“Now great multitudes went with Him. And He turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it— lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish’? Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace. So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple. “Salt is good; but if the salt has lost its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for the land nor for the dunghill, but men throw it out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!””

(Luke 14:25-35 NKJV)

A guest lecture and followup discussion with an adult English fellowship at an Eritrean Orthodox parish in London. We discuss the meaning of love according to the Gospel of John Chapter 21 verses 15-19.

Under the auspices of His Beatitude Archbishop Mark of the Pacific Northwest archdiocese of the EOTC, during the bi-annual feast day of St. Gabriel the Archangel, I share a word of life from the Scroll of Daniel.

I read aloud Chapters 6 & 7 of the Acts of the Apostles to my new community in the Pacific Northwest's seat of the archbishop, in honor of the annual feast of St. Stephen landing on a Sunday, which it only does once every seven years. His name stephanos means crown in Biblical Greek. I came across this studying 1 Peter 5:4 (which speaks of the doxa stephanos; glorious crown that the archshepherd Jesus Christ will grant to those religious leaders that please him) in the MOUNCE Reverse Interlinear New Testament. This is how someone like me who cannot read the Greek alphabet can still capture the beauty of the original. To him be the doxa (glory) unto eons of eons.

Blaise Webster of Tell Me The Story, another production of the Ephesus School Network, joins me to talk: Old Greek, Arabic(s), and Biblical (Consonantal) Hebrew.

Joshua Alfaro is a Septuagint (Old Greek translation(s) of the Hebrew Bible and their daughter translations Ge'ez, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian) scholar and student focusing on the Scroll of Esther. He recently attended the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) annual conference, where he watched and heard the Ethiopic (Classical and Modern) sessions. Hear what he has to say, about what they said.

"The Scroll of Esther stands corrupted by various translators. Which (scroll) I, lifting up from the archives of the Hebrews, have translated more accurately word for word. The common edition drags the book by knotted ropes of words hither and yon, adding to it things which may have been said or heard at any time. This is as is usual with instruction by schools, when a subject has been taken up, to figure out from the words which someone could have used, which one either suffered injury, or which one caused injury (to the text).

And you, O Paula and Eustochium, since you have both studied to enter the libraries of the Hebrews and also have approved of the battles of the interpreters, holding the Hebrew Book of Esther, look through each word of our translation, so you may be able to understand me also to augmented nothing by adding, but rather with faithful witness to have translated, just as it is found in the Hebrew, the Hebrew history into the Latin language. We are not affected by the praises of men, nor are we afraid of (their) slanders. For to be pleasing to God we do not inwardly fear those caring for the money of men, "for God has scattered the bones of those desiring to be pleasing to men" (Ps 52.6), and according to the Apostle, those like this are "not able to be servants of Christ" (Gal 1.10)."
-St. Jerome

Deacon Alem serves the EOTC in the Washington D.C. Metro area through the liturgy and the ministry of the word. His day job is in aerospace engineering, but on the side he studies scripture, and completed his M.A. in Theological Studies from Agora University. Transforming his thesis into a book for popular consumption, here is a slightly condensed conversation we had about, The Letter That Kills: Variant Readings of Genesis 37:3 in the Andmta Corpus. It is a review of the current English literature available regarding the Aksumite School of Biblical Exegesis, and his own insights to what we can glean from this tradition of studying scripture.

For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen. (Romans 11:36 KJV)