Did Jesus Have to Suffer? Trying to Make Sense of a Troubling View

Summary

Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman
Episode: Did Jesus Have to Suffer? Trying to Make Sense of a Troubling View
Date: May 21, 2024
Host: Megan Lewis
Guest: Dr. Bart Ehrman

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into one of the most profound theological questions in Christianity: Why did Jesus have to suffer and die? Dr. Bart Ehrman examines the origins and evolution of this belief, contrasting Jesus' own teachings on forgiveness with the Christian doctrine of atonement that soon developed after his death. The discussion explores historical, textual, and philosophical aspects, illuminating how early Christians made sense of Jesus’ crucifixion and what it reveals about their understanding of God, justice, and salvation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Centrality of Jesus’ Suffering to Christianity

• The Core Message: According to Bart Ehrman, the death and resurrection of Jesus are foundational to Christianity. Without the belief in Jesus dying for “our sins” and being resurrected, Christianity, as we know it, would not exist.

  “If Christianity was based on, say, the Sermon on the Mount…you wouldn’t have Christianity…I don’t know if people would even know who Jesus was…” (Bart Ehrman, 04:11)

2. Did Jesus Himself Anticipate or Teach His Own Suffering?

• Gospel Accounts vs. Historical Jesus: Ehrman notes that while all four gospels present Jesus as predicting his death and interpreting it as sacrificial, these accounts were written decades later by non-eyewitnesses.

  “Throughout the Gospels, the whole point of Jesus’ life is his death and resurrection. That doesn’t mean that the historical Jesus said and thought that.” (Bart Ehrman, 05:04)

• Challenge for Historians: Discerning which sayings authentically trace back to Jesus is complicated by decades of oral transmission and attribution of later beliefs to his character.

3. What Did Jesus Actually Teach?

• Apocalyptic Message: Ehrman asserts that the historically plausible teachings of Jesus centered on imminent divine intervention, urging people to prepare for the coming Kingdom of God through repentance.

  “The time has been fulfilled, the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news.” (Bart Ehrman, 08:49)

4. Forgiveness vs. Atonement

Forgiveness

• Jesus' Stance: Jesus taught that God forgives those who repent and request forgiveness—no payment or penalty needed.

  “God forgives sins for those who repent. You repent and God will forgive.” (Bart Ehrman, 13:20)

  • Not unconditional—requires repentance, not mere letting go without acknowledgment.
• Analogy: Compared to forgiving a debt:

  “If you owe me a thousand dollars and…you just can’t pay me, forgiveness is I say, okay, you don’t have to pay me. Forget it.” (Bart Ehrman, 12:25)

Atonement

• A Distinct Concept: Atonement is about paying a moral or legal debt. In Christianity, Jesus is seen as dying to atone for the sins of humanity, not his own.

  “Atonement refers to a payment that is being made…Jesus dies for you so that you can have eternal life.” (Bart Ehrman, 14:26)

• Crucial Distinction: Forgiveness is letting go, while atonement requires payment—two separate concepts often conflated in Christian tradition.

  “The concept of forgiveness…is different from the concept of atonement, where payment has to be made. And those two are different from each other.” (Bart Ehrman, 16:19)

5. Forgiveness and Atonement in the Ancient World

• Greek & Roman Ethics: Forgiveness typically tied to ignorance or compulsion, not freely granted; honor culture required satisfaction or payment.
• Atonement Practices: Sacrifices to atone for sins were common across Judaism and Greco-Roman religions.

  “The revolutionary teaching of Jesus…is he just said, no, you don’t need to pay anything, and nobody has to pay for you. God will forgive you.” (Bart Ehrman, 19:18)

6. Why Did Christians Shift from Forgiveness to Atonement?

• The Theological Problem: If God can freely forgive, why require the violent death of his son?

  “Why does God require his son to die?...If he’s God, he doesn’t have to do that.” (Bart Ehrman, 19:52)

• Historical Mechanism: Jesus’ death was not expected by followers who anticipated his messianic rule. When he was crucified, early believers reinterpreted his death as an atoning sacrifice, drawing from prevalent cultural religious ideas about sacrifice.

  “That became the message right off the bat. And it’s different from Jesus’ message.” (Bart Ehrman, 24:00)

• Quote:

  “The religion about Jesus that developed was very different from the religion of Jesus. It’s a religion based on atonement rather than Jesus’ view, which is based on forgiveness.” (Bart Ehrman, 24:44)

7. Varieties of Early Christian Thought

• Dissenting Groups: Some early Christians, especially Gnostics, rejected the atonement doctrine, favoring salvation via secret teachings or spiritual knowledge rather than Jesus’ death.

  “Some of them developed ideas that Christ never died…So the death of Jesus is…incidental. It doesn’t matter for salvation.” (Bart Ehrman, 25:36)

8. Use of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament to Justify Atonement

• Reinterpretation: After the crucifixion, Christians scoured the Old Testament for proof texts—especially Isaiah 53 (“the suffering servant”)—to validate the atonement doctrine.

  “Christians…started saying these are predictions about the Messiah suffering…and these passages then came to be scriptural proofs.” (Bart Ehrman, 26:34)

• Original Context: In context, “suffering servant” refers to Israel collectively, not the Messiah or an individual future savior.

  “This servant…is a reference to Israel.” (Bart Ehrman, 28:36)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If Christianity was based on, say, the Sermon on the Mount…you wouldn’t have Christianity.” (Bart Ehrman, 04:11)
• On Forgiveness:

  “This is what Jesus taught about God. He said that God forgives sins for those who repent...” (Bart Ehrman, 13:20)

• On the Theological Crisis:

  “It creates such a huge problem that theologians…find the doctrine of atonement the most difficult thing to figure out.” (Bart Ehrman, 21:28)

• On the Evolution of Belief:

  “The religion about Jesus that developed was very different from the religion of Jesus.” (Bart Ehrman, 24:44)

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• [04:11] – Why Jesus’ suffering is crucial to Christianity
• [05:04] – Did Jesus anticipate his own suffering or was this back-read into the gospels?
• [08:49] – The core apocalyptic message of Jesus (“Kingdom of God is near”)
• [11:47] – Difference between forgiveness and atonement
• [14:23] – What is atonement?
• [16:49] – Forgiveness and atonement in the ancient Greco-Roman world
• [19:52] – The theological problem: Why wouldn’t God just forgive?
• [22:01] – How the atonement doctrine emerged historically
• [25:15] – Diversity of early Christian perspectives on atonement
• [26:34] – Use and reinterpretation of Hebrew Bible passages
• [28:36] – Isaiah’s “suffering servant” in original context

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Listener Q&A Highlights

• Was Matthew’s gospel originally like Mark’s without the birth narrative?
  Ehrman thinks Matthew’s birth narrative was likely original to the text, unlike Luke’s. (34:35)
• Does John 10:30’s use of the neuter “hen” imply allegiance to Platonic ideas of “the One”?
  Ehrman argues no; the context indicates unity in purpose or agreement, not Platonist metaphysics. (35:48)
• What was Paul’s “thorn in the flesh”?
  Multiple theories exist (speech impediment, epilepsy, personality/sexuality struggles). No consensus. (37:24)
• Could Priscilla have written Hebrews?
  Ehrman finds it highly unlikely given the context and lack of evidence for first-century female authorship. (39:25)

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Episode Tone

• Scholarly but accessible, conversational, occasionally humorous.
• Ehrman is candid about the limitations and difficulties in reconstructing history and theology.
• The dialogue encourages curiosity and critical thinking, especially regarding long-assumed doctrines.

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In summary:
This episode thoughtfully challenges the assumption that Jesus’ suffering and death were always central to Christian faith by distinguishing between Jesus’ original apocalyptic message of repentance and forgiveness and the later development of atonement theology. Listeners are equipped with historical, textual, and ethical perspectives to better understand one of Christianity’s most foundational—and controversial—doctrines.

Transcript

[A]

Hello beautiful.

[B]

I'm Amy Ehrick, founder of Madison Reed, a hair color company I named after my daughter. Forget everything you know about hair color. The mess, the smell, the hassle, the damage. We're female founded and female led. We've transformed the hair color experience with ingredients that care for your hair and award winning color on your terms, at home or at our hair color bars. The future of hair color is here. Madison Reid. Welcome to Ms. Quoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman. The only show where a six time New York Times best selling author and world renowned Bible scholar uncovers the many fascinating little known facts about the New Testament, the historical Jesus and the rise of Christianity. I'm your host, Megan Lewis. Lets begin. That Jesus would have experienced suffering on the cross is not really a subject for debate. But the question of why he suffered and whether or not it was necessary is a little more complex. We'll be getting to that shortly, but first let's catch up with Bart. How are you doing today?

[A]

Yep, doing well. Took a week off to do a. Not a week off. I took a week as a writer's retreat last week and so I'm doing, I'm trying to catch up with what I'm supposed to be doing, which is, you know, writing a book. That's all.

[B]

Good.

[A]

How are you doing?

[B]

Yes, good actually. Everyone is for once healthy and in school. They weren't last week, so. Yeah. Also trying to catch up with things while I can.

[A]

Yeah, right, okay. Yeah. Okay. And the kids are catching up with the schoolwork, so yeah.

[B]

Yes, yes. Very slowly. When you're doing this kind of writing work, how does that fit in around your various travel plans?

[A]

So it varies from one, one thing to the next. Some of my books I've actually written when I'm not at home. I've written a couple books in coffee shops in Wimbledon. We have a flat in London. Yeah, it's a nice way to go. It's not like, not as easy to concentrate in a coffee shop, I gotta say. So I put on my headphones and blasted classical music. No words. I cannot write to words. It's gotta be just instrumental stuff to get my mind so I don't hear anything else. So for this one, I actually have a trip that I'm doing next month. Well, I guess, yeah, so I guess it's this month actually, which is a trip to the Greek islands. It's a tour where I'm giving some lectures. We're hopping from island one island to the next. I mean, I'm lecturing on whether we should see Christianity as an ancient Greek religion. And so, you know, so the people coming along, I'm giving lectures and hanging out with people for 10 days. And so, yeah, so I'm trying to get the book written by that time. I've tried to give up on deadlines, they just create stress. But in this case, I'm still not, you know, if I don't get it written in time, that's fine. It's going to be absolutely fine. So that's what I'm telling myself. But I wouldn't mind having it written so I could just go on the holiday.

[B]

That sounds like a lot of fun. It has been a while since I was on any Greek islands, but I have very fond memories. We used to go to various places with my dad when I was a teenager.

[A]

Oh, really? Wow.

[B]

And I'm one of four. So it was my poor father kind of shepherding four teenagers around little Greek islands. I don't quite know how he managed it, but he did, and we had a wonderful time.

[A]

As a young guy growing up in Kansas, we didn't flip around. The Greek islands.

[B]

Much is a bit easier when you're going from the uk, I think it is.

[A]

You know, I didn't see the ocean till I was maybe 23.

[B]

I do forget sometimes quite how big the US is.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Country of Britain will fit many times into various different states.

[A]

Oh, God, absolutely. But it's still a hugely varied country. It's gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. And such differences in the different places.

[B]

So, yeah, I think when the children are a bit bigger, I would like to do a tour of some of the national parks, because you're right, they're all so different and you can get such varied experiences without having to get on a plane.

[A]

And my daughter's goal is to visit with the kids every national park in America. That's quite a chore.

[B]

That is wonderful. Well, we should stop talking about holiday travel plans and actually get to the topic at hand. So why, Bart, do you think, is the suffering of Jesus so fundamental to Christianity?

[A]

Well, I mean, you could argue it's the whole point. You know, the idea that Jesus died for your sins and was raised from the dead is at the very heart of Christianity. If it hadn't been for this belief, there wouldn't be Christianity. If Christianity was based on, say, the Sermon on the Mount, which is not about his death and resurrection, then, well, you wouldn't have Christianity. I don't know if people would even know who Jesus was, but if historians might or not. But if they did, they would think of him as a great ethical teacher. But, you know, there are lots of great ethical teachers, but there weren't lots of people who died and got raised from the dead and ascended to heaven. And so that became the core of the Christian message.

[B]

Right off the bat, what was Jesus view of his own suffering? And did he even have one, given that he was crucified obviously at the end of his life after all of his teachings had taken place?

[A]

Well, this is really an important question, and it's one that most people haven't really thought much about. And they haven't thought much about it in part because, you know, nobody brings it up. But those who do bring it up point out that in the gospels of the New Testament, absolutely, Jesus talks about his future suffering in all the gospels, starting with Mark, where Jesus makes intimations in our first gospel, Mark, that he'll be taken away and that he'll be killed. But then starting halfway through the gospel, he makes three explicit predictions. They're going to go to Jerusalem, he's going to be rejected, he's going to be executed, and then he's going to be raised from the dead. And in a couple places he says it'll be for the sake of other people, that he'll die for the sake of others. And so it's right there in Mark and it's replicated in Matthew and in Luke and John has the same thing in different words. And so throughout the Gospels, the whole point of Jesus life is his death and his resurrection. That doesn't mean that the historical Jesus said and thought that. Historians have to try and understand what Jesus himself said. We have gospels that are written 30, 40, 50 years later by people who were, you know, not followers of Jesus and hadn't talked with Jesus and weren't there to hear him say anything who believed that Jesus death and resurrection brought about salvation. This is what the Christian faith said. And so they naturally, they're not going to write a gospel where Jesus is taken by surprise at the end. If they see the whole goal of his mission, that this has to happen, then of course they're going to portray Jesus as anticipating that. And the question for historians is, is that really something that he said or not?

[B]

So if we're trying to put Jesus crucifixion for the sins of the world in the context of what he actually said, his actual teachings, as opposed to what was written in later, what sources do historians turn to to try and understand what he did actually teach?

[A]

We're pretty much limited to the four gospels in the New Testament, there are other gospels outside the New Testament that record sayings of Jesus. One of these gospels, some scholars have thought maybe it does present some historical sayings not found in the New Testament, the Gospel of Thomas. But most scholars are kind of doubtful about that and not sure about it. And many scholars think, yeah, nothing in there that is there that Jesus actually said, other than the things that reflect what's in the New Testament. So you do have these other gospels in the New Testament. You hardly have any record of Jesus sayings outside of the Gospels. You have a couple in Paul and you have a couple other places, but they either verify what's in the Gospels or they very much like what's in the Gospels. And so, pretty much, scholars were restricted to the four gospels of the New Testament to know Jesus teachings. And that means that scholars have to navigate among these sayings to figure out which ones actually go back to Jesus. Because we know for a fact that people are putting sayings on Jesus lips. We know that for a fact because we have these other gospels where Jesus says things that we're really pretty sure he didn't say. And so the issue is, could that possibly have been the case with gospels written in, say, the first century, 40 or 50 years after his death, versus in the second century, you know, 100 years after his death? And in principle, there's no reason why not. Why wouldn't these Gospel writers have things that people had put on Jesus lips, or, you know, stories about Jesus teachings have been floating around decade after decade before these authors get ahold of them. And so it's completely plausible that happened. And so scholars use these gospels and they try to figure out, based on the number of historical criteria, what it is Jesus probably really said.

[B]

So then what does it seem that his overarching concerns were in the teachings that academics typically do attribute to Jesus?

[A]

Well, of course, there's things that he makes in the New Testament itself. And it's pretty clear once you weed out what looks like might be something somebody stuck on his lips, or you're not sure about that. But when you actually look at the things you're pretty sure he really said. In some ways, the teachings of Jesus are encapsulated in a really clear way in his first recorded words. Our first gospel is the Gospel of Mark. And the first thing Jesus says in Mark 1:15, he's been baptized, he's gone through his temptation. Then he comes and begins his ministry by proclaiming that the time has been fulfilled, the kingdom of God is near repent. And believe the good news. This is characteristic of his message that we've talked about as being apocalyptic, where he's expecting that God is very soon about to intervene to destroy the powers of evil and everyone who sided with them to bring in a good kingdom where there'll be no more pain or misery or suffering and people need to get ready for it. So the time has been fulfilled. The time allotted for the powers of evil is up. It's over. The kingdom of God is near. It's almost here. You need to repent so that you can turn back to God in preparation for this coming kingdom so that you can enter it rather than be destroyed. I think that's the heart of his message.

[B]

Thank you. We are going to take a very brief break and when we come back we will be exploring the difference between forgiveness and atonement. So please stay tuned. Imagine this Jesus, the founder of Christianity and the Apostle Paul, its greatest missionary teaching and shaping the Christian faith with opposing perspectives. While Jesus emphasized repentance in preparation for the coming kingdom, Paul focused on believing in Jesus death and resurrection. So were they on the same page? Delve into the complexities of this debate in Bart Ehrman's online course Paul and the Great Divide. In this eight lecture course, you'll discover why Paul rarely mentioned Jesus words and deeds and uncover the intricacies of their views on salvation, the Jewish law and ethical behavior. Barth will also explore the first burning Was Paul a true follower of Jesus teachings? Or is it right to say that Paul transformed the Jewish religion of Jesus to the Christian religion about Jesus? Don't miss this opportunity to explore the profound influence of Paul and Jesus on the Christian faith. Visit bart erman.com Paul to learn more or enrol today. And remember, use the discount code mjpodcast for a special discount. Okay, so we've talked about what Jesus actually taught and why suffering or his suffering is so foundational to Christianity. Can we look for a few minutes at the difference between the idea of forgiveness and the idea that someone has to suffer for their sins?

[A]

Yeah, it's a really big difference and it's one most people have never noticed, including lots of scholars, that forgiveness and atonement are actually two separate things. And the reason this is going to be important for us is because Jesus taught forgiveness and his followers after his death taught atonement. And that's different. So the way it works is this forgiveness happens when somebody's done something wrong and they realize they did something wrong and they regret having done it. You know, if they've hurt another person, they feel remorse for hurting that person. And they know they did it and they feel badly about it. And then they ask the person to forgive them. They're going to change their ways. They're not going to do this anymore. They're sorry. And if a person forgives them, then it means that there's no price attached. There's no penalty for what they've done. Forgiveness is simply letting it go. Jesus likens it to a debt. You know, in the Lord's Prayer that everybody says Matthew's Gospel, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, pray. The prayer prayer is, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Well, if you forgive a debtor, it means you've forgiven a loan. If you owe me a thousand dollars and you can't repay it, and you say, look, I just can't pay it, would you just forgive the debt? Forgiveness is. I say, okay, you don't have to pay me. Forget it. We'll just forget about the debt and you just give it up. You don't restructure the loan. You don't take 10 cents on the dollar. You don't make them work it off in some other way. Yeah, we'll paint my house and we'll forget about it. You don't make them find somebody else to you, you know, forgiving the loan means you. You just give it up. You don't get the payment back. The prayer is for God to forgive us as we forgive our debtors. The way we forgive our debtors is we just let it go. This is what Jesus taught about God. He said that God forgives sins for those who repent. You repent and God will forgive. And so it's a very simple transaction where there's no payment made, there's no penalty. It's not unconditional forgiveness. Let me stress this. Jesus does not teach what we today call unconditional forgiveness. When we teach that, what we mean is, somebody's done really something bad to us and we forgive them. We don't hold it against them, even though they don't ask. Like, they might not even care they did this, but we forgive them anyway. That's unconditional forgiveness. Jesus did not teach unconditional forgiveness. He taught that forgiveness requires repentance and request you repent and request forgiveness. And if you do, then God will forgive you. So it's conditional on repentance, but there's no other penalty connected with it.

[B]

So if that's forgiveness, what is atonement?

[A]

Atonement's a very different idea. Atonement refers to a payment that is being made. You can atone for your sins by paying the penalty that's prescribed. Well, just to take the debt image where, like, if you were to atone, then you would pay, like with interest, maybe, or you'd get somebody else to pay for you. And then the payment takes care of the problem. And so in religious language, atonement is when a sin, a moral debt against God, is paid for. And in the Christian tradition, Jesus atones for the sins of others. He doesn't die for his own sins, because in the Christian tradition, he's sinless. His death is to pay the price that other people owe to God for their sins. So one way that people have often looked at it from the very beginning is that people who have broken God's law owe a penalty, and the penalty is death. That's what Paul says. The wages of sin is death. So you have to die. Jesus dies for you so that you can have eternal life. And so he pays the debt that you owe. So that's atonement, but it's not forgiveness. One reason people get confused is because everybody elides those two ideas. And so I guess I should stress that when I talk about forgiveness and atonement, I'm not talking about the specific words. In other words, it doesn't matter to me which words you use for this. I'm talking about two different concepts. The concept of forgiveness that I'm talking about is you just let it go without payment. The concept of atonement I'm talking about is somebody has to pay the price. What happens is, even in the New Testament, you'll have authors use the words, but they're not using them in the same concepts that I'm using. Even in the New Testament, they'll say, jesus died so that God will forgive your sins. Okay, yeah, that's right. But those are just the words. The concepts are different. If he dies for sins, and that's why God lets go of his anger or whatever, then those two concepts are not both present. So what I'm saying is the concept of forgiveness, where you just give it up, is different from the concept of atonement, where payment has to be made. And those two are different from each other. They're just different.

[B]

Was forgiveness widely taught in the ancient world?

[A]

Ah, right. So, yeah, kind of. In Greek moral philosophy, when. When Greek ethicists would talk about what to do if somebody does you harm, they would talk about this phenomenon of, like, foregoing your anger. So forgiveness is forgoing your Anger. So you don't require a penalty of any kind. But there are only specific instances in which that would happen. In Greek and Roman ethical thinking, they use a different word from the word that's used in the New Testament for forgiveness. The word in the New Testament is a word that means something like sending away. Like you send away your anger, or you send away the penalty, you just get rid of it. The word that's used in Greek ethical teaching is sunome, which means something like to understand together. In other words, to have a meeting of the minds. And the meeting of the minds is when somebody has done something really bad to me that's hurt me or like something that's offended me in some way. If we have a meeting of the minds, I'll let it go. The meeting of the minds is when the person convinces me that they didn't know what they were doing. They were ignorant of the fact they were hurting me. Either that or they were under compulsion. Somebody had a sword stuck to their throat and they had to do it. If I'm convinced that, okay, you either didn't know what you're doing or you didn't want to do it, but you had to do it, then I might let it go. But if I know that you've done this on purpose, there's no way I can let it go. Because that's not just. And it sinks my honor. My honor requires repayment. In the Greek and Roman worlds, they could forgive in the sense that it was done for these, under these circumstances, but they did not have this idea of just letting it go based on repentance and a request.

[B]

So how about atonement then? Is that a concept we also see in the Greek and Roman way of thinking everywhere?

[A]

Of course, it's in Greek and Roman religion, just as it's in the Jewish religion and most other religions where, for example, there are sacrifices that are made to God or the gods. Sacrifices could be made for all sorts of reasons. It's not just for atonement, but there were always. Atoning sacrifices would be one category of sacrifice. And so in order to, like, pay for sin, you know, you take a life for your life kind of thing in Greek, Roman, Jewish circle, most circles of antiquity, but it also applied in personal relations in Greek and Roman antiquity for the reason I said that if you've done something wrong, you got to pay for it, and you're paying for it as an atonement. The revolutionary teaching of Jesus. I mean, I'm sure there are other people teaching this, but this is the one we really know the best about is he just said, no, you don't need to pay anything, and nobody has to pay for you. God will forgive you. He's like a father. When the child says, you know, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that, the Father forgives him. Father doesn't have to go out and beat him now. And so this is the teaching of Jesus with respect to God and then also with respect to how humans ought to relate to each other.

[B]

So if Jesus taught that God forgives sins, why does he then have to suffer? Could God not have just forgiven everyone's sins instead of demanding some kind of atonement?

[A]

This is a really big theological problem. Why does God require his son to die? That's what the Christian tradition says. And it doesn't seem to be what Jesus taught. Jesus taught that God didn't require a payment. You get forgiveness. And when you think about it theologically, it's a very troubling idea that God requires a payment. When my child does something that's wrong, I don't require some kind of sacrifice in order to make up for it. I heard a speaker at a conference one time say, you know, that if his daughter did something that she knew she wasn't supposed to do, he doesn't say, I'm glad you said that, too, that you realize you did that. Now I'm going to have to kill your little kitten, Tommy, to make up for your sin. So you have to go out and kill the cat. What? Why? Why don't you just forgive them? And so that's a theological issue. Why can't God just forgive? And. And, you know, kind of the common answer for that is because God had to have justice. He had to have a sacrifice. Well, who made that the necessity? In other words, is there some power greater than God that is requiring him to do something in order to forgive sins? Isn't he the one who makes the rules? And so to say, well, he had to do it is. I think that's wrong. I mean, he didn't have to do it if he's God. If he's God, he doesn't have to do that. And so theologically, it creates such a huge problem that theologians outside of evangelical Christians and fundamentalist Christians or very conservative Catholics or conservative Greek Orthodox, I mean, like modern theologians who are teaching, like, at major divinity schools in the U.S. you know, who are Protestant or Catholic, really highly educated, philosophically astute theologians find the doctrine of atonement the most difficult thing to figure out. And some of them just throw up their hands and say, look, it just doesn't make any sense to me. And that'll come as a surprise, of course, to many readers. But, you know, the doctrine is. It's really problematic.

[B]

So if Jesus taught forgiveness unconditional. Well, not unconditional, we've already talked about that. But forgiveness without some kind of atonement, why does Christianity then teach a doctrine of atonement?

[A]

Yeah, why they come up with this thing if it's not what Jesus taught? Kind of seems problematic to us, I would say in the ancient world, it did not seem problematic. The idea that God required a payment made sense. Made sense that that's how they treated each other. That's how they imagined God, and that's why they have sacrifices. And one of the reasons they have sacrifices. So it made sense then, even if it doesn't make as much sense to people today. Why did Christianity come to embrace this idea? I think it's for a very clear and important historical reason, which is Jesus taught his disciples that God would forgive sins. Many of them, some of them thought that he would be the one who would be the ruler of this future kingdom that he was preaching about. There's a kingdom coming, he said. He told his disciples that you'll all be rulers in this coming kingdom. You 12 will be seated on 12 thrones, ruling the tribes of Israel. They expected him to be at the top of the heap. He's going to be the king over all. Jesus will be the future king, the future messiah. And this is what, as we said in an earlier episode, this is why Romans crucified him. That's why Pontius Pilate crucified him, because he was claiming to be the future king of Israel when only Rome could rule Israel and appoint kings and such. So they. They crucified him for insurrection. So these two things are going together that he's teaching forgiveness. His disciples think that he's going to be the future king, but then what happens is he gets crucified. And they can't understand it because he's supposed to be the future king of this kingdom that's coming very soon. But they killed him. And so how's this supposed to work? And why would God allow it? God chose Jesus. He's a special one. He's a son. He's the Son of God. He's the future Messiah. Why would God allow him to be killed? And so right after the crucifixion, I think just like soon after, as soon as anybody came to think Jesus had been raised from the dead. In the New Testament, it's three days later, maybe it's a little bit longer. I don't know how long it is. But whenever somebody thought Jesus was raised from the dead, they realized, wait, he really is the chosen one of God? If he is the chosen one of God, why in the world did he get crucified? It must have been part of God's plan. How could it be part of God's plan? And so they have to think, why would God want his chosen one killed? It must be a sacrifice. He must have had to die. Well, he didn't die for his own sins. He was sinless. He must have died for the sins of others. And so this is everywhere in the culture that God requires a sacrifice. They just thought, okay, that's it, He's a sacrifice. And once they thought he was a sacrifice, then of course they thought he's an atonement for sins. He was a sacrifice for the sins of others, not for himself. That became the message right off the bat. And it's different from Jesus message. Jesus message is that God will forgive your sins. And now the message is that Christ had to die for your sins. So that the religion about Jesus that developed was very different from the religion of Jesus. It's a religion based on atonement rather than Jesus view, which is based on forgiveness.

[B]

Do all early Christian groups have a similar understanding of this sacrifice of atonement, or do you see different views among different Christian sects?

[A]

I think early on it became the mainline view and continued to be the mainline view. But there were Christian groups that objected to it and didn't agree with it. Were especially aware of groups of gnostics, Gnostic Christians who didn't think that salvation came by the death of Jesus. They thought they came by understanding his secret teachings and understanding the nature of the world and the nature of God and how we can escape our material world to join God up in heaven, etc. So they didn't believe in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus. And some of them developed ideas that Christ never died. The most common view of this was that there was a man, Jesus, and the divine Christ was a divine being who at Jesus baptism, when Jesus the man gets baptized, the Christ comes into him to inspire his teachings and to perform miracles. But then at the end of his life, when Jesus is hanging on the cross, the Christ leaves him. So the Christ never dies. So the death of Jesus is just kind of an incidental thing. It doesn't matter for salvation. And in their view, certainly not an Atoning sacrifice.

[B]

Did early Christians use any of the Old Testament to try and bolster this view of sacrificial atonement?

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah, they did, and they still do. And it's many of the same passages from the Old Testament. The Old Testament never uses the term Messiah for a reference to somebody who's going to die for the sins of the world. There's no connection between Messiah and atonement in the Hebrew Bible. But Christians, soon after Jesus death, came to think that he was an atoning sacrifice. They thought as part of God's plan, it must have been the plan from the beginning. And so it must be rooted somewhere in the Hebrew Bible. And so they started looking for passages that might help them understand. There are passages in the Hebrew Bible that talk about somebody suffering for the sake of others. The most famous one today is Isaiah, chapter 53, where it talks about the suffering servant of the Lord that he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement for our peace is upon him. By his wounds we were healed. Isaiah 53. And it goes on and it talks about the suffering servant. And Christian said, ah, it was right there and we didn't see it. But now we see it, it's there and it's in Psalm 22. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And they start finding these passages and they started saying these are predictions about the Messiah suffering. And as we said in an earlier episode, this led to huge disputes with Jews, non Christian Jews who would say these passages aren't talking about the Messiah. And Christians would say they were. And Jews would point out, look, you know, the Messiah's not even in this path. Look, do you see the term Messiah anywhere? And so they'd go back and forth. But these passages then came to be scriptural proofs. So much so that my students cannot read Isaiah 53 without putting Jesus into it. It is talking about Jesus. They just, it's impossible to read it otherwise. And it's because we've been, you know, this is what's happened in our culture. We were taught that these passages refer to Jesus.

[B]

So who then is the suffering servant in Isaiah 53 if not Jesus?

[A]

Yeah, well, you know, it's actually, if people would just read like all of Isaiah, they have a clearer idea about this. Because this is one of four passages in Isai that refer to this figure called the suffering servant. It's referred to the servant of the Lord, the Yahweh, the servant of the Lord, In Hebrew, these passages are written during a time when the nation of Judah has been conquered by the Babylonians and the leaders of the people have been taken off into exile, and they're taken away from their homes and they're taken back to Babylon and they have. It's kind of a miserable situation. And this part of Isaiah, this second part of Isaiah is talking about how they have now suffered. The leaders of the people have suffered, and so God's going to restore them to their land now because they've suffered for their sins. So this servant, the servant of the Lord is a reference to Israel. This is not just kind of a wild interpretation trying to get Jesus out of there. It's actually what Isaiah himself says. One of the earlier Psalm, one of the three, four chapters before the Isaiah 53 thing is in Isaiah 49, God addresses the servant and he calls him. He says, you are my servant, O Israel. He's talking about Israel. But then people say, oh, yeah, but, you know, it's talking about an individual, so it must be the Messiah. It's just one of these things. We're in the Old Testament all over the place. You have a group of people referred to as a. Either a human or as a beast or something. And. And so it's. It's that sort of thing. He's talking about Israel, not talking about Jesus.

[B]

So is it being used kind of like a collective noun? Like we might say a flock instead of all of the geese?

[A]

Yeah, it's more like, you know, when the book of Daniel sees that what's going to happen in the future, he sees four beasts coming up out of the sea that wreak havoc all over the earth one at a time. And when the angel interprets this thing, he says, well, this beast is this kingdom, this beast is that kingdom. And so it's like this individual beast represents a kingdom. And at the end, there comes another figure called one, like a son of man, which represents the nation of Israel, but, you know, it's an individual representing the nation. So it's that kind of thing which happens a lot in the Old Testament, where you take, you know, you take an individual and it represents the entire nation.

[B]

Bart, thank you so much. We are going to take a very quick ad break and then we'll be back with news about an upcoming event.

[A]

This is Bart's weekly update where we get to catch up on all the latest about Dr. Ehrman's book releases, speaking engagements, UrbanBlog.org happenings, and online course launches.

[B]

We are back. So. But you have a New course coming up. It goes live or the recording is live on June 2nd. Could you tell us a little bit about what you'll be talking about?

[A]

Yeah. This is going to be a controversial one, but I don't mean it to be controversial in the way that people will be taking it as controversial. The title is When Does Life Begin? The Status of the Unborn in the Biblical Tradition. So the issue is obviously related. It's the issue of abortion that is being dealt with today by different sides being fully convinced the other side is completely wrong. And I'm not going to be taking a position on the ethics of abortion in this talk. I'm not going to be expressing my opinion or supporting one view or another. I'm going to be talking about what is the biblical view about the issue of whether the unborn is a human being or not. Those who are opposed to abortion on most any grounds are largely on that side because they believe that the unborn child is actually a human being. And often they use the Bible in support of their view that the Bible maintains that the unborn child is a human being, a full human being with human rights. And I'm going to be addressing that issue. Is that true? I'm not going to be addressing the issue of whether it's murder. You know, I'm not going to be addressing whether the unborn is a human. I'm simply going to be talking about what's the biblical view of that view. And for me, I'm not a, you know, I'm not a Christian, I'm not a Bible believer. And so for me, what the Bible says is not determinative of an issue like this. But I do think that if people use the Bible for this issue, we ought to at least see what the Bible says to see if it supports one position or another, whatever your views are. I mean, I think it'd be a little bit crazy to use the Bible for all of our views for everything. You know, like whether it's really a very bad idea to be wearing a shirt made out of two materials, you know, like, oh, God, the Bible. Boy, that. That must mean it's wrong. You know, I just like. So I don't have that view myself, but if I were using the Bible to describe what the clothing industry ought to be using to manufacture shirts, then, you know, I'd probably want to know what the Bible actually says. And so it's that kind of thing. What does the Bible say about the status of the unborn?

[B]

Fantastic. Thank you. That sounds like it's going to be very interesting. As I said, that is going to be recorded live on June 2nd. Recordings will be available after the fact. If you cannot watch in person, the cost is $14.95, which is honestly an absolute bargain. And you can [e-mail] life as ever, use the code mjpodcast and you'll get a discount on your course price. We are now going to go over to some listeners questions.

[A]

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 barterman.com Ask Bart.

[B]

So welcome back for our listener business questions. First up, is it possible that Matthew's gospel might have originally been similar to Mark with Jesus being baptized? Did the first version of the gospel not include the whole birth narrative? Was it added later, and if so, for what purpose?

[A]

It's a good question. One reason it's a good question is because I think, along with other scholars, that the Gospel of Luke, where it has its birth narrative before Jesus baptism, that the birth narrative in Luke probably was not originally there. It's a complicated argument, but when you look at all the evidence, it sounds. Yeah, well, it looks like it wasn't there originally for Luke, for Luke, for Matthew. I don't think so. I think Matthew's birth narrative was originally there. The birth narrative ties together extremely well with the rest of the gospel in Matthew. It sets up the rest of the gospel in Matthew. The writing style is the same, the ideas are the same. The understanding of scripture is the same. The understanding of the relationship of Jews and followers of non Christian Jews and followers of Jesus is the same. I really think that the birth narrative of Matthew sets the stage for the rest of the gospel and does belong to the same author. I don't think that about Luke, but I do think that about Matthew.

[B]

Thank you. Second question. In John 10:30, I am the father are one, one is written as neuter. I'm going to mispronounce this. I apologize. Hen in Greek, just like the one tohen from Plato. Does this suggest that Jesus was part of the one like in Platoism?

[A]

Whoa. Okay. Sarah and I are both on a big Plato kick right now. We're reading Plato out loud to each other sometimes in the evenings. And so I appreciate any question about Platonism. I don't think that John was heavily influenced by Platonism. I think that if you read this passage in context. Okay, just to just unpack it for a second, it's a Very important verse John 10:30. I and the Father are one. One thing to point out is that the verb is plural. We are one. It's not we is one. There are two entities. In other words, it's not that he's saying, I am the Father. He's not saying that there are two entities, but they are one. The reason for using the hen, the neuter. Well, you can't really use haste, you know, you can't use the. The masculine, I think, because the neuter implies one entity. We are one entity. And in the context it appears to me, we agree about everything. We are completely. We are unified. It's a way of saying we are fully unified in every way. So we constitute the one. It is not. I also should add that it does not necessarily rule out the option of a Trinity. I don't think John believed in the Trinity. I certainly don't think Jesus believed in the Trinity. But the way of putting it here simply is referring to we constitute one entity in every way.

[B]

Thank you. Question 3. What do scholars think Paul's thorn in the flesh was?

[A]

Yeah, this is a good one. So in 2 Corinthians, Paul says that he's prayed to God to remove his thorn in the flesh, and God refuses to do it because God's grace is sufficient for him. So it's some kind of suffering that Paul experiences. And there are about as many interpretations of this as there are interpreters, but there are several that are rather common. Some people think that Paul had a speech impediment, because in Corinth, there were people who made fun of his speech, and they said, his talk is terrible. He writes well, but his talking is terrible. And some people thought maybe it means a speech impediment. That's one option. Some people think that it's some other kind of physical ailment. There have been people who've argued, for example, that Paul has epilepsy. The reason for thinking that is this book, this thing in Acts where Jesus appears to him, he sees this bright light, he hears voices, he falls off his horse, and it looks like it's like a grand mal seizure or something. And so people have argued that he has epilepsy. And some epileptics do have visionary experiences. So maybe that's the thorn in the flesh. Some people have argued that it has to relate to something more kind of in terms of personality or inner characteristics that Paul struggles. One theory is Paul struggles with his sexuality. Some people have said that it's very difficult for him to remain celibate. But that's his thorn in flesh. And some people argue that he has actually homosexual desires that he has trouble controlling, but they just praise the God. So you can go down the list, but it's usually some kind of ailment that he has. And the. And the true answer is we have no idea. But apparently the Corinthians had some idea. And Paul certainly knew what he was talking about, but he. He doesn't tell us.

[B]

Excellent. Thank you. And final question for today. Are there good reasons to suspect that Priscilla wrote the letter to the Hebrews?

[A]

Are there good reasons to suspect it? No, I don't think so. I don't know any reasons to suspect it other than of the thousands of Christians in the world of the day, she was one of them. And so the authorship of Hebrews is a very fraught issue, complicated issue. It was eventually admitted into the New Testament on the assumption that Paul wrote it. The one reason for thinking Paul might have written it in ancient eyes and in some modern eyes is at the very end of the letter, the author mentions Timothy as a companion. And Timothy was of course, a companion of Paul. One recent scholar, Claire Rothschild, has written an entire book arguing that that verse was put in there by the author to make you think Paul wrote the letter, and that so it's a forgery by somebody wanting you to think it was Paul. I'm not sure I agree with that, but I do agree Paul did not write this letter. That is a virtual consensus among critical scholars. The theology in it, the issues in it, the issues the author's concerned about, the way he writes the letter, the writing style, like all of this, is every up and down the lines completely different. And Paul was a. Paul was a missionary to the Gentiles. This is written to, you know, and so it's that kind of thing. There are reasons for thinking Paul did not write. So who did write it? And over the years, there have been lots of theories bandied about, and there were already in early Christianity, you know, was written by Barnabas, for example, or was it written by, you know, you just pick your person. But some people said, how about Priscilla? Priscilla, also called Prisca, is a woman who is identified as a church leader by Paul in his letters. And some people thought, so maybe a woman wrote it and maybe a woman did. The reason it seems unlikely is not just because of patriarchal bias. Today, it's because of the huge patriarchal biases. In antiquity, very few women received an education to be able to write compositions. Some women would be trained in order to copy out writing, and they might get some kind of elementary education if it would help them in some way. Women slaves, for example. But we don't know of any women. We don't have any women authors in the first century in the, in the Roman world who could write a composition like this. And in the Christian community, the literacy rates tended to be lower than in the general population because there were even fewer people of the elite classes in the early decades of Christianity. And so it seems really unlikely that a woman wrote it. If a woman did write it, then yeah, why not Prisca or Priscilla? Why, you know, why not Junia? Why not, I mean, just pick a woman. So it's theoretically possible, but it seems unlikely.

[B]

Excellent audience, thank you so much for sending in your questions. Bart, thank you very much for your thoughtful answers. That is it for today. Audience. Thank you all for listening. I hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, please subscribe to the podcast to make sure you don't miss future episodes. Remember, you can use the code mjpodcast for a discount on all of Bart's courses over at www.bartehrman.com. misquoting Jesus will be back next week. Bart, what are we talking about next time?

[A]

So next week we're dealing with a topic that most people have never thought of. Why were Christians in the early church in the early centuries, first, second centuries? Why were they sometimes considered to be moral reprobates? We always think of Christians as being like the highly ethical folk, right? Yeah, well, we think that way. But ancient pagans? Yeah, not so much. So we're going to talk about why they thought that and what they actually thought.

[B]

Please join us then. Thank you all and goodbye. This has been an episode of Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman. We'll be back with a new episode next Tuesday, so please be sure to subscribe to our show for free on your favourite podcast listening app or on Bart Ehrman's YouTube channel so you don't miss out from Bart Ehrman and myself, Megan Lewis. Thank you for joining us.