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- [00:00]
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- [01:16]
Megan Lewis
The fear of death is an experience common to most of humanity. In fact, one of the oldest known pieces of literature, the Epic of Gilgamesh, shows one man's struggle with that very fear. Christianity's promise of heaven provides a safe haven from that concern. But what did Jesus think about life after death? I'm joined by Dr. Bart Ehrman to talk about what the Gospels tell us about Jesus thoughts and beliefs surrounding death in the afterlife. And to ask whether he would even have recognized our modern concept of an eternal paradise. 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 Bart, how are you today?
- [02:15]
Bart Ehrman
Yep, I'm doing fine, thanks. You know, I'm back in the classroom this semester teaching undergraduates and you know, there are a lot about, a lot of things about being a university professor that, that nobody finds very fun. We have to do like, like every other job. But yeah, well, grading is one thing, you don't have to do another job. So. Yeah, grading, that's. Yeah, it's not. But you really, you know, you need to do it and, and it's useful to do it and, and, but you know, meetings and things. Oh God. But. But the teaching of the undergraduates, that is the perk of the job, and it is. It's just so much fun. So I'm really. Yeah, I'm really enjoying that. So.
- [02:49]
Megan Lewis
Excellent.
- [02:50]
Bart Ehrman
Right, so. And how are things on your end?
- [02:52]
Megan Lewis
Good. Busy. Good. Running language classes and all that kind of exciting stuff.
- [02:58]
Bart Ehrman
Are you teaching any of those classes?
- [03:01]
Megan Lewis
I'm not. Josh is teaching Hebrew and Sumerian, and we have someone else teaching Middle Egyptian. And then last month we had a Mesopotamian astronomy class start. So a friend of mine who's a grad student at Brown University is teaching on Mesopotamian astronomy.
- [03:18]
Bart Ehrman
Oh, my God. This is all in the digital Hammurabi thing. Okay, okay.
- [03:23]
Megan Lewis
I'm copying what you're doing, except more in the Mesopotamia realm of things.
- [03:28]
Bart Ehrman
Okay. Digital Hammurabi. You all need to look that one up. Absolutely.
- [03:34]
Megan Lewis
Now, misquoting. No, not misquoting. Jesus. Because I have a question to ask you. Oh, that I have forgotten. You have a cruise coming up.
- [03:42]
Bart Ehrman
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I wanted to. I wanted to say something about this for people who are listening, because so I'm. You know, I do these. I do these cruises, you know, maybe once a year or so I do a cruise where I give lectures. And the people come because they want to go on a cruise. And, you know, they. They tend to be with people that they can. Who are interested in the kinds of stuff that I do, and they can talk about it with other people who are interested in stuff I do, as opposed to their family and friends who don't care. So. So I'm doing that again this summer. So this summer, June 4th to 14th, I' cruise with Thalassa Journeys. Thalassa is the Greek word for sea. So sea journey. And it's a cruise that's going to start out in Athens and go to Venice. And so this is going to be great. It's this amazing, amazing ship, but also these sites. We start in Athens, you know, and so we're going to, you know, go to the Acropolis and see the. See all this, you know, the. All the stuff up on the Acropolis and in Athens. We'll do stuff in Athens. But then we take this cruise ship and we. We sail south and we sail southern part of Greece and then up the coast of Montenegro and Croatia and end up in Venice. And along the way, we're stopping at these sites, you know, the. You know, an island, you know, a Greek. One of the Greek islands. And. And then villages, medieval villages in Montenegro and in Croatia. And these are supposed to be the Most gorgeous, you know, the shoreline in, in the known universe and I haven't cruised on that part of it. And so it's going to be. So we go through the Aegean Sea, the Ionian Sea, you only go. Then we go on up. And so anyway, so I'm gonna, and I'm going to be giving lectures on this book that I'm just finishing finally on how the ethics of Jesus transformed the world. It will not be, the book will not be available yet. And so this will be lectures based on that. So if anybody's interested in going, we're putting up a, there'll be a slide here to see kind of where you can, you know, who you, whom you contact. But you should definitely think about it because it's, it's, it's a fantastic ship. It looks like it's complete.
- [05:51]
Megan Lewis
Amazing sights, beautiful scenery, fascinating subject matter and you get like a sneak preview of the book before it's released which I mean I. Sounds pretty interesting to me. We should talk about the book at
- [06:05]
Bart Ehrman
some point now that we probably should. Yeah. The only downside of this cruise is people have to, you know, kind of hang out with me. But apart from that it's gonna be great.
- [06:12]
Megan Lewis
See you say that's a downside I think a lot of other people probably find to be a bonus.
- [06:17]
Bart Ehrman
Well yeah, I got nothing else to do. I'm talking people. I mean I'm an adult. Right, Perfect.
- [06:25]
Megan Lewis
Well yes, as but says there will be information in the description and hopefully we'll get a slide or a pop up going on so everyone can see as well. Now today on Misquoting Jesus, as I said, we are going to be talking about heaven specifically what Jesus would have thought about it. I also later on have a reminder about our brand new course which starts recording this coming Saturday which is the Rise and Fall of Biblical Israel with Dr. Jacob Wright. And for our bonus segment Bart is going to be answering some excellent listeners questions. Now Bart's Jesus in Heaven when did you start to wonder if Jesus actually believed in heaven?
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Bart Ehrman
Ah, right. I guess we should define our terms. I guess I don't need to define Jesus.
- [07:08]
Megan Lewis
No, I think, I think we're good on Jesus.
- [07:10]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, we're good on Jesus when we're saying heaven. I guess you know, when I was growing up I had the vision of heaven that probably most people in America have whether they believe it in it or not, but that it's a, it's the place that when you die your soul goes to heaven or goes to hell. And heaven would Be the place where your soul would go, that would be, you know, for salvation, for eternal life in the presence of God and with all your family and friends who are also believers, and you're up there in heaven. And so, so the I, so your soul going to heaven, we're talking about that kind of thing. And so I just assumed, of course, that Jesus, that's what he was about. Jesus is about making sure that your soul went to heaven if you would believe in him. And I certainly thought that all the way through my childhood and through my born again experience and through my evangelical training. I, I think I probably just had that assumption about Jesus view of things into my. Until I was a graduate student. Even when I started realizing that this notion of your soul dying and going to heaven is not exactly what Jesus was talking about when he talks about things like the kingdom of heaven.
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Megan Lewis
When did this start to kind of occur to you? Was there a specific moment or piece of research that you had read? Or was it more of a gradual realization?
- [08:28]
Bart Ehrman
It's, it's kind of tied into other things that were going on in my research and my thinking. I probably, I don't know, my. Toward the end of my master's degree, maybe the beginning of my PhD, I became more and more convinced that, that Albert Schweitzer and others like him who thought that Jesus is best understood as an apocalyptic Jew, that that understanding is historically probably right, and that, that Jesus is not a 20 20th century American. the time I was thinking. And he didn't have American Christian views. Yeah, I know that was a big realization, but that, but. So you have to situate him in his own context. And we put Jesus in the situation of apocalyptic Judaism of the first century, then it, then it has implications for a lot of things. It's not just that the Day of Judgment is coming soon, which is what many people think of as apocalyptic Judaism. And it's, and it's true. That's, that is, that's the thing. The Day of Judgment is coming soon. But there are lots of other elements tied into that that affect things like what is the afterlife, you know, when the, when the Day of Judgment comes, what happens and what is salvation at that point and what is condemnation at that point. And I started realizing that my views of heaven and hell as the place that your soul, you know, your soul goes to one or the other, that those are later Christian ideas, but they're not the views that Jesus himself subscribed to.
- [10:00]
Megan Lewis
Now we'll get to the apocalypticism and how that colors Beliefs in a minute. But I wanted to start this section by asking what would the general Jewish understanding of the afterlife have been during Jesus time?
- [10:15]
Bart Ehrman
You know, I wrote a, I've written this book that I guess we've mentioned before called Heaven and Hell and Ideal. I deal with this kind of issue in that book that's kind of like, you know, what, what were different views of the afterlife in the ancient world? You know, and you mentioned the Gilgamesh epic, which I actually start with in my book, but which is very ancient thing. It's that that text is on your turf. It's ancient Near Eastern stuff. But I go from there to the he Bible and to Greek, ancient Greek views and Homer and stuff, and Roman views and then Jewish views at the time of Jesus and, and, and so on. And so there were, there were an entire range of views that were available at the time. When you, when you talk about the standard, sort of a standard Jewish view, most Jews at the time of Jesus appear to have thought what most non Jews thought, which is that when you die, that's the end of the story. I mean, it's just the, the idea is that you are a unit, unified being. You are, you're both body and soul. But when your body dies, your soul dies. When your soul dies, your body dies. And there's no, there's no afterlife. And I think a lot of Jews still have that view today that, that life is what we have and it's temporary and it's here for a while, then it goes and that, that's it. And so I would say that that was probably the dominant view throughout most of the Hebrew Bible and in the, in the time of Jesus.
- [11:38]
Megan Lewis
So as Jesus was an apocalypticist, would that have impacted his views on, on the afterlife and what happens once you die?
- [11:49]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, I think so. I mean, you know, when you, when you read the Hebrew Bible, you do get, you get, you get certain words that sure sound like they're talking about heaven and hell, where your soul goes to. And so people often ask me about Sheol, for example. So Sheol S H E O L in. Especially in the poetry sections, especially in the Book of Psalms seems to be a place where people go when they die. They go to, they go to Sheol. And people often think it's like the Greek Hades, like in Homer, when Homer visits Hades, when, when Odysseus visits Hades and Homer, it's a kind of a shadowy existence. It's this nether world. It's where people don't have any real substance. And they don't, they don't have any strength and they can't think, they can't really even talk. They just kind of exist their shadows. And many people, including me for many, many years thought that's what Sheol was like, is like a Jewish version of that where everybody goes there, that that's how they are. And I, I came to think, you know, I came to realize, actually doing research for my book, that in most places where Sheol appears in the Old Testament, it's actually not talking about a place everybody goes. It's the place where your body gets buried. It's, it's a synonym for the tomb or a grave. And so, so I think that most, even in the, even in the, throughout the Hebrew Bible, there's this idea that everybody dies and they're put in their grave. And that's, that's kind of it. About 200 years before Jesus appeared, the, There was a shift in Jewish thinking not, not shared by everybody, but a lot of people participated in the shift where they started thinking, you know, this idea that you die and that' of the story doesn't make very sense. Make, make very much sense if God is just and in control because if you die and that's it, that means that the people who are really exploitative and horrible human beings and just, you know, just are out for themselves the whole time and out for their self aggrandization and they, they really want to promote themselves and they don't care about anyone else and they care who they stab in the back, who they hurt. They don't care, they die. And the same thing happens to them as the person who's being very righteous, who's doing her best to obey God and, and taking care of those she loves and taking, even helping out those in need. And someone like that dies and they have a miserable life while they're alive, right, because they're hungry or they're, you know, they're cold. They don't have, they have a miserable life. They die and they get the same thing that the other person gets. That's not right. And so people started thinking about 200 years before Jesus that in fact, it's not that way, that God in fact is going to reward the people who are righteous and he's going to punish those who are sinners. And that led then to an idea that there is an afterlife that will involve rewards and punishments and that this becomes part of the apocalyptic view.
- [14:51]
Megan Lewis
So would Jesus have subscribed to this idea of some kind of afterlife with rewards or Punishments regarding, based on your, your behavior during life, I think he
- [15:02]
Bart Ehrman
clearly did so within, within this apocalyptic Judaism, the idea of rewards and punishments was different from what Christians typically believe today. So this is one of the major, major points when they talked about rewards and punishments, these apocalyptic Jews, they did not mean that you die and your body would, would deteriorate, but your soul would live on one place or the other. They believed that the, that the afterlife would be a physical afterlife in your body. And so when apocalyptic Judaism developed, they, part of it was developing the idea of a future resurrection of the dead. Within Judaism, when you say resurrection, you mean that your body comes back to life. And the idea is that people will be raised from the dead bodily. And those who have been sinners and have had no interest in God or obeying God's commandments, they would be raised from the dead and shown the error of their ways, and then they'd be ruthlessly destroyed for all time. Whereas those who were on God's side, who had suffered for it in this life, they would be raised from the dead and they would be brought into an eternal kingdom. That there'd be a kingdom ruled not by these wretched people who are running our governments now, they'd be ruled by God. And part of the idea is that God created humans to live in paradise. I mean, when he made Adam and Eve, it's the Garden of Eden and they messed up. And as a result of that, you know, we're not in Eden anymore, obviously, but God's going to return it to Eden. And so just as he created Adam and Eve as body and soul, he created us body and soul. And we're going to live body and soul in this kingdom. And so it'll be a kingdom of God here on earth that will be inhabited bodily.
- [16:58]
Megan Lewis
So there would be an eternal paradise, but it will be a physical paradise that has been created on Earth once the, the mortal kings and mortal kingdoms have been wiped out. Is that right?
- [17:12]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah. And so you get these traditions about the world being recreated or being transformed. Christians pick up on this, of course, like in the Book of Revelation. Part of the whole point is that the, the world gets transformed at the end and there's, there's a new world and the faithful enter into it. And but Revelation's getting this from Jewish texts that have similar things. So there are Jewish texts from outside the Bible that are previous to New Testament, earlier than the New Testament, and so, and a number that are after the New Testament that also embody this view. And it is this view that there, it's not that you have the spiritual existence after death, but that your body's brought back. And so one of the big issues was like, how does that happen? And, and you know, just because it obviously creates problems when you think that your body's going to live forever. But I mean, your body gets injured, you know, and it gets hurt and it dies. And so how, and so they develop ideas that you're given an immortal, an immortal body, a body that, that cannot get wounded or hurt or sick and can't die. And that'll be a glorious body, a glorified body. But it's, but it's still a body. It's a body inhabited by a soul.
- [18:26]
Megan Lewis
So you said in, in an earlier answer that Jewish people of this time believed that the body and the soul were inextricably intertwined. If one dies, so does the other. When do we see this kind of separation of the two coming into play?
- [18:41]
Bart Ehrman
Well, you start seeing the separation actually at a much later time. You find the idea that they're integrated like in the beginning, like Adam. And so, so when you read the story of Adam and Eve, God makes Adam out of the dirt of the earth and he's just this bodiless, he's this body on this lifeless thing on the ground. And then God breathes into Adam. When he breathes the breath of life into Adam, he becomes a living soul, a living being, A living being. And it's because he's got the breath of God within him. And Jews at this period in Jesus time still thought that humans have breath within them and that's their soul. It's the, the soul and the breath are, they're are the same thing in some ways. And so when you die, your breath, your breath doesn't go someplace else. It just, it's, you know, you're dead. And so you're integrated being body and soul. And so it was only later that many Jews started thinking something different than Christians. And it was because. Not so much because of the influence of the Hebrew Bible, in fact, not at all. It was the influence of Greek philosophy in Greek thinking circles. So you know, as, as Greece took over the Mediterranean area eventually under Alexander the Great. And you have conquests and Greek culture coming in and then with Christianity, Christianity spreading mainly outside of Israel to other parts of the Greek speaking world. People who, converting or who are familiar, who are Jews and stay Jews living in these places or people who convert to Christianity living in these places, know about the Greek way of understanding things, which is that your body and your soul are separate and that your soul is eternal but your body is mortal. And in that Greek way of thinking, things like you find in Plato, for example, your body dies but your soul lives on. That came to influence especially later Christian ideas that there's a separation of body and soul at death. But Jesus didn't hold to that. Jesus was not influenced by Greek, Platonic, by Platonic philosophy from Greece. He was, he was influenced by the Hebrew Bible and by Jewish apocalyptic thought, which didn't hold to that.
- [20:51]
Megan Lewis
Thank you. We're going to take a brief break and then we will be back to talk about whether the writers of the Gospel shared Jesus beliefs on the afterlife and how this idea of a spiritual heaven developed within the New Testament. Jesus and Paul are the two most important figures in the history of Christianity. But did they even agree with one another? Join acclaimed scholar Bart Ehrman in his online course Paul and the Great Divide, where you'll dive deep into the complex relationship between Paul and Jesus, explorer their differing views on crucial issues and uncover the profound impact of their teachings on the early Christian faith. In this eight lesson course you'll gain valuable insights into the historical context of Jesus and Paul's beliefs, their views on salvation and their understanding of the Jewish law. Don't miss out on this unique opportunity to enrich your understanding of these influential figures. Visit Paul bart ehrman.com forward/paul to learn more or sign up today. And remember to use discount code mjpodcast for a special offer. Once again, that's bartiman.com Paul with a discount code mjpodcast so before the break we were talking about Jesus beliefs on the afterlife and the development of the idea that the body and the soul could be separated and would be separated after death. Did any of the writers of the Gospels share Jesus apocalyptic beliefs on the afterlife? Were they anticipating a bodily resurrection?
- [22:24]
Bart Ehrman
Well, yeah. So I think, I think the way it works is that if you line the Gospels up chronologically like the first one is probably Mark and then there's Matthew, then Luke, then there's John. When you do that, you start seeing a shift in understanding of a number of things, but including the nature of the afterlife. Mark and Matthew continue to hold to Jesus idea that when you die, your body and soul die, your soul doesn't go one place or another, but that there's a resurrection at the end of time. You'll be raised from the dead and those who are righteous, who are on God's side, will enter the kingdom and those who are unrighteous will be Destroyed, raised from the dead to be destroyed for all time. When you get to Luke a later gospel, you start seeing hints of a different view. Because in Luke's Gospel, and only in Luke's Gospel, when, like a key passage is when, when Jesus is hanging on the cross. And in, in the, in all three gospels, you have these two other people crucified with him on either side of him. In Luke's Gospel, one of them starts upbraiding Jesus starting saying nasty things to him and about him. And the other one tells him to be quiet because he hasn't. Jesus hasn't done anything to deserve this. And then this robber turns to Jesus, says, lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Now, throughout Matthew and Mark and most of Luke, when the idea of the kingdom and Jesus coming into the kingdom means that God's kingdom is going to come to earth and Jesus is going to be the king and those and people be raised from the dead will be in this kingdom. But in this case in Luke, he says, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus replies, truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise. Whoa. Okay, so it sounds like this is, this means they're both going to die and they'll end up in paradise, which won't be the Garden of Eden, apparently. It's going to be like going up to heaven with God because in the Christian tradition, that's what happens to Jesus. He goes up to heaven with God and this, this person's going to go with him. He's the first one to be saved in that sense. And, and so it looks like here you've got this idea that the soul now is, is going to exist outside of the body and be rewarded after death. So you find that there. And, and that's, you know, when you get to the Gospel of John, most, most of the, about the Gospel John is not about resurrection at all. All it's about having eternal life. And so, you know, in, in your
- [25:05]
Megan Lewis
soul, do we see outside of the, the Gospels, do we see this same shift from a bodily resurrection to a more spiritual eternity?
- [25:16]
Bart Ehrman
You know, it's interesting, you actually find it already in our first author before the Gospels, you see a shift. Paul, of course, is our first, first Christian author. The earliest writings of the New Testament go back to Paul. And in his early writings, if you kind of chronologically, for example, First Thessalonians, probably the first book he wrote, the first Christian text we have, it is quite clear that he thinks that when Jesus comes back from heaven in judgment, people are going to be raised from the dead, and the followers of Jesus will be raised up bodily and meet him in the air and then apparently come back down. They're welcoming the king who's coming to earth. And so, like a city is welcoming the king who's come, and they bring him back into the city. They come back to earth and they. So it's a bodily resurrection. First Thessalonians, chapter, chapter 4. And the same thing in First Corinthians, chapter 15, where Paul's explicit that people are going to be raised from the dead and it's going to be a physical resurrection. It's not that your, your body, it's not just that your cadaver is going to kind of come back together and it'll be the same body forever. Paul's explicit. It's going to be a transformed body, an immortal body, a glorified body that cannot get hurt or sick or die. And so it'll be a glorified bodily existence forever. That's, that's what Paul says early on. As time goes on, he appears to start shifting his view. And it appears that he shifts his view because he starts thinking that, you know, it hasn't happened yet and, you know, it may not happen before I die. Well, what then? You know, because he thought originally he thought it's going to happen, like, right away, and then it didn't. And so what if I die first? Especially because he's in prison, you know, and facing charges. And so what if, what happens if I get executed? And he started thinking, look, Christ is like the center of my life. He's with me the entire time. He's not going to abandon me when I die, even for a short period before he comes back. Paul started thinking that, that probably what will happen is I'll have some kind of interim existence up with Christ in heaven. And so you find that in Second Corinthians, chapter 5, and, and in the in. And so you start getting this idea that there'll be a resurrection, and in Philippians where he'll. He'll actually go up temporarily in Christ's presence and then come back when the resurrection happens. So it's not that he thought the resurrection wasn't going to happen for, you know, millennia, but he thought there might be an interim period, and during that period, he would be. Have access to Christ. And so that's the beginning of the idea that your, your soul can separate from your body and live in, in the heavenly realm.
- [28:00]
Megan Lewis
In the development of early Christianity, do we see any groups holding on to this idea of a bodily resurrection? Or does everyone join Paul in this transition to a spiritual one?
- [28:13]
Bart Ehrman
It ends up leading to a really interesting situation that people have never noticed even if they recite the Nicene Creed. The who? So when you say the creed, the churches that say the creed. So among the things that you believe, if you say, if you say one of the creeds is that I believe in the resurrection of the dead. People say that even though they think that what's going to happen is they're going to die and their soul goes to heaven or hell. Well, if you believe your soul goes to heaven and hell, what's the resurrection of the dead? What ends up happening is the Christian, Christianity starts out firmly with the idea of a bodily resurrection. Teachings of Jesus, teachings of his followers, teachings of Paul, bodily resurrection. But as more people convert into Christianity, they're converting out of Greek backgrounds where they don't have future resurrections of the body. In Greek thinking, the idea your body is going to leave forever is awful. Oh my God, I gotta live in this body my whole life. The body's the problem, you know, the body's what feels pain and the body's what gets sick and there's no way. And, and, and so what does it even mean you're going to live in your body forever? I mean, you know, like if you had your arm amputated, are you going to live without an arm for eternity? What I mean, in Greek thinking, it just made no sense. But most. And so in Greek thinking your soul will live on, going back to Plato, etc. So what ends up happening then is that more people convert into Christianity from that Greek setting and they idea of the separation of the soul and body, but they've inherited a tradition that talks about the resurrection of the dead. And so they say both things. And so somebody who says the creed believes the soul separates from the body, but believes there's a resurrection of the dead. And they don't even think about it. They hear that, they don't realize what it means. It means you believe in a resurrection of the body. And so they're supposed to say that. And they do say it, but they don't realize that it creates a consciousness conflict because it, you know, which is it.
- [30:21]
Megan Lewis
Are there any early texts that try and harmonize these two things? Or is it, is it just a contradiction that exists and no one really
- [30:30]
Bart Ehrman
addresses it, you know, it ends up being. Nobody addresses it kind of directly the way that I've just phrased the problem. But you, you do have issues that rise up that are quite related to it that continue till today. For example, almost everybody who thinks that souls go to heaven or hell believe that in hell there's physical torment. Well, how do you have physical torment if you don't have a physical body? You know, and like it's, and it's not just that you're mentally tormented, but like demons are sticking red hot iron in your eye, pokers in your eye kind of thing. It's like, ah, well, how do you do that without an eye? And conversely, people think, you know, when they die they'll, they'll be with their, their, you know, they'll see their parents in heaven or they'll see their spouse in heaven. Well, how, how do you see them exactly? I mean, if they're not, if they don't have a body, how do you see a soul? And so people have this kind of mixed idea in their head. You know, I've known, I've known older people who've gotten old and their spouse died when they're young or worried that they won't be their spouse won't recognize them in heaven anymore. And is, and, but it means that you've still got, somehow you still have your body. And, and so people, I, in my experience when I ask people about this, they don't have a good explanation for how it's going to work. But I think some kind of idea is your soul takes on the form of a body or something, but it's not a bodily resurrection of the dead. You go to heaven, you stay there forever. As opposed to Jesus idea that your body's raised from the dead and you live in paradise here on earth.
- [32:05]
Megan Lewis
I have two more questions. The first one is about Jesus resurrection as recorded in the Gospel gospels. Was this understood to be a physical resurrection? I'm assuming probably. If it was, why was he not recognized by his apostles if he was inhabiting the same body?
- [32:23]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, it is a physical resurrection. In, in the entire New Testament, not just the gospels, Paul is explicit that Jesus is raised physically, bodily from the death. First Corinthians 15 is where Paul talks about the resurrection the most. And people completely misunderstand this passage. Many, many, many people do because at one point Paul says that flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. And so people think. So Paul's against the idea of a physical resurrection because it sounds like that, but it absolutely does not mean that. Because when Paul says flesh and blood, he means that people in their current state cannot enter into the king heaven. We are now we're flesh and blood. That's who we are now. That's how Paul uses that phrase elsewhere for like people, human beings living. Now, Paul thought that Jesus was physically raised from the dead, but in a glorified body. And people will be raised from the dead like him, in glorified bodies, but it'll still be bodies. The Gospels. Mark doesn't actually say, except the tomb is empty, which means the body isn't there, which means the body has been raised in some sense. But he doesn't say what the body's like. Like in, in Matthew, Jesus is physically raised from the dead and appears to his disciples in his bodily form. And Luke and John, Luke, John go out of their way to prove that it's a body because Jesus. The disciples don't believe it. And Jesus proves it to them by eating something. Give me something to eat here. And so he starts eating some fish. So he's not just raised in the body. Apparently his body has a digestive system or something. I don't know. And so they're really emphatic about, about it. And so, yes, it is, they are. He is raised bodily in these, in all of these texts.
- [34:16]
Megan Lewis
So if it was a physical resurrection with the body that he's been walking around in that his apostles have talked to and spent time with, why is it that they don't recognize him?
- [34:28]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, I know. This is. This is a strangest thing that, that, you know, it takes. Takes a really close reading of the New Testament to see this. And virtually every time Jesus. Somebody has a reason to think that Jesus isn't in the tomb anymore. And they doubt. It's not that they believe the tomb makes them doubt. There's no body in here, so they doubt. And Jesus shows up and they doubt. And they're doubting the whole time. Why are they doubting? He's right here. What's the doubt? There he is. And so, so much so that as I said in Luke and John, they don't believe it. He says, look, give me something to eat. You'll see, I'm a body here. And, and with Thomas in the Gospel of John, at the end, Thomas doesn'. And Jesus says, put your fingers in my hands and my side. You'll see. And so he's still got the wounds. And so why are they doubting the whole time? We, we talked about this in an earlier episode about, with the Gospel of Mark specifically, but I think it's true of the other gospels as well to some extent that this doubt tradition is found throughout all the resurrection narratives. And it doesn't make much sense because for the reason I just said, they can see him. And so it may be there in order to show that, you know, even good, good followers of Jesus can have their doubts sometime. But it's okay because you just hang in there. You'll. You'll end up believing maybe something like that. Maybe that may be what the gospel writers are trying to say. But I think also there might be this thing where Jesus disciples that not all of them actually came to believe and that the gospel writers knew that some of them ended up not believing Jesus had been raised from the dead. And they expressed that in this doubt tradition because they're showing some people doubted, but, but they resolved the doubt tradition by all of them coming to believe. So they're trying to explain why everybody knows. Yeah, some of them didn't believe it. Well, they didn't believe it at first, but then they, they ended up believing it.
- [36:23]
Megan Lewis
I see. Thank you. Now, one final question before we move on to other things. Would Jesus, and I suspect we know the answer, but I think it's a good way to sum up the episode. Would Jesus have recognized the modern concept of heaven?
- [36:38]
Bart Ehrman
No, I don't think he would have. I mean, I don't think he. I don't think he had been exposed to this idea that the soul is immortal and would live forever outside the body. I, I doubt if he had been. His view of the afterlife was a resurrected body. And so I think that's what he would have known. The idea that, you know, your soul lives forever in heaven doesn't really make sense for apocalyptic Jews who think that the whole idea is that God created this material world and he created us as material beings and the world was ours in order to, to celebrate. It wasn't ours to exploit, it was ours to enjoy. And, and, but humans messed it up. God didn't mess it up. Humans messed it up. But God's plan was for humans to live in this world as physical beings. And so the apocalyptic idea is that it's going to happen. The end time is going to be like the beginning time. The beginning time was the time of creation and paradise. And that's what it's going to end up like in the end. It's not going to be your soul going to heaven, which is a view that comes from, from Plato and other Greek philosophers, not from Jesus.
- [37:54]
Megan Lewis
Thank you so much, Bart. We are going to go to some news on upcoming events and stay tuned for this week's bonus segment, which is more listeners questions.
- [38:04]
Bart Ehrman
Welcome to our upcoming Highlights and event segment where we catch up on bart's courses, community updates and all the latest news from the Biblical Studies Academy and beyond Beyond.
- [38:20]
Megan Lewis
I have just the briefest of reminders again for the upcoming Dr. Jacob Wright course, the Rise and Fall of Biblical Israel. He's going to be, he's going to be giving eight lectures on various topics around that theme and they're going to be starting this coming Saturday that is March 1st. They are live recordings, all of them. And then you'll have access to the video recordings after the the live versions have taken place. For times, dates and pricing, you can visit bartiman.com/rise of Israel and you can use use the code MJ podcast for your exclusive podcast discount. Now we're going to go to listeners questions.
- [39:05]
Bart Ehrman
Now it's time for questions from listeners where BART answers real questions, questions submitted by misquoting Jesus fans. If you'd like to submit a question for future segments, Please visit bart erman.com Ask Bart.
- [39:23]
Megan Lewis
All right, Bart, are you ready for our amazing listeners questions?
- [39:27]
Bart Ehrman
Let's go for it.
- [39:28]
Megan Lewis
Let's go. All right. Was Peter partially responsible for Jesus execution? When the temple servants come to arrest Jesus, Jesus, Peter pulls out a sword and cuts off one of the seven's ears. Wouldn't this act, coupled with Jesus cleansing of the temple and claim of messiahship have given the Romans all the reasons they needed to execute Jesus as a violent insurrectionist?
- [39:51]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, that's an interesting question. You know, it kind of depends on whether you, to some extent, it may depend on whether you mean within the gospel story where this happens or if you mean in history, did this actually happen? Is that one of the reasons? I think historically it's hard to show that there was actually Peter cutting off, you know, somebody's ear. It provides the occasion for Jesus to say, put away your swords for the one who lives by the sword will die by the sword. And so I, I'm not sure that that's a historical event. But even so, I, I don't think, even if it did happen, I don't think that the Romans needed that as an excuse to execute Jesus. If anything, they would have arrested Peter and executed him. I mean, because he, he attacked a Roman soldier and so they would have executed him, which they didn't, didn't do. The accusation about Jesus was that he was calling himself the King of the Jews and that is a charge of insurrectionism. And so if, I guess if Jesus had armed followers and if Jesus himself were armed, that would be additional evidence. But it never comes out during any of the trial scenes or anything, if, if somebody's known to call themselves the ruler of a people that Rome is currently ruling that that by definition is insurrection. And so Romans just, they crucified people like that. They didn't really need many excuses. You know, there weren't trials by jury or appeal processes or like that. Just the governor would decide, okay, he's a troublemaker. Crucify him. And that's probably what happened.
- [41:33]
Megan Lewis
Thank you. Next question. BC and AD have been changed to BCE and CE to accommodate most of the world, since not everyone is Christian. However, the number of the year was not changed, so the calendar is still centered around the same event, the birth of Christ. Do you feel this makes the change pointless? And why or why not?
- [41:56]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, no, I get asked this question by my students, and I think it's not pointless at all. Bc, of course, means before Christ. AD means anno Domini, year of our Lord. If I say, you know, if I give a date and I say year of our Lord 1823. Why would I say year of our Lord if I'm not a Christian? I mean, so it's true that, that, that the same events and the same calendar is being used. The question is, how do you refer to it? It's kind of like there are a lot of really bad terms that we use for certain kinds of people that we don't, you know, who are different from us. And these words have changed over time because we don't allow them in public, in polite conversation anymore. But the persons haven't changed. The persons are the same. You just, you give them a different. You don't designate them by these nasty terms anymore. And so I don't. I'm not saying that AD is a nasty term. I'm just saying that as times change, you. You change how you refer to things. And so, so I think it's a good thing because, you know, if a Muslim makes no sense to say year of our Lord, or Jew to say year of our Lord or an atheist year of our Lord, and so you just change it. And so BCE and CE are perfectly good. It just means before the common era and the common era. And it means this is the, this is the calendar that everybody uses in, in the West. And, and so whoever you are, you can use this calendar. But there's one trick about this calendar, by the way, is that it got. When Diogenes. Diogenes Exiguous. No, Dionysius, Exiguous. Came up with this calendar in the 6th century, he miscalculated the date of the death of King Herod, who Jesus apparently was born during the reign of King Herod. But Herod died in what is now 4 BCE, which means the calendar is off by four years. But it, but it also means that if you use BC you mean that Christ was born. Jesus was born four years before Christ. So, so the problems with that calendar too.
- [44:13]
Megan Lewis
Thank you. Next question reads, I read a paper regarding the last words of Jesus in Matthew and Mark. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The paper puts forth the idea that this could be interpreted as my God, my God, how you have glorified me. Reasoning with reasoning around the Hebrew, Syrian and Aramaic words for forsake and glorify. Is this an academic discussion in any way?
- [44:40]
Bart Ehrman
Not that I know of. The words are clearly they don't mean glorify in Psalm. It comes from song. It's a quotation of Psalm 22, verse 1, which is A. Psalm 22 is a Psalm of lament. And these psalms of lament always start out with people really who are having a horrible, horrible time and, and telling God how horrible they are and just, and you know, God, where are you when I need you? And Jesus is saying that on the cross he's quoting Psalm 22, you know, and the Hebrew word, the Greek word, the Greek word, I mean it's really quite plain. It means forsaken, the literal word. It's like left behind. Why have you left me behind?
- [45:22]
Megan Lewis
Thank you. Now, final question for the week. Is it possible that the Gospels were not intended to convert the world's population, but that they were rather some sort of personal last will of early Christian teachers who were fearing that their intention interpretation of the faith could get lost once they died.
- [45:39]
Bart Ehrman
So I don't think it's an either or in particular because I don't think either of those answers is probably the correct one. I don't, I absolutely don't think the Gospels were written to convert anybody. The Gospels are written by anonymous authors for their communities in order to present their, you know, the, the correct understanding of who Jesus really was. So these are books for Christians and they were not being handed out as tractates for anybody to read to convert them. And so a lot of people kind of imagine them that way. And I get that, but it doesn't historically that isn't why what they were being used for or why they were written. Were they written by authors who wanted, you know, kind of near their last gasp and wanted to kind of make sure that their views were kind of kept within the Christian communities, that's possible, but there's no. There's nothing to suggest it within the text themselves. So the authors don't tell us anything about what the circumstances are within which they're writing, especially their personal circumstances. They don't even name themselves. So they don't tell us that, you know, these are deathbed wishes or something. I think it's usually understood that these are authors who've heard stories about Jesus. They know there are lots of accounts of Jesus floating around orally, possibly some written, and they want to present a view of Jesus that they think is the most acceptable view and the one that is the most useful view. And so each of them puts their own twist on it. And so we have to read these in light of the differences between them as well as their similarities. And clearly, when you read them for their differences, they clearly are conveying a different message. And so I think these authors are trying to convey their message, their understanding of Jesus based on their understanding of things. But I don't think that there's anything to suggest they're doing this because they knew they were going to die soon.
- [47:31]
Megan Lewis
Thank you very much. Now, Bart, before we finish for the week, would you mind summarizing what we spoke about today?
- [47:37]
Bart Ehrman
So today we're talking about did Jesus believe in heaven? And by that we mean did Jesus hold the view that most Christians today have that you die and your soul goes to hell to be punished or goes to heaven to be rewarded? And I tried to explain that that view of things was not. Was not in Jesus teachings. It's not what Jesus would have thought. It wasn't. A prominent view among Jews in his day is a view that came. That came down from Greek philosophy, Greek thinking in the Greek world where body and soul were separable things and the soul would live forever and the body would die. Jesus thought that eternal life would come in the body when the soul returned to the body, and it'd be a bodily, eternal existence, not a soul existence up in heaven.
- [48:22]
Megan Lewis
But thank you so much, audience. Thank you all for listening. I hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, please subscribe. 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 what are we talking about next time?
- [48:43]
Bart Ehrman
So we're dealing with a very difficult issue next time. Many, many people understand that the Apostle Paul was completely opposed to Judaism. Often Paul's actually called anti Semitic by, by people. And we're dealing with what Paul's views of Jews, what his views really were. Did, did Paul, was Paul opposed to Jews? And did Paul think that God was opposed to Jews? Did some people tell me they think that Paul thinks that God hates the Jews? Is that true? And how do, how do we know? And so that's, that's the issue we'll be dealing with.
- [49:19]
Megan Lewis
Please make sure you join us that night. 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 favorite 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.