← Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman
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- [00:00]
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- [00:32]
Megan Lewis
the difference between right and wrong and the question of how to live a good life has been a matter of debate for millennia. In the ancient world, different schools of philosophers subscribed to different theories, but were these discussions something that Jesus would have been aware of? Today, Dr. Bart Ehrman joins me to discuss ethics in Jesus Time. 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. Our inaugural New Insights into the Hebrew Bible conference is happening March 20th through the 22nd and I am thrilled to be one of the presenters. My talk is titled before in the the Creation Myths that Shaped Genesis and it explores the striking parallels between Genesis and ancient Mesopotamian creation stories, showing how those earlier myths helped to shape the Biblical account. To celebrate, we're hosting a special live Meet Megan AMA on Zoom exclusively for those of you who grab an NIHB pass between now and March 20th and use the coupon code Meganbonus at checkout. You'll hear from Dan McLellan, Joel Baden and more. Just head to bartiman.com HBConference on the checkout page. Enter Megan Bonus that's M E G A N B O N U s to unlock a special discount and the instructions for the AMA which will take place in early April. I'd love to hang out, answer your questions and connect with you. So grab your pass, use the code and I'll see you there. Welcome back everybody to Misquoting Jesus where today we are talking about the ethics of Jesus World. We've also got our bonus segment Listeners questions at the end where I ask Bart if Jesus knew Virgil's aeneid. But before we get into all of that, how are you doing?
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Bart Ehrman
I was doing well until I found out we're talking about Virgil. Sorry, that's Great. No, no, actually, it's a very interesting. Who would have thought. That's the thing about, you know, there's so many interesting things that people, they. They don't know, you know, that I didn't know were interesting until I started looking into them. And so, yeah, so I'm doing. Yeah, I, I'm doing well. So trying to keep up. You know, I'm. I do. Since I'm retired, I have a little bit more time to do more non fiction reading and that kind of thing. And I'm starting to do that. It's great. Really, really great. So you're not retired and you're. You're still crazily busy?
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Megan Lewis
I am, I am. But forcing myself, not forcing myself, I have created external accountability so that I actually do some reading that isn't directly related to whatever current research or current project I'm working on. We started a digital Hammurabi book club through our patron. So there are other people reading the same book as me and they are expecting me to lead a discussion on that book. So I have to read that book because if I don't, it just all falls apart.
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Bart Ehrman
But that's not independent of your work. It's digital, Hormi.
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Megan Lewis
Yes, but I'm deliberately choosing things that I'm not like writing presentations on. It's, It's. They're books that I've had either on my, my list for ages or have been like anticipating their release dates. And so they're books that I really want to read but don't fit into my research.
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Bart Ehrman
It's a step in the right direction. I mean, I'm reading Anna Karenina and the poems of Seamus Heane. Yeah.
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Megan Lewis
The problem, the problem I have with, with reading fiction is that if I get really engrossed in a book, which is very easy to do, I, I stop sleeping until I've read the whole book. And I can, I could do that when I was a student and when I was in high school, because if I read till three, the next day is going to be very uncomfortable. But I don't have to take care of small humans. Um, I do have to take care of small humans now. And if I read till three, the next day is. It's. It's fairly hellish, if I'm honest. So, yeah, when they're a little older, we'll get back into fiction. Um, but it's just. It's not a wise decision right now.
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Bart Ehrman
Okay. Fair enough.
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Megan Lewis
Okay, my reading habits aside, the icebreaker question for this week. What is the most respectful disagreement You've had with a scholar who is still a Christian.
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Bart Ehrman
Ah, you know, that's a tricky question. And the reason it's tricky is because it depends. Usually when people ask me that, it's people who are evangelical Christians who have a very clear and certain understanding what it means to be a Christian. And what they mean is, you know, do you, where do you, like, have a respectful disagreement with like, somebody who's a, you know, a hardcore believer in the infallibility of the Bible? And most Christian scholars aren't that way. But almost all my friends who are biblical, Biblical scholars are Christians. So what? And so for, but for them, it's, you know, there's no reason to have particularly, like, religious issues because they, you know, they're scholars. And so I mean, my, my colleague Hugo Mendez at UNC is really one of the up and coming stars in the field. And he's. And we have different opinions, but he's definitely Christian. I mean, he's, he's kind of an interesting former Christian. He's, he's an Eastern Catholic Christian. So it's the, it's a kind of group that swears allegiance to the Pope, so to say, but also follows more kind of orthodox ritual practices and stuff. But, you know, he and I disagree on, like, is the Gospel John claiming to be written by the Beloved disciple or not? I think no. He thinks yes. And so it's a disagreement, but it's like, it's not connected to religion at all.
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Megan Lewis
It's based on your, your scholarly understanding of, of the texts rather than some kind of dogmatic belief about religious scripture.
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Bart Ehrman
Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty, I, look, I respect people. I try to respect people's religious beliefs. And the only time I really have problems with them is when I find that they're harmful to other people. And there are a lot of religious beliefs that are harmful to other people. And so even some of my friends who are evangelical apologists, I get along with fine, but I do find some of their views offensive to morality. And they, they can't believe that I would think such a thing, but I do. And, and you know, they probably object to my life too. So, so goes.
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Megan Lewis
So kind of related to this week's topic then. We are talking about ethics in the time of Jesus. What are ethics?
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Bart Ehrman
Ah, right, yes. Okay, good. So I think, I think it's the, the way it's often distinguished is it's distinguished between ethics and morals because sometimes people use those synonymously. And normally ethics is understood as being a kind of reasoned set of principles for how one ought to behave. And so you've got, you know, you've got principles that, that guide your behavior. And morals tend to be more like kind of the internalized map you have of what's right and wrong. It's not like a thought out kind of ethical system. It's more what you, what you consider to be right and wrong.
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Megan Lewis
So I've heard many Christians argue that the only reason people have any kind of ethical or moral standards is because of Christianity, because Christianity gives them this kind of roadmap for how you should behave and how you should treat other people. Were ethics in the ancient world rooted at all in religious beliefs?
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Bart Ehrman
Not very much, because as we were, we were hinting at last time somewhat the, the Greek and Roman religions were really more focused on how you worship the gods, principally through prayers and sacrifices. And the gods, the gods wanted to be worshiped. They were superior beings who wanted to be acknowledged for their superiority and to be thanked for what they did and to be asked for what you need. And they wanted that. And worship was a way of, of having this with, with these supernatural beings. But they were not overly concerned about how you behaved in your, in your life. There were some things the gods regularly are opposed to. Patricide, you know, murdering one's parents. They didn't like that. They, and they, interesting. They, they were opposed generally to oath breaking, you know, and so there, so there are some kinds of things, but there's, there weren't detailed rules that the gods were concerned about in terms of your daily life. They were concerned principally with how you worshiped them.
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Megan Lewis
So if the gods weren't terribly interested in this kind of thing, when did people start thinking seriously about ethics and start to kind of puzzle out an ethical framework for how they could live?
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Bart Ehrman
Yeah, I guess this is one place where the distinction between ethics and morals is important because morality has been around as long as there's been a species, a human species, and it's. Morality is around in every species that survives because morality is a way of deciding how to, how society, how the social group can survive and, and thrive. And individuals have to behave in certain ways for that to happen. And so they do. People, people and, and animals, every kind, including, yeah, animals, including humans, all do this just because it's written into their, their genetic code. But when, when ethics come about is when people about like what are the best ways to behave and why? And you come up with ethical principles then, and we don't know exactly when all of that started in the Western world. We do know that there are, there were ethical thinkers before Socrates. Socrates. We don't have any writings from, from the 5th century, but we do have writings of Plato who describes Socrates and he clearly has principles. And so the early, the early Greek philosophers in the west tend to be where people begin when they want to talk about modern ethical systems, Western ethical systems is with the, with the philosophers going back to, you know, Socrates and Plato and Aristotle. Even though there were pre Socratic philosophers certainly as well who, about whom we don't have a lot of information.
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Megan Lewis
When do we get the first kind of large formal work written work on, on what ethics are and how they should be applied to daily?
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Bart Ehrman
Well, some, some scholars would start with Plato because the Platonic dialogues certainly deal with ethical issues. But, but Plato's student Aristotle is the first one to produce an extensive work devoted exclusively to ethics and dealing with ethical systems. And he had, he has three, he had three separate works that he published on ethics. And the one that's the most famous one and the, the best known one is the Nicomachean Ethics. Nicomachean seems like kind of a weird word for it, but it's probably named after, probably after his son who had that name, who was, was the editor of it. But so the Nicomachean ethics, it's a 10 volume work by Aristotle that is focused on, on establishing ethical principles.
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Megan Lewis
What kinds of things was Aristotle recording as, as an ethical principle?
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Bart Ehrman
You know, he starts out in a way, look, most people, look, most people are not interested in reading Aristotle. He's like not high in their list. But it is, it turns out it is interesting the way he starts, starts these. Nicomachean Ethics is the kind of thing that really gets you to start thinking in interesting ways. He wants to know what is it that people ultimately want in life. And, and it's, it's very prescient. I mean it's, it's dealing with things that people think of today, you know, because then he points out, you know, some people want, some people want are really just dead set on getting wealth. If they get wealthy, you know, that'll be great, you know, or they want to be really healthy so they work out all the time or they want to be like highly intelligent so they train their brain all the time. They, you know, they, there are things that they want in their lives. And Aristotle argues that the things we typically want in our lives in fact are not what we ultimately want. Virtually everything we want so that we can want so that we can get something else. And so I illustrate this with my students by saying, you know, I've got it. So I get this student, and he comes up to me and says he wants to get an A in my class. So that's what he wants, right? He wants an A. But why does he want an A? I say, well, why do you want an A? Well, because I want a high gpa. Why do you want a high gpa? Well, because I want to get into medical school. Well, why do you want to get into medical school? You can keep asking why. You know, why do you want that? Why do you want that? And there's always a reason. I want to get in medical school because I want to become a neurosurgeon. Why? So that I'll make a ton of money. Why? So that I can buy anything I want. Why? So that I'll be happy. And once you say, so that I'll be happy, there's no asking why. So. So that. That is. So Aristotle calls that the ultimate desire, and everything else is an instrumental desire. And if that's the case, then what you need to figure out is what is the best path to reach your ultimate desire. And you shouldn't focus on the instrumental desire. So getting rich is not really what you want. What you want is to be happy in. In Aristotle's system. So he begins that way and he goes from there.
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Megan Lewis
Within this system, what does he see as being the path to happiness?
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Bart Ehrman
Well, the first thing to point out is that the term happiness is the term that translates his Greek word. And it's the best translation of it, probably, but it doesn't quite capture it because in English, when we talk about being happy, it is often thought about as a fleeting emotion, you know, oh, you know, I'm so happy my team won the super bowl, you know, or I'm so happy that I'm going to have a really nice dinner tonight. You know, it's this kind of fleeting emotion, happiness. And for Aristotle, it's precisely not that it's really, but you can't put it in a single word, but it really is the Greek word. The Greek word is eudaimonia. Eu. Daimonia. It's spelled eu. And eu in Greek means good or well. And daimonia is where we get daimon or demon from. But. But dem. They're not daimons in Greek thinking are not evil spirits that inhabit young women who make them, you know, their head turn around or projectile vomit or something like in the Exorcist. It's the a daimon in Greek thinking. It's a lower level divinity that is closely connected with humans. So if you have a good daimon eudaimonia, it's like having a guardian angel. So eudaimonia is translated happiness, but it really means something more like being contented with life and satisfied with life and being pleased with where you are, are and where you're going and what's happening to you, what has happened to you. It's kind of overall general kind of contentment with life, not, not a fleeting motion of happiness. And so, so that he does think that it's eudaimonia, that, that we, we strive for and everything else, whatever you do, needs to head towards that.
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Megan Lewis
So how does he think that's, that we get there? What, what does he think people have to do or what does he think people have to focus on in order to reach that state?
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Bart Ehrman
Well, the first thing is to recognize that these instrumental goals of yours are not really the ultimate thing and that if you focus just on the instrumental goal, you'll never get reached the ultimate goal. Like if all you want is money. And so you know, and you get, you get lots and lots of money, you know, you're not there and it's clear you're not there. Whether you want wealth or fame or power or. The reason it's clear that that isn't the ultimate goal is because people who have those things are often quite miserable. And so that's clearly isn't what they really want. And so, so the question is, how do you get there? So Aristotle was living in a very different context from, from ours. So he's living in, you know, we call it Greece, but there wasn't really a country Greece. There were, there was different cities that had the. The power was all located in various cities. And so people were members of a city and within the city is where your social structure was. And so what we think of as Greece had these different cities had Athens and Sparta and these various places, and he lived in Athens and the, the social life was organized around what happened within the city. And so he argued that if somebody's going to reach their ultimate goal of, of being content, they have to be in a context that allows it. And so working for personal contentment means working to make the city. The polis is called, we get our political from this. The city is called polis in Greek. Working for the polis to be in very good shape so that the individuals within it can also have, have contentment.
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Megan Lewis
So it's more of a communal understanding of achieving contentment and satisfaction. Than an individualistic one.
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Bart Ehrman
Yeah, well, it, yeah, it's kind of this kind of, kind of both at once and that you can't do either without the other because it, it. Plato, I mean Aristotle famously said, and this is intentionally gender specific language. He, he said that man is a political animal. And I always misunderstood that. And I think, you know, first I thought that that meant that, that people to be really to be content, needed to be politicians. And he doesn't mean that. And he doesn't mean what, for a long time I thought he meant it's like, you know, we're always negotiating with each other and trying to be superior. It's all, it's all political, man. It's all political. And it's not that. What he means is that, that, that men are members of the polis and since we are members of the polis, we need to make the polis as good as we can. So you are. So men in his context are political animals, which means they're animals who, who are in social contexts that they have to improve and make livable and make, make good in order for individuals within it to feel the goodness.
- [19:51]
Megan Lewis
Excellent. Thank you. We're going to take a brief break for an announcement and then we'll be back to talk more about Aristotle and then how that understanding of the search for contentment and happiness translates into Jesus teachings. So our reminder today that there are only a few days left to get our brand new course, Judaism in the Time of Jesus at the special launch price. It's taught by archaeologist professor Jonathan Adler and the course combines studio teaching with on location filming at places like Qumran, Nazareth, Magdala and the Temple Mount. I don't think we've done on location filming before, have we?
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Bart Ehrman
We have not. And people don't know Qumran is the place where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. And I mean these are places that are really exciting and so yeah, no, we've never done anything like this before.
- [20:39]
Megan Lewis
So the, the course will be showing how Jewish law shaped everyday life in the time of Jesus. And if you've ever wanted a vivid boots on the ground look at the historical world, world into which Jesus was born. This is a fantastic place to start. The sale ends on March 8th, so if you are interested, please head over to bartiman.com jesusworld to learn more and enroll. And I have to say, that web address does sound like a very interesting theme park. I know it's because it's easy to remember, but it sounds like a theme park. And sorry, brief aside There. And as always, you can use the code mjpodcast for a special podcast discount. All right, back to Aristotle and ethics. Now, Aristotle lived 300 years roughly before Jesus in a very different context. You said his context was different from ours. It was different from Jesus as well. Athens was a small, self governing city state. Jesus was a member of a very sprawling empire. Did this change in the sociopolitical landscape shift what it meant to live a good life or to strive for this kind of satisfaction?
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Bart Ehrman
No, it did, it did shift and shifted in, in terms of the specifics, in terms of the kind of the general principles Aristotle supported. The answer would be no. Aristotle pointed out that, you know, the way, you know, if you're living in a Polish, you're living in a city, you need to figure out what the best way to, you know, what the best mode of existence is. And the way he got to that was he started asking. So like every, every creature has some kind of thing that makes it distinctive and most excellent. And what is it so. Well, you know, apple trees, the best apple tree is one that produces a lot of really good apples. And the best racehorse is the one that runs the fastest. That's what it's designed to do. And so racehorses are not most excellent by producing fruit and apple trees are most excellent by, by being fast. And so everything's distinct. And what is it about humans, what is it about humans that makes them distinctive? And Aristotle argued that it's our reason, our rationality. And so if you use your reason and you think through and you can actually come to some conclusions about what it is that you need in order to, to be, to have this kind of excellence. So in, when you translate excellence in, in Greek the word is arete, but if you translate it into, in Latin it's the word weird, it's vir, from which we get virtue. Virtue in our day has kind of not, not a great connotation to it. It kind of sounds like pious and kind of holier than thou kind of thing and. But that isn't it. Virtue is what makes a, what makes a weir a man most excellent. And for Aristotle there are certain things you had to have courage to protect your, protect your polis in case of war. You need to have justice so that within the polis everybody is treated fairly. You need to have self control so that you're not going on drunken outrages all the time or having wild orgies all the time. You have to be self controlled ultimately to, to have eudaimonia and you have to have wisdom to know how to, how to behave in certain situations. So for Aristotle, the. You need to apply your reason and you need. These are going to be the four main virtues. What ends up happening though is that this Paulus condition that he was in ended up disappearing soon after his death. And his. He actually was, he was a tutor of al. Of Alexander the Great. As it turns out. Aristotle was, was Alexander the Great's tutor when he was like a teenager. And Alexander went on, when he was an adult, became the king of Macedonia. And he, he went on this campaign where he was trying to conquer the world, the lands to the east of the Mediterranean. And he conquered all these lands, a huge territory. And the polis stopped being the focus of social life. Social life became more like an empire rather than a polis. And that ended up changing things because now the concern is not making your polis as good as it can be because the palace isn't the center of your social order. So it all sounds kind of complicated and historical and stuff, but it ended up changing how people had to think about morals and morality.
- [25:07]
Megan Lewis
Did this shift change what people saw as being a virtue?
- [25:12]
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- [25:44]
Bart Ehrman
People continue to hold to these standard virtues. You still need to be courageous and just and, you know, and self controlled and wise and all that. But people started realizing that the world is bigger than just our local community. And it made people start thinking in terms of what does it mean in order to be part of a much larger social entity. It's when one of the early philosophers, after Aristotle invented the term cosmopolitan. Cosmopolitan. So politene polis belonging to like being, you know, connected socially to the. The governing group. Cosmos from cosmos the world. So I'm a citizen of the world. You're no longer a citizen of Athens or citizen of Sparta. You're a citizen of the world. And if you're a citizen of the world, how does that change how you live in the world?
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Megan Lewis
So how does this kind of expansion of the community that People were living in change, how they sought to attain eudaimonia. We had a whole conversation about how to pronounce it and I just got it wrong. There we go.
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Bart Ehrman
Eudaimonia is absolutely fine. So it changed because people started thinking kind of in broader terms about what it means to be a human being in the context of human society. And what emerges in the wake of Aristotle are various philosophical schools that, that people, people might know about. I mean the people have heard of Stoicism and the Stoics and the Epicureans, who have a very bad reputation, which is undeserved. And a group of philosophers called the Cynics, which also are not what you might think. They're not just like really cynical people who are sarcastic and everything. It's. These are philosophical schools that have different ways of understanding what it means to live in this world. And how do I attain eudaiminia? How does it ha. What do I have to do in this big world I'm in in order to find the kind of contentment and self satisfaction that I'm really seeking? And the three, these three different schools, among others, had different ways of doing it.
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Megan Lewis
So we'll start with the Epicureans. What was their theory about achieving this contentment?
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Bart Ehrman
Well, you know, Epicureans have a bad name because it sounds like if you say somebody's a real Epicurean, you mean they're having orgies the whole time or they're just drinking fine wine, eating good food and ignoring the rest of the world. And, and you know, and they're hedonists. And the Epicureans were hedonists. But today hedonists means somebody's like just out for physical pleasure the whole time, no matter what. And that's not it. That's precisely the opposite of what was going on with the kind of hedonism that Epicurus himself promoted. So Epicurus was after Aristotle and his view of things was that, that being human meant. It meant being an animal. And every animal ultimately seeks to have pleasure and avoids pain. And to be a full, to be a true human, to enjoy human life as a human means to, to enjoy pleasure and avoid pain. And that does sound like. Yeah, okay, so I just party the whole time, right? No, wrong. Epicurus was dead set against having exorbitant pleasures or having. Seeking intense pleasures. Because he knew full well that if you, if you have the, you know, if you have an all night drinking bout where you're just drinking wine all night long and you get drunk out of your gourd, you're going to pay the price the next day and you're going to miserable. And in the long run it's not the best thing. And so what Epicurus argued is that people should seek for the simple pleasures in life and treasure those simple enjoyments and to avoid pain as much as possible. And so his idea of pleasure was he started a community where people who were like minded would, would live together and they would share, they'd have conversations together, they would spend their time reading and thinking. They'd be removed from the rest of the world, that is pursuing gross pleasure the whole time or power or domination. And, and they would be, they'd be, you know, they'd be like a, a group of people who just had lots of things in common. They would eat good food, but they wouldn't eat too much of it. They drink good wine, would drink, wouldn't drink too much of it. And they're just enjoying life with like minded people having serious conversations and thinking about what really matters in life. And so that was, that was the Epicurean philosophy is that you should, you should seek those things and avoid anything that was going to, you know, create pain.
- [30:20]
Megan Lewis
That sounds delightful. Where do I sign up exactly?
- [30:24]
Bart Ehrman
No, it is, it's a terrific philosophy and it, you know, there are downsides to it, but it's a terrific philosophy. And it's, it's, it's very easy to parody and to, you know, and to make fun of and everything and people, people do. But I think there's a lot to be said for it. And Epicurious, you know, promoted it. He had an entire, he had an entire theory that lay behind it. I mean, so what I just gave is kind of the basic view, but he actually has an understanding what the universe is that makes this make really good sense. Because when you read when. So okay, we, we have, we only have three, three small bits of writing from Epicurus where he lays out his various views. But we have a later author, Lucretius, who was a Roman living centuries later who wrote a full book on the nature of things that lays out the Epicurean understanding of the, of the universe. And when you read it, you just can't believe it because it just sounds like so modern the world, the universe is made up of atoms and it's billions and billions of atoms that occasionally come together and make certain kinds of configurations. And humans are configurations of atoms. So are you know, walls and chairs and you know, moons and things and, and it's all atoms and it's all here temporarily and eventually the atoms disperse and join with other atoms. And so we as humans are here for a while. We'll disperse and, you know, and so we'll die and we won't exist anymore. Epicurus thought one of the, the, one of the real sources of pain was the fear of death. People are agonized about death and dying. And he said, you don't need to worry about it because it happens. And you weren't worried about it before your atoms came to make you, and you won't worry about them after they leave to make something else. You, you know, you weren't worried 2,000 years ago about, you know, not existing. You won't worry in 2000 year about not existing. And so it's a very interesting philosophy that, that sounds very, very modern in many, in many ways.
- [32:26]
Megan Lewis
It really does. Now, Stoics, what was their take on achieving Eudaimonia?
- [32:32]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, they didn't, they didn't like the Epicureans. So the Stoics. The Stoics view was that if you. That, that the goal, the goal of life is to understand why things are the way they are. They agreed with Aristotle that reason is what makes humans human. But they thought that, you know, humans aren't the only ones with reason. I mean, animals behave in reasonable ways, but they aren't able to reflect on things the way humans are. And humans aren't the most reasonable things in the universe. The gods are. The gods are, you know, they're much smarter than us and they really do understand what's going on. Stoics celebrated reason, so much like reasoning and reason and thinking that they thought that that reason itself was a kind of divine being that was infused in humans more than in other kinds of animals. And so the word for reason in Greek is the word logos. It's the word we get logic from reasoning logic. Logos can be translated into English as word. So it's logos is kind of like sensible discourse, but it's also sensible anything. And so it's a word that you express. But, but the word is is actually reason, and it's infused in all of reality. The logos infuses all of reality, and some parts of reality have more of it than others. So humans have more than others, and some humans have a lot more than other humans. The goal in life is to figure out what the logosa is in reality, because if you understand the reason for things, it will all be reasonable and it will make sense to you. Even bad things that happen to you, if something bad happens to you. Since everything is filled with logos, there must be a reason for it. And if you can understand the reason, then it takes away the agony of it. And so Stoics believed in trying to understand the world in a logical way so as to know how to, how to deal with, with, with the world. And that's, that's, that's their view. Yeah.
- [34:47]
Megan Lewis
Interesting. So we've done Epicureans, Stoics, Cynics. What did the Cynics say about all of this?
- [34:54]
Bart Ehrman
Well, Cynics were like Stoics on steroids. They thought that the whole point, you know, the, the Stoics said, you know, what you need to do is lead a life of the mind and not be indulging in wild pleasures the whole time, because that's clearly isn't the way to go. And so they were kind of very cerebral in a sense, sense. And they, they, like the Epicureans, actually had a kind of physical understanding of the universe that made sense of their, of their view. Cynics had the Stoic view, but at a real extreme, they actually were around before the Stoics. As it turns out, Stoics are more kind of like a thinking person's cynicism. The Cynics were called this. It was a negative term that. I'll explain in a second. The Cynics thought that the reason we become unhappy is because things get taken away from us that we really want. You know, you. You're wealthy and you lose all your money and you're miserable. You're happily married and your spouse divorces you. You're. You love a. You're totally committed to a friend or family member, and they die. Things are taken away from you that you can't control. The way to find contentment in life for the Cynics then was not to have anything that could be taken away.
- [36:24]
Megan Lewis
Okay, I see the logic.
- [36:26]
Bart Ehrman
So if you, if you don't have wealth, it can't be taken away from you. You, if you don't have a job, you can't lose it. If you don't have a nice house, it can't burn to the ground. They believed in literally giving up everything so that nothing could be taken from them. And so they're content with having nothing. And so the, the first Cynic that people know about is Diogenes, who lived in a, in like a tub, like a barrel tub, and had only the clothes on his back and had like, like at one point he had a bowl and a spoon that he could beg food and put in. But then he realized he didn't Need a bowl. He could just eat off of a leaf or something. And, and so he got rid of everything. And he spent his time haranguing people and making fun of them and attacking them and, and lived like that. And he said, you know, he was happy because nothing could be taken from him,
- [37:25]
Megan Lewis
that he was very popular.
- [37:28]
Bart Ehrman
Well, there were people, he had followers. And, and it's very interesting to read writings about these people because they would, you know, they would, you know, they thought that everybody else had the wrong idea about what it means to be contented in life because they thought they needed things. You don't need things, actually. You don't need things. And yeah, most people disagreed with them, including the Stoics who thought, yes, you, you know, if you can, if you can live rationally instead of living free, pursuing your pleasures, you're going to be happier. So they agreed with that. But they thought that Cynics were just a little bit, well, no, way too far off the, off the line.
- [38:05]
Megan Lewis
Now, growing up as a Jew in rural Galilee, would Jesus have been aware of any of these philosophical ideas?
- [38:12]
Bart Ehrman
I doubt it in the sense that he wouldn't know about Diogenes or he wouldn't know about Stoics and things. There are, there are. There was a, in important movement with the New Testament studies in the 1980s arguing that Jesus himself was a Jewish cynic. Because, you know, he says, don't worry about what you eat or drink. Don't worry about the clothes you have. Look at the lilies of the field. They don't, you know, they don't weave, but they, God closed them. Look at the birds of the air. They don't sow and reap, but God feeds them. God will feed you. You know, God will give you clothes. And so, you know, so give up everything, sell everything, give to the poor. And, and so people are saying, look, he's like, he's like a Jewish cynic. I don't, I don't think that characterization works at the end of the day, but it, but it may, it kind of makes some sense of it. And, but I don't think Jesus would have known anything about actual Cynics or Stoics or Epicureans. And so his ethical system really is rooted more in, in Jewish traditions rather than Greek and Roman traditions.
- [39:22]
Megan Lewis
So what would you say are Jesus key ethical teachings?
- [39:26]
Bart Ehrman
Well, you know, he did think that you shouldn't be tied to the things of this world. He thought that the spiritual realm was more important than the material realm. He believed that the, that the world we lived in was an evil place controlled by the powers of evil. And so people should not join up with the powers of evil, which means they should not be connected with the power structures of this world. And so Jesus taught the, I would say the main, the main difference between Jesus and most people in the ancient world and most people in our world today still is that Jesus taught an ethic that opposed the idea of domination, that the way to live is not to dominate other people, not to have more power over other people, not to assert power over the people. It's to serve other people. The goal in life is to serve others rather than to be served, rather than to dominate. And that made him different from just about every, you know, just about everything in, in his world at the time. The other thing is that Jesus did not, he did not think that eudaimonia in this world was the thing to strive for. So he didn't know about Aristotle, but he did not think that seeking personal contentment was the goal for him. A life of service doesn't allow that. When he says take up your cross and follow me in the Gospels, whether he literally said that or not, that's certainly his idea, is that you, you, you, you sacrifice yourself for others. That's contrary to eudaimonia in the normal way of understanding in Greek circles. On the other hand, Jesus did think the kingdom of God was coming for people who follow God. So in a sense Jesus is arguing for Eudaimonia, but not in this life. He's arguing that you should live for the after life. And that's, that's completely contrary to Greek and Roman thinking.
- [41:30]
Megan Lewis
So final question before we move on to listeners questions. At what point do you think the scales tipped and Jesus ethical teachings became more widespread, more well known than the, the Greek philosophical thoughts that had existed when he was born?
- [41:49]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, well it flips when the empire converts to Christianity. And so you know, the, the Christian movement spread throughout the Roman world for decades and then centuries. When the Emperor Constantine converted In the year 312, the vast majority of the empire was still pagan, worshiping Roman Greek gods. But by the end of the 4th century, about half the empire was Christian. And that's when you start seeing Christian influence heavily on the Western world. And into the 5th century, basically the Western world becomes Christian. So at that point it is the ethical teachings of Jesus more, far more than Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, the Stoics, etc, it's the ethical teachings of Jesus. And as we'll be exploring in later episodes, it's not that everybody Started literally following the teachings of Jesus. Most people didn't then any more than most people do now. But the basic sense that at least you ought to serve others and you ought to help the stranger, that, that did come into the public consciousness and it really changed things.
- [42:58]
Megan Lewis
But thank you so much. That is all for today's interview and we are going to move on to this week's bonus segment, which is, as I said, listeners, questions. Okay, first up, what were Jesus feelings about divorce? And why is homosexuality so admonished. Punished. Admonished by the Protestant church, but not divorce, even though Jesus specifically spoke about one and not the other?
- [43:22]
Bart Ehrman
Wow, okay. That's a kind of a complicated question. As it turns out that Jesus teachings on divorce are reported differently in the different gospels. In one gospel he says you should not get a divorce. In another gospel, he says you should not get divorced except in cases of adultery. Big difference. Is divorce always wrong? If it's always wrong, of course that leads to very serious problems in our world if you can't separate from a spouse. It's not clear which of Jesus, which teaching was that of Jesus himself. My guess is that he taught you should not get a divorce in part because he thought the end was coming soon. And you just, you know, you, you have become one with somebody and that's God's law and you stay together. I think that would be his view. Jesus never does talk about abortion. People appeal to Jesus and the New Testament and the Hebrew Bible for opposition to abortion, but the passages they point out actually are not about abortion at all. And so why does the Protestant community, why do they allow divorce but not allow abortion when it's just like it's the opposite of Jesus? And well, welcome to religion. It's not consistent and you know, it's very difficult to follow the teachings of Jesus. And I think what people would say in the Protestant tradition is that the primary teaching of Jesus is that the dominance of love and the dominance of love trumps every other ethical principle. And that in our context, the, the, the idea of loving others allows for divorce and it, and it also allows for abortion because it's loving the. Yeah, loving the living being instead of the non living being.
- [45:18]
Megan Lewis
What about then? Homosexuality?
- [45:22]
Bart Ehrman
Right, homosexuality. Yeah. So Jesus, you know, Jesus doesn't say anything about, about homosexuality. And in fact, one can make a case. I can't remember if we've had an episode on this, that, that our sense of homosexuality is nowhere discussed in the Bible at all. The, the logic of my saying that is that homosexuality, our concept of Homosexuality is rooted in a sense that, that people have certain, certain kind of sex drives and that, and that we have an orientation, we have sexual orientations. And in the ancient world, they had no sense of sexual orientation. They certainly knew about sex drives. But, but, but the idea of a sexual orientation that is built into the human being is not part of the system. And so the Bible does condemn. The Hebrew Bible does condemn men having sex with men, but for completely different reasons from what we think of today when we think about homosexuality. And so just as other things don't apply anymore, such as you should, you know, you should stone your child to death if they strike you, some things don't apply because things are different now. And so that's. So that's the logic about not condemning homosexuality now based on the Bible, because it's not reaction in the Bible.
- [46:43]
Megan Lewis
Thank you. The movie Gladiator 2 quotes Virgil's Anita It. The gates of hell are open. Night and day smooth the descent and easy as the way. But to return and view the cheerful skies in this the task and mighty labor lies. I can't help but hear echoes of this quote in Jesus words from Matthew 7:13 to 14. Is there any indication that Jesus could be referencing Virgil? And would Jesus even have had knowledge of Virgil?
- [47:09]
Bart Ehrman
Well, it's my favorite passage in the Aeneid. It's in book six when, when we have the Aeneas travel down to the underworld to see his father. And it's. And he's. He's thinking about going down and he's told, yeah, you know, it's easy to go there, it's hard to get back. So it's like, whoa. And so, uh, this person is asking about, did you say Matthew 7, 13, 14? Is that it? That's about. There are two paths. You know, there's an easy path that leads to destruction and the hard path that leads to life. Is he quoting Virgil? I doubt it. Jesus. Jesus himself would not have known Virgil. Virgil was. Virgil was writing in Latin and Jesus certainly did not read Latin and they were not studying Latin literature in the schools of Nazareth because there weren't any schools in Nazareth anyway. So. So he wouldn't have known. Wouldn't have known Virgil. And I don't. Matthew, the author of Matthew may have known Virgil, but it seems unlikely to me. I don't think Matthew knew. Knew Latin. And so it's a kind of a sentiment that's kind of related. The two sentiments are kind of related, but not really. What Matthew's saying is not at all really. What, what Virgil is saying, Matthew's talking about how if you want to have life in the kingdom, you cannot follow the way most people follow follow, which is, you know, life in this world. You, you have to follow the narrow path, which is difficult to get into the kingdom. And that's not the same thing as saying everybody dies and goes to Hades, but hardly anybody comes back.
- [48:44]
Megan Lewis
Have you ever been to Greece? You read Koine Greek field work, but I imagine the language must have evolved in the following 2000 years. How well can a Bible scholar understand the signs, menus, brochures and TV in modern Greece?
- [48:58]
Bart Ehrman
I have been to Greece. I was Greece twice last year, and so I've been to Greece a number of times. And I'll tell you an interesting anecdote. I, I'm not sure I've ever publicly said this before, but for years, you know, I had studied Koine Greek. I could read the Greek of the New Testament and some the early Christian writings and things, but the first time I went to Greece, I wondered, am I going to be able to understand any of the billboards? And I looked at, I said, man, I don't get any of these things. And so, like, you know, every few words, I get a few words here and there's there. But then I would. But some years ago I, when I, I decided I needed to read Virgil in Latin and I just decided I needed to read Homer in Greek. And so I learned Homeric Greek. And the next time I went to Greece after that, I could understand about half the words because I expanded my, my knowledge of Greek. And so I can, I can kind of make out a lot of billboards and menus and things like that. Okay. But the language has evolved significantly. And so, and so I, you know, I can't speak modern Greek and I don't understand, you know, I understand a few words here and there, but basically I don't understand modern Greek as I, I basically, I know the ancient stuff.
- [50:07]
Megan Lewis
What is the meaning of Matthew 19:12? For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others. And there are those who chose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it. Did early Christians interpret this passage literally? And is it too true that Origen castrated himself to follow Matthew 19:12?
- [50:30]
Bart Ehrman
This is a really difficult passage. I wish you hadn't asked me this because it's really difficult. Sorry. I will say I had a. There was a. There was a PhD student at Duke in the early 90s, late 80s, early 90s, whose dissertation committee I was on who wrote a, a dissertation on this verse. And to write the dissertation he had to explain practices of genital mutilation, male genital mutilation, castration but like beyond that from the ancient world based on all of our evidence. And this was a very difficult dissertation to read emotionally. It was like oh my God, I don't want to read this. This is really. Oh boy, you can't believe the kinds of things they sometimes did. What does it mean? So it, it's debated what the interpretation is. It is often uninterpreted. One of the common ways of interpreting it has to do not with literal castration but with, with not, not following through on your sexual, men's sexual desires, not having sex. Some people are kind of born unable to do it, some choose not to do it, etc, some choose not to do it for the sake of the kingdom because they're devoting themselves to the spiritual realm, to God and so they're not indulging in physical pleasure. There's a tradition about Origin that's reported in Eusebius's Church history. Eusebius is our called the father of Church history. He wrote a 10 volume book book the ecclesiastical or the Church history. He devoted an entire book to Origen because he was so important to Eusebius's own thinking. Origen was a church father who lived at the end of the third, into the, at the end of the second, beginning of the second, beginning of the third century into the middle of the third century who was the greatest theologian of Christianity prior to St. Augustine. There in Eusebius's Church history he claims that Eusebia, that that Origin had castrated himself so that to fulfill this, this passage in Matthew 19:12 and so that he wouldn't have sexual desire. It turns out castration has nothing to do with sexual desire. But maybe ancient people didn't realize that as much or something. I don't think it happened. I think, I don't think, I don't think Origen castrated himself. I think that this is a later legend about him that was being circulated actually about by his enemies. And so I don't, there's not, there's not good evidence. Like there's no, there's no evidence either way. Try just trying to imagine what the evidence would be. There's no evidence, there's just this passage. But I think that it's a polemic against Origen that Eusebius is reporting even though he was Eusebius's hero, that Eusebius is her heard this, but I don't think it's true.
- [53:32]
Megan Lewis
AUDIENCE thank you all for your questions, but thank you for your answers. And now, before we finish for the week, could you just remind us what we spoke about today?
- [53:40]
Bart Ehrman
Well, we're talking about ethics in the broader Greek and Roman world in the days of Jesus. Specifically, what was happening in Greek philosophical thought. But that sounds kind of highfalutin. It's just like, what did people who are concerned about ethics think about ethics in Jesus day? And why did they think it? And there were different views in different schools that had a kind of a common goal that you should, you should live your life in a way that will produce the most happiness, the most contentment, contentment for yourself and to some extent, those around you. And that's the context in which Jesus preached and taught and he taught actually a very different kind of ethic.
- [54:17]
Megan Lewis
AUDIENCE thank you all for listening. I hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, please subscribe to the podcast to make sure you don't miss future episodes. Remember that you can use the code MJ podcast for a discount on all of Bart's courses over at www.bartehrman.com. misquoting Jesus will be back next week, but what are we talking about next time?
- [54:37]
Bart Ehrman
Well, next we're going to talk about something obviously related, but it's also has pretty broad implications. What is love? You know, we love is a term we use a lot. Ancient people used it a lot. What does it, what does it actually mean? And does it mean a variety of things? And how do you know what it means in a particular context? That's going to be really important if you want to understand, like the Bible. So we'll talk about it then.
- [55:07]
Megan Lewis
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 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.