← Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman
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- [00:01]
Bart Ehrman
Hey, he's here again.
- [00:02]
Megan Lewis
Oh, who hun?
- [00:03]
Bart Ehrman
Sammy, the puppy I had when I was a kid. This is the second time he's seen Sammy. Could this be related to his Parkinson's?
- [00:11]
Megan Lewis
I don't see him hon, but I know you do.
- [00:14]
Parkinson's Disease PSA Narrator
About 50% of people with Parkinson's may experience hallucinations and or delusions over the course of the disease. Seeing things that aren't real and believing things that aren't true. Symptoms generally worsen but are treatable. Learn more@mortaparkinson's.com and take the screener to see if it's time to start a conversation with your doctor.
- [00:35]
Podcast Announcer
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.
- [00:56]
Megan Lewis
Hello and welcome back to Misquoting Jesus. Today we are going to be exploring the question of whether biblical scholarship destroys faith. Something I've heard from more than one atheist friend is that they only began questioning the Bible and the validity of their faith when they started to actually study the biblical text. Similarly, Barthes and biblical scholars like him are familiar with the accusation that they're only out to deconvert the faithful. What is the relationship between biblical scholarship and the loss of religious faith? Does the academic interrogation of a holy text destroy one's belief or is it a little bit more complex than that? Before we get into all of that though, Bart, how are you doing this week?
- [01:34]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, I'm doing well. Professorial life is a little bit strange because of the rhythms of it are just not like what others do for a living and the scheduling especially. I was thinking last week that I'm 67 years old and I still think in terms of semesters there's like, you know, that ended about 45 years ago. How are you doing?
- [02:00]
Megan Lewis
Similar actually. Although I'm not a student and I teach very irregularly, I'm still very much in the academic year mode. I haven't shifted out of it. I suspect a lot of that is due to having children still in school. Everything is, it's not the same semester system but everything is run based on whether or not the schools are going to so.
- [02:22]
Bart Ehrman
Right. And you've got your kids are at a range of ages.
- [02:24]
Megan Lewis
We'll be doing this for a while.
- [02:26]
Bart Ehrman
So. Yeah. You just kind of like the never ending story. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [02:30]
Megan Lewis
But no, we're having fun I'm managing to get bits and pieces done and the kids are all having just a good time. I think being at home and not having to be anywhere at a specific time. I always really enjoyed that when I was, when I was a child. Not having that very rigid routine over the summer.
- [02:48]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, no summers. And I was always one of these nerdy kids who really liked when school started. I mean, I loved the summer because I played sports. I was always playing tennis and baseball and golf and stuff as a kid. But then you did something about school is also a real. But the break. I think the break is really important for young minds and for 67 year old minds.
- [03:10]
Megan Lewis
Well, we can't have too much of a break because you and I do still have to think and talk and be coherent and hopefully intelligence. So we're talking about biblical scholarship and deconversion and the loss of faith and that whole thing. I was thinking that. So I don't like making definitive statements about things that I'm not an expert in. It's something that I think many academics sympathise with, but I suspect without being able to prove it. I strongly suspect that no Christian goes into biblical scholarship expecting to deconvert. It's not your plan. You're actually going to go in and be the one person who, who kind of brings everyone back into the fold. You do it to deepen your understanding of something, a text that is deeply holy and personal to you. Why do you think that deconversions do occur? Do you have the sense that they happen at a higher rate among biblical scholars than the rest of the population?
- [04:05]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, those are both really good questions. And I should say at the outset, it kind of depends what you mean by deconversion because my leaving Christianity was not related to my scholarship, my leaving Christianity and he was about other things. But in terms of deconverting from being a Bible believing evangelical Christian, absolutely. The scholarship is what did it for me. I would say that does happen for a lot of scholars. I don't think, though it actually probably happens at a greater rate for others. When I say for others who actually are like thinking about the Bible. Seriously, I know a lot of people who are not scholars who were raised in an evangelical tradition who came to realize that the Bible was problematic. And I'd say probably about the same number of them, you know, end up with a different kind of faith or possibly with no faith. I don't know too many scholars at all New Testament scholars who have actually become non Christian. I'm a bit of an Odd duck that way.
- [05:03]
Megan Lewis
So my husband, I know I mentioned him before, Joshua Bowen was a very literal Bible as historical fact Christian. I think you two would have had an awful lot in common had you met at the same ages. And I mentioned, I think also that he went into assyriology in the first place to get a better understanding of the historical context of the Hebrew Bible. When he took Syrio Palestinian history as a graduate student, the revelation that much of what we know of the region's history directly contradicts the biblical narrative kind of forced him to take a step backwards and reconsider the worldview that he was raised with. And ultimately that did lead to his complete deconversion from Christianity. But definitely a downgrading of the fundamentalism. What role do you think a person's understanding of the Bible before they embark on scholarship, be it academic or self directed, before they embark on this biblical scholarship has on the longevity of their faith? And do you think that someone with a more literal view of the Bible is more susceptible to this deconversion or downgrading?
- [06:09]
Bart Ehrman
Right. I often hear from people who are psycho evaluating me that the reason I became a non Christian is because I was a fundamentalist and if I'd just been their kind of Christian then it wouldn't have been a problem.
- [06:24]
Megan Lewis
The right kind of Christian.
- [06:26]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah. And so, you know, I get that. I wasn't born a fundamentalist and I was actually raised as a non fundamentalist and I was a fundamentalist for about seven years of my life and they were formative years. It's an interesting question whether fundamentalists are more likely to leave the faith than more liberal kind of open minded Christians. I think the answer is probably yes, but I don't have any statistics to back it up. There are a lot of people who think that when they're Christians, when they're Bible believing Christians, many people think if the Bible's not completely accurate then there's no reason to be a Christian. I think that's crazy. Personally, I just think it's crazy. I don't know why so many. I do know why actually. I do know why so many people believe it, but I think it's wrong. Wrong, but it's a reality that many people do feel that way. And if that's how you feel, if that's your belief, then once you're shown problems in the Bible, just the whole thing goes away. That's not what happened with me. But it does happen because people don't realize that Christianity historically has not been a religion that is about The Bible, it's about Christ. And the Bible is important to Christianity, has always been important to Christianity, but it's never been the object of faith. It's not supposed to be the object of faith. And if it is the object of faith, that's idolatry within Christianity. And so the idea that you've got to believe in the Bible, that's just a modern form of Christian idolatry as far as I'm concerned. But since so many people have that view, they realize, oh, my God, you know, there are contradictions. Oh, there are mistakes. Well, I guess I can't be a Christian anymore. As if Genesis 1 contradicts Genesis 2, then somehow Christ cannot reveal God. We. What? What? It doesn't make any sense, but, you know, it's just what people have heard, and so that's what they think.
- [08:19]
Megan Lewis
I was talking to Josh about this, actually last night, discussing his own religious path and talking about the role that education played in it. And he felt that for him at least, the problem wasn't necessarily that there was a issue. An issue, one contradiction with the Bible. It's that when he was put into grad school, he was kind of put into this immersion therapy of these are all of the things that we know about history. This is all of the ways. I mean, people weren't going around pointing it out to him. We weren't sitting in classes and our professor saying, now this is wrong, and this is wrong, and this is wrong. But when you're taking so many classes that relates to the Bible, and like many fundamentalists, Josh knows the Bible literally inside out, so he could pick out things during class that didn't chime with what he knew from the biblical text. And he said that because there were so many things, the volume just meant that he couldn't kind of come to terms with them one at a time. Everything kind of forced him to take this step back. And I was wondering, because you teach undergraduates who have, I think, a much less intensive confrontation, unless they're biblical majors, they're not taking just Bible classes. They might take a couple of semesters so they won't get this volume. So you teach undergraduates and graduate students. Do you suspect that this difference in volume might have an impact in a person's ability to maintain their faith in the face of biblical and historical issues?
- [09:50]
Bart Ehrman
I think so. Because if you take an undergraduate class on the New Testament, then, you know, you have a semester and you probably study the Gospels and you realize there are mistakes, you're trying to figure it out. And you. You end up not really sure how to figure it out, maybe, but, you know, next semester you're taking European history, you know, and you're taking calculus, and you're taking whatever you know. And so it's like not a kind of a constant barrage where if you're in graduate school studying this stuff, even in a MA in a master's program, say a Master's of divinity program is what I had where I didn't have all my classes in Bible, but I had a lot of classes in Bible and theology. And she's like, constantly seeing what the issues are. And after all, you just have to deal with it in a way that you don't have to if you've just taken this class once. And so I think the volume absolutely makes. It makes a big difference. It means you become intimately familiar with the material. It's like another human being. You get to know somebody better when you spend tons of time with them. You might think you know them after, you know, you know, night or two, a day or two, but it's like, no, you don't know them. And it's like that. With any form field of study, you can have some passing familiarity with it, but until you're intimately familiar with it, you don't really know its ins and outs.
- [11:04]
Megan Lewis
So you mentioned earlier that you didn't start out a fundamentalist, and we've talked about this on other episodes. Can you talk a little bit more about the impact that starting biblical scholarship had on your own faith journey?
- [11:18]
Bart Ehrman
When I got really interested in the Bible is when I became a born again evangelical Christian when I was a teenager. And that's when I started reading the Bible a lot. And when I went to Moody Bible Institute after high school, I was intensely studying the Bible. But it wasn't biblical scholarship in the way we're talking now. It wasn't historical scholarship trying to situate the Bible in a historical context, understanding it in its original meaning based on, you know, our knowledge of Greek and Hebrew and that sort of thing. Once I. Once I started studying the Bible like that, I was desperate to do it. I was really eager to do it because I thought as an evangelical, I. I was just going to master this material and I was going to be. Actually, I wanted to become a university professor in a secular university as a evangelical Christian. So it'd be kind of like a mission field for me. I was armed not to accept any of these crazy liberal views that I knew were out there by these people who called themselves Christian. What do they know? And including my professors in graduate school. But after a while I just became so at some point you just have to be honest and whether you have to go where knowledge takes you or else you just put your head in the sand. And I just decided I wasn't going to put my head in the sand. And just, even if it made me terrifically uncomfortable, I would pursue whatever it was that I, you know, what I was studying when I got into the scholarship. I originally continued to maintain my evangelical beliefs, but it was only when I started realizing that they were leading me to interpret things in ways that just didn't make any sense. I got to a point where I said, look, if God's given me a brain, he wants me to use it, and it doesn't mean that I have to use it in order to go against him. It said, if something's true, then it's true, and if it's true, God's behind it. And so I shouldn't be afraid of truth, even if it ends up meaning I end up thinking something different from what I've always thought.
- [13:15]
Megan Lewis
You mentioned that you're a bit of an odd duck and that you deconverted fully to not being a religious. What is your general sense of the trajectory that it seems like more people take?
- [13:27]
Bart Ehrman
There are a lot of people who do take my route, which is that you complete Bible believing everything's true, literally true view of the Bible, and then you realize you just think it's not that way, and then you have a broader view of the world. Eventually what gets most people like me, at least in our modern Western world, that makes them leave the faith is for people on that particular trajectory, it's that they realize that since the Bible isn't inerrant, they've got to figure out the world on other grounds. And they look around and they realize this is a horrible place for many people and that the problem of suffering, either because they personally suffer, because they see suffering, or they know about suffering and that it ends up making them think, you know, I just don't believe that there's a God who intervenes in this world anymore. So I do know a lot of people like that. I also know a lot of people especially, well, especially both scholars and lay people, mainly lay people who are so convinced that the Bible is at the root of the faith that if they, if their views of the Bible change, then they, they just give it all up. And so that would, that would be a different route. That's a route that doesn't make as much sense to me. But it is a route that a lot of people take. I'll just say within scholarship, though, most people just figure out another way of dealing with their theology once they realize that the Bible is not inerrant.
- [14:48]
Megan Lewis
I wanted to ask also about something that, again, Josh and I have spoken about, and he's spoken about with other academics, this practice of certain denominations of Christians not going into biblical scholarship, but going into ancillary fields like Egyptology or classics. So they aren't necessarily confronted with the challenges that biblical scholarship can present, but they get the training in history, in research, so that then they can speak with authority. Do you think that that means they don't have to adjust their worldview in the same way that they maybe would do if they went into biblical scholarship as a distinct field?
- [15:31]
Bart Ehrman
I do think that. And there are actually various manifestations of that that are pretty interesting. I actually tried to go that route, too. But to stay within biblical studies, the route that I took is one that many evangelical people take when they want to become a biblical scholar, which is that I decided I did not want to get into issues like getting a degree that dealt with New Testament theology or New Testament interpretation. I wanted to study Greek manuscripts, where I could analyze Greek manuscripts and classify Greek manuscripts and not have to deal with issues like contradictions in the Gospels or discrepancies between Paul's teachings in Matthew's, or even differences between Jesus and Paul and Jesus in the Book of Revelation. I wasn't going to have to deal with any of that. I was going to get the PhD working on Greek manuscripts, which is a very technical thing. It's really more like classics than it is like most New Testament scholarship. But other people do go into various kinds of historical fields that are related to the Bible so that then they can claim expertise on the Bible, and people don't know any better because they have a PhD. The other route that people take that's interesting for American evangelicals who want to get trained in biblical studies, want to teach biblical studies, but don't want to go, you know, to these schools that are going to be at odds with their views is to do a PhD in England. I don't know if you know about this route, but for New Testament scholars, this is.
- [16:59]
Megan Lewis
I didn't know that, but that isn't surprising.
- [17:03]
Bart Ehrman
So, as you know, in the English system, to do the PhD, you don't have to take any seminars. There aren't qualifying exams. You do a dissertation. And so I have. I know lots of people who went did a master's degree at a conservative theological seminary in America and then got in at Oxford or Cambridge or Edinburgh or wherever. And their degree was writing a dissertation. That's how the British system works. So they never had to deal at the PhD level with very, very, you know, kind of deep, complicated issues outside of what their dissertation was. They write their dissertation, they get the PhD from Cambridge, and so they've got a PhD from Cambridge in Biblical Studies. And they do have. That's right, they do have. But it means they, they got around having to deal with the stuff that people had to deal with when they're in seminars, talking ideas, dealing with difficult issues with each other. And it just, it makes a huge difference. People like that who did the English route that I know almost never, ever left the evangelical side of things. They just didn't. But the people in America, you know, there are a lot of people in America that shift theologically. It's not that they leave the faith. They end up with a, with a different kind of understanding of what the Bible is and how it works.
- [18:15]
Megan Lewis
We've been talking mainly about the academic journey, not completely, but mainly I wanted to shift slightly and talk about non academic biblical scholarship. And you've been teaching and as a result writing popular books for years. Do you have a sense that either your students deconvert as a result of your classes or that a portion of your readership deconverts after reading?
- [18:41]
Bart Ehrman
It's an interesting question and it's a little bit hard to answer because I don't, you know, I don't have surveys that would.
- [18:46]
Megan Lewis
You don't send out reader surveys afterwards.
- [18:48]
Bart Ehrman
Several things I'll say about it. I, you know, obviously have a lot to say about it because this, this is a big part of my life, both because it's what I do for a living and because people talk to me about it or accuse me about it frequently. People will say that I'm, you know, my, my goal is to deconvert people. I have students in my classes that this last semester who went to Christian high schools who were told don't take classes with Bart Ehrman because his goal is to deconvert you. I find that really irritating, frankly, because I am quite upfront with my students that I am not out to deconvert anybody or to convert anybody. You know, it's not my goal in life and I really don't care what their religious views are, as long as the religious views aren't harming themselves or others. If they are harming themselves or others with their religious views, it's the same as any other view. I'm against it. But the religious views themselves don't necessarily lead to that. I'm not trying to deconvert anybody, and I'm not teaching alternative religion. I'm teaching history. And the historical views that I teach are by and large the ones I learned at Princeton Theological Seminary training to be a minister. And so these are not anti Christian views. But people think that if you're an atheist and you say them, that they're anti Christian. It's kind of like, you know, when I was at Moody Bible Institute, we would tell these jokes, right? These religious jokes, and we thought they were hilarious. If I tell these jokes now as an atheist, people get really upset with me. It's the same joke, but, you know, you just get in trouble if you're an atheist thing. So my first point is I really. I don't try to convert or deconvert anybody.
- [20:25]
Megan Lewis
You don't try to. But do you get feedback ever from people saying, oh, this was really helpful in my deconversion journey, or the opposite? Because I had an email last week from a lay minister in the UK saying, I've been really enjoying the podcast you do with Bart. It's very challenging, but it's very fulfilling and I think it's wonderful. She is not in the process of deconverting. She's happy to learn more about the Bible. Do you get either of those kinds of communications?
- [20:53]
Bart Ehrman
So I've been teaching at chapel hill since 1988, and I don't know how many students I've had for many years. I'd have probably four or five hundred students a year in my classes. More than that. So whatever that is. 25, you know, third. What is that, 30? Almost 35 years times 500, whatever that is. No student has ever, ever told me they deconverted during my class at the end of the semester. Now they were no longer a believer. I've never, ever had anybody tell me that. And I wouldn't want them to tell me that. I mean, what kind of faith do you have if you take a class for three months and then you leave it? You know, you've had this faith for 20 years and now it takes three months to get rid of it. Well, that's, you know, that's not very thoughtful of you. And so I'm not for that. And I've never had that. What I have had are people who will write me later. And often it's the people who hate me the most who will write me, who hated my class, they thought I was wrong. They were in a study group that showed why I was wrong. They were in prayer groups meeting to pray for me while undergraduates. And, you know, eight or nine years later, they'll write me and tell me, yeah, it's one of those. And now I just, you know, I've left the faith because of X, Y and Z. And I really appreciated your class because it started me thinking about things. So I get that kind of thing. I also get the thing where I have people write me and say, you know, I took your class and I didn't agree with you, but it has really strengthened my faith having to think through these issues. And I had two students this semester tell me that. Look, I disagree with you, but it really strengthened my faith taking this class, and I'm happy for them. Good, good. You can believe what you want to believe. I just want you to be knowledgeable. I'm at the university. I want you to be knowledgeable. And it's better to be a knowledgeable Christian than an ignorant Christian. So why would you want to be ignorant? In the broader world, I get a lot of people write me telling me that reading my books has led them to deconvert. They almost never explain how that worked, and I'm never quite sure how it worked. But I think probably it means that they, they started out questioning their faith. They were maybe raised in an evangelical setting of some kind and believed the Bible is the inspired word of God and were. Were having doubts about it. And they read my books and it gave them information that confirmed what their doubts were, and it led them on a road, on a path to deconversion. And I'm absolutely fine with that, too. I'm fine either way. I just want people to think and go where the truth leads them.
- [23:21]
Megan Lewis
I think that the idea that you and the larger university system in the US Is out, and I think we've spoken about this before when we were talking about academic freedoms. The idea that professors are out to try and indoctrinate students into atheism always baffles me because I hear it semi regularly. And the fact of the matter is that, I mean, there probably are some people doing that, but by and large, professors are interested in whether you're thinking about the material in a critical, scholarly way, whether you're paying attention in class, if you're turning in your assignments that I'm much interested in, where you go on a Sunday morning, or if you go to Bible study after Wednesday lectures. It's just not on your radar. You're teaching a specific curriculum. And that curriculum is not. This is how to not be a Christian anymore.
- [24:21]
Bart Ehrman
No, it's not. I mean, people find this surprising about religious studies. My department has about 20 faculty members in it who teach a range of things from Judaism to Islam to religion and culture to American religion. And we teach all sorts of things. And no one, no one has on their agenda to deconvert anybody or to make somebody an atheist. And I might have said this before on the podcast, but I don't recall ever having a personal religious discussion with any of my colleagues, ever. I started teaching at Rutgers in 1984. And so, you know, that's almost 30 years. What is that? I don't know how long that is. That's like 40 years ago. It's 40 years almost. Oh, my God. It's like 40 years ago. And I don't think I've ever had a person where I sat down and just shared my personal religious view. It just doesn't come up. You know, some of us are doing history, some of us are doing philology, studying language, some of us are doing sociology, some of us are doing anthropology. All connected with religion. Cultural studies connect with religion. And we're studying religion. We're not like embracing or trying to get somebody else to embrace it, trying to inform people. So what I would say is that in the universities today, the academic freedom issue, I think, is that in universities today, there are a lot of left wing professors. I'm one of them. I'm a left. Left wing in terms of virtually every social and political issue, but I don't even enforce my social views. But there are, there are a lot of professors who really do try to, you know, sway their, their students socially and politically. I don't know of anybody who tries to do it religiously, but maybe there are people like that.
- [25:58]
Megan Lewis
So we've been looking mainly at whether biblical scholarship destroys faith. It's the title of the episode. But in your opinion, are there ways that biblical scholarship can be helpful for Christians who want to more fully understand the Bible without deconverting or changing their religion?
- [26:18]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah. No, absolutely. On the one hand, as I've said before, knowledge is not bad. If you're a person of faith, it is useful to be knowledgeable about what you believe, because otherwise you're just believing something because somebody told you you need to be thinking about it and it helps. But when it comes to biblical studies, understanding what biblical scholarship says is so helpful for anybody who wants to understand the Bible, it's not destroying the meaning of the Bible, it's opening it up in ways that you just can't imagine. Because when I was an evangelical, just to take the Gospels as an example, we just assumed that Matthew, Mark, Luke, Jesus, John were all telling the same story. And that if there's something that seems like, you know, different, you reconcile it, and by reconciling it, you make it one thing. So Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are one thing. They're not four things. And when you read it as one thing, you know, you got this giant narrative, but you don't understand the glorious diversity, and you don't understand how fantastically interesting it is that they're different. There are places where Luke has changed Mark's story, and if you pretend that it's saying the same thing, then you're missing what Luke's trying to do. And surely it matters to see what an author's trying to do and what he actually achieves without simply making it say the same thing as some other author. You know, if you really want to know what I have to say, suppose you take another scholar, like, there are lots and lots of really fine biblical scholars out there. You know, you take something that Amy Jill Levine says or something that Dale Allison says or something that Paula Fredrickson says, and you assume they're saying what I say. You're going to miss what they're trying to say. Oh, yeah, that's the same thing Herman says. No, it's not. And especially, I mean, if you take what I have to say with what an evangelical scholar maybe has to say, like Craig Evans, who's a good scholar, you know, and you say, well, Craig Evans and Herman, they're both scholars, they're saying the same thing. Oh, my God, we are not saying the same thing. And so why would you do that with two authors from antiquity? Later Christians said that Mark and John both belong in the Bible. Okay, great. But it doesn't mean they're saying the same thing. And if you think they are saying the same thing, you're missing the point of both of them. And surely if you think that God inspired both of them, you want to see what both of them have to say. And so I don't think it's a matter of inspiration or it's a matter of how do you understand a book. And if you want to understand it, you have to take it seriously as a book. And biblical scholarship does that. It doesn't have to scare anybody off. It can open things up in ways that just will blow your mind if you're willing at least to Try and understand it.
- [29:12]
Megan Lewis
And I have to say, since starting both this podcast, but also my own graduate studies and taking history and archaeology courses and some biblical Hebrew, it's much more interesting. It's fascinating. Both the world that produced all of these different texts and the texts themselves, and knowing the cultural context and the historical background, it's so much more interesting than just taking it as this static, isolated book, because it's none of those things.
- [29:41]
Bart Ehrman
Well, you know, it's true on one level. It's true of all kinds of scholarship. You know, my, you know, my wife Sarah is a Shakespeare scholar, and I've probably read Hamlet five or six times or something, but I just kind of read it and say, oh, that's, you know, that's interesting. But you hear her talk about it, you say, oh, my God, that's amazing,
- [29:57]
Megan Lewis
because it's the most fascinating thing ever written.
- [29:59]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, you can get. If you actually study this stuff. And so. But when it comes to the Bible, you know, I mean, Shakespeare's hugely important for. For our culture, but I mean, the Bible, oh, my God. And so, you know, if you understand what each of these books is actually doing, what they're saying, it just, it's so rich. And it isn't the kind of thing where you just read Galatians a couple times and then, you know what it says. I'm telling you, it isn't like that. You can spend days thinking about one verse in Galatians and it'll just blow your mind. If you're willing to do it. If you don't, if you're not interested, that's fine. It's absolutely fine. But, you know, you shouldn't think you want to be scared away from this stuff because, in fact, you're just. You're refusing to go someplace that you're really going to be glad you went to. So you shouldn't do that.
- [30:43]
Megan Lewis
The ultimate question, then, before we wrap up this part of the podcast, in your experience, does biblical scholarship destroy faith?
- [30:52]
Bart Ehrman
No, I don't think biblical scholarship destroys faith. I think biblical scholarship brings knowledge, and then people decide what to do with the knowledge. And it may be that it changes faith. It certainly changed my faith. It changed me from being a fundamentalist who had a very wooden understanding of the Bible to being somebody who is actually working hard to understand what these books are really all about. It opened up the interpretation of these books for me that led me away from fundamentalism. And so I guess it destroyed my fundamentalist beliefs, but it didn't destroy my Christian faith, my Christian Faith went down for other reasons. But biblical scholarship can destroy faith if you've got a very strange kind of faith, which is modern fundamentalism. Now, nobody says there are fundamentalists. A fundamentalist is always the guide to the right of you. Right. It's never, you're not the fundamentalist. But the reality is many people have fundamentalist understandings of the Bible, that it has to be true in everything it says, or Christian faith can't be right. If that's your view, then yes, biblical scholarship can destroy that view. But if it destroys that view, it shouldn't destroy your faith. It should change your faith. It should make you realize that in fact, it's a little more complicated than saying every word in the Bible is accurate. There's a lot to faith for those who are intelligent and who think about it. Biblical scholarship doesn't destroy that. Almost all of my close friends in the academy, biblical scholars, agree with the approach that I take to the Bible and agree with. We all disagree on everything, obviously. I mean, there are things, but the basic views that we all have, we all have, and most of them are committed Christians. It didn't destroy their faith. It made them, made them more interested in their faith. So, no, I think the answer is the scholarship itself doesn't destroy faith at all.
- [32:48]
Megan Lewis
Thank you very much. We're going to take a brief break and then we'll be back with some news from Bart's World. And then another round of Outsmart Barthes.
- [32:57]
Podcast Announcer
Have you ever wondered where the New Testament Gospels really came from? Were the books actually written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? As everyone seems to say, the answers to these questions may surprise you. In fact, what you discover may challenge everything you thought you knew about the Gospels. If you're ready to learn the historical truth, then you won't want to miss Bart Ehrman's free webinar. Did Matthew, Mark, Luke and John actually write Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? In this 50 minute talk with Q and A, you'll learn answers to some of the most intriguing questions surrounding the Gospel's authorship. Such as, why did early Christians say the Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? If they're anonymous, what's the best evidence that the Gospels were written by the apostles? Were the apostles of Jesus educated well enough to write books? And last, if the apostles did not write the Gospels, who did? And where did they get their information? Don't miss your chance to uncover the truth behind the Gospels. Sign up now for free lifetime access to Did Matthew, Mark, Luke and John actually write Matthew, Mark, Luke and john@barterman.com Authors. Thank you.
- [34:19]
Bart Ehrman Weekly Update Narrator
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.
- [34:33]
Megan Lewis
Welcome back, Bart. What is going on in your world at the moment?
- [34:37]
Bart Ehrman
Well, I have a. I have a lecture coming up that people can find on my, my website, bart ehrman.com and this one, it's. It's a lecture on who killed Jesus. Throughout history, of course, Jews have been accused as being Christ killers in the New Testament. Are they responsible for killing Jesus? And if they are, is that historically right? Most historical scholars think that it's the Romans who killed Jesus. Which raises the interesting question. If you say Jews are Christ killers and they weren't and the Romans killed, should you say that Italians are Christ killers? Why is it, why do you say Jews are Christ killers? It doesn't make any sense. Nobody would say Italians are Christ killers. Anyway, we're getting this entire historical issue. What can we actually say about who is responsible for the death of Jesus? And that's what the lecture is going to be about. It's a pretty important thing because it has broader implications for the history of culture in the West.
- [35:31]
Megan Lewis
Excellent. Well, I think we'll probably be talking about that in upcoming episodes in a little bit more detail, but that sounds really very interesting.
- [35:43]
Bart Ehrman Weekly Update Narrator
Doctor Ehrman has written six New York Times best selling books and holds a Ph.D. from Princeton. It's not often you'll see him made a fool, but it doesn't hurt to try. It's time for Outsmart Bart.
- [36:01]
Megan Lewis
Okay, Bart, are you ready?
- [36:03]
Bart Ehrman
We'll see.
- [36:03]
Megan Lewis
We'll see. Maybe. I think all of these questions are from. Yep, they're all from Genesis.
- [36:10]
Bart Ehrman
What? Yeah, good luck with this one.
- [36:17]
Megan Lewis
Question 1. Who is the oldest person mentioned in Genesis who was still alive when Abraham was born?
- [36:23]
Bart Ehrman
Wow, that's a good question. I thought it was going to be who's the oldest man in the Bible? Which would be Methuselah. Who was the great grandfather of Noah? I have no idea.
- [36:33]
Megan Lewis
Our oldest person when Abraham was born was Noah. Well, see, which I didn't know that
- [36:38]
Bart Ehrman
Methuselah's great, great grandson. Yeah, well, I got the right family line anyway. Really? No, it was alive when Abraham was born.
- [36:46]
Megan Lewis
Our listener says so. I have not checked these for. I have not fact checked these.
- [36:50]
Bart Ehrman
Well, one thing I know is that Noah was not killed in the flood.
- [36:53]
Megan Lewis
This is very true. This is true. So second question. How old was Abraham when Noah died.
- [37:02]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, well, okay, I'm gonna miss that one too because like. Okay, yeah, we need a fact checker here. These sounds like questions I didn't even know when I was a fundamentalist. That's, that's. Man, I used to know all that stuff, but. Well, okay, good.
- [37:17]
Megan Lewis
60 years.
- [37:17]
Bart Ehrman
Noah was 60 years old.
- [37:19]
Megan Lewis
No, Abraham was 60 when Noah died.
- [37:21]
Bart Ehrman
Oh, Abraham was 60 when Noah.
- [37:24]
Megan Lewis
Okay, and final question. Who is the oldest person mentioned in Genesis who was still alive when Abraham died? Same family line.
- [37:35]
Bart Ehrman
Shem.
- [37:35]
Megan Lewis
Yep. Shem, who apparently survived Abraham by 35 years.
- [37:39]
Bart Ehrman
Okay, well, look, people are not being
- [37:42]
Megan Lewis
kind to you with these at smart but questions. They're really going for it.
- [37:45]
Bart Ehrman
Well, Genesis is not like, you know, exactly my wheelhouse.
- [37:50]
Megan Lewis
No, that's true. I will. I'll have to try and find some New Testament submissions next time.
- [37:55]
Bart Ehrman
Actually, I don't mind missing Old Testament questions because like. Okay, wow, those are good trivia questions. I need to catch up on my genealogies. But that's the other thing. Genealogies ain't my long suit either.
- [38:10]
Megan Lewis
No, I must confess, genealogies are not my favorite thing in ancient texts, even a little bit. Before we finish for the week, can you just summarize what we talked about?
- [38:21]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, we're talking about the importance of biblical scholarship and whether the kind of historical scholarship that I and many, many others do is damaging to faith or whether it actually, whether it destroys faith. And my view is that it does not destroy faith. It doesn't need to destroy faith. There's no reason it needs to destroy faith. Unless your faith is a fundamentalist faith. You may not think you have a fundamentalist faith, but if your faith is that you've got to believe every word of the Bible or you can't be a Christian, then you've got a fundamental. That's a fundamentalist belief. Whether you consider yourself a fundamentalist or not. I think biblical scholarship can certainly change faith. It can mature faith, it can make faith more knowledgeable rather than ignorant. And so that's good. And it can lead people to be more open minded about the world generally, which can lead to a loss of faith. But I don't think the scholarship itself is going to destroy faith. And I don't think people need to be afraid of scholarship any more than they ought to be afraid of any other knowledge. Knowledge is good. People sometimes say, you know, you just learn too much, you study too much. No, that's not a good thing to say because you can't know too much.
- [39:32]
Megan Lewis
Thank you so much audience. Thank you all for listening. I hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, please subscribe to the podcast and make sure you don't miss future episodes. Remember also that you can use the
- [39:41]
Podcast Announcer
code mjpodcast for a discount on all
- [39:44]
Megan Lewis
of Bart's courses and his upcoming web lecture over at www.barterman.com. misquoting Jesus will be back next week, but without me. Bart, who are you going to be talking to and what are you talking to them about?
- [39:57]
Bart Ehrman
So next week I'm interviewing somebody who is actually Megan in your field. This is my colleague Joseph Lamb. That's why I get to interview him. He has an office down the road down the hall from me. He's an expert in Hebrew Bible, but especially in the ancient Near Eastern languages and civilizations. That's his PhD from the University of Chicago and he's just under 12. Lecture course on creation stories in the Ancient world. Kind of a comparative study of different creation stories, including Genesis, but also including Mesopotamian stories and Egyptian stories about how the world came into existence. And the interesting thing is how closely they relate in many ways to the biblical accounts. So we'll be talking about Genesis and talking about these Mesopotamian tales, especially the Enuma Elish, which is a the Babylonian creation story, it's sometimes called.
- [40:50]
Megan Lewis
And I will absolutely be listening to that episode because I love creation stories and I find the connections between them all really very interesting. So I hope you can all join Bart and Joseph. Lam for that. I'll be back the following week, so I'll see you then. Thank you everyone and goodbye.
- [41:09]
Podcast Announcer
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.