When we choose an ideological framework, we employ a system of ideas and ideals to bolster our self-styled morality. We want so desperately to have power over others that we create a false reality in which we are always right, always the victim, always justified, and always able to find the culprit. Instead of child abuse at the border, we see criminals getting what they deserve; if a lie suits us, we call it true; if a person challenges us, we argue, on the basis of self-styled ideals, that they are evil. Up is down, black is white, John the Baptist has a demon and Jesus is a drunkard—we say whatever we want based on whatever we believe because we worship our owns thoughts. There’s a word for that in the Bible. It’s called idolatry and the Gospel of Matthew was written to smash it. 

Richard and Fr. Marc discuss the Matthew 11:11-19.

A quick shout out to Fr. Dustin Lyon, a regular listener who suggested that “a reed shaken in the wind” (11:7) from last week’s episode, may refer to a symbol printed on Herodian coins. A point, Fr. Lyon explains, which may enhance our reading of the text. 

Episode 288 Matthew 11:11-19 Subscribe: feedpress.me/the-bible-as-literature; Music from https://filmmusic.io: “Scheming Weasel” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Ideology is Idolatry

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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It gets so old—your universal declarations, your philosophies, your ideologies, your heightened sensibilities, your values, your propaganda, your Kool-Aid.  Your gods.  Hearing Fr. Paul teach, it hit me like a ton of your rubble. When people hear the words of the biblical Prophet, they can’t help but respond by preaching their civilization. It’s an obvious, if not childlike, attempt to assimilate and digest the biblical Prophet—to neutralize the bitter pill.   “How can we make this ours?”  One only needs to visit the British Museum to understand the mechanism.  But Prophets cannot be digested. Like a statue of Dorothy Day or Malcolm X, they cannot be made to fit in. You want them to fit because you fit in. But that’s why you can’t hear Scripture.  So you draw a picture of your city, the god of Reagan, and write the name “Jesus” or “Mary” on it, and then tell stories about your holy wars.  I wish I were talking about fringe extremists, but as we speak, the most evolved, educated, liberal, and enlightened scholars of your civilization conspire to kill Saracens in defense of their gods.  “There is tension,” Fr. Paul explains: “There are insiders that are opposing the message. And I’m convinced that things were worded in this way because the original authors…knew that they were talking against the grain…that’s why they included—in their stories—a preemptive strike against those who would not agree with them, and it is this that is my basis when I critique the Liberal Arts and Reception History.” It’s tempting to call those praying to kill the Saracens “idiots,” but this is a grave error. An extremely intelligent person with an Oxford degree in the humanities is not only capable of conspiring to kill Saracens (in the service of his gods) but has been doing it openly for the past six months.  The word you are looking for is not “idiot” but “monster.” If adding modifiers like “authentic,” “evolved,” or “enlightened” helps, please do so.  It’s your civilization.  (Episode 321)

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Stop Preaching Your Gods

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 said, “on this earth what makes life worth living.” Scripture, Fr. Paul has explained many times, forged a path for living in the ancient world by refusing to accept the glory of Alexander, the Seleucids, and all who came after them by pushing back. Not by working within their system.  Not by playing their game or thinking like them.  Least of all by adopting their language.  With no hope, from under their boot, Scripture came up with biblical Hebrew to force the Greeks to submit to the Scriptural God. They did not study Greek or capitulate to Greek culture in order to convince or get ahead in Greek society and maybe attract a few wealthy people to their secret cult. You’re thinking of the harlots in 1 Corinthians.  Don’t be like the harlots in 1 Corinthians.  You become what you accept. So, reject everything and become nothing, like the biblical prophets.  Trust me.  When you are nothing you have more free time to study Semitic triliterals. The more you know Semitic, the better your chance of hearing God speak. So when in Rome, smile at the Romans, the Greeks (or the freedom-loving ice cream people), politely ignore them and do what Paul says.  (Episode 320)

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You Become What You Accept

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 I? Why would anyone who cares about anything important, meaning Scripture, do something so foolish? I am pretty sure there is a “Stars and Bucks” somewhere in the Middle East (and like any industrious knock-off, I bet they serve Turkish Coffee), but not the local Starbucks.  This week, Fr. Paul even mentions the importance of his Turkish Coffee in the morning (with lots of water) before tackling the authorship of the Hebrew and Septuagint texts.  Of course, his view goes against scholarly consensus.  He also discusses his novel stance on the Book of Sirach, which goes against scholarly consensus.   And his view on the choice of Greek over Latin, which goes against scholarly consensus.
 
And the importance of the Latin Vulgate, which goes against Orthodox consensus, which is not scholarly.  And the function of grammatical gender, which goes against, well, everybody but especially theologians.  Why, my daughter asked me, is the Bible so negative?  The Bible is humorous, I answered. The Bible is ruthless, even cruel. But negative?   I, myself, am a man of optimism.  The many puny human gods, I explained, are like tiny cancerous tumors.  The Bible, on the other hand, is hopeful, like a doctor who prescribes chemotherapy to a person covered with many tumors.  When these puny, toxic little gods are attacked, ridiculed, dismantled, and poisoned by the text of the Bible, the pain is unbearable—but the doctor goes to work against the cancer anyway because he has hope—hope against all hope when there is clearly no hope—that the treatment will bring hope. I call that insane optimism like a Gazan who just lost everything but somehow finds the strength to lift his hands in prayer—like the Olive Tree—which gives thanks only to God.  You do not need a Seminary degree to unpack that puzzle.  (Episode 319)

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Against Consensus

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 us, and ultimately—as Fr. Paul explains—entrapping us, he is not God.  He can’t be.  What kind of god, what monster, would be happy with us? I mean, seriously, people?  Look at us. Do you think it sounds odd that God would say, “Here is a nice tree in the Garden, now don’t eat of it,” when you say to little children:  “We love you. We do not want you to go hungry. So we will send you food, but we will not let you touch it. We will just talk about how much we care because we are not violent like the God of the Old Testament.” May this God, the vengeful and terrible God found only in the text (the one everybody ignores and abuses), the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, mock, shame, confound, judge, terrify, and entrap us without reprieve for the sake of the poor until his Kingdom comes in power. (Episode 318)

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The Bible is Making Fun of You

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 other half are enamored with some goofy Greek nonsense called “philosophical questioning.”  One of them keeps eating ice cream in a stupor.  They insist that the Bible is about building churches, investing in property, planning for the future, defending walls, funding wars, protecting their people, and—above all—trying to prove which tribe held the first theropod roast in prehistoric Palestine, which, at that time, was known as, well, “nothing,” because we probably did not have language yet.  Some of these people are doing DNA tests and then photoshopping pictures of themselves holding a Bible while standing at said therapod roast. Ah, the suffering of Job. But Job was a fool. I mean, look, what did his supposed righteousness get him?  A house in Tel Aviv?  But that’s what you want.  So you host Lenten retreats about the deep spiritual meaning of Job’s suffering and how to be patient like him in anticipation of your colonial therapod roast. Disgusting.  And just to be clear, Elihu, Father Paul explains, is no better.  The structure of Job, the syntax of the canon, and the placement of Psalms all undermine you: all of them de-historicize, de-value, and de-center the human being. So, please.  It does not matter what your DNA test says.  If the result of your DNA test comes back “human being,” that is already way too much information.  May God have mercy upon the therapods.  (Episode 317)

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Ideology is Idolatry

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