The Bible as Literature

By The Ephesus School

Education Religion & Spirituality Christianity

What's The Bible as Literature about?

Each week, Dr. Richard Benton, Fr. Marc Boulos and guests discuss the content of the Bible as literature. On Tuesdays, Fr. Paul Tarazi presents an in-depth analysis of the biblical text in the original languages.

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The Bible as Literature episodes:

04.02.2024
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 the human gods that impose their glory. “We have,” a wise poet once...
03.26.2024
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 buy Starbucks for Fr. Paul before his lectures. Why would...
03.19.2024
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 the Scriptural God is not laughing at us, mocking...
03.12.2024
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 something called the Books of the Kingdoms, which do not appear in the Bible; the...
03.05.2024
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 lie. Unfortunately, you can’t sleep around with your lies and remain faithful to the Master. You do,...
02.27.2024
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 eating ice cream. Second, as...
02.20.2024
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 at every turn, in time and out of time, using...
02.15.2024
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 has no value whatsoever when it comes to the dinner itself; the guests...
02.13.2024
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.” (Episode 313) ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
02.08.2024
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 cylindrical projectile launched from a chamber through the rapid expansion...
02.06.2024
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 is never referred to as the “King of Israel.” This fact,...
02.01.2024
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 using Scripture to “live a good” life. It’s an...
01.30.2024
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, children can hear the text only if you relay its content with...
01.25.2024
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 work, no matter what the cost, no matter how long it...
01.23.2024
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 the Law, which stress “speaking aloud” and “spoken words,” ...
01.18.2024
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, or run it. Psychoanalyze your neighbor or choose wisely not to judge others. ...
01.16.2024
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 rest it does not have when men dwell up on...
01.11.2024
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, well, “nothing.” Then you “build” a philosophy department and “create” an entire field of...
01.09.2024
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 for the widow and the orphan, and, painfully, what the subject of all...
01.04.2024
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 it, it is not the Eucharist—it is a McDonald’s Happy...
01.02.2024
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 cover of their “approach” to the Bible. There is a word for...
12.28.2023
In One of the Days
12.26.2023
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 to the land) they can tap white Anglo-Saxons on the shoulder...
12.21.2023
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 occidental religion and philosophy. When I say the word “Bible,” it is nothing but an...
12.19.2023
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 about what guests can do with their gifts when invited to his table. (305) ...
12.12.2023
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) ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
12.07.2023
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 tendencies of Western Universalism, which wraps its bombs in the values of the Enlightenment—in precisely the same manner...
12.05.2023
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, in order that the hearer of the Hebrew text would be prepared...
11.30.2023
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 Genesis 34 (see Tarazi Tuesdays, Episode 274) emphasizing the rape of Dinah as the...
11.28.2023
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) ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
11.23.2023
Let’s Talk About the Amalekites
In recent weeks, I have stressed the fact that each time you hear biblical Hebrew or see a Semitic triliteral in the Bible, like it or not, you are hearing or seeing a cross of the many Semitic languages extant...
11.21.2023
Justice in the Marketplace
This week Fr. Paul explains that although Molech refers to a specific god, it can refer to any deity that is the owner of its people—a connection lost in the English language, which is unable to render the consonantal functionality...
11.16.2023
Choose a Side!
If you are still trying to figure out what to do with your life, you are the property of Satan. You are trapped. You are caught in a snare because it is not your life. You have already heard the...
11.14.2023
Common Sense
This week, Fr. Paul explains that when your mother puts a sign on the cabinet door that says “no,” she does not need to explain why. No means no. (Episode 300) ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
11.09.2023
Wait for the Lord
“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the justice of all who are oppressed. Speak up and judge righteously; defend the rights of the afflicted and needy.” (Proverbs 31:8-9) “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to...
11.07.2023
You May Not Apply Two Rules
This week, Fr. Paul explains that you may not apply two rules in the land: one for insiders and one for outsiders. (Episode 299) ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
11.02.2023
It Is Neither “Complex” nor “Sensitive”
Thanks be to the Scriptural God who spoke long ago—once and for all time—in the Syrian wilderness, long before the occupying powers of the modern world. Once again, when he spoke, he did not speak English. This point is well...
10.31.2023
Adam Has No Clothes
This week, Fr. Paul explains that in Hebrew, the shame of nakedness is linked to exile, for example, when a soldier is put to shame and flees, stripped of his armor. Notably, the same word, when vocalized differently, can mean...
10.26.2023
We Are All Elohim’s Human Animals
The colonials have sunk so low that it is no longer possible to argue with them, nor is it necessary. All one needs to do is record what they are saying right now on their news programs. As I explain...
10.24.2023
The Blood is the Nephesh
This week, Fr. Paul explains what is impossible for Neoplatonists and Greco-Romans to hear and endorse, let alone submit to. In Leviticus, the nephesh of the flesh—meaning all living things—is its blood and not in the blood. (Episode 297) ...
10.19.2023
In Memory of Fr. Daniel Simon
Whether the soil in the parable of the sower, the earth itself (over which colonials love to impose the illusion of control), the movement of Jesus in Luke (imposed upon by the crowds), or our insistence upon active listening in...
10.17.2023
Yom Kippur
This week, before explaining the centrality of atonement for the people, the high priest, and even the earth, Fr. Paul highlights the Bible’s emphasis that God is the owner of all life, and life itself is linked to blood and...
10.12.2023
MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN
What does it mean to worship power? You imagine there is another question, but your art, politics, theology, television programs, pet social issues, news media, blogs, family squabbles, and even your benign internet posts—especially the ones where you post personal...
10.10.2023
The Cancellation of the Priests
This week, Fr. Paul shows that from the beginning, the text of Leviticus imposes on its addressees that one must not place their trust or their hope in the priests, the priesthood, or the temple. (Episode 295) ★ Support...
10.05.2023
‘abd allah
Reception history is a big fat joke. What? Were you expecting subtlety from a West Sider whose dad grew up in the Egypt of Gamal Abel Nasser? Ok. Let me start over. Reception history is the last breath of a...
10.03.2023
Last Words
On his eightieth birthday, Fr. Paul takes a step back from his regular weekly address to deliver a special farewell message to his students over the years—and all those with ears to hear. The biblical story is a message of...
09.28.2023
The Function Little Crow
The West Side is a haven for immigrant communities arriving in St. Paul, Minnesota. Historically, it has included people of German, Roma, Polish, Swedish, Irish, Jewish (fleeing Russian pogroms), Latin American, Middle Eastern (among them after 1948, Palestinians), and African...
09.26.2023
What is Being Offered
This week, Fr. Paul explains that the book of Leviticus begins with what is being offered in order to belittle the priests, in contrast with our attitude and that of all religions, which begin with the functionary, the human being,...
09.21.2023
The Staff of Levi
The biblical text is epic, expansive, and integrated in specific and articulate ways. After 500 episodes (over 800, if you add in Tarazi Tuesdays), I am convinced that the biblical genre’s complexity is far beyond the reach of contemporary literature...
09.19.2023
The Ecclesia is Moving
This week, Fr. Paul explains the interconnection between the Hebrew term qahal and the Greek ecclesia, from the verb kaleo—to call out—not to be confused with ʿedah, which corresponds to the Greek synagōgē. (Episode 292) ★ Support this podcast...

What's The Bible as Literature about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

The Bible as Literature episodes:

You Become What You Accept

Against Consensus

The Bible is Making Fun of You

A Maskil

Lie to Yourself, Please

Facts Not Narratives

In Time and Out of Time

Scripture is its Own Interpreter

Poor Josiah

Uncle Saleḥ

The Anti-Kingly Stance

I Reject Your Gods

Practical Examples

Respect

The Hebrew Names

We, the Dummies

Give the Land a Break

I Have No Value

He Blesses and He Curses

Your Knowledge is a Sin

You Shall Not Rule

In One of the Days

Ask the Native Americans

Narcissism

Take it Back Home or Leave it Outside

The Jubilee Year

What Was Lost Has Been Found

Listen to the Torah

It All Belongs to God

Meetings Proclaimed by God

Let’s Talk About the Amalekites

Justice in the Marketplace

Choose a Side!

Common Sense

Wait for the Lord

You May Not Apply Two Rules

It Is Neither “Complex” nor “Sensitive”

Adam Has No Clothes

We Are All Elohim’s Human Animals

The Blood is the Nephesh

In Memory of Fr. Daniel Simon

Yom Kippur

MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN

The Cancellation of the Priests

‘abd allah

Last Words

The Function Little Crow

What is Being Offered

The Staff of Levi

The Ecclesia is Moving