What is self-righteousness?

You hear the command of God, and refuse to introspect. You do not, as Paul teaches, “look to yourself.”

You look to others.

You gossip. You nitpick. You complain. You find fault. You do everything under the sun but consider the one thing that is needful in God’s eyes:

The most likely possibility.

That you, oh man (or woman)—I mean, let’s be generous—oh bipedal humanoid earth mammal—you, and nobody else but you, are the problem.

But you do not consider this. You do not introspect. So when the voice of the Lord touches your heart, you “extrospect.”

You observe and consider the external world and external things.

What a lovely capitalist you make.

You are the perfect fit for judging others, for giving your opinion: for shopping, and critiquing what people do, how they talk, how they conduct their affairs, even how they look.

Extrospection is just another word for playing God—playing Judge.

To borrow and bend a line from Captain America:
“There’s only one God, ma’am, and I’m pretty sure he is not you.”

Introspection, the extrospective theologian boasts, leads to prayer and fasting. Why? Because the extrospect worships the very control they seek through extrospection.

So prayer, for the extrospect, is not submission. It’s AIPAC money.
Fasting, for the extrospect, is not weakness. It’s a corporate PAC.

I have bad news kids. God the Father is not for sale. Jesus is not Bernie Sanders.

You’re not trying to fit into the system. And make things work.

The good news is, he will not sell you out. The bad news is, he cannot be bought.

This week, I’ll explore the Hebrew and Arabic functions that ground Luke’s use of the term deēseis in Luke 5:33.

Passage:

Οἱ δὲ εἶπαν πρὸς αὐτόν· Οἱ μαθηταὶ Ἰωάννου νηστεύουσιν πυκνὰ καὶ δεήσεις ποιοῦνται, ὁμοίως καὶ οἱ τῶν Φαρισαίων, οἱ δὲ σοὶ ἐσθίουσιν καὶ πίνουσιν. (Luke 5:33)

And they said to him, “The disciples of John often fast and offer prayers, the disciples of the Pharisees also do the same, but yours eat and drink.” (Luke 5:33)

Father Marc discusses Luke 5:33 (Episode 523)

Father Marc Boulos provides an update on upcoming episodes of “The Bible as Literature Podcast” and makes an important announcement about Father Paul’s podcast series, “Tarazi Tuesdays.”

He also shares that he is relaunching “The Bible as Literature Podcast,” emphasizing functionality and language, steering away from theology and narrative. He discusses the importance of understanding sacred texts through the study of grammar and the original languages, especially Hebrew and Arabic, and how this approach submits to the text of Scripture, facilitating table fellowship.

Article mentioned in the program:

Celebrating the Jewish Grammarians of Al-Andalus

By Blaise Webster

“Lately, much of my study has been dedicated to Hebrew and Arabic lexicography. I am fascinated by the close relationship between these two languages and how they create natural links between the Bible and the Qur’an. I am fascinated by how both texts use virtually the same vocabulary, share the same cultural milieu, and fundamentally share the same exhortation to submit to the one God and to serve the needy neighbor. It is a world that eschews divisive theologies and speculative philosophizing.”

Link: https://medium.com/@webproductions28/celebrating-the-jewish-grammarians-of-al-andalus-34fc4597443e

Father Marc discusses the triliteral ʿ-ṣ-b. (Episode 522)

Years ago, when I worked in the city, I took perverse pleasure in the prophetic absurdity of a small, dilapidated, prewar brownstone jutting out against the pristine, monied plaza of the Towers, built as money does, to cover the ugliness of human sin with the vanity of majesty and looks.

It was an ugly, filthy box, with fire escapes and all. I used to look to see if I could find an old Greek woman running a clothesline to hang dirty underwear out to dry for all the wealthy brokers to see—people who made their living funding all the genocides the Western media has long since perfected hiding from us—but I could never find that underwear.

Alas, the brownstone is gone, but the underwear is finally on display.

That church was not built by Greek sailors. It was camped in. It was an old brownstone that people prayed in. It was a tent of meeting and it was a threat to the city elite—to people who worship money.

It was ugly on the outside and beautiful on the inside.

“I remember in Romania we had a class on Christian architecture.”

“ How,” Fr. Paul asks, “could architecture be Christian?”

How, indeed?

“I mean, the dome is Roman, Greco-Roman, it’s not Christian.”

“The Orthodox like to speak about the dome, heaven descending upon earth. In the West, in Europe, they like much more the spires, you know, going up to God.”

“Ultimately, you start theologizing the stone.”

You know, stones. Rubble. The stuff left over after clergy bless bombs with holy water or politicians scribble little hearts with love notes like “finish them.”

That’s what happens when you start theologizing stones.

I prefer praying in prewar brownstones or whatever is available—free of charge, with a charge.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

(Episode 325)

The canon—not the text—of the Septuagint dates back only to the fourth century, to the area of, you guessed it, Alexandria.

The canon—not the text—of the Septuagint comes from sources like Codex Alexandrinus, Sinaiticus, and Vaticanus.

The canon—not the text—because the Septuagint text, Fr. Paul explains, was rendered by the original authors (or their followers), who, unlike Philo and Origen, were committed to teaching Scripture, not using it for their own gain.

We pretend that political violence is shocking or surprising. However, early Christian leaders, Fr. Paul continues, influenced by Platonic philosophy, behaved exactly like Herod and the Sadducees.

Like politicians.

They behaved like Netanyahu. But long before Netanyahu, there were others.

Men like Emperor Justinian did their genocidal work quickly, by hand. They did not take seven months and did not require advanced technology.

Influenced by Platonic thought, these same men loved the idea of a “divine spark” in each person.

And why not?

If you want to be a god, what better way than to embrace a vast intellectual, literary, religious, and cultural tradition that leads to the undue adulation of human beings and then use that library to undermine the biblical teaching and distort the Christian message?

Western values, anyone? Or perhaps an ice cream cone will suffice.

(Episode 324)

Imagine a monster whose primary interest is to embrace philosophy and then power—Roman power, Greco-Roman power, and Greek philosophy, in other words, human power.

Origen.

You know what he loved.

The ugliest, most vile, sinister, and self-serving sin, zealously and passionately preached by everyone I know.

The worship of state, ethnicity, family, religion, but especially philosophy—for example, your blood-soaked liberal values—embedded in your “Greekdom.”

Profoundly and inexorably disgusting.

Likewise, the human clan, the family, the irredeemable evil character that the gospel itself presents as the arch-enemy of Jesus Christ.

Peter: Equally revolting and unworthy of God.

Origen, who learned Hebrew, not to teach Scripture but to increase his importance in order to undermine the Rabbis.

Alexandria: Self-involved academics and money-grubbing politicians. A marriage made in Hell. Don’t believe me? Ask your kids.

“All you need,” Fr. Paul thunders, “is to read Galatians 2 fifteen times in a row.”

As if.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

(Episode 323)

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)