Episode 257)
Simon or Simeon
Universities, schools, and centers of faith are giving up on knowledge and selling out. What happened this past week at Hamline University indicates a trend in which a...
A Sign is Not a Miracle
This week, Fr. Paul explains that a sign in the Bible is distinct from a miracle and is used to assign a function or meaning to something within the story. (Episode 256)
Opener of the Womb
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...
Your Thirst
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 agreeme...
To Raise the Face
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 pe...
No Issues Please
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 h...
The Lord’s Passover
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 th...
Mashallah
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...
Signs of the Spoil
This week, Fr. Paul notes the mistranslation of the term Passover in English, which refers to the feast of salvation from Egypt. (Episode 251)
The Fallacy of Identity
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 ...
The Green
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)
Dividing the Flock
“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 t...
Sleight of Hand
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)
Anti-History, Anti-Romulus
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 timelin...
The Ten Plagues
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)
Grudge Match
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.” In...
Let My People Go
This week, Fr. Paul explains that the turning of the Nile into blood in Exodus is figurative, denoting destruction. (Episode 247)
Which Spirit?
When biblical interpreters decide on capitalization when translating Greek or Hebrew to a modern language, they impose two layers of subjectivity. First, they impose t...
Listen, Don’t Read
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. (Episod...
Tender Mercies
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 t...
Speak My Word
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 t...
Amnesty and Accountability
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 d...
God From God
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)