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Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman
Demons, Ghosts, and Satan; What the Bible Says About Things That Go Bump in the Night
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- [00:00]
Dr. Travis Proctor
Cuando el reyes God incendio forestales alto cada segundo cuentar por eso en Pacific power implementamos ajustes de seguridad que interrumpen la limentacion de segundos cuandos. Pacific power punto net barra Wildfire Demons
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Megan Lewis
and ghosts have specific, sometimes ambiguous places in the modern imagination. Demons tempt people to wickedness, but their incredible power can be harnessed by someone brave or stupid enough to bargain with them. Ghosts envy the living and can haunt and harm you, but can also be the comforting presence of a long dead loved one. What role, though, did demons and ghosts take in early Christianity? And are those roles linked at all to our modern understandings of them? When you get right down to it, just who is Satan and is God's adversary really a fallen angel? Dr. Travis Proctor joins me today to talk about all of this and so much more. Welcome to Ms. Quoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman. The only show where a six time New York Times best selling author and world renowned Bible scholar uncovers the many fascinating little known facts about the New Testament, the historical Jesus and the rise of Christianity. I'm your host, Megan Lewis. Let's begin. Hello everybody and welcome back to the Misquoting Jesus Podcast. Today I am joined by Dr. Travis Proctor, Associate professor of Religion at Wittenberg University. Dr. Proctor received his MA and PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and specializes in the religions of the ancient Mediterranean with a focus on histories of Christian cultures in the ancient world. His research draws on perspectives from cultural studies, gender studies, and the environmental humanities to demonstrate how the histories of religious cultures have continuing significance for societies today. His work has appeared in academic journals such as the Journal of Early Christian Studies, Harvard Theological Review, Studies in Late Antiquity, and the Journal of Ecclesiastical History. His recently published book, Demonic Bodies and the Dark Ecologies of Early Christian Culture explores how early Christian theorizations of demonic bodies influenced ancient understandings of cosmic ecosystems and how such historical perspectives may inform contemporary environmental ethics. Dr. Proctor, thank you so much for joining me today.
- [02:41]
Dr. Travis Proctor
Yeah, Megan, thanks so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to our conversation.
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Megan Lewis
Oh, it's going to be fun. This is, this is a really good one. Now, as I said in my introduction, we're going to be talking about ghosts and demons in the Bible. Now, each of these words conjures up a very specific image. I think for most people, modern Western imagination being the thing, it is probably a horned red devil for demons and a human shaped incorporeal figure for ghosts. Would these images have been recognized by early Christians?
- [03:09]
Dr. Travis Proctor
I think at times, yes. You know, some of the foundational images we have of demons and even some ideas we have of ghosts show up in the Bible. So the idea that there are evil spirits that are looking to haunt humans or harm them, the idea that they might have a leader that's trying to, you know, lead them in some kind of rebellion against God or something like that, we find those ideas and even ideas of, you know, deceased spirits, of humans who continue to haunt the living in some way. We find those ideas certainly in the ancient world and they show up sometimes in biblical text. But I think what's important to note is that they oftentimes don't show up in kind of the fully fleshed out way that we might expect them. And so that idea of like a red skinned horned devil, we don't quite have that description of say, demons in the New Testament. They're certainly possessing people and doing all kinds of evil things, but we really don't have any physical descriptions of them in those, those earliest texts. And so it takes quite a while for later, you know, Jewish and Christian artists to start depicting them in certain ways that then later on influences the way we imagine them today. So a big thing that the class is going to do is think about how some of our foundational ideas about demons, Satan, ghosts, even fallen angels certainly go back 2000, sometimes even more years. But then some of those ideas are rather recent and show up, you know, after the Bible or maybe they developed kind of within biblical cultures and they show up in, in various ways within different biblical texts. And so that's certainly something the, the class is going to explore.
- [04:35]
Megan Lewis
Okay. And for those who are interested, yes, we are, we are going to be announcing Dr. Proctor's class later in this episode. So if demons, ghosts is the kind of thing that you're interested in, listen through the episode and then get the full details at the end. I did want to ask a follow up question about the demons that we see in the New Testament, because my imperfect recollection is that Jesus casts demons out of pigs at one point. Do we ever see them being present with physical bodies or are they mainly understood as these kind of spiritual entities that can inhabit other people's bodies?
- [05:13]
Dr. Travis Proctor
Yeah, great question. Mostly we see them especially in the New Testament as kind of possessing entities and that, that stretches back even before the New Testament. Ancient. Some other ancient Jewish writings have ideas of evil spirits take kind of taking control of, of bodies and that's the main way they show up Although we have some hints that demons can are, you know, existing of course, outside of those bodies. You know, Luke at one point mentions demons going off to his deserted place, for example. But we don't really have physical descriptions of how they, how they look. At least within biblical text we do have some ideas. You know, some ancient Greco Roman writers will mention demons sometimes and they'll have maybe like a smoky or dark appearance and sometimes rather kind of animalistic. So again, we don't, we don't really see that show up in biblical texts, but there are ideas elsewhere that the demons might show up and they might look, they might have these kind of fantastical appearances. So in later Christian writings we do see some Christian authors talk about the appearance of demons. So the authors we call the monastic fathers and mothers, these monks that were living in the desert and encountering demons quite frequently apparently oftentimes depict demons in these rather animalistic ways or fantastic. So that's the place where in Christian culture at least, we start to get a more full fledged idea of demons existing outside of that idea of just possessing humans.
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Megan Lewis
And how about ghosts as the, the spirits of the dead? What kind of, where do they show up in, in the Bible and also in, in later Christian texts?
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Dr. Travis Proctor
Yeah, yeah. And this is an idea that we can trace back to some of our earliest human cultures is the idea that sometimes spirits of humans after they've passed on can kind of linger in some way. So stretching back as far as we have, you know, like written language, we have ghost stories. And so they do show up. They're a more minor character. I think in biblical writings we don't have quite as many stories of ghosts, but we do have some, some pretty famous ones. And so one of them in the Hebrew Bible, for example, is the so called story of the witch of Endor, which is when Saul the Israelite king visits a witch, a medium, because he really wants to consult with Samuel. But, but Samuel the prophet, but Samuel has passed away and so he uses a medium, even though Saul has just actually outlawed mediums or witches and he consults with nevertheless and is able to actually summon Saul's or, sorry, Samuel's ghost. And so it's this interesting story of this idea that ghosts in this biblical narrative are real and can even be summoned to help out. You know, Saul needed advice about, you know, some wartime strategy. And so it's this really kind of interesting text in the sense that otherwise whenever ghost or the ideas of summoning ghosts or using what we might call necromancy, if it shows up in biblical texts at all, it's usually to be condemned. But here we have the story of Saul, you know, successfully performing a kind of necromancy where he summons a ghost. And then we also do see it show up in some other important elements. In the New Testament, for example, the ideas of ghosts are clearly in the background. Whenever Jesus followers are encountering him after his resurrection, it's clear that they're mistaking him for a ghost. And I think when we read those stories, if you're one of the early readers of Mark, Matthew or Luke, these early gospels, I think you're meant to think that these are kind of ghost stories or mistaken ghost stories. And then eventually the disciples, you know, figure it out and they realize this is not a ghost. This is, you know, kind of the real Jesus that has been resurrected rather than some. Some phantom. So not as many stories of ghosts as we find of, say, demons or fallen angels, but when they do show up, they have some pretty fascinating contours.
- [08:43]
Megan Lewis
So when we do see ghosts or demons appearing in the New Testament or early Christian texts, what kinds of purposes are they serving? I think a lot of people would broadly understand demons to be harmful and ghosts to be either dangerous or maybe neutral. Does that map onto what we see them doing in early Christianity?
- [09:05]
Dr. Travis Proctor
I think broadly, yes. I think that's a. That, that's something that stretches back to our biblical text, that demons are these, you know, holy evil figures working against the people of God or righteous ones on earth. And then ghosts are this, you know, somewhat neutral figures that can be harmful at times if for some reason they're angry or something. But other times, like in the case of Samuel, can be helpful even. But I. But then again, I think we, we can get surprised, though, by some of these figures as well. So somebody we might talk about later, I know the figure of Satan, for example. We know him as this chief demon, slash fallen angel figure. But when he first shows up in the Hebrew Bible, he's actually a much more neutral character, more of like a divine prosecutor working in God's court to kind of, in this case, Job, accuse Job in the famous, you know, Hebrew Bible book of not being as good of a person as God thinks he is. But in this case, he's not working as some kind of demon figure, but more like on behalf of God, to kind of show God whether or not his human followers are really doing what they say. And so I think those are. Those are cases where even though some of those broad patterns show up, they kind of surprise us sometimes. One other Area where we see that is that while demons are wholly evil in our biblical text, where we encounter them, the word itself actually comes from Greco Roman terminology that was used for more ambivalent spirits. So the word daimon, from Greek and then it passes into Latin was used for lots of different entities, including even as like an equivalent for God, whether those gods were being doing good or bad things, or for other spirits, and sometimes even for ghosts. And so one thing that kind of surprises us is when we start to read stories about demons outside of the Bible, we encounter a much broader array of entities than what we see in biblical texts. So one of the things the class is going to do is try to explore, you know, what makes early Christians and ancient Jews make this shift. Why do they use this terminology for, you know, really a kind of different class of being than other Greeks and Romans were using, using it for in
- [11:04]
Megan Lewis
early Christian writing, do we see instances of demons being treated in this maybe more ambiguous or more neutral manner, or are they unequivocally just the bad guys?
- [11:18]
Dr. Travis Proctor
Yeah, that's a great question and one, that one that's debated among scholars. I think my, my summary would be, I think 99% of instances, it's used as kind of holy evil entities, almost always working against the people of God, against Christians and working against God's will in some way. There are a couple instances where there might be an exception where maybe Christians are using it in that older kind of Greek usage. There's a gospel, the Gospel of Judas, which is known as a gnostic gospel, where Judas, who kind of surprisingly, when you read it, is actually kind of the hero of the gospel, or at least could be read as the hero of the gospel. And at one point he's referred to as a daimon, and it's kind of unclear. It actually could be using the text, could be using this term as a kind of positive terminology here. But I think that would be just one exception. I think largely when Christians are using it and they picked up this usage from ancient Jews as part of their roots in ancient Judaism, are largely using it for. To reference evil beings.
- [12:16]
Megan Lewis
So how do ghosts then play into this picture? Do they have an equally negative presence, or are they more neutral, or do they just not really show up so much?
- [12:29]
Dr. Travis Proctor
Yeah, they don't quite show up as much. We really just have a few instances, but I think they do have this more neutral or we might say ambiguous kind of presence in biblical texts and really more broadly in ancient writings in general. And so one thing we'll explore in Class is kind of the ancient roots of. Of ghost stories. And we'll see there that there are so many patterns that show up today that actually show up in the ancient world. So, for example, why might the spirit of a deceased person linger on? Just like today? We find stories that, well, it might be because, say, they passed away too soon, or maybe they experienced, like, a violent or particularly tragic end and that has left them with maybe some unfinished business or wanting to exact vengeance, maybe on the people that wronged them or something like that. And oftentimes that end shapes who they are as a ghost. And so if they've met some kind of tragic, unjust end, they. They might be an angry ghost trying to exact vengeance. Vice versa, maybe if they experienced a largely good life, they might be somebody that's lingering on just to maybe help other people out. We have some ancient stories like that, too. So when they do show up in the Bible, they have that kind of ambiguity. And so in that story of, say, the witch of Endor and the ghost of Samuel, there is this kind of sense that something's going on that shouldn't be happening. You know, Saul shouldn't be going to this medium to summon this ghost. But then again, you know, Samuel as a ghost is able to help him out. So there's this idea that he's a good ghost in that. In that kind of sense. And then we also. The other area where we see that ambiguity is that the term that would be used for ghost in Greek and in some of our early Gospel stories, for example, is just another word for spirit. And there's this ancient idea among, you know, many ancient thinkers and writers, that you weren't quite sure when a spirit showed up, some kind of disembodied spirit. You often weren't sure whether they're going to be helpful or not. And that. That terminology encompasses that. And so when we see that, again, that's part of where the. The stories about Jesus's resurrection are. Are probably playing a role. You know, Jesus, who has just met a very tragic, grisly end as part of crucifixion, now seems to be showing up as some kind of ghost, perhaps. And that's what his. What his followers are working through when they first encounter him is this, you know, is Jesus coming back as a good ghost or maybe for vengeance? And then eventually they figure out that something else is going on. But I think that that's the kind of stuff that's in the background when these stories are first being told.
- [14:50]
Megan Lewis
Thank you. Now, apart from the Witch of Endor. Do we see people deliberately summoning ghosts or demons? Or is this very much something that is, is invented by later popular culture?
- [15:04]
Dr. Travis Proctor
Yeah, I mean, it's certainly something we could trace back to the ancient world. I think the Witch of Endor is kind of the one case in the Bible where we see that and we don't, we don't see it in that today, the New Testament where demons are wholly evil figures, you know, you'd never want to summon these in any kind of way. But where you do see it are in things like the Greek magical papyri, for example, these collection of ancient documents that have what are said to be, you know, ancient magical spells. And what we find in there are the summoning of what we call daimons. And they use that terminology and it seems like they might be using it in a little bit more that neutral sense from the, from the Greek, where it could be a harmful or ambivalent or maybe even a good spirit helping them out. But the idea is that if you use certain spells, you can get a kind of demonic assistance for assistant, for example. This would be kind of like ideas about modern magic and familiars or things like that where you, you know, witches or other kind of magical practitioners can have, you know, other entities helping them out and demons show up in that way. So we do have some, some ancient precedent for that. And I think that that makes its way into modern pop culture where we see that happening as well.
- [16:11]
Megan Lewis
So just to continue with the, the modern popular culture line of questioning for a minute, you see a lot of demonic figures appearing in various shows and books. Just I, I grew up with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, named demons all over the place for a more slightly younger audience. If you think about the book or the, the TV show Good Omens, there are demons in there like Beelzebub, Liger and Dagan. Do any of these specific demonic figures that we see in modern media have roots in the Bible or early Christ? Are these an invention?
- [16:44]
Dr. Travis Proctor
Yeah, great, great question. I think a mix. Some of these of course are invented, but some of them do have ancient roots. They're using names of ancient demons or angels or fallen angels or things like that. So Beelzebub is, it's famous as a chief demon figure from ancient Judaism. Where we see him show up in our Bibles is Jesus is accused of being possessed by Beelzebub. And really what his opponents are saying is that he's possessed by like a Satan like figure. So kind of chief demon, fallen angel type figure. But we see Other characters show up too. And I think it's very popular. I think a lot of the writers of either pop culture television shows or novels, or even video games, they seem to be well read in ancient Apocrypha. And so we'll see many of these names show up now. They've often been shifted and changed for the purposes of whatever genre they're in. But we do see some roots for that. So one that I remember encountering one, and this is another kind of throwback to a Denzel Washington film, Fallen, where there's this issue of like spirits taking over humans. But I remember at one point his character is kind of doing the research on what to do and he uncovers in the kind of one of the demon like figures. At the center of all this is Azazel, who actually shows up in some of our earliest ancient Jewish stories about fallen angels, who's kind of a Satan like figure who's leading fallen angels. So that's just one good example of this, this name that otherwise is very obscure. You don't really see show up in major biblical writings. The only people that know about it are, you know, people like me who are studying all these ancient, you know, ancient ghost and demon and angel stories. But then you see it show up in, in these stories and I think it goes to show the kind of fascination I think we have with these angels, demons, ghosts and how often, you know, these stories have roots stretching back quite a long ways.
- [18:31]
Megan Lewis
So can we talk about fallen angels then for a minute or two? Because there's this idea in I think just generally modern Western society about Satan being this fallen angel figure, he's called Lucifer. Where did all of that come from?
- [18:49]
Dr. Travis Proctor
Yeah, yeah, that's something that has again roots in the Hebrew Bible, but actually takes some time to develop. And so this is one of those areas where we see kind of diversity within the Bible about who this figure Satan is. And so the first times that we see Satan mentioned, I mentioned it before, was actually kind of as a divine prosecutor working for God in his court to kind of tell God when he think, you know, when Satan, the Satan thinks that maybe humans aren't really living up to what God thinks they are, but he's not this chief demon figure, not this holy evil figure. You know, in other areas where we maybe expect to find Satan based on how we interpret the Bible, he actually doesn't show up. And so the famous story of Adam and Eve, of course Eve is tempted by the serpent. We often read this as Satan inhabiting a serpent, making the serpent talk and trick even Adam into this sin. But actually the word Satan or devil is never mentioned in that story. And if you read it in its original context, it's just a tricky serpent that can talk apparently. But that doesn't really have much to do with any kind of chief demon or fallen angel figure. But we can start to trace, as we kind of get into later biblical texts and into later cultures of ancient Judaism, we start to see emerge an idea that there is some kind of chief demon figure that is leading a kind of rebellion against God. But this person at first has various names. I mentioned one, Azazel, Beelzebub's another. And then Satan at times is a term used for this figure. But it takes a while for that to really develop into the full fledged idea. And what happens that eventually there's a kind of synthesis of ancient stories. We have this figure of Satan who shows up in various ways. We do have very ancient stories about fallen angel figures, but at first they're not, they're never called Satan. Eventually those stories are combined and that, that Azazel figure I mentioned, who was the chief leader of the fallen angels, all of a sudden Satan starts to take that role. So that takes a while. But it is later in ancient Judaism, we, we start to see it. And by the time we get those gospel stories where Jesus is, say, tempted by Satan, that's the point at which it seems like that's starting to kind of take shape. These early gospel stories are really steeped in ancient Jewish culture. And so they're a good sign that, okay, by that point, when Jesus comes along, there is this idea of a fallen angel, chief demon figure. And then, then it keeps developing. And then early Christians kind of take that idea, interpret it and reinterpret it. And that eventually leads to the, the larger idea of Satan that we have today.
- [21:17]
Megan Lewis
So when we think about Satan as a fallen angel or fallen angels in general, are there commonalities in why they have fallen or how they fell, or does it vary figure to figure?
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Dr. Travis Proctor
Yeah, a great question. I think there are some commonalities. I mean, one story that we see, it's one of the oldest versions of the story and one we see repeatedly, which I think is probably a reflection on humans reflecting on their own desires, is that angels have fallen because of their desire for some type of longing or lust or love for mortal, in this case usually mortal women. So usually figured as male angels who are appointed to watch over the earth, but then start lusting after mortal women and then take them as wives. And this is what tempts them to fall. And so that's oftentimes something we see going stretching back very far. I think, again, by the time we get to say early Christian narratives, at that point in ancient Judaism and early Christianity, we are getting a sense that pride is involved, that in some way these fallen angel figures had some kind of pride in being angels and either wanted to raise their station to be equal to God or maybe felt some kind of jealousy towards humans and their special relationship with God and therefore fell, you know, stopped being obedient to God and that's what led to their fall. So we see those, those are the two main reasons, I think, that show up across both ancient Jewish, early Christian. We even see it show up in later Islamic texts too, in the Quran, for example. And so I think those are the common reasons why these fallen angels fall.
- [22:55]
Megan Lewis
Thank you. So if we, if early Christianity starts with this idea of malevolent spirits, that we don't have, like, physical descriptions of them, but they're definitely there, and then we have fallen angels, how does all of this kind of morph into the idea of there being like a unified evil army almost that inhabits hell, is there to punish humanity, but also to try and tempt us to sin so that we do go to hell when we die? When does that start to develop?
- [23:28]
Dr. Travis Proctor
Yeah, that's a great question. It's really something that comes after the Bible. So the biblical texts that I study don't. Don't quite have a fully fledged idea. They have these demons and even a Satan figure and ideas of fallen angels, but nothing that's totally coalesced into, like, a bigger system. I think it really starts to happen. I think this is a way in which ideas mirror their realities on Earth. Whenever Christians and late antiquity, whenever they become a more broadly accepted religion, and they start to become a part of, you know, Imperial Rome and Constantine comes along and they're kind of having bigger hierarchies as part of the church. The theology starts to reflect that too. So there starts to be an idea of, if we have a hierarchy here of our church on Earth, there must be hierarchies of, say, angels, you know, above us. But also maybe that means that the kind of demonic realities mirror that as well. And so we start to get ideas that there are, say, battalions of angels or hierarchies of angels and then opposing them, since these, many of these are thought to be, you know, former angels themselves are said to be, you know, organized, either battalions, you know, militarily organized, or some kind of hierarchy of demons. And so it's really not until late antiquity we see this a little bit with some of our monastic writers, again, monks who are encountering demons, but then also other, you know, theological writers in late antique Christianity that are starting to kind of flush out those ideas. And that's, that's really what leads into, I think it's when we get into the medieval period, when we get more fleshed out ideas of what does hell look like and what, what idea or how does, how do demons and fallen angels play a role in that? And that starts to get adapted for, for those stories as well.
- [24:59]
Megan Lewis
Excellent. Thank you very much. Now we, we did kind of talk about this a little bit already, and you mentioned that typically in, in the, the New Testament, demons are holy bad, which kind of continues through into early Christianity. Do we ever see in the development of early Christianity a reflection of this, this modern idea that even though these are harmful entities, they can be harnessed, their power can be harnessed in a way that can help people.
- [25:36]
Dr. Travis Proctor
Yeah, that's a great question. I don't. What I'd say is that kind of the official writers of, you know, kind of the writers that come to be canonical, let's say, both biblical writings as well as later interpreters, I think they would, they would resist any idea that demons could be either harnessed for good or could be utilized in any kind of way. But on the other hand, I think Christians on the ground, so to speak, I think would have been open to those ideas. So we have lots of evidence of demons being used for what we might call like magical purposes. And so we would call this kind of lived religion. You know, what are local people on the ground and their local villages doing? And what we see is that, you know, when people face the troubles or challenges of their lives, they're often willing to do whatever it might take to really face those challenges. If they have a sick child or a family member who's ill, or they're facing really big financial troubles, or maybe there's somebody they wish loved them but doesn't, they're often willing to do almost anything, even go against maybe the official theological teaching of their religion. And so even if, you know, their local preacher was saying, hey, these demons are fully evil, never do anything that would summon a demon or anything like that. I think on the ground, you know, if you're facing a big financial challenge and, you know, a local magical practitioner tells you, if you summon this demon, I could do a ritual to help you out. I think they were open to doing it. And we have good evidence that through what we call, you know, incantation spells or in remains of like incantation bowls where people would write incantations to certain demons or deities or other things like that, and they bury them. And we actually have remains of a lot of these. And it just tells us that, well, even if official theological teaching was that these demons are always harmful, I think there may have been some openness among others to actually summon them or work with them if they really needed to.
- [27:25]
Megan Lewis
That's really interesting. There's a very strong tradition in Mesopotamia of burying figurines or little tablets of apotropaic. So protective deities, spirits. Is it. Do we see evidence that this kind of very early practice was later kind of condemned as like demon worship but still kind of persisted in people's daily lives even though it was like theologically inappropriate maybe?
- [27:59]
Dr. Travis Proctor
Yeah, I think so. I think we, we see kind of a consistent condemnation by writers. But you know, one thing I always tell my students is that if a religion has to make a rule against something, it means that people are probably doing it. You know, and I think that's the case here. If, if a preacher, then these writers who write up their sermons or write a treatises on these issues, if they're having to say it over and over over the centuries, it means that probably some members of their local community are doing it or they're at least hearing about it. And then we also find the material evidence for it as well, where we find things like either buried scrolls or like buried lead tablets, buried incantation bolts. And then we have some hints, you know, you, you know, we might think, oh, maybe these are people who aren't Christian or something. But then we have some hints that there are Christians or people influenced by Christian culture that are doing it. You know, the mention of Jesus or mention of other kind of Christian saints or what have you as part of say, magical incantations. So it gives us a hint that I think it's pretty consistent that the preachers keep condemning it and the people, at least some of them keep doing it, even though they kind of know, they probably know they're not supposed to.
- [28:58]
Megan Lewis
Excellent. Thank you very much. Those are all the questions that I had today. But I'd like to just take a couple of minutes and share information about your new course with the audience. So this is a semester long course called Demons and Ghosts in the Bible. And now I think few people really realize that the spirits that we see throughout history, evil spirits, evil ghosts, these also appear in some of the most famous famous biblical narratives you mentioned, the Witch of Endor. This course is going to examine ideas about ghosts and hauntings and how they influenced biblical ghost stories, study the origin of demons and Satan's, and then also study the ancient connections between magic, spirits, demons, and how those things influenced ancient Judaism and early Christianity. Obviously gone into a very small amount of that in the 30 minutes that we've been talking. So if people are interested, this would be a really, really great thing to take a look at because I said, as I said, it's a semester long, it's 26 lectures. So I assume you're going to be getting into an awful lot of detail and really looking at all of this stuff in a lot of depth.
- [30:07]
Dr. Travis Proctor
Yeah, absolutely. This is something that I've taught quite a bit. I've had almost a decade now of teaching some version of this class and interacting with students and it's been really fun and I think they're really fun, but also insightful. Teaches us a lot about the Bible and related cultures. So I think it'll be a lot of fun.
- [30:23]
Megan Lewis
Now the course starts for those who are interested on May 20 and will run twice a week until August 14. Early bird pricing will be available for just the standalone purchase. You can find that@bart ehrman.com forward/demons and Ghosts. You can, as always, use the code njpodcast for a special discount. And it's also available through the Biblical Studies Academy, which is the online platform that gives you access to all of the courses that we advertise here on Misquoting Jesus. And again, all the details that you need are@bart ehrman.com forward/demons and Ghosts So Travis, thank you so much for talking to me. This is really, really interesting.
- [30:59]
Dr. Travis Proctor
Yeah, thanks so much for having me on. I really appreciate it.
- [31:02]
Megan Lewis
Is there anything before we leave, is there anything that you want to share either about your research or about the course that you think people might be interested in? Sorry, put you on the spot there.
- [31:13]
Dr. Travis Proctor
Yeah, I think, you know, I think it's. I first got into this because I first started encountering early Christian scholarship and writing and realized just how important demons were for how many early Christians were thinking about their world. And I think oftentimes we live in a kind of post enlightenment world that oftentimes approaches religion through a more rationalist lens kind of understandably. But I think it means that we oftentimes maybe discount those figures as being not so important in how we think about religion. So. So I'm really passionate about thinking about how are these figures, you know, shaping early religions that continue to have such a major role in both our religious life, but even in, as you mentioned, pop culture today. So I think it'll be a really fun way to get some exposure to the early roots of many of these important issues.
- [31:57]
Megan Lewis
Excellent. Travis. Thank you again for talking to me. Audience thank you all for listening. I hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, please subscribe to the podcast to make sure you don't miss future episodes. Remember, you can use the code MJ podcast for a discount on all of Bart's courses over at www.barterman.com. misquoting Jesus will be back next week, but alas, no Bart. Instead, I will be talking to Dr. Dan McLellan about his new book, the Bible says what We Get Right and Wrong about the Bible. Thank you all and goodbye. This has been an episode of Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman. We'll be back with a new episode next Tuesday, so please be sure to subscribe to our show for free on your favourite podcast listening app or on Barterman's YouTube channel so you don't miss out. From Bart Herman and myself, Megan Lewis, thank you for joining us.