No statement more fully captures the anti-scriptural sadism of colonial solipsism than the American expression, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” 

Unless, of course, the “em” is a shepherd standing at the midbar, reciting the written command of the Scriptural, inexistent, invisible, unseen, indomitable God who has no egregious, obscene, man-made statue or temple. By all means, join him, if you can. 

In 1932, according to the Yale Book of Quotations (yes, the same Yale that arrested Jewish kids this week for following the Shepherd), the Atlantic (yes, the famous liberal magazine that once, long ago, fought to protect Jewish kids) cited that ungodly saying (which is a much older saying) as uttered by a U.S. Senator. Once the Atlantic and then Yale published it, it became a colonial reference—just before many terrible things took place under its spell. 

That senator would have loved Philo or Josephus Flavius. The latter lived in Palestine and fought against the Romans but later decided, “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” 

“There was a tension,” Fr. Paul thunders,  “Between the originators of scripture and some of their followers.”

“There was an intellectual fight.”

Fr. Paul continues, “This took place in Alexandria. Remember, Philo was in Alexandria.  And that’s the head of the Asp, as we say in Arabic.  It’s Alexandria, which was the intellectual capital of the Roman Empire.”

Against Alexandria, the Shepherd cries: If you can’t beat ‘em, submit to God! 

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the Highest! 

Bring more evils upon them, O Lord. Bring more evils upon those who are glorious upon the earth.

Arise, O God, judge the earth, for to thee belong all the nations. 

Blessed Pascha to all peoples. Peace in the Middle East. 

(Episode 322)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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 works. 

Go ahead—I insist—lie to yourself. It’s better for you. Enjoy your environmentally safe lifestyle. Don’t forget to vote. 

There you go. See? You are a good person. Your hands are clean. God bless you. 

You should be a guest on “The View.” 

Notice, I said god bless you. I did not mention the text. I was talking about your god, not the God of Scripture.  

Anyone who can’t see the true face of their idolatry or who tries to apologize for it or the idolatry of this age in any way is morally bankrupt.

It’s true. I’m not lying. 

The West is having its moment—it’s painful to watch and definitely long deserved, but the pain, at least for now, is located in the weakest part of the body. 

But you cannot dull the pain of facts with the stupor of your idols forever. 

MENE, MENE, TEQEL, UPHARSIN

Your narratives certainly feel good. Family is dear to you, and personal relationships mean everything to you. You take courage in speaking truth to power and in the freedom to disagree, to be different—that’s the American way, Fr. Marc. 

What a great story. You should work for Disney. 

Thanks be to the Scriptural God: the Bible is not your story. Let alone a story.

It’s a text with consonants totally foreign to your colonial brain, laid out in a particular order, in a language concocted from the many Semitic languages of the many peoples you still number among your enemies, you fool.

It’s funny how you love all your idols, your religion, your atheism, family, friends, institutions, and your “democratic values,” but you still somehow manage to hate the same enemies you were commanded to love. 

As Fr. Paul used to say in the classroom, God is merciful, but I am not God. 

You would do well to forgo your stupid ideals and, instead, study Arabic alongside biblical Hebrew. Then you will see with your eyes and hear with your ears what the Scriptural God said in his original Semitic syntax, sparing both you and the poor the tyranny of your self-serving flotillas.

Allahu Akbar. 

(Episode 316)

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 the text, not your ideas about the text, let alone your institutional narratives. 

On a personal level, you want to talk about “narrative” or “narrative context” because you want to give yourself importance. On an institutional level, if you take just five minutes to stop gossiping about or psychoanalyzing each other, you’ll discover that your obsession with “narrative” is all about the Benjamins.  

You fund the Tower of Babel; thus, it is utterly disgusting. “And that,” Fr. Paul explains this week, “is the price we are paying in so-called Judeo-Christianism.”

Just watch Tik-Tok, Habibi. 

Thankfully, the God of Scripture is not mocked in his syntax. 

What is written cannot be undone—for those who have ears. The canonical syntax of the original, consonantal Hebrew text is a fact unless you want to go back and dream about your facts while sleeping with the New York Times. 

Sleep well. Make-believe stories—even the scary ones—are for children. 

Lexicography, on the other hand, is the transmission of facts. Facts are common and accessible to all—they stare back at you from the page—just like canonical syntax. 

As Fr. Paul has said for decades, Biblical-Semitic consonants are situated on the scroll, like the organs of your body. No NATO narratives are required. 

So before launching into the exciting developments I mentioned last week, Fr. Paul will spend some time explaining, once and for all, why the syntax of the Hebrew canon—and not the Septuagint—is our canonical reference for word study in the Biblical text. 

(Episode 315)

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 lexicographical significance of the word Qur’an for Christians, which is functional with the Hebrew triliteral *qof-resh-alef.* (Episode 314)

“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 with the institutional priesthood in any of our churches, let alone historical Judaism) become silent. 

I have heard Fr. Paul teach this for as long as I can remember and have taken it literally and seriously. 

But how does one teach and preach without speaking?

At first, by simply accepting one’s hypocrisy, which most cannot. 

Or perhaps they can but then find themselves shocked that a wanton hypocrite like myself remains unmoved and zealous in my preaching.

I was sitting on the steps outside St. Elizabeth this past summer, and an older woman walked by with a sweatshirt that read, “West Side Against Everybody.” 

“Keep the faith, Padre,” she said.

“Always,” I replied.   

So how does a hypocrite, as younger colleagues put it, “Let the text speak?”

The answer is not a big stupid group hug. 

If that’s what you want, stick with CNN. Your educated, inclusive, culturally sensitive group hug is now on full display in Gaza.

It, too, is a hypocrite—it even has eyes—but it can’t see—it is totally blind to its own hypocrisy. 

Honest to God, it really believes that planting a rainbow flag in northern Gaza will liberate the oppressed. 

“Blind as a bat,” your expression goes. 

So, I have a suggestion. If you want to understand how your sensitive, relationship-driven, evolved culture works in 2024, watch “Killers of the Flower Moon.” The spirit of William King Hale is alive and well in the United States. He sits on your school boards and still holds government office. He has “dear” friends in Gaza for whom he cares “dearly.” His nephew even married “one.” He speaks Arabic fluently, and he really understands “them.” 

I’ll tell you what I understand. 

If you want to understand Paul, open your ears:  

“For each one will bear his own load.” (Galatians 6:5) 

Teaching is not about speaking, let alone learning; it is about carrying your weight. 

People do not learn; they are taught, meaning a teacher has to pick up a shovel and do work with their own hands. 

The answer is not one’s ideas, knowledge, opinions, input, or explanations, let alone hermeneutics or theology. 

(May God protect us from the blasphemous seduction of reception history, in which the Academy, once and for all, is working harder than ever to replace the Scriptural God with its own ego.)

Our duty is word study and lexicography: grammar and functionality in the text of the Bible.

The role of the preacher is not to give a disciple something to hear but to equip a disciple so that they can hear the text on their own dime.

It is embarrassing that Western scholarship treats *re’shit *and *ro’š* as different words. Far worse, however, is the fact that so many Eastern clergy who grew up hearing the liturgy in Arabic—even if they themselves do not speak Arabic—fall into the same trap. 

This is not about identity. People of all colors, genders, religions, and identities are fully on board with the military-industrial hate parade in Washington and London. Still, Scripture is not against them. It is against you. 

And that’s the point. 

When are *you* going to do something?

Didn’t you hear what she said? 

“I’m so scared. Please come. Please call someone to come and take me.”  

“OK, Habbibti, I will come and take you.”

But no one came except God. He always comes through, especially when you don’t. 

He took them all. 

“He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” 

This week’s episode is an excursus on the term Amalek. (Episode 520)

After ten years of programming, The Bible as Literature Podcast will take a sabbatical, starting mid-February and extending until after Pascha in May, following the Eastern calendar. 

This sabbatical will provide an opportunity for me to concentrate on Fr. Paul’s work and some exciting developments planned for his weekly podcast. Rest assured, while The Bible as Literature is on temporary hiatus, I will continue to produce Fr. Paul’s program, “Tarazi Tuesdays,” on a weekly basis. 

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)