We take for granted that Christianity is well established. Indeed, it's the most popular religion in the world. But a close look at what we know about the historical Jesus and the aftermath of his death reveals that outcome was far from obvious. This week, Grant Reeher speaks with renowned biblical scholar Elaine Pagels, whose most recent book is "Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus."

Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is the renowned biblical scholar and writer Elaine Pagels. She's a religion professor at Princeton University, and among her many recognitions and awards are a MacArthur fellowship, a National Humanities Medal, and the National Book Award. She's here with me today to discuss her newest book. It's titled "Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus." Professor Pagels, welcome to the program. It’s a thrill to have you on.

Elaine Pagels: Thank you. I'm very glad to be here.

GR: Well, we really appreciate you making the time. So let me just start with this question. It's a little bit quirky, but I wanted to start with it. What's the most important thing about the written material that forms the Gospels? Either the four gospels that make up the first four books of the New Testament, or any of the others that you write about in this book, and others that most people today don't know or most people today don't sufficiently appreciate.

EP: That's a hard question. What is the most important thing? Somehow, the power of the person who was Jesus of Nazareth comes through this material, even though it's got all kinds of miracle stories, it's got all kinds of things that sound very unlikely. It's remarkable that that sense of somebody who lived 2,000 years ago is vivid to people all over the world and often in many different ways. I think that's astonishing, actually.

GR: Yeah, yeah. No, it really is when you sit back and think about it. And one of the things I loved about this book as I was reading it is you do that all the way through. You sort of take a step back and remind the reader of the big picture. One of the things that I wanted to ask related to that is, and you write about this in the book, the historical context in which all of these gospels were being written. You talk about that being important to understanding parts of their content. Just tell us briefly about what was going on when the Gospels were being written.

EP: Well, when I was growing up and was taken sometimes to a sort of nice Methodist church, I saw pictures of Jesus with children on his lap and flowers around. And it was all very pastoral and all very nice. It looked very much like California, right? What we don't remember is that Judea, land of Israel, is between—always has been between—enormous empires. And at that time, it was also under siege by Rome. The Romans had been allies of the Jews, and then they were so powerful that they just dominated the whole country. And whenever anyone tried to start a revolution against the oppression of Roman power in Judea, they were brutally murdered. There were forests of people who were crucified as Jesus was on the charge of insurrection, as he was. And so it's about war. And the death of Jesus certainly reflects the context of war, because he was accused of starting a revolution against Rome. That was the charge. And the birth of Jesus probably shows that too. But it's not that pastoral, lovely scene so much. It's a very ancient part of the world that has been lived in for so many years. And there's enormous amount of warfare that's going on.

GR: Yeah. And I was struck by something that you pointed out, that the writers of the Gospels were writing at a time when they were worried about their own lives. And so that is a lens through which we can interpret some of the decisions they made about the kinds of stories they told or didn't tell. And I think that's an important point of understanding it. I wanted to shift a bit and sort of ask you a question you probably get asked more frequently, which is, you've spent so much time with us thinking about this. You must by this time have a picture in your head of what Jesus was like as a person, his personality, what he was like to be around. You said that it comes through in the Gospels. I'd be very curious to hear your own impression of that.

EP: Well, that's a good question. As I mentioned in the book, there's not one word about what he looked like. So you've got all kinds of portraits. That's why I put paintings and photographs in the book of totally different views of what he looked like. I have the sense of a powerful, charismatic, remarkable person with quick changes of moods. And what else? Then it becomes a kind of mosaic of different views of somebody who can be compassionate and welcoming to people who are in need, somebody can be harsh to people in authority. Contemplative, maybe foolhardy in some ways. But there are so many different interpretations that when I think of a mosaic, for 2,000 years people have been making pictures either visually or psychologically or religiously of who Jesus was. So I'm sure I'm affected by all of those different portraits.

GR: You mentioned that he could be harsh and again, a personality that varied. One of the things that I was struck by being a neophyte in all this, when I first began reading about this topic of the historical Jesus several years ago, was the fact that he wasn't always nice to his own family. And I'd be curious to hear you talk about that and if you think it means anything for the message of the Gospels.

EP: Well, the first thing we know is that the family wasn't very nice to him. That is, the earliest gospel written is the "Gospel of Mark," is just 17 pages and the others are both "Mark" expanded, "Matthew" and "Luke." And what "Mark" says is that when he went to his hometown, people didn't believe that he was a prophet or a preacher, or had any right to talk like he was, or to try to heal people by divine power. They just thought, who is this guy? We know his mother. We know his brothers. There are four of them, and we know his sisters. Who does he think he is? And he said nobody believed in him. His family went out to stop him when he was speaking in public. And it says because they thought he was out of his mind, which is something you don't expect to see. Translators kind of avoid that. That's the Greek, but they make it a little better in English. And they also are very—several of the gospels say his brothers didn't believe in him. So the picture there is of a disrupted family, a mother. And the strangest part of it for me is that they called him—who is this guy? He's the son of Mary. Now, you don't call a Jewish boy son of Mary if he has a recognized father, because it's always a patronymic. But they called him Son of Mary, and they speak of his maybe seven siblings. And so, when the others come up with stories about virgin birth, you begin to wonder what's going on.

GR: Yeah. Yeah. Right. No, you speculate about that in the book. Yeah.

EP: And critics always said that he was the son of a woman who was rather disreputable and probably illegitimate. And that's the reason that Matthew and Luke make up biblical stories for a birth story that probably wasn't historically true.

GR: Interesting. I'm Grant Reeher, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations, and my guest is the biblical scholar and writer Elaine Pagels. She's published a new book. It's titled "Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus." So, I'm a political scientist, so of course I'm going to ask you this question about his leadership style. Can you say a bit more about how you'd characterize him as a leader of other people?

EP: Well, I'd be interested if you would comment on that, because I didn't really focus on it much. He was obviously somebody who drew people to him in a very powerful way. And it seemed they would do anything for this man. They would go to the death for him. And that's quite remarkable. How he did that? He didn't have any natural authority as far as we know. He was brought up in a family that was not remarkable. He perhaps wasn't educated in the way we think of it, although he would have learned the scriptures by heart the way Jewish boys did, the way Muslim boys learned the Koran and boys in India learned the Indian scriptures. But somehow, he had great power to compel people to believe that the end of time was coming, that all the hopes of Israel were coming to a great climax, and the world was about to be transformed.

GR: Yeah. I was thinking as I was reading, I thought, which president has the leadership style that I feel like I'm getting here, and I couldn't come up with any. And the irony was the most religious president, genuinely, knowledgeably religious president we've probably had, arguably Jimmy Carter, at least in the modern age. Certainly, other presidents knew their scripture, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Garfield. But obviously, there's very little similarity in those leadership styles. So it is perplexing. One of the things that you marvel at and you've already spoken to it earlier in our conversation is, but I want to draw you out a little bit more is how and why this movement of early Christianity, with all the challenges that it faced, including t...

Elaine Pagels on the Campbell Conversations