The Bible as Literature Podcast Por The Ephesus School arte de portada

The Bible as Literature

The Bible as Literature

De: The Ephesus School
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Each week, Fr. Marc Boulos discusses 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.© Copyright The Ephesus School Network, 2013-2024. All rights reserved. Cristianismo Espiritualidad Ministerio y Evangelismo
Episodios
  • Crowd of Thorns

    Crowd of Thorns
    Oct 20 2025
    The thorns in Luke press and threaten. They are the self-referential swarm posing as a flock: the so-called “community” that gathers to its own voice, circling death, mistaking its stench for sweetness, even as it strangles the one bearing the seed.These are the thorns.But the roots are of another kind. They spring up from the seed itself. A daughter of Israel, fruit of the Master’s vine, afflicted for twelve years, who cannot live apart from him. She is not self-referential. She does not reach out to harm, nor to press her point, nor to insist upon herself. Though she is a daughter, she does not presume the right to cross the boundary set by what is sacred. She does not assume she is equal, much less above.The threat that governs this boundary is the same one given to the priest in the wilderness:“The outsider who draws near shall be put to death.” (Numbers 3:10, 38; 17:13).It is the earth of creation itself under his Command. Life and death hinge on reference to him, which becomes submission. Absent reference, submission collapses into the “crowd of thorns”—the ʿedah swarming carrion, the lynch mob, the beloved neo-pagan “community.” The priest stands at the edge of that body: assigned to draw near, yet living under the same threat that borders the sanctuary. For proximity to what is holy is not possession of it. To approach on one’s own terms is to perish; to be drawn near in obedience is to live.Pressure exposes the heart of this law. In Numbers, Balaam’s donkey pressed his foot against the wall because she saw what he could not. The pressure revealed the blindness of the man and the sight of the donkey. In Luke, the crowd presses upon Jesus, but he perceives what they cannot: the deliberate touch of the one who steps forward in faith. The same pressure that blinds the self-referential reveals the one who truly sees.The thorns in Luke do not understand this law. They confuse nearness with ownership and approach with entitlement. Like the outsider who encroaches upon the altar, they rush forward without Command: pressing, consuming, swarming as if circling carrion. Their nearness is self-initiated; therefore, they take life.But the daughter, like the biblical root sprung from the seed of the Sower, is drawn near by the Command. She approaches not to take but to receive. Unlike the thorns, she does not presume to cross the boundary by “right.” She draws near as an offering, not as an invader.Now she stands in the center, and he is her circumference: her shield in the time of strife.Hear, O daughter of Israel: draw near and see.Do not be afraid.The Lord is your Shepherd.This week, I discuss Luke 8:43-45.8:43 And a woman who had suffered from a discharge of blood for twelve years, and could not be healed by anyone, came [προσελθοῦσα / ק-ר-ב (qof-resh-bet)] up behind him and touched [ἥψατο / ק-ר-ב (qof-resh-bet)] the fringe of his cloak, and immediately her discharge of blood stopped. 45 And Jesus said, “Who is the one who touched [ἁψάμενός / ק-ר-ב (qof-resh-bet)] me?” And while they were all denying it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing [ἀποθλίβουσιν / ל-ח-ץ (lamed-ḥet-ṣade)] in on you.”ק-ר-ב (qof-resh-bet) / ق-ر-ب (qāf-rāʾ-bāʾ )ἅπτω (hapto)“So you shall appoint Aaron and his sons that they may keep their priesthood, but the outsider who comes near [הקרב (ha-qareb)] shall be put to death.” (Numbers 3:10)“But those who were to camp before the tabernacle eastward, before the tent of meeting toward the sunrise, were Moses and Aaron and his sons, performing the duties of the sanctuary for the obligation of the sons of Israel; but the outsider who comes near [הקרב (ha-qareb)] shall be put to death.” (Numbers 3:38)“Everyone who comes near [הקרב (ha-qareb)], who comes near [הקרב (ha-qareb)] to the tabernacle of the Lord, must die. Are we to perish completely?” (Numbers 17:13)In Numbers 3:10, 3:38, and 17:13, the Hebrew term הקרב (ha-qareb), from the root ק-ר-ב (qof-resh-bet), “to draw near, approach”, defines the law of approach that governs creation. The warning that “the outsider who draws near shall be put to death” does not protect tribe, identity, or privilege; it names the biblical principle of the open field itself.The sanctuary, like God’s field, is an open expanse, not an enclosure. Yet, his Command governs its openness. Life exists only by reference to his instruction. His Command orders the heavens and the earth.The priest stands at the edge of God’s field, where hearing and obedience hold the ground together. To cross without hearing is to move without reference, to “gather” for God’s judgment; to press, as the thorns do, devouring what cannot be possessed. The danger is not in being outside, but in stepping forward on one’s own terms, mistaking freedom for ownership. Even the appointed priest lives under this ...
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    47 m
  • One is the Only Number

    One is the Only Number
    Oct 2 2025
    The functional path of oneness is not an abstract unity but a lived encounter of utter dependence. Western thought, enslaved by the grammar of the Anglo-Saxons, treats the human as an individual: a self-contained atom, an object unto itself. It imagines freedom as isolation, and isolation as freedom. But this supposed independence becomes sterility: the atomized person, cut off from the Shepherd’s breath, is lost in a sea of thorns, choked by its own irrelevance.True independence lies not in the language of atoms but in the biology of divine anatomies, in the irreducibility of God’s living functions. The Semitic root does not define a solitary “one” but a functional, dependent, and connected one. Every creature is undoubtedly one, yet cannot sustain itself any more than a cell can live apart from the body.As the body cannot live without its head, the tree without the earth withers.The triliteral root—three consonants binding the Tree of Life to the Master who gives it breath—embodies this living unity. Each consonant functions only in relation to the others; none can speak alone. Like branches drawing life through hidden roots, utility flows from dependence on him, not autonomy.In this linguistic body, the Semitic scrolls convey the unity of divine oneness: connection without possession, coherence without control. To be yaḥid is to be fragile, dependent, and open without self-reference: the earthen vessel through which the breath of ha-ʾEḥad flows.Western language, by contrast, breeds an unconscious polytheism of the self. When every person becomes an independent atom, the world fills with gods. Each will asserts its own dominion; each word competes for sovereignty. Polytheism, at its base, is war: the multiplication of possessive wills in endless collision. The Lukan crowd becomes a pantheon of thorns, a battlefield of competing gods. The soil of faith is twisted into a field of confrontation, where the multitude gathers against the Lord and his Christ to suffocate the one who brings the life-giving breath of his instruction.Yet within that suffocating crowd stands the yaḥid, Jairus, whose “only daughter”—his yeḥidah—lies dying. His lineage collapses; his name withers. Yet in this desolation, he does not press or grasp; he kneels before the “one.” There, in the stillness of dependence, the breath returns, and the Shepherd that the cares of this life cannot choke breathes life into the earthen vessel that has ceased to strive.μονογενής (monogenes) / י־ח־ד (yod-ḥet-dalet) / و-ح-د (wāw-ḥāʾ-dāl)One and only; single of its kind; only-born; only, only one, solitary, unique.“She was his only one [יְחִידָה (yeḥidah)]; he had no other son or daughter.” (Judges 11:34 )Here יָחִיד (yaḥid) expresses the fragility of the earthen vessel. In verse 34, the human line rests upon a single, irreplaceable life. Jephthah’s entire legacy depends on his yeḥidah; when she is offered, the limits of family and human continuity are laid bare. The father’s grief, bound to his only daughter, exposes the futility of lineage and the inevitability of dependence on God. The yaḥid becomes the mirror through which the insufficiency of man encounters the sufficiency of God.“Deliver my life from the sword, my only one [יְחִידָתִי (yeḥidati)] from the power of the dog.” (Psalm 22:21) LXX 21David cries from the edge of annihilation. His yeḥidati (“my only one”) refers to his only life (nefeš). He stands surrounded by predators, stripped of every defense, holding nothing but the breath that God alone can sustain. In that setting, ha-yaḥid encounters ha-ʾEḥad; the singular human breath encounters the One God who gives it breath. The weakness of the individual, the threatened “only life”, is the functional context of י־ח־ד (yod-ḥet-dalet) where triliteral replaces human vulnerability with God’s sufficiency.“Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am alone [יָחִיד (yaḥid)] and afflicted.” (Psalm 25:16 ) LXX 24Here, yaḥid is not emotional loneliness but martial isolation: the condition of a soldier or supplicant with no human ally, no support, no constituency. The psalmist is cut off from every network of defense; he stands as the yaḥid before ha-ʾEḥad. His solitude is not inward melancholy but strategic exposure. He is a man encircled and undone, left with no strength but God’s. In that position, the oneness of God supplants the weakness of the individual, and dependence itself becomes the ground of divine action.“Rescue my life from their ravages, my only one [יְחִידָתִי (yeḥidati)] from the lions.” (Psalm 35:17) LXX 34The psalmist again names his life (nefeš) his yeḥidah: his one, irreplaceable self surrounded by devouring forces. This cry is not heroic but helpless; the yaḥid has no shield, no strength, no tribe. He stands as the fragile earthen vessel awaiting rescue from...
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    48 m
  • Unsettled Settlement

    Unsettled Settlement
    Sep 18 2025
    The obsession of Western spirituality with forgiveness—therapeutic forgiveness—is an obsession with the self. With control. With the usurpation of God’s throne by human power. It domesticates God, it drags wisdom into abstraction, it ties it down, it entangles it in comfort for the self, and multiplies suffering for others.But Scripture cuts the knot. Forgiveness from the cross is not therapy. It is release. Its root, ἀφίημι (aphiemi), to let go, to remit, to release, shatters settlement. It refuses possession. It suspends judgment.To release guilt through forgiveness. Nūḥ (نُوح) preaches divine مغفرة (maghfira), a release, a remission, the undoing of claim. The Gospels speak the same: ἀφίημι (aphiemi). And on the cross, Jesus says: “Father, ἄφες (aphes) them” (Luke 23:34). Not to soothe himself. Not to achieve “closure.” But to relinquish claim and leave unsettled judgment in God’s self-sufficient hand.Forgiveness here is no possession. It is gentle rain: falling, renewing, moving on. It cannot be held by the hand of man. It cannot be domesticated. It unsettles the settlement itself. It leaves all things provisionally in the hand of God.“Who is a God like you, who pardons wrongdoing and passes over a rebellious act of the remnant of his possession? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in mercy.” (Micah 7:18)This week, I discuss Luke 8:51.“When he came to the house, he did not allow [οὐκ εἴασεν, ouk eiasen] anyone to enter with him, except Peter, John, and James, and the girl’s father and mother.” (8:51)‎ἀφίημι (aphiemi) / נ־ו־ח (nun-waw-ḥet) / ن-و-ح (nūn-wāw-ḥāʾ)The root נ־ו־ח (nun-waw-ḥet) in Hebrew, ἀφίημι (aphiemi) in Greek, and ن-و-ح (nūn-wāw-ḥāʾ) in Arabic share a core function: to rest, to let be, to release. But in the Bible and Qurʾan, this rest is always provisional: never possession, never settlement.Settle, Remain“The man, the lord of the land, said to us, ‘By this I will know that you are honest men: leave [נוּחוּ (nuḥu)] one of your brothers with me and take grain for the famine of your households, and go.’” (Genesis 42:33)To settle or remain as a pledge. Here, נ־ו־ח (nun-waw-ḥet) functions as “leave behind.” One brother must stay behind while the others travel. The act of settling is temporary, an enforced pause, not ownership.“So the Lord allowed those nations to remain [וַיַּנַּח (wayyannaḥ)], not driving them out quickly; and he did not hand them over to Joshua.” (Judges 2:23)To let stay means to permit settlement. Here, נ־ו־ח (nun-waw-ḥet) signifies God’s intentional suspension of conquest. The nations remain unsettled alongside Israel in the land. It is a pause in divine judgment that disallows human presumption.Transient Rest, Repose“Then Samson said to the boy who was holding his hand, ‘Let me feel the pillars on which the house rests [הַנִּיחֵנִי (hanniḥeni)], so that I may lean against them.’” (Judges 16:26)To rest or relax physically. Here, נ־ו־ח (nun-waw-ḥet) signifies bodily relief. Samson leans for support. Rest is not a possession but a temporary dependence.“From men with your hand, Lord, from men of the world, whose portion is in this life. You fill their belly with your treasure; they are satisfied with children, and leave [הִנִּיחוּ (hinniḥu)] their abundance to their infants.” (Psalm 17:14; 16:14 LXX)To rest in satisfaction and to leave behind. Here, נ־ו־ח (nun-waw-ḥet) functions as the fullness of life’s portion as rest represented in inheritance. Yet, this rest is transient: what remains passes to children, never held permanently.Leave Behind, Let Go, Abandon“So I hated all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun, for I must leave [אַנִּיחֶנּוּ (ʾanniḥennu)] it to the man who will come after me.” (Ecclesiastes 2:18)To leave or give up as an inheritance for someone else. Here, נ־ו־ח (nun-waw-ḥet) indicates relinquishment. What one works for cannot be held permanently but must be released.“In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not let your hand rest [תַּנַּח (tannaḥ)]; for you do not know whether morning or evening sowing will succeed, or whether both of them alike will be good.” (Ecclesiastes 11:6)To wait, but not passively. Here, נ־ו־ח (nun-waw-ḥet) acts under pressure: not to stop but to stay active in anticipation without assurance or any sense of control over the outcome. Rest here is paused in darkness, waiting without certainty.Abandon / Let Be“And he said, ‘Let him alone [הַנִּיחוּ (hanniḥu)]; let no one disturb his bones.’ So they left his bones undisturbed, with the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria.” (2 Kings 23:18)To abandon in peace, to let be. Here, נ־ו־ח (nun-waw-ḥet) functions as non-interference. Even in...
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    55 m
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