Just read my books.
His standing reply, after every lecture.
The V. Rev. Dr. Paul Nadim Tarazi بولس نديم ترزي
Professor of Old Testament, emeritus
Eighty-three years old, fifty years a priest, twenty-seven books. Born in Jaffa, formed by exile, teaching Scripture since 1970.
His eighty-third birthday, and fifty years a priest the day after.
He will give a keynote in St. Paul, MN, the last public lecture of a long life of teaching and writing. After that, only the reminder: just read my books.
Decoding Genesis 1–11
OCABS Press · 2020
An argument that the authority of Scripture stands over all theology — pressed through the semantic nuance of the consonantal Hebrew text, and unafraid to be provocative about venerated translations and traditions.
Having read his book, the reader feels one great spiritual need: learn scriptural Hebrew.
A treasure trove even for seasoned Bible readers. Reading it is like reading over the scribe's shoulder “In the beginning”.
The Rise of Scripture
OCABS Press · 2017 · print and audio
How the Bible as we have it arose as Scripture. Setting aside speculation over Israelite textual and ethnic origins, Tarazi hears the biblical text as a manifesto of cultural resistance against hellenistic urban hegemony — written in a concocted language, and issuing in the most scathing collective self-examination in human history.
Tarazi articulates both Testaments into a unique synthesis. His mastery of the languages and culture of the biblical worlds forces the reader to reconsider the obvious.
Scripture as a mashal, a parable, rather than a historical account — provocative in the good sense, and consciously Semitic.
From Bedouin shepherd societies to concocted language theories, an Oriental approach explained to Western readers as never done before.
The third son of Jamal and Widad Tarazi. The Tarazi clan is from Gaza, but Nadim was born in Jaffa, in 1943. When war broke out in 1948 his father moved the family to Cairo, and a year later to Beirut, where he grew up. Had they stayed in Jaffa there would have been no Fr. Paul — only Nadim. Jaffa and the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem held nothing that would have set him on the path of Scripture. It took exile and displacement.
Out of high school he entered medical studies at the Jesuit University in Beirut. Five years into a seven-year course he quit — to his parents' considerable dismay — and turned to Scripture. In 1965, with the blessing of the Antiochian Patriarchate and the generosity of the Romanian Patriarchate, he was sent to Bucharest, where he took his Th.D. in New Testament in 1975.
He began teaching at Balamand in 1970, aged twenty-seven. The Lebanese civil war broke out in April 1975, and by 1976 Balamand had closed. Metropolitan Philip and Fr. Alexander Schmemann wanted him at St Vladimir's, and in 1977 he began what became a lifelong teaching career in the United States — punctuated by summers back in Lebanon, still teaching. Twenty-seven books followed, most of them commentaries on the biblical text.
He was ordained to the priesthood in 1976 and served parishes in Connecticut and New York. He gave his last seminary lecture in 2014; those within driving distance came, and stayed for a meal afterward. He now lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Articles in JOCABS — Paul, the One Apostle of the One Gospel (2009); David and the Psalter (2010); St. John Chrysostom: Exegesis for Preaching and Teaching (2011); Paul's Letter to the Churches of Galatia (2016); The Gospel of Matthew within the New Testament Canon (2016).
Essays in books — The Eastern Orthodox Christians in the Middle East, in Kirchen im Kontext unterschiedlicher Kulturen (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991); Jerusalem in Christian Orthodox Perspectives, in Jerusalem: Key to Peace in the Middle East (1987); three essays in God's Living Word (Holy Cross Press, 1983).
Selected articles — The Book on Jeremiah and the Pentateuchal Torah (2006); Pursuing the Mind of Christ: Lessons on Vocation from the Old Testament (2006); Chrysostom on Isaiah: A Paradigm for Hearing Scripture (2006); Israel and the Nations, according to Zechariah 14, SVTQ 38 (1994); The Parish in the New Testament, SVTQ 36 (1992); An Exegesis of Psalm 93, SVTQ 35 (1991); The Addressees and the Purpose of Galatians, SVTQ 33 (1989); Du Baptême, Contacts 39 (1987); Covenant, Land and City: Finding God's Will in Palestine, The Reformed Journal 29 (1979); Witnessing the Dynamics of Salvation, SVTQ 22 (1978).
Papers — Hermeneutical Shifts vis-à-vis Palestine in the 20th Century, Romans 9–11 (Bethlehem, 2009); Paul, the One Apostle of the One Gospel (Tantur, Jerusalem, 2009); The Promised Land: The Old Testament Perspective (WCC, Bern, 2008); Exegesis for Preaching and Teaching (Bucharest, 2006); Deuteronomy as a “Reprise” of Gen 1–2 (Melbourne, 2004); and others.
Presentations — Keynotes and seminars for the Serbian Orthodox Church in North and South America, the Antiochian and Greek archdioceses, the Armenian Prelacy, and parishes across the United States, Canada, Lebanon, Syria, and Finland, on Genesis, Job, Psalms, Romans, Galatians, Revelation, the Lord's Prayer, and the Eucharist.
A weekly appearance on The Bible as Literature, working through biblical texts in depth.
Ephesus School NetworkThe first series of its kind: the entire Bible, verse by verse, tracing poetic and literary connections from the original languages.
OCABS Press