← Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman
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A
Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do@mintmobile.com
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B
Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month Required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full terms@mintmobile.com. Welcome to Ms. Quoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman. The only show where a six time New York Times best selling author and world renowned Bible scholar uncovers the many fascinating little known facts about the New Testament, the historical Jesus and the rise of Christianity. I'm your host, Megan Lewis. Let's begin. Hello everybody and welcome back to Misquoting Jesus. Today we're talking about Paul again. We saw last week that there are some disparities between what Jesus and Paul said. And today we're exploring whether Paul accepted the teachings of Jesus or if he created a theology that was entirely distinct from them. Before we get down to business though, Bart, how are you? How was the Galapagos?
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C
Well, the Galapagos is amazing. You know, I always had this impression that like nobody could possibly get there because so many people want to go there and it turned out not to be true. And what a lot of people want to do is the right thing to do, really is to do it off of a ship so you can go to various islands. We did a kind of a mixed thing, partly ship, partly land. The people we went with, there was a young, young girl, very bright, interesting girl and we thought she might not want to be in a ship the whole time. But it was a really, really nice combination of stuff. It's really, it's quite an incredible place as everybody says. But my previous knowledge of it was from the Origin of Species. So kind of keep moving Darwin's world a little bit on my own.
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B
Wonderful.
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C
So yeah, how are you doing?
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B
Yeah, good, thank you. Ticking along nicely, getting everything. We've got a couple of weeks before I head out to visit my family in the uk But I'm trying to get all the little loose ends of my own work tied up so I don't have to worry about it or take work with me.
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C
You're going to be on the Isle of Skye, is that right?
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B
Yes, yes. My parents live on the Isle of Skye and have chickens and huge amounts of vegetable growing space and ponies. And Mum's been talking about getting alpaca as well. I don't think she's actually gone that far yet, but I'm sure if I visit next year, there will be an alpaca wandering around somewhere. But the kids are absolutely excited and I'm really, really looking forward to seeing my family.
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C
Okay. Yeah, I bet. And wow. Yeah, no, it's a gorgeous area that. Congratulations. So that'll be nice. Bit of a break, a bit of a change. Good.
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B
Yes, it will be fun. Anyway, you and I are back with Paul again. Why do you think it's important to talk about Paul's views on the teachings of Jesus?
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C
It's often thought that Paul's teachings were very different from the teachings of Jesus. Paul doesn't have anything like, you know, the servant on the mount, for example, even though he does teach ethics. But Paul's teachings are very different. It's normally understood. And one very big question people have, a justifiable question, is whether Paul knew much about the teachings of Jesus. What does he know? And what does he know generally about Jesus is a big topic of conversation. It'll be one of the things I'll be focusing on in this course that's coming up soon. You know, we just assume that Paul knew what Jesus said and did. Well, why do we assume that? Well, we assume it because he's a Christian missionary, so he had to tell people about Jesus. Okay, that's fair enough. But he's writing before our gospels, so he wouldn't have known our gospels. So if he didn't know our gospels, what did he know and how did he know it to? Very interesting question.
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B
We touched on this a little bit last week. But when we talk about the teachings of Jesus, what exactly are we talking about?
- [04:02]
C
Yeah, it depends who the we are. Most people when they're talking about the Jesus, they mean that they're talking about the things Jesus says in the Gospels of the New Testament. And so when Jesus delivers a talk to when he has a. Like a dialogue with Nicodemus in John chapter three, if you want to know about the teachings of Jesus, those are the teachings of Jesus in almost an entire chapter with Jesus talking, or the farewell discourse in John, which takes place In John chapters 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, five chapters of Jesus talking. If you're talking about what the Gospels teach, that would be what John teaches about Jesus teachings. None of those teachings is in Matthew, Mark or Luke. Matthew has the Sermon on the Mount, three chapters, boom. Boom, boom. Not in the other Gospels. And so what scholars do is they differentiate between the teachings of Jesus and John and the teachings of Jesus in Matthew and the teachings in the Gospel altogether. And what we're talking about is none of the above kind of what we're talking about. What we're interested in is what did Jesus really teach as opposed to what he was reported as teaching later? Those may be the same thing. Of course they may be the same thing, or they may be different. And scholars have to know. When scholars talk about the teachings of Jesus, they tend to mean the historical Jesus himself. Our main source of information for what Jesus taught is in fact the Gospels. But they certainly report things that Jesus did not say as well. And so we're talking about the things that Jesus probably really said. What does Paul know about those things?
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B
So you said that Paul would not have had access to the Gospels. How would Paul have known about Jesus as a person and what Jesus taught when he was alive?
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C
So Paul would have had the same sources of information that almost everybody in his day would have had. So if you think Jesus died around the year 30 of the common era, if you look at Paul's chronology as he lays it out himself in his letters, it looks like Paul himself would have converted maybe three or four years later. So say in the year 33, Paul would have become a follower of Jesus, and he would have had to know something about Jesus teachings already. He was persecuting Christians for things they were saying. And what they were saying that he found objectionable were things about Jesus. And so he would have heard some things about Jesus before he converted. By hearing these Christians talk about Jesus after he converted, there were no gospels available, no written sources that we know of, for probably another 15 years or so. And so Paul would have heard stories from people who had heard stories. Paul did know a couple of people who knew Jesus during his lifetime. And so three years after Paul converted, according to the book of Galatians, chapter one, he went to Jerusalem to meet with James, the brother of Jesus, and Cephas, usually identified as Peter, who was Jesus closest disciple. And he met with them for two weeks. And then some years later, he went back and he met with some of the apostles, some of the disciples of Jesus. So he almost certainly would have gotten some information from them. We don't know what they talked about. I mean, it's kind of a logical surmise. They talked some things about the historical Jesus, but they certainly had other things to talk about. Paul went there not to get information about Jesus. He went there in order to get affirmation about his mission to convert Gentiles without having them become Jews. And they probably had long discussions about that. But surely information about Jesus would have come then. So the basic answer is that Paul heard it from by people who were telling him things that Jesus said and did.
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B
In Paul's writings, does he ever refer to specific teachings that we may be familiar with from elsewhere? Or because of the nature of the materials we're dealing with, is it more restricted to answering questions from churches and solving their problems?
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C
This is the really frustrating thing for anyone who wants to know, what did Paul know about Jesus? What he said, what he did, what he experienced, what did he know? Because Paul's not writing a gospel. He's not writing what he understands about the historical Jesus. And what comes as a surprise to many people I know it comes as a surprise to my students is that Paul hardly says anything about the life of Jesus. I tell my students that they don't believe me. I say, okay, look, just take all 13 letters. We think that Paul wrote seven of them. Take all 13 of them and list everything that Paul says that Jesus said and did between the time he was born and the time he was crucified. Make a list of everything that Paul says that Jesus said and did. And my students do that. They realize they don't need a three by five card. It's so little. And there are debates about why that is. There are very good reasons one can think of, but these reasons are sometimes different from each other and at odds with each other. Is it that Paul didn't know anymore and so he didn't say anymore? Well, surely he knew more. He talked with Jesus brother and his disciple Peter, and so he must have known more. Well, if he knew more, why didn't he say more? Did he think it wasn't important? Well, Paul's writing letters to deal with the problems in his churches. So maybe the sayings of Jesus and the things about Jesus weren't important for those situations. But in fact, many of the sayings of Jesus we have would have been crucially important for the things Paul talks about. I'll give you one example. Paul in the letter to the Romans tells the Romans that they should pay their taxes, and he insists they need to pay their taxes. Well, if that's the case, why wouldn't Paul say, look, Jesus himself said, render under Caesar the things that are Caesar's. It would provide support for his view. But he hardly ever does that. So another reason he may not do it is because he's writing letters, and he's not writing accounts of Jesus life. But you would think he would quote Jesus more if he knew more. And so there are debates among scholars about why it is. But the reality is Paul only quotes Jesus on three occasions.
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B
What does he say on those three occasions?
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C
Well, that's the thing. He doesn't tell you like, the heart and soul of Jesus teachings at all. Okay, so all three of these quotations are in just one of Paul's letters. They're all three just found in one letter. None of the other six letters that we're sure he wrote. Does he quote Jesus. But he quotes Jesus to say that you should pay. Your preacher quotes him to say you should not get divorced. And he quotes the words of the Last Supper. Now, the last one is very important, but the first two, he's trying to convince Christians in Corinth that they should support those who are ministering financially support them. And he quotes Jesus about that workman is worthy of his hire. He quotes Jesus about it's better not to get divorced. So these are not what you normally consider to be the most important teachings of Jesus, but they're the two he quotes. And then he does quote the words of the Last Supper, where Jesus takes the bread of the Passover meal and breaks it and says, this is my body that's given for you. And he takes the cup of wine and says, this cup is the new covenant in my blood that's given for you. And so Paul does know those words. The trick of those words is that scholars aren't sure that Jesus actually spoke those words. Those are words that may not actually go back to the historical Jesus. That's the extent of what Paul explicitly quotes. Now, many people have pointed out that a lot of things Paul says are like what Jesus says. And that's absolutely true. I mean, Paul says that the commandment that you should love your neighbor as yourself is a fulfillment of the entire Jewish law. And that's very similar to something Jesus says. And so it's similar, but Paul doesn't say Jesus said it. In other words, if you're asking what does Paul know about what Jesus said, there's nothing to indicate he knows that Jesus said that. It was a common line among Christians generally.
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B
If we're looking at how far Paul agrees with the teachings of Jesus, we're not presupposing that he was aware of the teachings of Jesus. We're just kind of trying to investigate where there are intersections of opinion, which, because Paul doesn't say an awful Lot explicitly leaves us trying to match up places where Paul and Jesus talk about similar things and try to see, is this the same moral philosophy if we wanted. I think that's probably a little bit far, but you kind of get the sense of what I'm saying.
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C
Well, theology, moral philosophy, understanding about salvation, understandings about God, do they have the same teachings or not? And you can't decide that by saying, looking where Paul quotes what Jesus says about it, because he doesn't quote what he says about it. And so you're right, you look for when they're teaching about the same thing, are they teaching the same thing?
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B
So when we do manage to line up thematically what Paul and Jesus are saying, generally speaking, do they agree with one another or are there significant divergences of opinion?
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C
I'd say yes and yes. There are some areas that they are in agreement on that are very broad areas. But there are a lot of crucial issues that they don't seem to agree on. For example, on the broad issues, you can find a number of things that Jesus subscribed to, number of ideas that Jesus subscribed to that Paul also subscribed to. They both had apocalyptic views. They both were apocalyptic Jews. They both thought that they were living at the end of the age. They thought that God was going to soon bring history as we know it to a crashing halt, that God was going to send some kind of savior figure from heaven in order to destroy the forces of evil, that there was going to be a resurrection of the dead and there was going to be an eternal life here on earth, and that that was all going to happen soon. That basic framework they agreed on. And so that's important. It's also a basic framework that lots and lots of Jews agreed on. And so it's not something distinctive to Jesus that Paul's agreeing with. It's the basic worldview. Also, in terms of ethics, both of them believed that true believers in God will behave in certain ways. And both of them emphasized the importance of doing good to others and to helping others and to living for others, rather than emphasizing the importance of keeping the strictures of the Jewish law. They were not the kinds of Jews who thought that you had to follow the Jewish law to the T or you're in trouble with God. There were lots of Jews like that. Neither Jesus nor Paul thought that. They both emphasized that sacrifices in the temple or keeping ritual laws or kosher food laws were not the ultimate items of importance to God. What God really cared about was how you lived toward one another, helping Those in need. So ethically they have very many similarities as well. The big problems come when they start talking about what really is central to both of them, which is how does one have salvation?
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B
And we will absolutely get to that. I wanted quickly, before we go that direction, to ask if Jesus seemed to be teaching, directing his teachings to the Gentiles in the same way that Paul saw himself as an apostle to the Gentiles.
- [15:39]
C
I think the historical Jesus did not have a big concern about Gentiles. He didn't hate them. They weren't within his purview. Jesus appears to have understood himself to be a Jewish spokesperson for God, a prophet of God who understood how God's promises in the Hebrew Bible were going to be soon fulfilled and that God's kingdom was going to come to earth. And Jesus was very much centered on taking the message to Jews. I don't think he had any idea of a worldwide Jewish mission. He thought Jews were the chosen people and he was God's spokesperson to the Jews. And so he had a very Jewish centric message to Jews. In his environment. He shows no indication of being wanting to take his message to Jews outside of Israel, which would have been most Jews in the world, vast majority of Jews lived outside of Israel. Jesus was ministering to the people he was around. I think it's important. It's hard for us to get our mind around this, but Jesus was a. He was a lower class peasant living in a rural area, a small town, village is a little town hamlet living in, in a rural part of Galilee. He wasn't a city person. He wasn't well traveled. He didn't think about the broader world. He was thinking about how God was telling him that the end's coming soon and you need to tell people. And so he's telling the people he knows. The big trip he took was the last week of his life when he went to Jerusalem and he got crucified then. So I don't think that he had any vision of taking message worldwide. In the Gospels, he does have interactions with Gentiles, but I don't know if those are historically right. It's possible. Although there weren't very many Gentiles floating around rural Galilee, there weren't Roman soldier soldiers stationed there. I doubt if he had too many connections with Gentiles or. He certainly didn't think that Gentiles could be right with God without becoming Jews. I mean, that's what being Jewish meant. You, you were people, one of the
- [17:39]
B
people of God that was actually going to be my Next question. Because we, we talked last week about how Paul was adamant that you do not need to convert, you should not convert to Judaism if you are a Gentile, to become right with God. But that does seem to be directly contrary to what Jesus taught.
- [17:57]
C
Well, I think the issue with Jesus is like the issue never came up with Jesus. You know, Gentiles are Gentiles and Jews were the people of God and Jews need to get ready because God now is going to interact with. I'll clarify an important point that maybe I didn't express very clearly earlier. I think Jesus did think that God was going to save Gentiles to bring them into the kingdom of God. What I was saying earlier is I don't think Jesus had any vision of him taking a mission out to the Gentiles. But I think a really important passage for understanding Jesus teaching about God's salvation and his salvation to the Gentiles comes in this passage in Matthew 25. It's the parable of the sheep and the goats. I think this is something that goes back to the historical Jesus. As I said, you know, there are all sorts of things in the Gospels that may not go back to Jesus, but I've got reasons and I'm not alone in this. This is a common view. This one goes back to Jesus. And Jesus says that when the kingdom comes, the judge of the earth will be seated on his throne and he'll gather. The nations of the earth will be gathered in front of him. So this isn't just Jews, this is everyone. And he separates them into two groups. On his right hand are the sheep, and on his left hand are the goats. And as it plays out, you want to be a sheep and not a goat. On his right hand side, he turns to these nations, these people, the masses in front of him. He says, welcome to the kingdom of my Father. I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was naked and you clothed me. I was lonely and you visited me. Basically, I was in need and you helped me come into my. Into the glorious kingdom that God has provided for you. And these sheep, these people called sheep, they look at him and say, lord, we've never even seen you before. What do you mean we helped you? And Jesus says, inasmuch as you helped the least of these my brothers and sisters, you helped me. You did it to me. Come into the kingdom. And so they brought into the kingdom. Then he turns to the goats, says, go away. You're going to be destroyed in the fire. You will be exterminated in the furnace of fire. Go away for me. I was hungry. You didn't feed me. I was thirsty. You didn't give me anything to drink. I was naked. You didn't clothe me. I was lonely. You didn't visit me. You know, I was in need. You didn't help me. You are going to be annihilated in fire. It sends them off to the but they look at them, say, lord, we've never even seen you before. What do you mean we didn't help you? Well, if you didn't help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you didn't help me off with. You go off to destruction. And so I think this is something Jesus said. And the reason I think Jesus said it relates to our topic, which is that an early Christian asked, how is it somebody will be saved? They would not say, by helping people in need. The early Christians would say, by believing in the death and resurrection of Jesus, that's how you'll be saved. This story would not have been invented by an early Christian or by Matthew, because that's not the answer they would give in this case. These people don't. They not only don't believe in Jesus, death and resurrection, they've never even seen him before. And so they're brought in for helping others. So I think that what this is showing is that Jesus does think that Gentiles can get into the kingdom.
- [21:13]
B
And I think this brings us very neatly back to what you were mentioning earlier about the main divergence between Paul and Jesus teachings being how one attains salvation. So for Jesus, it's by care for your fellow man, seemingly. What's Paul's view?
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C
Paul's view is that the only way to have salvation is to trust in Christ's death and resurrection. That the death and resurrection of Jesus have brought an atonement for sins, that God sacrificed his son for the sake of sins of others. And in order to have that salvation that God has provided by sacrificing Christ, one has to accept the sacrifice as a payment for one's own sins. That this is the perfect sacrifice that needs to be accepted. And it's demonstrated by the fact that God raised Jesus from the dead. That shows that God has accepted this sacrifice and anyone who doesn't accept the sacrifice will not have salvation. Paul does not think you can have salvation by being Jewish. He doesn't think keeping the law is going to make you right with God. He doesn't think anything is going to make you right with God except for the Death and resurrection of Jesus. Because if anything else could put you right with God, there would have been no reason for God to sacrifice his son and there'd been no reason for Jesus to experience the torment of crucifixion. If there was another way, there's no other way. I think this does contrast with the teachings of Jesus.
- [22:45]
B
Do you have an example of how that contrasts?
- [22:48]
C
You know, I try to demonstrate this to my students who don't see the difference. My students say, look, Jesus has to be good one another. Paul says, believe in Christ. Well, if you believe in Christ, you're good to one another. So it's the same thing, right? No, it's not the same thing. And I tell them the story in the Gospel of Mark. I don't know if this particular story happened, but I think it does reflect Jesus understanding about how to, how to gain salvation. This is Matthew, Mark and Luke. The man comes up to Jesus and he says, lord, what must I do to have eternal life? Okay, so how can I have eternal salvation? And Jesus says to him, well, keep the commandments. And says, well, which ones? And Jesus starts listing them. Well, don't kill, don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't steal, Honor your father and mother. And the man says, well, I, I've done all those. And Jesus says, well, if you want treasures in heaven, sell everything you have and give to the poor. So that's how you have treasures in heaven. And the man is rich, can't bring himself to do it, walks off. And so that's, you know, so that's that. And so he can't get treasures in heaven. It's a two part thing though. First he says, what do I do to have eternal life? You do that by keeping the commandments. You don't murder people and commit adultery and things. But if you want treasures in heaven like you want the palace as opposed to whatever you know, then sell everything. Nothing about believing in Jesus. So my, my assignment to my students is, all right, so this, this rich man asked Jesus what to do. And he for salvation, he says, keep the Commandments. I said, now suppose the same man comes up to Paul 20 years later and he says, master, what must I do to have eternal life? Does Paul say, keep the Commandments? Keep the Jewish commandments? No. Paul says, believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus. It's the only way. If that's the only way, then what was Jesus talking about? If Jesus is right that you could keep the commandments, and if you really wanted a great afterlife, you would Sell all your possessions, then how can you be right that you have to believe in Jesus? Students still don't see the difference, but I'm telling you it's a difference. Because if Jesus is right, then you don't need Jesus. Death and resurrection.
- [25:03]
B
Would you see this as a disagreement between Paul's thoughts and Jesus teachings? Or is this maybe a logical continuation for Paul of the apocalyptic worldview that they both shared? They know, like they're both teaching, that the end is coming. Jesus is trying to reach as many people in his community as he can to save them. This is how you get saved. But then Jesus dies, and Paul is kind of left with this still apocalyptic worldview, still anticipating the imminent end of the world. But you have to then make sense of the death of the Messiah. And the way that you do that is you continue that thought process that obviously Jesus couldn't have because, well, one assumes the historical Jesus wasn't planning on being crucified.
- [25:49]
C
It's a tricky business about how you go about showing the relationship between the two. Is it that there are lines of continuity between Jesus and Paul or not? One approach is to say, look, there's no continuity. These are just different. This is not the same religion. Doing good for others is not the same as having to believe in the death and resurrection of the Messiah. Those are different. Another way to do it is to say that there are lines of continuity. Christians tend to look at the lines of continuity argument that most Christians would say there's lines of continuity. Some will say, look, ultimately there's no difference. My students who haven't thought about it say, look, it's the same thing. So I rule that one out because it's not the same thing. But could you say there are lines of continuity? Yes, you could. And there are two ways to do that. One you could say is that there are necessary lines of continuity, and the other saying they're kind of arbitrary lines of continuity. If they're necessary lines of continuity, what that would mean is that the whole thing is set up in a way that before Jesus death, this is how you get salvation, and after Jesus death, this is how you get salvation. And so this is all part of God's plan. That God's plan is that there's this strict line of continuity and that it's consistent with each other. It's emphatically consistent. Jesus teachings is emphatically consistent with Paul. And the separating point is Easter, Good Friday and Easter, it's death and resurrection makes all the difference. And so this was God's plan from the beginning. The arbitrary line of continuity is that you say, yes, this is what Jesus taught. Paul, though, had to deal with the fact that Jesus died and was raised. And since he had to deal with those facts, he took them as facts, then he had to explain why it was necessary. And why it was necessary for Paul was because the Messiah had to die and be raised from the dead. And so Paul's starting with Jesus view, but because of Jesus death and resurrection, Paul has to come to a different point of view. But you're seeing it as continuous because you know it's Jesus who's doing it. So I'm not sure if I'm making this very clear. In one way, you're saying, yeah, that really has to change from doing good things to Jesus death and resurrection. That has to happen. The other is saying, well, it only happens because people after Jesus said it happened. But in fact, they're not continuous. My view is they're not continuous. The way I put it to myself is if Jesus was right that you could be saved by doing good to others and you could have treasures in heaven by selling his possessions, then there'd be no reason for him to have to die. So I think it's different. So I think there's. I think early Christians see the continuity, but I don't think there has to be or that there probably is continuity.
- [28:33]
B
Do you see consistencies between what Paul and Jesus say outside of this line of continuity, this question of salvation? Is this the main divergence or is it a much wider, broader issue?
- [28:48]
C
It has broader implications that are related but somewhat different. Jesus expected that a figure he called the Son of Man would come as the judge of the earth to destroy everything opposed to God and bring in God's kingdom. He's basing this on a passage in the Book of Daniel, Daniel Chapter 7, that talks about a future ruler of the earth called one like a Son of Man. And Jesus anticipates that this person is coming in judgment based on Daniel 7. After he died, his followers believed that he had gone to heaven. And they started saying that he's the Son of Man. He's the one coming from heaven in judgment on the earth. So Jesus is the Son of Man. I don't think the historical Jesus understood himself to be a heavenly figure coming down to judge the earth. He was the prophet who was predicting. He was telling people the need to repent because the kingdom was coming soon and the Son of Man was soon to arrive. His followers thought he was the Son of Man. That's Paul's view, Jesus preached the coming of the Son of Man and Paul preached the coming of Jesus. They both have the view that this will bring destruction to God's enemies and salvation to those who are on God's side. But in one case it's this heavenly figure. In the other case it's Jesus coming from heaven. And the people being rewarded and punished are different. Paul would never tell the parable of the sheep and the goats because it's not about how you help people. The sheep and the goats are the people who believe in Jesus and those who don't. For Paul.
- [30:22]
B
Is it fair to say then that they're teaching the same basic story, but maybe the characters have some variations within them?
- [30:31]
C
The way I would explain it is they're both Jewish apocalypticists who have strong apocalyptic views about what's going to happen at the end. But I wouldn't say that it's the same story any more than, say, the Essenes who believed in an apocalyptic worldview, or the Pharisees who had an apocalyptic worldview had the same view as Jesus. I'd say Jesus views are different. They have the same basic view. That is, the basic view is given to them by the apocalyptic view that the end of the age is imminent because God's going to destroy evil and bring in a good kingdom. They all agree on that, but the details are so different that it's not. I don't think you would say that Essenes were followers of Jesus. I don't think you would say that disciples of Jesus during his lifetime believed in his death and resurrection for salvation. They were Jewish. They believed in keeping the Jewish law and doing what they needed to do to be right with God within the confines of the law. Paul doesn't think that.
- [31:29]
B
But it's less that Paul is a direct continuation of what Jesus is teaching and more that they are both teaching within the same religious tradition.
- [31:37]
C
It ends up being kind of a question of faith, of Christian faith, because Christians would see Paul and Jesus as standing in straight, linear relationship to one another. There were other followers of Jesus who had different understandings of the significance of Jesus, who did not accept Paul's view. There were people who thought that Jesus was the model for how you ought to live. And if you live like Jesus by sacrificing of yourself for the sake of others, then you'll have salvation. There are people who thought that Jesus teachings were the way to understand salvation and that you didn't need to believe in Jesus death and resurrection. You needed to have the correct interpretation of his teachings, all of these various forms of Christianity that sprouted up soon after Jesus death, within a couple of decades of Jesus death, they all understood themselves as standing in continuity with Jesus. So did Paul. He understood himself as standing in continuity with Jesus. We don't know how much Paul knew about Jesus actual teachings, but he sees himself in strict continuity. And the Christian faith, as it's come down to us today, says they were standing in strict continuity. But from a historical point of view, I would say that the Gospel of Thomas also stands in direct continuity with Jesus, which does not teach about Jesus death and resurrection, or that any of these other views, the views that you have to be Jewish to believe in Jesus, I would say that stands in direct continuity with Jesus. They're all direct continuity in one way or another. So Paul's not the only one in direct continuity. But that's why I think of it as more of an arbitrary continuity, because you're choosing that one rather than these others. You do that because you're raised in the Christian tradition and that's what you're taught. But if the Gospel of Thomas form of Christianity had succeeded, or if Gnostic Christianity had succeeded, or if Marcionite had Christianity had succeeded, Christians would think that's the logical continuity, not the one connected with Paul.
- [33:31]
B
I see. Thank you. That is very illuminating and helpful. We're going to talk about your course, the Paul and Jesus course that is coming up very soon. And I did have a question. I know we've just spent the last 40 minutes or so talking about Paul and about Jesus in the seminar. Will you be getting into the possibility that Paul just straight up didn't know any more about Jesus than he actually said?
- [33:54]
C
Absolutely. And you know, they're really good arguments that Paul doesn't say much about the teachings of Jesus because he doesn't know much about the teachings of Jesus. It's hard for people to get their minds around. But they're actually good arguments that he didn't know more about the teachings of Jesus. It is very strange. He doesn't even mention that Jesus told parables and he doesn't deliver what people think are the key. He doesn't mention them, even though they would have been helpful for what he was trying to say. And so we're going to talk about did he know more? If he did not know more, how could that be? If he did know more, why didn't he say more? And you know all sorts of things related to that in my seminar. It won't be the only thing in the seminar Though, you know, we're going to talk about how much did Paul know about the historical Jesus? And we're going to talk about whether they have the same religion, which is what we were touching on here. But we're going to go into much more depth about it and see a lot more of the interesting aspects of it.
- [34:51]
B
And this is, remind me, this is an eight week course.
- [34:54]
C
I think it's not an eight week course, fortunately, because I'm not sure I would survive that. It is a eight lecture course.
- [35:00]
B
Eight lecture. There we go.
- [35:01]
C
So it'll take place over two days and people who purchase the course in advance will be able to come and hear it and also participate in the Q and A. People who listen to this later and haven't attended the course can buy it. It'll be available as an online course to purchase with extra reading materials and questions for thought and all the sorts of things you'd expect from a course like this.
- [35:26]
B
And that's taking place on May 27th and 28th. For those who are interested, there will be details on the website. That's bart erman.com and as with all of Bart's courses, you can get a discount on that if you use the code mjpodcast at checkout. Thank you very much, Bot. I appreciate you sharing that with us. We are going to have your weekly update now.
- [35:50]
D
This is Bart's weekly update where we get to catch up on all the latest about Dr. Ehrman's book releases, speaking engagements, ehrmanblog.org happenings and online course launches.
- [36:04]
B
Bart, what is going on in your world this week?
- [36:07]
C
So one trip is over and I'm actually going to be out of the country for most of the rest of the summer. I think I mentioned this before. Sarah and I will be in England where she's from. Her family's there. So we go there in the summers usually. And so we're going to be doing that and it's great for me because as a research scholar, basically I never stop except for when I go to the Galapagos. And so I mentioned before, I'm going to be thinking about this next book and I'm going to be intently thinking about the ethical teachings of Jesus, which is related to what we just did in this podcast. But I'm going to be digging deep and with my Greek New Testament and just the thinking about how to understand Jesus teachings in relationship to the ethical teachings of his world and seeing just how different they are because they really are different. And try and see if I can encapsulate that in my head, like what the real big differences are. That's what I'll be up to.
- [37:02]
B
Excellent. Thank you very much. We are going to take some audience questions now, so stay tuned for that.
- [37:13]
D
Now it's time for questions for from listeners where Bart answers real questions submitted by misquoting Jesus fans. If you'd like to submit a question for future segments, Please visit bart erman.com Ask Bart
- [37:30]
B
okay, we have an excellent selection of questions this week. Thank you so much to everyone who sent them in. And they are all themed around the Apostle Paul. First question as you pointed out in the episode in Mark's Gospel, in that narrative, the temple curtain was torn when Jesus died. Does Mark imply that Jesus death by itself was sufficient to give people access to God, even without the subsequent resurrection? And what does that mean in regards to Paul's theology where the validity of the faith and salvation of people hinges on the resurrection?
- [38:02]
C
This is a great question, and I would say that in early Christianity, most Christians did not differentiate the events from each other. They saw them as in very tight continuity with each other. The curtain would not have ripped if Jesus wasn't going to be raised from the dead. It's the death that makes people right with God. The resurrection confirms the truth of the salvific crucifixion. Paul also does not differentiate death and resurrection. Of course, they're two different events, but they are tied together as a single moment of salvation. For Paul, one big question that the Christians had to ask was, well, you know, they're related. How do they relate, though? I mean, they're coordinated, but how are they coordinated? What's the logic of the coordination? Mark does not explain what he thinks the logic of the coordination is. Paul does explain the logic of the coordination, and as it turns out, he has different explanations. We're going to have to have an entire episode on this, but it's a little bit complicated. Paul says some things and he implies some things. And so there's some inference that has to go on. But one thing that I'll say is that I talked about how Paul thinks that Jesus death paid for the sins of others. The sins for others is Paul is death. People have to die. Well, Jesus dies for them. God accepted that payment of death for sins. But if God accepted the payment for death for sins, then Jesus doesn't have to stay dead. The payment has been made. The resurrection shows that God has accepted the payment. That's one of the connections Paul makes. So the resurrection is absolutely fundamental because it demonstrates that Jesus death brought about the salvation that it brought about. So one can't go without the other. You couldn't have the death for salvation without having the resurrection and you can't have the resurrection without having the death for salvation.
- [40:03]
B
Thank you very much. Next question. All four New Testament Gospels credit Mary Magdalene and others with being first witnesses to Jesus resurrection. Yet Paul, writing a couple of decades after Mark, says Peter was the first to see him and there were no women there, and that's in First Corinthians. Did the leaders of the Jerusalem church lie to Paul about who saw the resurrected Jesus first? Or did the Gospel authors have some reason to elevate the status of women in the church?
- [40:32]
C
I usually think it's a mistake to think that the options are lying or telling the truth when you're dealing with oral traditions. Even today when rumors start, sometimes somebody's just lying. A lot of times just rumors start and there's their whole scholarship books written about the science of rumors. Gossip isn't always people lying. Often it's just people just coming up and you know, they don't think they're lying, they're just, they're saying what they've heard. Or with oral traditions, if Paul does not know about the women, it's not because somebody's lying to him necessarily. It could be that. But there's no reason to jump to lying right off the bat, especially when you're talking about oral traditions. In the Gospels, Peter is not the first to discover the tomb. The women discover the tomb. Paul doesn't talk about the discovery of the tomb. Paul doesn't say the women discovered the tomb or that Peter discovered the tomb. Paul says is that Christ first appeared to Peter in the Gospels. He first appears to the women. And so the question is why is that? And there are lots of possible explanations. One is that Paul hasn't heard the account of women. Another is that he wants to focus on the particularly important people and that Peter is the first, he's the first disciple to realize it. That does seem to contradict the Gospels, but it doesn't necessarily mean that somebody's lying about it. The interesting part of this question is that the Gospels elevate women. Paul elevates Peter in early Christianity. These two end up being in conflict, especially Mary Magdalene and Peter. There are a number of episodes in non canonical gospels where Peter and Mary are in conflict with each other. And the issue is who's the more important. Especially for example in the Gospel of Mary, which is written from Mary's perspective. And so this Tension that you already find between First Corinthians and say the Gospel of John between Peter and Mary continues on then in early Christianity about who is the really the important one before Jesus.
- [42:35]
B
Next question. In Paul's letters, why didn't he mention any of the miracles of Jesus? And I feel like we touched a little bit on that today. Did he just assume that his audience already knew the stories?
- [42:47]
C
That's possible. It's absolutely possible. And that's possible. That's another option that we'll be getting to in my course. Did Paul not talk about the teachings of Jesus because he knew everybody knew them? Did he not talk about the miracles because he knew everybody knew them? That's a possibility. It's possible that he had never heard of miracles. Hard to imagine, but he doesn't mention them. Another possibility is that he didn't think that they were relevant for what he wanted to talk about. Another possibility. There are a range of options, and in this kind of situation, you just have to choose the one that seems most plausible to you. But when I try to do that, I don't try to do it on the basis of what I personally believe about Jesus or Paul. I try to do it on the basis of what I imagine historically makes the best sense. I think a lot of Christians will just say, well, they all knew all about them, you know, but they say that because they know all about them and they've read the Gospels. But if you're putting yourself in the place of a pagan convert living in Corinth, you know, 20 years after Jesus death, who's been converted by Paul, does he know that Jesus multiplied the loaves? Does he know that he walked on water? Does he know that he healed Jairus daughter? How would he know that? How do we know that? How do we know Jesus did those things? These are complicated questions. There's not an either or answer and there's not an easy answer.
- [44:07]
B
Thank you. Are there any scholarly thoughts or beliefs that the Gospels may have been written to counter Paul's teachings? Especially as Jesus talks about watching out for false prophets and fulfilling the laws rather than abolishing them?
- [44:22]
C
Yeah, great question. It seems pretty clear that Luke was not written to oppose Paul because Luke sees Paul as his hero in his second volume, the Book of Acts. The Gospel of Mark seems to embody Paul's theology of Jesus death and resurrection and other teachings of Paul scholars have found in kind of hinted at in some ways or alluded to in Mark. John is a kind of a difficult case because John's written so Much later than Paul. And nothing he says kind of contradicts Paul at all. The Gospel of Matthew is the interesting one. In Matthew and only in Matthew, Jesus insists that his followers, to be true followers of his, have to keep the law. He not only says that no part of the law, not the smallest part of the law, will pass away until all is fulfilled. He tells his followers they have to keep the law down to the very fine details. In fact, they have to keep the law better than the scribes and the Pharisees. And they're to do the law the way the Pharisees tell them to do the law. And that is part of being a follower of Jesus is keeping the law down to the T man. Paul wouldn't agree with that. I've sometimes wondered if you locked Matthew and Paul in a room and wouldn't let them out until they came up with a consensus view of the law, whether they'd ever emerge 2,000 years later, you'd find them in skeletons in a death grip. They don't agree about the law. And Matthew may well be, in my judgment, may well be written against a Pauline form of Christianity.
- [45:57]
B
Interesting. Thank you very much. And we have one final question before we finish for the week. What did mortis spread Christianity quickly through the Roman Empire? Paul's travels and letters, or the Gospel stories? Who would be using the Gospel of Mark? And how did it spread quickly enough to be referenced by both Matthew and Luke in a seemingly short amount of time?
- [46:17]
C
Those are two different questions. The second question I'll deal with first. If Mark was written around the year 70 and Matthew and Luke are written in the years 80 to 85, it is not really too hard to imagine it circulating. People traveled in the ancient world. Circulation of literature was a very arbitrary thing. But when Christians went from one city to another for business or whatever, the rich are Christians, they may well have taken a sacred book with them. And we know about sacred books traveling around the world. Just to give you one non canonical example, we have a piece of a fragment of the writing of Irenaeus that was discovered in Egypt. And it looks like it was made like 20 years after Irenaeus. And if it was made in Egypt, it would mean that Irenaeus got down there pretty quickly. So people are traveling, so that would be why. And 10 or 15 years later, that really wouldn't be a problem. Which did more to spread Christianity, the gospels or the letters of Paul? I would say neither. I don't think the writings of early Christians helped spread Christianity. What spread Christianity was One person who believed in Jesus convincing another person that they too should believe in Jesus and telling them stories about Jesus. And I think this goes on year after year after year after year for hundreds of years. I don't think that they were using their gospels as missionary tools or the letters of Paul for missionary tools. These books were written for Christian for Christian communities, and they were read in Christian communities. And I don't think they were handed out in order to get people to believe.
- [47:53]
B
Thank you very much. And before we finish for the week, would you mind just summarizing what we talked about today?
- [47:59]
C
Well, yeah. A big issue is whether Paul's teachings and Jesus teachings are the same thing, which is closely related to whether they held the same religion or not. I pointed out that it's difficult to know what Jesus actually taught because we have gospels written decades later. But when scholars do reconstruct the teachings of Jesus, many of the things that he says are comparable to what Paul says about the living at the end of the age and that God's going to bring history to a crashing halt soon and there's going to be a savior who comes from heaven and that there's going to be a utopian kingdom that soon to come. Those are very similar, but those views are similar to the views of a lot of apocalyptic Jews at the time. When you look at the specifics of what Paul taught and what Jesus taught, there are key differences. One is that Jesus appears to have taught that a person will enter into the kingdom by doing good things for those who are in need. Paul taught that nothing will bring somebody into the kingdom except for believing in the death and resurrection of Jesus. That means there's a legitimate question about whether they represent different religions, whether there's continuity between the two, or whether in fact they're saying the same thing. And that's the question that people have to decide.
- [49:14]
B
Thank you so much, Bart. It's been a delight talking to you as always. Audience, thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, please remember to subscribe to the podcast to make sure you don't miss any future episodes. Remember also that you can use the code mjpodcast for a discount on all of Bart's courses over at www.blogbuterman.com. that includes the Paul and Jesus course that is coming up on the well course webinar that is coming up on the 27th and 28th of May. The cost for that is $53.95 and the early bird price is $47.95. And the early bird is good through May 20th. M. Quoting Jesus will be back next week, but not with me. Bart, who are you talking to and what are you talking about?
- [49:56]
C
Yeah, so next week I'm interviewing a colleague of mine, Hugo Mendez, who is a New Testament scholar, a young New Testament scholar who's really, really bright, who's just published his first book with Oxford Press, but he's working now on his second book. And we're dealing with the topic of his second book, which is. Is the Gospel of John forged? Is it a forgery?
- [50:18]
B
We're covering all the controversial stuff this time.
- [50:20]
C
Yeah.
- [50:21]
B
Wow.
- [50:21]
C
And this time it's not me saying it and so. But we're going to talk about it because it's a very, very interesting question. Is it being written by somebody who's claiming to be someone other than who he is? There are lots of twists and turns in this one, and Hugo is an expert on it. So we're gonna have a fun time talking about that.
- [50:38]
B
That sounds wonderful. I can't wait to listen to it. I'll be back the following week. I look forward to seeing you then. Thank you, everybody, 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.