← Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman
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- [00:00]
Bart Ehrman
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- [00:31]
Megan Lewis
Jesus ethical teachings are often touted as being revolutionary for the ancient world. The pagan cultures that preceded Christianity are commonly understood as being immoral, full of sex, drugs and rock and roll or you know, two out of the three. But just how close to historical reality are These views? Today, Dr. Bart Ehrman joins me for the first of a special two part episode to dive into ancient ethics and, and whether Jesus actually changed anything. Welcome to Misquoting 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. Welcome back to Ms. Quoting Jesus. We are getting started on ethics and how Jesus may or may not have changed the moral trajectory of the western world. But before that, Bart, how are you doing?
- [01:37]
Bart Ehrman
Well, I'm doing well ironically I'm in England and you're not and so I did a, I did a couple of tour, I was giving lectures on a couple of tours in Greece and related places and now we're back in London for, for most of the summer. As you know, Sarah's, Sarah's English and we're off gonna go gallivanting off with family members and do things around England for a while. So how are things on the on state side?
- [02:10]
Megan Lewis
Still here, still going. It's summer is, is in pretty much full swing for us. So there are children running around summer camps, homeschool work, all that kind of stuff and then trying to fit in all of my work kind of around that which is happening to a greater and lesser extent depending on the day.
- [02:34]
Bart Ehrman
Right. Well, you know it. Yeah. So I, one of these tours I went with my daughter and my granddaughter and my, my daughter is like you, she has, she has four, she. Well she has four kids and. But two, two teenagers and two toddlers and oh man, she was so glad to get away. It is like non stop. How are you supposed to get anything done like this?
- [02:57]
Megan Lewis
I did have a very minor Breakdown on Josh this morning along the lines of, I don't think I'm going to be able to work, like, at all on anything until the children are out of the house. And he said, when you say out of the house, what exactly do you mean? And I said, when they have left home and set up their own households, I'm just not going to be able to do anything until then because someone always needs supervising with something. So, yes, the toddler thing is very, very real right now.
- [03:27]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah. Well, I just hope Josh volunteered to do it all for you.
- [03:32]
Megan Lewis
He did, he did. He's been taking an awful lot off my shoulders lately, which I appreciate. And I'll be going to the UK for a couple of weeks at the end of the summer and leaving all of the children with him. And I mean, that lot solo is. It's.
- [03:49]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, he'll learn his. Keep good.
- [03:53]
Megan Lewis
So we are talking today about ethics and morality and the impact Jesus had on those things. And we're talking about that because it's the topic of your most recent book, which is not out yet, but you've, I believe, finished the writing and the editing stage. Am I correct in that?
- [04:11]
Bart Ehrman
Just. Just this afternoon, I've finished putting in the. The final. The final Ed. I still have to enter them and then I'll have it sent off. You know, it takes about a year for a book to get published. People don't realize this, but it's. We're supposed. This is supposed to come out, I think, in March, next of 2026. So I. I'm basically done with this part of it.
- [04:30]
Megan Lewis
Excellent. So all the research is still nice and fresh in your brain. When did you first become interested in Christianity's role in the development of ethics in the Western world?
- [04:42]
Bart Ehrman
Well, you know, I suppose when I, when I was a young Christian, I simply assumed that Christianity brought morality into, as you were saying, you know, all those pagans, man, they were wild. They may not have had rock and roll, but they certainly had a lot of other things. And, and we always, I guess, you know, when I was an evangelical, we just assumed that, you know, there's no reason for a pagan to be moral. I mean, even their gods were immoral. Why would they be moral? And so that Christianity brought a sense of ethics into the world and that, I guess I always thought that was one of the reasons it was successful, because people got tired of the profligate life and wanted to have something a little bit more sane and sober and became Christians. Later I started thinking maybe that would not be attractive. I don't know. But anyway, that's what I thought. And yeah, none of that's true as we'll see.
- [05:32]
Megan Lewis
So I've, I've been using kind of the terms ethics and morality almost interchangeably. Could we just take a minute and give some definitions so people know exactly what we're talking about?
- [05:44]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, it turns out to be kind of a complicated matter. You would think it'd be fairly simple. A lot of people just use morality and ethics synonymously. I think a lot of scholars think of morality as basically issues connect with, with personal behavior and how, and how you behave. And ethics tend to, tends to be thought of as more kind of how you think about morality. You know, how, like how scholars discuss what is moral behavior and what is not moral behavior. So that ethics is more of, kind of an intellectual category and moral is more of a b, behavioral category. But, you know, there are different opinions about it. And so I, I, as long as people know what we're talking about, you know, you know, I just hope we know what we're talking about.
- [06:27]
Megan Lewis
It's the hope for everyone. So I mentioned in my introduction, and you've said here that there's this idea for a lot of people, I think that before Christianity there wasn't any kind of moral ethical system. People just kind of did whatever they wanted because why wouldn't you? So did pre Christian cultures have any concept of morality? And if they did, how did it differ to what we would understand it to be today?
- [06:56]
Bart Ehrman
Well, you know, now that I look back, I can't believe I ever thought otherwise. I mean, of course they had morality and they had, and they had ethical systems. I mean, the human race would not have survived if there wasn't without morality. I mean, morality involves things like treating others well and helping people who are in need. No species can survive, no species of any kind can survive without some forms of altruism, you know, without some forms of helping other people. And some moral codes develop as, as groups of people realize that you've got to have ways of living them with each other. Otherwise, you know, if every person is, you know, every person for themselves, it's easy to get picked off. And so you've got to have community, coherence. And quite apart from kind of Greek and Roman ancient culture, this is just how humans and every other species has to, has, has to live if they're going to live. But within Greek and Roman worlds, there definitely were. I mean, it wasn't just that people were basically moral. They're basically just as moral as People are today. I mean, the reality is everybody, you know, people love their children and they brought them up, tried to bring them up well, and they had values and they had standards and they had things they should do and things they shouldn't do. And it's just, it's part of every world. But in the Greek and Roman worlds, there was also a lot of discussion about morality and a lot of, a lot of treatises on ethics that go away as far, go very far back, Very far back.
- [08:20]
Megan Lewis
So was or were any of these ideas of morality or ethical discussions grounded in a religious understanding? Was there like a code of ethics that was a religious requirement as some Christians might argue exists today?
- [08:37]
Bart Ehrman
This is one thing that makes ancient morality in both the Greek and Roman worlds, which I, I talk about the Greek and Roman worlds because they're the ones at the foundation of our culture. And so as much as, you know, as you love the Assyrians, they were not as significant for, for, for America today or Britain today as, as Greek and Rome were. And the thing about Greek and Roman culture, as is true of most a lot of religions throughout the world, the ethical codes were not directly related for the most part to their religion. Religion in most of antiquity, especially in Greece and Rome, involved ways of worshiping the gods. The gods wanted to be recognized for who they were. They wanted people to pray to them. They wanted people to give them gifts. And in exchange, the gods would, would help people, which is, you know, I mean, pretty much what Christians think today. You know, you live in ways that God will be pleased with. So God, God will help you in one way or another. And that was the ancient religions as well. But ethics was not a part of it. For the most part, in most Greek and Roman religions, the gods were not. The gods were not overly concerned about how you lived. There were some things they didn't like. You know, there's some things they didn't, they didn't appreciate. But by and large, what you did with your daily life, even things that human culture would condemn, the gods often didn't really care about. They didn't care if you stole your neighbor's lamp or you slept with your neighbor's spouse or you, you know, cheated on your taxes or whatever you did, you know, you're, you're a nasty person. As long as you're worshiping the gods, the gods are pretty much okay with it. So one big difference is going to be that with Christianity, ethics matter to, to the religion, and Christians are getting that from Judaism where that was also the case.
- [10:28]
Megan Lewis
So Would you say that was mainly the, maybe the most significant difference between pagan ethics, morals and what we see in ancient Judaism, that it is linked to the practice of their religion?
- [10:44]
Bart Ehrman
There's one of the. It's obviously one of the, kind of, one of the big, big issues in, in Judaism going back to the Hebrew Bible, the Ten Commandments. You know, when you look at the Ten Commandments, there are some commandments about how to worship God. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make another. You should not make a graven image. These are issues related to worship. But there are other things that are involved with communal life. You shall not murder. You should not commit adultery. You should not bear false witness. These are not aspects of worship so much as how you behave in community. And these were just as divinely given, these laws were just as divinely given the ones about ethics and morality as the ones about worship. And so that was a distinctive thing for Judaism, but it wasn't the only. It wasn't the only distinctive thing about the ethics within Judaism. It certainly made it. It made it unlike the religions more broadly throughout the world.
- [11:43]
Megan Lewis
What would you say were some of the other distinctive elements of Judaic ethics?
- [11:49]
Bart Ehrman
Well, there are some specifics. There are a lot of specifics that make Jews stand out, but there are also kind of broader issues involved in, in Greek, in ancient Greek thought. Something we'll be talking about probably at greater length is that there absolutely was the idea that you should help people who are in need. But the people you should help, they wouldn't put it this way, but this is how we would put it. The people you help are those who are either biologically or, or socially related to you. In other words, you help out your family and your friends and, and your larger community, probably in that order, and in the Greek and Roman worlds. But outsiders were not a concern for you. If a stranger, unless the stranger was a potential friend, you know, the potent, the stranger was somebody who maybe was on your same socioeconomic class, the same buddy, with the same kind of values and things, they come to town, but you recognize they're also like a rich fellow like you. Are you, then you could befriend them. But people who were in need, who were outsiders were not, were not a concern. And often explicitly. This is stated in, in our sources, in the, in the ancient Israelite community, one of the dictates of, of the, of the law of Moses, Leviticus 19:18, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And in that verse, Leviticus 19:18, it's quite clear that your neighbor means any fellow Israelite. And so it doesn't matter whether you know them or not, doesn't matter if it's part of your family, doesn't matter if they live next door. A fellow Israelite needs to be treated as you treat yourself. And the the other part of that which is especially interesting is that if somebody immigrated into Israel and decided to live in Israel, they were to be treated like Israelites. So anybody who joined your community from the outside was to have the same rights as you were, as you had and anybody else had. And so this is a it's an immigration policy that it's explicitly spelled out in Scripture that those who live among you are supposed to have the same rights you have.
- [14:06]
Megan Lewis
Thank you. We're going to take a very brief break, but we'll be back to talk about how morality and ethics were transmitted in the ancient world and then how Jesus started to shake things up a bit.
- [14:17]
Bart Ehrman
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Bart Ehrman
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Megan Lewis
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- [14:44]
Bart Ehrman
Boxed Warning, go to ro co SafetyRxOnly. I'm Bart Ehrman and I'm happy to announce a new two lecture course called Did Jesus Really Exist? I'll be giving these lectures on Saturday, July 19. It will involve as well a Q and A session and the best news is that it will be entirely free. As you probably know, scholars have long maintained that there are non historical materials on Jesus in the New Testament Gospels. But is it possible that Jesus himself was not historical? Not too many New Testament scholars think so, but plenty of other people do. And mythicists, as they are sometimes called, have become a vocal presence on the Internet. They are not a new phenomenon. Mythicists have been around since the French Revolution, but what kind of arguments do they deduce? How strong are they? And what kind of counter arguments would scholars present beyond that? Why do scholars almost invariably agree that Jesus did exist, even if they have different interpretations of his life and different views about what he actually said and did? In this two lecture course, I'll be looking at the evidence at some length. Again, it will be on Saturday, July 19, consisting of two lectures and a Q and A, completely free. If you're interested, Please register@barturman.com DidJesus exist? I hope you can come. I'm really looking forward to it.
- [16:39]
Megan Lewis
Welcome back, everyone. Now, before the break, we were looking at pagan and Jewish ideas of morality and ethics and kind of what was already in place before Jesus came on the scene. I wanted to kind of finish up that part of the discussion by asking how these ideas about morality and ethics were discussed and then transmitted to other people within the ancient world. Is that like a bulletin board you could read if you could read Email digest, Right?
- [17:09]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah. You know, I think a lot of people have difficulty getting their minds around the idea that you would have a highly ethical society in which ethics were not rooted in religion. For us, it, for most people just don't make any sense. Of course, God's the one who tells you how to behave. Right. And so that's. That's where ethics are. And, and as I said, it wasn't that way in the ancient world. But it doesn't mean they didn't have ethics. They had, as I said, they're just as ethical as we are for the most part. But their ethics were located less in religion than in what we would call philosophy and in kind of communal common sense. Those are the two. Two major things. Communal common sense and philosophy. Philosophers were very interested society, how people in society had to behave for the long haul. And their. Their principal interests were, of course, the society itself, but also the individual. How is it that a person can find what they. How can a person live in a way that is satisfying to themselves and good for the community? And so the Greeks had a word for this. The word is. It's a Greek word, eudaimonia. Eudaimonia. And it means something like. It's very hard to translate into English. It's often translated as happiness, but it's not happiness in the way we think of, you know, as a kind of a temporary, fleeting emotion. You know, it's not that. It's not that you're happy that you had such a good day today or you're not. It's not that you're happy because your team won the Super Bowl. It's not like that kind of happiness. It's more like some kind of contentedness and satisfaction with your life where you're flourishing, you're doing well, and, you know, you. You feel like things are good for you, and you think you're living well in the right way, it's how do you attain that kind of feeling about yourself? And it involves, you know, having a community with like minded people that are also feeling that way. And it involves how you, how you interact with them. And one aspect of that is you've got to have a good character. You know, if you, if you're, you know, if you're a lazy schmuck, you know, that's probably not going to be, make you happy. If you, if you're a miser and mean spirited and greedy, you know, that's, it's just not going to make you happy in, in this sense. And so, so the ethics were designed in order to show how society can function and how I can find a life that's satisfying and meaningful for myself and be contented with my life. So these, these principles are laid out extensively in ancient philosophers, going back especially to Aristotle. Aristotle wrote a 10 volume book, the Nicomachean Ethics, it's called, that is still taught in universities today. It's still widely read today, still widely translated today. And it is worth reading. It is, you talk about ethical insight. I mean, there's almost nobody in the history of the universe that's been more insightful than Aristotle on ethics. And even Christians can get a lot out of this thing. And so there was a lot of discussion before Aristotle as well, and Plato and so forth, but also long after him.
- [20:15]
Megan Lewis
Do we know if these discussions were disseminated widely or was this something that was mainly kept to the, the elite classes?
- [20:24]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, so that, you know, most people were not reading philosophy then any more than people do now? In fact, a lot less because most people could not read. And so, so it wasn't that people were, you know, were buying up Aristotle all the time and spending their evenings reading, reading him. It wasn't like that. It's more, the analogy would be more like why is it in America that basically everybody believes in say, free enterprise? You know, why do people, why do people subscribe to capitalism? You know, is it because they've read Adam Smith? You know, is it because they've, they've studied, they've actually read the writings of the Founding father? No, they haven't read the writings of the Founding Fathers. They've heard people talk about them and they, they, they believe in capitalism because it's the thing they grew up with and they just assume that anything else is bonkers. And so, you know, socialism, oh, that's dangerous. You know, it's capitalism. Oh, communism. Oh my God. You know, so it's not because they, they've read it and that's how it was with ancient ethics that the, the scholars talked about it. And there was a kind of very, very serious trickle down effect into the general populace.
- [21:29]
Megan Lewis
Thank you. I want to take a very slight turn now toward Jesus and the influence that he had on how these kinds of thoughts developed. And I've heard various different Christians say that Jesus was the first person to come up with the Golden Rule, the two unto others as you would have them do unto you. Is this an accurate claim? Is this idea that I think a lot of people base their own morality on, is this original to Jesus?
- [21:59]
Bart Ehrman
Well, I used to think so. It's demonstrably not. So the Golden Rule rule. You find that the most common statement of the quote, commonly quoted statement of the Golden Rule is from the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew and usually translates something like do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. And that that sediment is said in a variety of different ways throughout ancient history, long before Jesus. It is most often worded in a negative way. Don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you. And so that, that's understood to be a negative way. And I, I even learned in graduate school that Jesus is the one who came up with the positive way of saying it, that do unto others, you know, as you want them to do to you. But that's not Even true either. 400 years before Jesus, there were Greek philosophers saying this. We have records of it. And so we have records of this kind of sentiment throughout lots of society. I'm not just Western societies. Confucius has a, has a form of this. And so this is a, this is the kind of sentiment that goes back way probably into prehistory, that you just treat people in ways that you want to be treated because otherwise society is not going to be able to function.
- [23:14]
Megan Lewis
Do we see any of Jesus other ethical, moral teachings found in older traditions?
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Bart Ehrman
Yeah, well, lots of them. And you know, a lot of the teachings of Jesus are what I was calling earlier, you know, kind of communal common sense. I'll be pointing out later that Jesus, Jesus did revolutionize ethics in some ways. And, and the revolution that he brought in my book, I'm arguing that it radically changed Western culture. And so I, I think that Jesus is very, very important for understanding the modern ethical systems that we have today. But many of the basics, of course, are found throughout the civilizations. I mean, most civilizations think that you should honor your father and your mother and that you really should not murder, and you should not steal somebody else's spouse. And you, you know, these are kind of common, commonsensical things. And all cultures, as I said, have some kind of altruism. And so altruism itself is, you know, it's virtually everywhere. But Jesus did put twists on many of these things, and the twists end up making a difference for. For how culture developed.
- [24:24]
Megan Lewis
Could you give us an example of those twists?
- [24:26]
Bart Ehrman
Well, I'll. I'll tell you the one that my book is mainly about. My book is. Is the title of my book is going to be Love Thy Stranger how the Teachings of Jesus Transformed the Moral Conscience of the West. And it's this Love Thy Stranger thing that is really important, I think, for understanding how. How much of Western culture developed in terms of ethics today when there's a disaster. You know, some. Back in September, I was, as we pointed out, I was in Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina. I just happened to be there when it hit. And it was really impressive, the outpouring of concern. People who had. Didn't know anybody in the region were sending money. They were. They were providing supplies. The government was helping out on all levels. People who were coming in from neighboring states to provide, to bring water on mules sometimes, and people giving money, donating funds. That would not have happened in Greece and Rome when there were disasters. There was not an outpouring of concern for people that you. You don't know and you never will know and you probably wouldn't like if you did know. You know, there wasn't this. But here, when the disaster hits, we feel some kind of obligation. Of course, not everybody does it, but some people do. A lot of people do. Most people feel they should. And what I'm arguing in my book is that this idea that you find in the Hebrew Bible that you should love your neighbor as yourself, that idea, as I said, among Israelites and then later with Jews, applied to fellow Israelites and fellow Jews and people who lived among them. It did not apply to outsiders. Right after the Book of Leviticus comes the Book of Numbers, where God. God starts sending the Israelites in to take the promised land. And they're not supposed to love the Canaanites or the Midianites or the Moabites. They're supposed to destroy them. And so love your neighbor meant, you know, love your Israelite. Jesus universalized this idea. For Jesus, your neighbor is not the one who. Just the one who lives next door. Not the same one in your community necessarily. Not even somebody of your same religion or your same Ethnicity, it's anybody, even your enemy, you're supposed to love the way you'd love yourself. And he had reasons for that. In other words, he didn't just kind of make it up out of nowhere. It's rooted in his broader teachings, but it's a. It's an ethic that ended up making a big difference.
- [26:57]
Megan Lewis
Why was Jesus maybe the person to make this transition away from care for your friends, family, immediate community, to care for humanity as a general?
- [27:12]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, I think, you know, I think there probably were other Jewish teachers who said similar things. We have. We have a number of Jewish teachings, not just in the. In the Bible, but from outside the Bible, many of which sound very similar to those of Jesus. One thing that was distinctive to Jesus, it's not. Not unusual, like, like in the overall. Not like, not unique, not unique to Jesus. But one of the things that characterized Jesus was that he subscribed to this Jewish apocalyptic view that we've talked about before, which entailed the idea that there are forces of evil in the world that are making life miserable for everybody, but that God is soon going to destroy them and bring in a good kingdom on earth where there'll be no more suffering or misery or pain or death. And that Jesus expected this to come, and he expected it to come very soon. This idea, I think, transformed the kinds of ethics that he acquired from the Hebrew Bible. This is not a view found throughout most of the Hebrew Bible, but Jesus had it. And for Jesus, this meant that. That God had created this world and he's going to redeem the whole world. He's not going to just save, you know, some people or other people. He's going to redeem the entire world. But that means that God's concerned about everybody. And in this kingdom that's coming, those who have behaved well toward those who are in need are going to be welcomed into this kingdom. People who have taken care of the hungry and the homeless and the lonely and the imprisoned, they're going to people who take care of those in need. God's going to take care of when this kingdom comes. But that applies to everybody. And so it's a universal ethic. It isn't just the Israelites. It's not just the guy who lives next door. It's everybody. So that's part of why I think he starts propounding a universal. A universal ethic.
- [29:03]
Megan Lewis
How is this received by people? Was this kind of seen as a bit weird or did people really take it and run with it?
- [29:12]
Bart Ehrman
Well, it depends which people you Know, we mean, because most, most, most people in the Greek and Roman world really, you know, they thought kind of like most people think today that the outsiders aren't really much of our concern. You know, there are a lot of people today who don't, who don't care what's happening in Sudan or Somalia or, you know, pick your place where things are very, very bad. And you can pick an increasing number of places these days. And people thought, people just, you know, just are interested in their own welfare, and so you get a lot of that. But in the ancient world, it was kind of, it's more firmly inscribed. Like there's. There was almost nobody who was concerned to help somebody when a volcano erupted, you know, 100 miles away or something. So. But there, but within the Jewish tradition, there certainly are people like that, not, not in the Greek and Roman world. But it's because of this, this apocalyptic view of his that that leads him to this view. And the other thing that this apocalyptic view does is it radicalizes the ethic so that when, when Jesus says, love your neighbors yourself, he appears to mean that like, since you feed yourself, you need to feed your neighbor. Well, that's kind of hard to do when most of our neighbors are hungry. How am I? How's that going to happen? But Jesus appears to have thought that since the end is coming soon, then if you're going to live the way God wants you to, you need to sell everything you have and give to the poor. That's radical. So most people don't pick up on that one. But within the Christian tradition, people do start thinking that it's a universal ethic and that it, it is a, an ethic that has real demands on, on one's resources.
- [30:52]
Megan Lewis
One last question before we finish up for today. How did early Christian writers and thinkers take this call to, like, radically love the stranger and make it more sustainable, more palatable? Maybe for people who felt that this was just a step to too far?
- [31:12]
Bart Ehrman
Well, you know, almost everybody did think it was a step too far. They, they might not say it, but some of them did say it. It's root, you know, it's rooted in the idea that the end is coming soon. So, like, if, you know, if the end of the world's going to happen on, you know, next Thursday, then you, you know, you don't really have much reason to keep your wealth. And so, you know, if God wants you to help others, then you radically help others. But as time went on, this idea that the end's coming soon starts dissipating because the end does not come. And if the end doesn't come, you know, then you think, well, I am in this for the long haul. It'd be crazy for me to sell everything. And you start having church leaders in the second century saying, you know, we have a church leader named Clement of Alexandria, a famous theologian of the late second century who wrote a treatise that said the title was what Rich Man Will be Saved? And it's a, it's a treatise on this passage where this rich man comes up to Jesus and says, what must I do to have eternal life? And Jesus tells him to keep the commandments. Then the man says, well, I do that already. Then Jesus says, okay, well if you want to be perfect, sell everything and give to the poor. And the guy walks away because he can't do it. And so Clement of Alexandria has this sermon on this. What rich man will be saved. And in his sermon he argues that Jesus did not mean it. He could not have met it. How could he have meant that? If everybody in the church gave away everything, the church wouldn't have anything to give to the poor. And then you'd be poor, we'd have to support you. That's nuts. He didn't mean it. And it's a well reasoned argued treatise, but it's actually ends up interpreting Jesus to say the opposite of what he did say. And I think probably throughout history most Christians have taken the radical demands of Jesus and implemented their kind of the basic idea of them, but de. Radicalize them seriously because if you actually follow what he says, then you know, you basically wouldn't have possessions. People always tell me, by the way, well, he was just talking to that man. He didn't really mean it for me. And that's always convenient with Jesus ethics because then you can just say anything isn't really for you. When you know, when he said, you know, when he said love your neighbors yourself, well, you know, maybe it didn't mean that for you either. Anyway, I talk about all this stuff in my book at some length, both what the Greek and Roman views were and how. And I talk about specific things in the book about, like what did the Stoic philosophers say about this, about ethics? What did the Epicurean philosophers say about it? What did the Cynics say about. And then, you know, what did you say about it? And what's the Old Testament? And what does Jesus say? How and how did Jesus transform this whole thing? And then, then how did that affect, how did that affect our world?
- [33:51]
Megan Lewis
World, thank you very much. We are going to leave it here, but please make sure you come back next week for more of an investigation into how Christianity took Jesus ethical teachings and then used them to create positive change in the world. We are going to go to some upcoming events and then we have some listeners questions as well.
- [34:15]
Bart Ehrman
Welcome to our upcoming highlights and events segment where we catch up on Bart's courses, community updates and all the latest news from the Biblical Studies Academy and beyond.
- [34:31]
Megan Lewis
So the event we are talking about today is Bart's free online course, did Jesus Really Exist? That is coming soon. The recording is going to take place on July 19th. It's a live recording so you can sign up and attend for free. Bart does one free course a year and this year he'll be dealing with the evidence that we have for a real historical Jesus. Now an incredible 22% of adults in the US don't believe Jesus existed. Bart is going to be explaining how we know he did and taking on some of the critiques given by, by mythicists. There's also going to be a huge announcement made during the live recording, so don't miss it. I have no idea what the announcement is, but is there like a surprise book you have that you're going to tell us about or
- [35:20]
Bart Ehrman
surpr is a
- [35:22]
Megan Lewis
price to boss as well?
- [35:24]
Bart Ehrman
Exactly. Yeah. You know, I, I have trouble believing that 22% of Americans don't believe Jesus exists. I mean I literally have trouble believing that. I'm not sure that that can't be right. But maybe it is right. That's what this, that's what apparently a poll says. Oh my God. So you know, I wrote, I wrote a book on this, you know, called Did Jesus Exist? And I got more vitriol from people for that book than any book I've written.
- [35:48]
Megan Lewis
Really?
- [35:49]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah. Usually it's fundamentalist Christians or conservative evangelicals are concerned about the kinds of things I say about the Bible and sometimes they can be rather vicious in their, in their emails. But man, when I wrote that book, this, this group of people called mythicists who are people who don't, don't believe Jesus actually even existed. There never was a Jesus like period. There was no Jesus like ah, really. So I wrote a book trying to explain why. Yeah, no, there was a Jesus and this is why virtually everybody who's, who studies this stuff knows this. But I wrote this book, man, did I get attacked. I, I had no idea because I think these people thought I was their friend and now I'm telling them that Jesus existed. What's wrong with you. Like, I have like some religious reason for thinking so or something. But so anyway, so, so this will be a very fun course. These two. It's going to be two lectures where I talk about, you know, what would be the grounds for saying he didn't exist and why, you know, basically, yeah, as whether you, you know, whether you're a Christian or not, you know, it's really hard to deny he exist. I, I think and I'll explain all
- [36:52]
Megan Lewis
that in the lectures if that sounds interesting to you, then you can register for free@bart ehrman.com forward/did Jesus exist? And I mean the topic is fascinating to me just generally because as an historian, how do you know that anything happens is, is what I do. It's really interesting and I love it. And I want to know what this big announcement is. I'm going to be hosting this one and I have no idea what it is. Chris is keeping us very, very quiet. So come, come and see and make the discovery with us.
- [37:26]
Bart Ehrman
Okay, well, I have an idea, but I'm not going to tell you.
- [37:30]
Megan Lewis
So rude. So rude. But that web address again is bart erman.com/forward/ dear to Jesus exist. And now I'm going to bombard Bart with questions from our listeners.
- [37:47]
Bart Ehrman
Now it's time for questions from listeners where Bart answers real questions submitted by misquoting Jesus fans. If you'd like to submit a question for future segments, Please visit bart ehrman.com Askbars.
- [38:06]
Megan Lewis
All right, we have four excellent listeners questions for you, Bart. First up, questioner says, I've heard that there were gentiles that participated in the Jewish religion around the dawn of Christianity. Non Jews who nevertheless attended synagogue and worshiped the Jewish God. What do we know about these people and were they involved with early Christianity? Who were they and where did they come from?
- [38:31]
Bart Ehrman
It turns out to be a complicated question, complicated in part because there are some scholars who talk at length about people like this in antiquity and some scholars who doubt that they were much of an influence at all. Sometimes this group of people is called the God fearers. So people who fear God, they're called God fearers because they, they in some, to some extent, in the, in the usual scholarly construction of this, they're usually thought to be people who attended synagogue and who worship the God of Israel and, and only the. Of Israel. But they did not adopt all the customs of Judaism. So for example, the men would not be circumcised. They didn't necessarily keep kosher, maybe didn't observe Sabbath the way Most Jews did, but that they, they did worship the Jewish God. My. And we, we actually, we do know of, of Gentiles who, who are not born Jews, but who did revere the God of Israel. And we have inscriptions from. Inscriptions on synagogues that indicate things like who provided the funds for the building of the synagogue. And some of these will be non Jews. And so this is a phenomenon. One big question is whether it was a widespread phenomenon or the big question for me is whether it was a widespread phenomenon or was kind of unusual. And what some scholars of early Christianity have argued that it was, that is a widespread phenomenon and that that's why Paul could reach so many Gentiles, for example, because there were already people who were connected with the synagogue and already believed, you know, say in the coming Messiah. So all Paul had to do is convince them that Jesus was the one. I don't think that's true. Just sticking with Paul. When Paul writes his communities, it's really pretty clear his converts were pagan, had been pagans. When he writes to the Thessalonians, for example, or to the Corinthians, he, he indicates that he converted them from worshiping idols. And so. And he seems to be including the entire community. So I. So if it was a broad phenomenon, I'd say we don't have a lot of good evidence that it was a broad phenomenon. I think it certainly happened just as some people would. You know, people would, would participate in a wide range of religions and some people probably did participate in Judaism. But my, my personal view is that it was not a hugely significant movement.
- [40:55]
Megan Lewis
Thank you. What do you interpret Pontius Pilate as meaning when he asks Jesus what is truth during his trial in the Gospel of John?
- [41:06]
Bart Ehrman
Well, the first thing to point out is that it's only in the Gospel of John that that happens. The other gospels don't have much of a trial. When Jesus appears before Pontius Pilate in Matthew, Mark and Luke, very short trial. Mark is our first account. And all that happens is Pilate says, are you, you know, are you the King of the Jews? And Jesus says, you say, so that's it. So those are the only things Jesus says. Two words. In Greek, it's two words. Suleges, you say, so when you get to the Gospel of John, it's a much longer, more protracted trial where Pilate has sustained conversations with Jesus and with his Jewish accusers. The Jewish accusers are outside the praetorium where Pilate. They can't come inside because if they come inside, they'll be Defiled. And if they're defiled, they won't be able to eat the Passover meal that night. And so they stay outside. So Pilate kind of plays messenger between himself. He talks to Jesus, then he goes out and tells the Jewish leaders of Jesus, then comes back in to talk to Jesus. He goes back and forth in the context of that Jesus is talking to Pilate and. And Jesus says something about the truth. And Pilate says, what is truth? And it's an interesting statement. I mean, what does he mean by it? I think in John's Gospel, the entire point is that in John, unlike Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus repeatedly throughout his ministry, talks to people about the truth and says that he's the one who has brought the truth. He's the one who's come from heaven above. He's been sent from the Father to deliver the truth. And those who know the truth will be set free, can have salvation of the believe the truth. And the truth is that he's the one sent from heaven to deliver the truth. It's kind of this kind of interesting thing. In John, the truth is that he's telling the truth and that he came from heaven is what. And so that's it. And Pilate doesn't understand it. And so in other words, this is. This is a case of somebody who hears the truth and just doesn't. Doesn't get it. What is truth? He doesn't know. He never does know in John.
- [43:19]
Megan Lewis
Thank you. I'm not sure I know what the truth is either, to be honest. Can the historical criteria of independent attestation, dissimilarity, and contextual credibility be applied to the Hebrew Bible?
- [43:35]
Bart Ehrman
These are. These are three criteria that scholars use to establish what Jesus probably said and did. They have come under attack by some New Testament scholars who think that they don't really work.
- [43:47]
Megan Lewis
Work.
- [43:48]
Bart Ehrman
My view of that is that if you don't think some criteria work, then you need to come up with some other criteria. And you know, if you think there's a Jesus, which I happen to think. But the problem is that New Testament scholars treat these as if they were invented to study the historical Jesus people. Scholars have written books attacking these criteria, and they don't seem to understand this is how history is done. So the way it works is, if you want to know. Suppose you want to know whether Abraham Lincoln really did something he allegedly did. Like you've read some book where he's got some story about something, Abraham Lincoln. And suppose you want to do research, well, how do you research whether Abraham Lincoln really did it. Well, you look, you find as many sources as you can and you want to find which sources have not relied on each other. So you know, you can't rely, you can't just like read a biography that quotes another biography and pretend those are two different sources for something. It's just one biography got his information from the other. So you look for as many independent sources you have. If you've got a lot of independent sources that haven't relied on each other that all say the same thing, that means none of them could have made it up. And that, that makes it more likely that it's something he really said or did for Abraham Lincoln. Or you look to see is like is this person who's reporting this is what he's saying actually contrary to what he would want to say given his views of things. Like he's, he's talking about how honest a person Abraham Lincoln is. And then he points out, yeah, well it's one thing he actually told this lie and is, you know, it'd be like contrary to what he would want to say. If it's contrary to what he want, would want to say, then it's more likely that happened or at least that he, he knows happened, things happened and so that, so that's the first thing's independent attestation. The second is dissimilarity. If you have stories that are dissimilar to what the storytellers want to say, then they're, you know, they didn't make them up. The third thing, contextual credibility. If you read about Abraham Lincoln getting upset because his microwave broke down, you know it can't be true. There weren't microwaves. So it just has got to fit within the context text. You do the, so this is what you do for every historical figure. You apply criteria such as these. And I think that yes, you, they, they do make sense and we should follow them, but we have to use them very cautiously. And it's much harder using them for ancient sources than modern sources. But they're still how we establish the past.
- [46:11]
Megan Lewis
Thank you very much. Final question for the day. Has any non canonical gospel been found that was written prior to the Gospel of Mark? Is there a possibility of an earlier gospel existing that was destroyed because it did not agree with the orthodox theology?
- [46:29]
Bart Ehrman
Mark is our earliest surviving gospel. There may well have been accounts of Jesus written before Mark. If they were written, they don't exist anymore. Some scholars, when I was in graduate school, it was commonly thought that Mark, Mark relied on a written source for his passion narrative for the accounts of Jesus last week in Jerusalem. But I don't think that there's good evidence of that. The Gospel of Luke is interesting because in the very beginning, the first few verses of Luke's gospel, the author indicates that many had written an account of the things Jesus said and did. And we know that he used Mark. But Mark isn't many. And so Luke really meant there were many then possibly some of those were written before Mark. We don't know know if there were some that were written before Mark. Yet they, they were either destroyed or more likely they were simply lost. If they were lost or destroyed, there's no reason to think that necessarily is because it contradicted the canonical gospels. It might have been that, but that wouldn't be the conclusion you would naturally draw because the reality is that about 99 of ancient literature altogether is lost and most of it isn't. Wasn't destroyed because people didn't, you know, thought it disagreed with something else they liked. They just didn't copy it anymore. And so I think it'd be jumping too quickly to say, oh, it was destroyed because of this. You can think of about 20 reasons why something wouldn't exist anymore and there's no way to evaluate which one would be right.
- [48:00]
Megan Lewis
But thank you so much, listeners. Thank you all very much for your questions. Now, before we finish for the week, would you mind just summarizing what we spoke about today?
- [48:09]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah. So we've started in on a two part discussion on the, the ethics of Jesus and its relationship to ethics in the ancient world more broadly. And I was emphasizing that the Greek and Roman worlds were very, were very interested in ethics and people were just about as ethical as people are now. But Jesus did bring a transformation and that, that Jesus ethics were different in many ways. They were similar in many ways, but they were different in many ways. But in some of the that they were different, they ended up making a huge difference to our civilization and we're going to be talking more about that next time.
- [48:45]
Megan Lewis
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 that you can use the Code MJ podcast for a discount on all of Bart's courses over at www.bartehrman.com. misquoting Jesus will be back next week. But what are we going to be talking about next time?
- [49:04]
Bart Ehrman
Time? Well, we're following up on this one. We're going to talk more about the significance of of Jesus ethics people. I think people who've read my books are going to be surprised that I in this book, I talk about some very, very positive things that came out of the Christian movement, starting with Jesus. And we'll talk about some of that in the next episode.
- [49:23]
Megan Lewis
Thank you all and goodbye. This has been an episode of Misquoting John 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 Bart Ehrman's YouTube channel so you don't miss out. From Bart Ehrman and myself, Megan Lewis. Thank you for joining us.