The Bible as Literature

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 Prophe...

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 S...

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...

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 Go...

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 c...

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, in fact, have to make a choice. Note my use of the word “fact.” 

So, please, step in front of the bus or return to the safety of your lies. 

That is how this w...

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 my oldest Palestinian cousin Tina said while doing manual labor at St. Elizabeth, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” 

In her honor, let’s make good use of the time because the days are definitely evil. 

Teaching is about conveying facts from t...

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 every chance afforded to share what you received, not from the teacher, but directly from the text. In this vein, Fr. Paul reiterates a point from his most recent presentation in Lebanon, noting the lex...

“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 are fed by the dinner, not by the invitation or its phrasing (Luke 14:16-24; Matthew 22:1-14).”

This study of the Gospel of Luke began with a command that the priest (which has nothing to do ...

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 of gas induced by combustion is a fact.

Just ask a nursing mother. She will tell you. 

A bullet is not a narrative. 

It is a sin.

ḥet-ṭet-aleph

It can be tallied—...

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 old lie, actually, and it was unavoidable that it would reappear. 

Oh, come on, Fr. Marc. You know what they mean.

Unfortunately, no. I do not. I do not speak Plato. I do not know what they “mean.” 

 I do, however, st...

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 takes, according to the instructions given to me.” 

When his tribe heard the instructions, they said, “That’s your choice; we want nothing to do with you.” 

When his friends heard it, they agreed that it was ...

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. 

Who cares? 

Rehear Ecclesiastes: You are nothing new under the sun.

You are not a judge, the judge, or anyone’s judge. 

Look down on yourself as hard as you can while you still can. ...

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 study to “examine,” well, “nothing.” You even give it a fancy Latin name so that none of you look useless when interacting with engineers and medical doctors. You know, p...