← Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman
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- [00:00]
Bart Ehrman
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- [00:30]
Megan Lewis
If Genesis 1 is an account of the creation of the world, why is the world recreated in Genesis 2? Dr. Bart Ehrman joins me today to talk about whether these accounts can be understood as one single story or if something else is going on. 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. Welcome back to Misquoting Jesus everybody. Today we are talking about the creation accounts found in Genesis 1 and 2. We also have some listeners questions at the end so be sure to stick around for all of those. But how are you doing this week?
- [01:26]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, I'm doing well, busy as always. As happens, you know you something lands on your table that's like ah. And so I just have my, my page proofs for my, my new book on the ethics of Jesus. My page proofs, the first pass at the page proofs arrived and so I've got to go through that and you have to read through them carefully word by word, make sure there are no misspellings or mistakes or stupid things you say. And so that's time consuming on top of other things. But it's you know, it's kind of fun to see that you know, you don't have to do the research anymore
- [01:59]
Megan Lewis
at least are page proofs essentially the the manuscript put like laid out as it will be published?
- [02:06]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah. What happens is when you submit the manuscript then a copy editor first the editor goes over it and suggests changes either millions or a few. And then the copy edit when you make those, the copy editor goes through to make sure that like it's the grammar and the spelling and everything, punctuations right. Then you to go through all that then they set it up the way it'll be in the book. And those are the page proofs. And at Simon Schuster, the company I work with, is you do that, you send that back, the changes you want, you need to make, and then they send you another set. It's like it's a never ending story. It just goes off forever.
- [02:42]
Megan Lewis
And eventually you get a book published.
- [02:44]
Bart Ehrman
Eventually you get a book, but you think you're done. When you're done, you're not done. So. Yeah. All right. So, yeah. How's your busy life?
- [02:53]
Megan Lewis
Good. Busy, similarly, but no good. Everything is ticking along as it should be. We've got Halloween in a few weeks, so I'm kind of in the throes of costume creation. We're making pirate costumes. And Oliver and I have spent a few weeks making a giant treasure chest out of cardboard, which he's quite excited about. He wants to fill the whole thing with candy. Yeah. Given it's about 2ft high, I'm not sure that's economically viable. I'm trying to persuade him that we can just put like a tray insert in the top so it looks candy.
- [03:25]
Bart Ehrman
All right, fair enough.
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Megan Lewis
So far. He's not. Yeah, he's not going for that yet.
- [03:29]
Bart Ehrman
Well, ambition is good.
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Megan Lewis
It is.
- [03:31]
Bart Ehrman
It can be good.
- [03:34]
Megan Lewis
Now, before we get to the topic proper, I wanted to ask a question about whether your academic interests or research interests have changed over the years or if they've kind of remained relatively stable.
- [03:48]
Bart Ehrman
Oh, God, no. They've changed all over the place. In good ways. Always an expansion in expansion. You know what? When I first got interested in doing a PhD in New Testament studies, I was interested only in analyzing Greek manuscripts and comparing Greek manuscripts of the New Testament to each other. But I knew to get a job teaching, I'd have to be able to teach kind of broadly, a New Testament. And most of my training was actually in New Testament interpretation and the history of early Christianity, so not in analyzing manuscripts. But then when I got, when I got this job at Chapel Hill, they. It was supposed to be a job in ancient Mediterranean religions broadly. And my, my first PhD seminar that I taught at UNC Chapel Hill was on Greek and Roman religions. And that was a crash course for me to begin with because it was not what I was trained in. But I did the, you know, I, I taught myself a lot of stuff. I read millions of things and, and now, you know, that's, that's something that I do. But then I, after, I don't know, after I wrote my textbook on the New Testament, after I Spent years writing stuff on the New Testament. I got especially even more interested in 2nd, 3rd and 4th century Christianity. And so probably most of my PhD classes over the years have actually been on 2nd and 3rd century Christianity. And that continues to be an interest. And there's so many topics within that. So, you know, when I write books, they're usually like very different kinds of things. And that's great. So, yeah, so my interests have definitely changed. They developed. And when I've acquired new interests, I, I haven't lost my interest in the old interest. So it's kind of cumulative, which is good.
- [05:26]
Megan Lewis
Excellent. Thank you. Now we're talking about, as I said in the beginning, Genesis 1 and 2 and the creation stories found within those. You're primarily a New Testament scholar. Genesis is obviously a book of the Old Testament. How often have you had to talk about these passages in Genesis?
- [05:45]
Bart Ehrman
Well, yeah, roughly my entire career. And so my secondary field in my PhD, both my master's and my PhD, my secondary field was Hebrew Bible. And so early on, like my first semester in my, my first master's, three year master's program, my first semester, I took Hebrew. And so, and then, and so I, I had to, you know, I had to learn Hebrew and, and deal with the Bible in Hebrew. And Genesis 1 and 2 is obviously really, really important for anybody who's a Bible scholar because it's the beginning of the Bible and it's, and these are, these are passages that people still read a lot and believe and, and they obviously created huge problems in the history of Christianity over the last 200 years, especially 300 years because of developments of science. And so they're, they're, they're, they are passages that are important to the Bible. They're a passage important to Judaism, their passage is important to Christianity. And they're, they're, so they're naturally important to anybody who's a biblical scholar.
- [06:51]
Megan Lewis
Now, for those who aren't familiar with them or with the book as a whole, what does Genesis contain? What is it primarily interested in recording
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Bart Ehrman
the entire book of Genesis or these two chapters? The entire book.
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Megan Lewis
The entire book. Then we'll get to the section.
- [07:04]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, well, so Genesis is the first book of the Pentateuch, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy that were traditionally ascribed to Moses. Moses was said to have authored these. He's the main figure in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. He's the one that leads the people out of Egypt during the Exodus and to whom God has given the, gives the law and A good chunk of those books are about Moses and the law and the, and the Exodus. But Genesis is kind of a setup for that. So the word Genesis means something like beginnings. And it begins at the beginning with the creation of the world, with God creating the world. And then the book of Genesis is. It's kind of setting up what's going to happen at the Exodus, because the Exodus begins with the children of Israel being enslaved in Egypt. And Genesis, in a way, is kind of setting that up because it begins with what scholars call the primeval history. So, like, kind of history before there's history, there's the creation, there's Adam and Eve, they're getting kicked out of the Garden of Eden, there's Cain and Abel, and then eventually there's a flood, the Noah's flood and the Tower of Babel. And all of that happens in the first 11 chapters. And then starting chapter 12, a man called Abram, later renamed Abraham, is called by God because the world is corrupt again. And he calls one person, and he's going to make descendants from this, this one person, his chosen people. And so Jews are the descendants of Abraham. And so it goes there for the last chapters 12 through 50, through Abraham and his, his son Isaac and his son Jacob and his 12 sons. And it goes through that way up to the end of Genesis.
- [08:47]
Megan Lewis
Now, the first two chapters specifically are creation accounts. They, like you said, they're a primeval history. They kind of start with the creation of the physical world. Now they're understood by scholars to be distinct and separate, separative, distinct and separate narratives composed by different people. Can you tell us about some of the differences in between the two?
- [09:09]
Bart Ehrman
You know, I think a lot of people just read these and just assume it's the same thing. And. But one thing I do with my students, when I teach Hebrew Bible, or just in any kind of context where this is involved, I, I just have them go through the Book of Genesis, chapter one, and it, it gives the account of God creating the world and everything in it in six days and then resting on the seventh. And I just have them list, okay, what happens when first God does this, then he does that, then he does this, he does the other thing. And again, I go through the days of creation and what gets created when then I have them do the same thing with Genesis chapter two. When is the first thing created? What's next? What's next? What's next? And then compare their list. And, you know, they've never thought about doing that. A lot of them have read these Books before they never occurs to them to have done that. Once they do it, they look at their list and say, what? Wait a second, that doesn't seem to work. Yeah, it doesn't seem to work. In other words, they. They. So Genesis 1 gives the account of creation six days. Genesis 2 focuses on the creation of Adam and then Adam and Eve and everything else. But when you look at the. The way they. They're set up, that's clearly. They're. They're very different.
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Megan Lewis
If we look specifically at the creation of humans, what are the. The main differences there between the two accounts?
- [10:31]
Bart Ehrman
So the way Genesis 1 works is in the beginning. You know, God creates the heaven and the earth. And the first thing he says is, let there be light. And light is created. And then. And it goes from there. He creates light. He creates a dome to separate the waters from above from the water below. He's creating the physical world. And then he ends up creating plant life. And then he creates the. The animals of the air and the sea. And the climax is on day six, when God creates humans. He creates them male and female. And so this is the final thing of creation. It's the climax, creation. And you can see this kind of continuum from creating things that are not alive, like the earth, to things that are alive like the various kinds of animals, to finally the pinnacle of life, which is he creates, you know, creates humans.
- [11:39]
Megan Lewis
How does Genesis 2 differ? If Genesis 1 has humanity kind of being the pinnacle of God's creative efforts, where does humanity fit in Genesis 2?
- [11:48]
Bart Ehrman
Well, the interesting thing is that in both Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, the creation of humans is the point, because it's. It's so in Genesis 1, it's the climax. In Genesis 2, it's the beginning. It's the first thing God does. And my students note it says quite explicitly that before God had created any of the plants or any of the animals or anything else, first he created Adam. And so he. It begins with him taking dust of the earth and forming it into a humanoid shape that's, you know, like a. Looks like a human on the ground, but it's just this stuff made out of dirt. And then he breathes into it. And this being on the ground then becomes a living being. And that's how Adam comes into existence, because God breathes life into him. And that's before there are any plants or before there are any animals. The animals end up getting created because Adam's kind of lonely and he needs some help. So God tries the animals. None of them work. And then he ends up creating woman at the end. So the man. The. The man is created first, the woman's created last, and in between them are the plans of the animals.
- [13:05]
Megan Lewis
And in Genesis 1, men and women are created at the same time?
- [13:10]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, apparently it says so. I mean, you know, there are. There are all sorts of difficulties with these passages, but in Genesis 1 is where God says, let us create humans in our own image, male and female. He created them, and he creates them like he created everything else. He. He speaks a word and it happens. So when he says, let there be light, boom, there's light. And then, you know, and he says, you know, let. Let the earth produce fruit. Boom. It produces, you know, plants. And so. So he just speaks things. And it happens. And so that. So it happens simultaneously in Genesis, on the sixth day that both men and women are created, male and female.
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Megan Lewis
So what do these differences tell us or tell scholars about the interests and the concerns of the people who wrote them?
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Bart Ehrman
Well, for one thing, the people who wrote these things are not interested in modern science. And so that when you actually look carefully at these, it is interesting. A lot of people have pointed out that if you look at the six days of creation, the basic structure is kind of like how it happened. You know, that the first thing that happens is you get inanimate stuff created and this world comes into existence. And that plants are the first to emerge on the world. And then, Then. Then various kinds of animals emerge, and then humans emerge last. And so, like, generally, it's sort of how things happened, but it's clear they don't. It's not a scientific understanding of things for several reasons. I mean, to begin with, the first thing that God does is he creates light. And then he separates the light from the darkness. So somehow it wasn't separated before that. But the odd thing is that God, he creates light, the very first thing, but he doesn't create the sun, moon, and stars until day four. So where's the light coming from? But not only that, but before day four, before there's a sun, moon and stars, he creates the plants. So, you know, photosynthesis wasn't kind of available to these, to. To the scientific world when these things were written. Because he's got plans before he's got a sun, what. And he's got light before there's a. Like, any sources of light. And so it's kind of, you know, it doesn't. So I think the first thing to be said is that, you know, what this person is valuing is not what many People today value, which is really trying to understand what actually happened. You know, people, people try to take this text and kind of mold it into modern understandings of the universe. You know, so let there be light. Oh, big bang. You know, and, and so you, you know, and you, you kind of try to do it and, and you end up saying, well, it says six days, but it doesn't mean six days. It means geological periods, you know, and so these days are millions of years long, billions of years long, or whatever. And when you actually look at this text, it's clear that none of that's right. I'll just say this about the day thing. This text really means days. It means a 24 hour day. The way one way, you know, that is at the end of each day it says and there was evening and there was morning. The first day, well, evenings and mornings tells you he's thinking in terms of a 24 hour day.
- [16:52]
Megan Lewis
When did scholars first start to really notice that these are probably different accounts rather than the same account either separated or written in a slightly different fashion?
- [17:06]
Bart Ehrman
Well, so there are two kind of issues. One is that when did scholars start recognizing that these can't be scientifically accurate? And when did they start recognizing that there actually seem to be two different accounts? And for that, which is what you're asking about, I mean they, you know, rabbis throughout the centuries have recognized difficulties like this in the text. And they, rabbis would have, you know, devised ways of trying to understand how they both can be true and develop sophisticated ways of interpretation to try and account for the differences. But the difference is, really are clear to anybody who reads them quite carefully. And so that's not. That itself is not a modern, a modern discovery. I think the modern discovery is that recognizing these differences that are significant on numerous levels leads to an understanding of where these accounts came from. Because the. It's so among the differences you definitely get a different order of creation of what's created when. And there are contradictions between these two accounts. The writing style is different between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. Just the literary style is different. God has a different name in Genesis 1 from Genesis 2. And so he's called different things. And so they're like this range of things that people start paying close attention to. And that's what leads in the modern period to the understanding that we're probably dealing with two different authors here.
- [18:54]
Megan Lewis
I see. And do we know? Or I mean, I'm assuming we do know because we have books. When did this kind of understanding of two different authors really start to take off in biblical scholarship.
- [19:08]
Bart Ehrman
Well, had been floating around. I mean, all of these things, you know, just about everything we talk about in here can be traced back to the Enlightenment. I mean, it's just, it's when people started recognizing that the Bible. There are people began recognizing the Bible is a very human book. And for many of these people, it didn't mean it also was not a divine book. You know, it could be both divine and human. But if it's human, we have to take seriously its human characteristics. And of course, in the Enlightenment you start getting Deists, for example, and other. Other people who kind of continue they believe in a God, but they don't think that, that what really. They don't think truth comes from revelation, from God. And that truth comes by looking around the world and figuring it out. And that's how science develops. You know, you can't have science if, if you think that everything comes to you by revelation, there's no reason to do an experiment. Just, you know, you'll get the revelation. And so the idea of there being different authors began most seriously in the 19th century. And scholars tried to puzzle out why you have not just in Genesis 1 and 2, but throughout Genesis and throughout the entire Pentateuch, why it is that you've got these contradictions going on all over the place. Why are there different writing styles? Why are there different names for the deity? Why is this all of this? And it kind of came to a clim. Acts in the middle of the night, in the middle of the 19th century or so. And it famously. It was developed by a German scholar called Velhausen. He didn't make all this up, but he, he kind of developed it into a system that, that continued to be significant for scholars probably still today in some ways. But Velhausen came up with the idea that the, the. He didn't come up with the diet. He, he popularized the idea that the Pentateuch, the five books of. Allegedly of Moses in fact are made up of four different sources written at four different times by four different authors that themselves were based on earlier traditions and stories and things. But so the four source. So this is called the four source hypothesis. And it's J, E, D and P they're called. There are different reasons for these sources are identified by those initials. And so some people will have heard of the JEDP theory or the documentary hypothesis, and that's what it's referring to, that you get different accounts. And so some parts are J, some are E, some are D, some are B.
- [21:56]
Megan Lewis
Thank you we're not going to dive down that particular rabbit hole. This, because that is at least three episodes all by itself. We're going to take a very brief break. I've got a couple of announcements and then we'll get right back to the conversation. We are excited to announce a brand new discussion series called Face to Face on the Bible. These are live, moderated conversations where two leading scholars engage in a friendly exchange on hot button issues in biblical studies. Our first events will be held on October 21st and October 26th and will feature three discussions on the Gospel of John. On October 21st at 7:00pm Eastern Daylight Time, AJ Levine and Hugo Mendez will discuss history and propaganda in John. On Sunday, October 26, there will be two more sessions, one at 11pm Eastern with Paula Fredrickson and Robin Walsh on the historical reliability of John, followed at 2:30pm Eastern by Mark Goodacre and Bart Ehrman. We know that man on whether John knew the synoptics. But why are we doing this?
- [23:02]
Bart Ehrman
Well, I've got to say, this was my brainstorm. I've been involved with a lot of debates before, but, you know, it's, it's, it's what I think. I just thought, you know, people would love to hear two scholars who are experts on something talk about it like. And, you know, often there'll be differences. So I don't know with the other two face to faces with. I don't know how much these others disagree with each other. I don't know. But, but I know Paul, Mark Goodacre and I disagree on whether the Gospel, the author of John knew the synoptic gospels. But it's not going to be a debate. You know, we're not going to be like going at each other. We're just going to be like, I'm gonna, you know, he's gonna say what he thinks, I'm gonna say what I'm gonna talk about why we think what we do. It'd be very. It's gonna be a friendly exchange of ideas by people who really have thought about this stuff for decades. And, and so I just think this is, I think this is gonna be really enlightening. I'm really looking forward to the other two because these are four people who really know their stuff. Oh my. And I don't know what they're going to say. I don't know what they're going to say. So I'm really interested. And I think this is, I think this is something that people want to tune in on, you know, because I, I mean, A couple years ago, I was at a. I was at a Society of Biblical Literature meeting with, with my editor, and he and I were going back and forth about some kind of problem. And he finally said, you know, there are people who would just love to be listening in on this. I said, yeah, I know. It just doesn't happen. And so the idea is to make it happen.
- [24:24]
Megan Lewis
It's the kind of thing that happens in conference hotel rooms or conference rooms after the actual papers are done. You're sitting, you're having a coffee or a drink, and you're just chatting with your colleagues, discussing stuff like this, and
- [24:38]
Bart Ehrman
you're getting down there and you're talking about stuff you're both interested in and you're able to do it and, and you realize, you know, most people have no idea that, like, we do this kind of thing and it's. But yeah, so this. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to this.
- [24:50]
Megan Lewis
It's going to be a lot of fun. I think I'm moderating at least two of them, possibly three.
- [24:55]
Bart Ehrman
I have to say, I'm not looking forward to doing this with Mark Goodacre because he knows everything about this stuff. Oh, my God. He spends his life. This is what he does. So that'll be interesting.
- [25:04]
Megan Lewis
But it will be kind and friendly.
- [25:06]
Bart Ehrman
So it will be kind and friendly.
- [25:08]
Megan Lewis
So if people are interested in that, you can register Online. Tickets are 39.95 per session, but right now you can grab a special launch deal. You buy one session, you get two free at Bart ehrman.com forward slash, face to face. Again, there are three sessions, so if you buy just one of them right now, you'll get all three@bartiman.com face to face. And two final notes. If you are in bsa, you can get this free as part of your subscription. And as always, please remember to use the Code MJ podcast for a special discount. And now we're going to head back on over to our conversation on Genesis 1 and 2. So, Bart, we kind of talked about what the. Some of the key differences are between the creation stories in these two passages and how biblical scholars started to kind of formalize their thoughts about. About these differences and the implications that had for understanding the composition of the Pentateuch. I want to turn now to how this impacts people from a faith perspective. So why is it, do you think these passages can pose a problem for Christians who want to take the Bible as being an accurate, factual account of the creation of the world?
- [26:29]
Bart Ehrman
So, yeah, this is the. I think this is the Even the bigger problem, bigger than you know, whether there are different sources behind it and things. But anybody who holds to a very literal understanding of the Bible as being literally true and everything that it says and everything it affirms has a problem with books like this. The problems began to emerge in the 19th century for two reasons. One was they started discovering other accounts of stories like in Genesis, like the Creation and the Flood. They started discovering other accounts in more ancient civilizations that sounded a lot like what you get in Genesis, both the Flood and the Creation. And so you have creation stories as you know, in your field, in the ancient near east, in for example, in Sumerian, you know, you have these, these much older texts that are, that, that have similar things and that can, you can show ties and to, to the Genesis accounts. And so when, when these discoveries were made, it made the front page news. I mean this was like big because did the author of Genesis get this from some other like non Jewish source? I mean, what. And so there was that. But then the second thing is just about the same time you have these, you have scientists who are developing things like understanding the age of the earth and understanding how the world came into existence, how, how life began to some extent, but also like how especially how life evolved. And so, and it became, it's pretty clear with Darwin that humans were not the first thing created as stated in Genesis chapter two. Absolutely. Humans were not the first thing created. And people started wreck, you know, I mean, just with the basics of science when you realize that you can't have plants without a sun. And so, and so the science started, started coming about, these other discoveries started coming about. And this was a real source of problem for, for especially for Christian believers who had taken the Bible as literally true. And in part it's what led to Christian fundamentalism. It led to Christian fundamentalism because those who thought the Bible must be literally true had to double down on their views because otherwise they thought they would lose their entire tradition. They'd lose, you know, the whole faith. And so they doubled down so that now not just that the Bible's accurate, the Bible's like every single word is accurate. It's got to be. And so that, that was the beginning of fundamentalism. So I think it's those combination of those two things generated doubt and they still generate doubt. For, for many people today who think that, you know, what do I do about this if, if it's not true
- [29:25]
Megan Lewis
historically, when you were a fundamentalist, was this something that you were aware of or did you read the two Accounts and like many other people, not quite realize. Hang on, there are discrepancies here.
- [29:40]
Bart Ehrman
Well, you know, we knew all about the, the idea that there were discrepancies or the idea that this couldn't be literally true because we attacked those views. We said, yeah, those, you know, those, you know, those non believers, you know, they're all going to hell. They don't, they don't know this is, this is revealed truth. And so we knew about it, but we, we had pretty ingenious ways of trying to reconcile it all so that it fit with science, basically. And it fit with, and they fit with each other. These two accounts are reconcilable.
- [30:19]
Megan Lewis
Well, let's start with how people harmonize the two accounts themselves. What are some of the ways that you used or some of the things that you've seen since then?
- [30:29]
Bart Ehrman
I haven't seen too much since then because I think the ways we did it are probably the ways most people try to do it still. I think they may not use this analogy, but the analogy that I always found effective when I was a conservative evangelical was that you had to think about Genesis chapters one and two as kind of like what happens when you read the, when you read the sports page, when you read, when you read an article on, you know, the super bowl or something. The first paragraph will give you the kind of, the summary, the summary story you know about. And then it goes into the play by play after the first paragraph. And you just kind of use reading the sports page like that. And so we thought that's kind of like Genesis 1 and 2. Genesis 1 goes through the like sequence. This is what happens, a summary of the sequence of happened. And Genesis 2 then picks up the story with, specifically with the creation of Adam and that, that this is going into the fuller story and expanding it. And so it may, you know, they may look like a contradiction, but in fact it's not. It's simply a retelling of this one major aspect of the story, the one that really matters, which is the creation of humans.
- [31:48]
Megan Lewis
How then would did you reconcile or explain the fact that in Genesis 1, animals are created first and then in Genesis 2, Adam is created and then animals afterwards?
- [32:02]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, well, we didn't explain it very well because it says, I mean, Genesis. Genesis 1 says this is when all the animals were created. And Genesis 2 says none of them were created yet. So I don't know, man. It's just like. But I guess we would say something like God created animals in Genesis 1. In Genesis 2, when Adam needs Some help and needs helpers. God created specific other animals to be potential helpers. And so they're talking about two different acts of creation.
- [32:39]
Megan Lewis
I see. Thank you.
- [32:41]
Bart Ehrman
Which doesn't work, by the way. But it's what we said. If you actually read it closely, the problem is when he says like no animals existed yet, you know, or no plants existed yet. Yeah.
- [32:54]
Megan Lewis
So that, that kind of answers how, how people try to reconcile the two accounts. How did you try to minimize or discount the differences between the creation accounts in the Bible and what science was starting to explain about the creation of the world and the universe?
- [33:20]
Bart Ehrman
Well, when I was really hardcore as a fundamentalist, we just said science was wrong, you know, that we had, you know, experts who would explain kind of holes in the problem of evolution and things that evolution cannot explain. And it makes no sense that you can have life evolve out of non life. It makes no sense that humans evolve of lower forms of primate because we have aspects to our existence that primates don't have and they had to be given by God. And when you look at the creation, you look at the world and you say things like if, if, if the balance, if the balance of things in terms of like, you know, elements is, is different by much, or if temperatures are different by, you know, half a degree here or there, what you come up with these things like life could not exist. And so it can't be an accident, right? Because I mean, it's just like it can't be an accident. It was not an accident, you know, because evolution's an accident. And so it can't be an accident. And so it's more like it's built on kind of a religious common sense that it just makes better sense that if, for example, if, if all humans have the same kind of moral code that can't come from evolution. If, if, if, you know, and so you, we have consciousness. How do you explain consciousness when we came out of rocks? You know, it just, it doesn't make any sense. And so it really was, it wasn't that we were taking them on scientifically, although we, we would always have guest speakers that would get explained to us that why evolution didn't work on scientific grounds or why there really was a flood on scientific grounds. And they, you know, and it was all, it was nonsense, frankly, it was nonsense, but we didn't know. And so, so I think, I think that still happens today. You hear something, it sounds like something you'd be more ready to agree with, makes more sense. So you believe that rather than what can be demonstrated frustrated.
- [35:30]
Megan Lewis
I was going to finish up by asking if you thought any of these harmonization attempts were successful, but I, I suspect the answer is just going to be a very resounding no.
- [35:40]
Bart Ehrman
You know, you can try and try. And I, I did for years tried and tried to reconcile all these things. And I finally just got to a point where I had to be. I felt like I just had to be more honest with myself. And I, you know, I have students today at Chapel Hill who are very, very smart people and who do try to reconcile everything. And I don't tell them, no, you can't do that. I mean, yeah, you know, I, I encourage them to keep trying to do it. But I point out, you know, but you still have this problem or you still have that problem. And so they have. They end up having to decide. They end up having to decide for themselves. And so I, I think, you know, I think the problem is that people see what they want to see. And often there are other factors involved with deciding what's true other than what's really true, because people, they'll hear something, and it's what they want to think, and so they're more inclined to think it. I mean, of course, there's all sorts of psychological studies about that. It's a very big problem in our society. I mean, Genesis 1 and 2. Yeah, okay, that's a problem if you really think it's literally true. But people who are inclined to think that something is true because a person is saying what they want to hear is a very big problem for us now socially and politically in this country and throughout the world. And it's rooted in the same mentality that you're not interested in what the science says. Science is suspect. Expertise is suspect. And who cares if this experiment proves that? I think this other thing, and it's usually because somebody says so that you, you know, you like and you trust. And I think that that's a. It's very dangerous because so, so a study like this with my students, I say, look, you know, your, your life is not going to depend on whether Genesis 1 and 2 are reconciled with each other, but your life's going to be affected if you're able to develop reasons for thinking what you think and you actually have evidence for what you think rather than just agreeing with somebody you happen to like.
- [37:51]
Megan Lewis
Thank you very much. I think that's a perfect end point. We are going to take a very brief break, and then we'll be back with this week's bonus section, which is Audience Q and A.
- [38:04]
Bart Ehrman
If you're interested in the gospels of the New Testament, the book of Genesis, the Resurrection, resurrection of Jesus, the historicity of the Exodus, or anything else connected with the Bible, you should check out my online courses where I cover all these topics and more. If you'd like to learn about the courses, check them out@barturman.com you can receive a discount on any of your purchases simply by entering the code mjpodcast.
- [38:38]
Megan Lewis
All right, first question. What can you tell us about the lost years of Jesus and whether there is any evidence of him visiting India or Egypt during that time?
- [38:48]
Bart Ehrman
Well, by definition the knowledge is lost. So we'll begin with that. And so, you know, with, with all history of every kind, we're dealing with probabilities. And so there are some things that are relatively certain and some things are virtually certain and some relatively certain. And so what we need to ask ourselves is how likely is it that somebody born in a tiny little hamlet in a rural part of the backwoods of the Roman Empire, where everybody was living a hand to mouth existence and just to survive meant that everybody who was capable of working the fields would be out there working and where there's no education, no schools and you know, in that kind of impoverished setting, what's the likelihood that somebody like that would go to India? Well, we have no records of people like that ever going to India. Did Jesus go to India? Well, so that's one thing. The likelihood is very likely not. The second thing to be said about it is this idea that Jesus went to India and he studied with the Brahmans or that he went down to Egypt and he learned, learned the ways of the magicians in Egypt. You get these various stories. We can trace the origins of these stories. They originated in forged gospels in the 19th century. People just exercising their imagination and coming up with stuff. You know, he was in Nepal or you, you, you come up with this fantastic story if you discovered a manuscript and a monastery. And you know, and so, but these things, they've all been exposed. And I have a chapter of this in my, on this in my book called Forged, where I talk about these forgeries, talking about Jesus going off to India and whatnot, and, and how we know that they were just completely made, fabricated by people who wanted to sell books and they did.
- [40:51]
Megan Lewis
In Mark chapter 13, Jesus foretells the coming destruction of the second temple, saying, Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until these things have taken place. Mark 13:30 seems to indicate that coming, the coming kingdom of heaven will happen during the lifetime of his disciples. Why then do most Christians not interpret the kingdom of heaven has having already come about with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D. given that that seems to fit his apocalyptic prophecy?
- [41:22]
Bart Ehrman
Well, there are certainly Christians who do believe that, who say that the kingdom of God came with the destruction of Jerusalem. That interpretation, in my view, originated among people who wanted to say that Jesus must have told the truth, that he must have been right. He said it was going to come then. So it did come then. And so they come up with this interpretation that it actually happened. Most Christians don't find that compelling because the kingdom of God has not arrived. You may think it's arrived, but I don't see it. Is the lion lying down with a lamb. And so Jesus says that when that happens, in that very chapter, the sun will turn dark, the moon will turn to blood, the scars will fall from the sky, the Son of man will come and collect his elect. And, you know, and that. And that there'll be. There'll be an actual complete, complete overturn of history and the world as we know it. And that did not happen. If, say, was he just speaking metaphorically about the destruction of the temple? Well, I don't. I mean, I, you know, some people say, well, it came in the church. You know, the church is the kingdom of God, not the local churches I've been involved with, I've got to tell you. And so I think it's a way of just trying to make sense of something Jesus said, saying, well, he must have been right. But it doesn't really work with what he says about the coming kingdom of God.
- [42:50]
Megan Lewis
Thank you. How did early Christians conceptualize sin? The seven deadly ones weren't properly refined until St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century. So how was sin understood before this?
- [43:04]
Bart Ehrman
Well, there's a complicated history to the term sin. I have. I have two or three friends who've written entire books on sin in the Bible. And so my. My colleague Joseph Lamb at UNC&MY.MY good friend Jeffrey Syker have both written extensively on this concept of sin. And it's problematic knowing what the term means. But in both Greek and Hebrew, it's not that problematic. The Greek word for sin, hamartia, just means falling short of the mark. And it has to do, like, it's used a lot for, like, archery. Like, you're shooting at the target, man, you miss it completely. That's hamartia. But then if you fall short of God's mark, then that's a Sin. And so I would say the earliest Christians understood sin. The basic understanding was that it was an act of disobedience against God. They didn't have the concept yet of original sin, that everybody has this kind of sin nature in them. But that's typically how they understood sin, as an act of transgression against God, which involved offending God, which required a punishment, which is why Jesus died. I think that's the basic idea.
- [44:23]
Megan Lewis
Thank you. Final question for the day. The prosperity gospel has become increasingly popular over the last several decades. Are there examples of the prosperity gospel or the connection between faith and wealth in early Christianity? And if not, when did it start taking off as a popular ministry?
- [44:43]
Bart Ehrman
I deal with this a little bit in my forthcoming book on the ethics of Jesus, because the prosperity gospel is not just kind of different from what Jesus said. It's absolutely the opposite of what Jesus preached. Jesus did not preach that you will get rich here on earth if you follow what God wants. Jesus taught that you're supposed to give away everything, you're supposed to give up wealth, and that if you have any interest in wealth, your interest is in the wrong place because you should have treasure in heaven, not treasure on earth. And so these prosperity preachers are, I think it's not just that they're kind of getting a little bit wrong. They're getting it precisely wrong from a point of view of the New Testament. And so too, for example, in the Book of Acts, all the followers of Jesus sell everything they have to give to the poor and what to distribute among the poor, among themselves. And so. So, no, you do not find prosperity gospel preaching in, in the, the entire first century of Jesus, you know, after Jesus. The prosperity gospel itself is a fairly modern phenomenon. I don't know the exact origins. There are a lot of books written on the prosperity, on prosperity gospel by people who are actual scholars talking about the. The origins and such. But it goes back to the idea that if you ask God, the God will reward you and God will answer your prayer, and that if you give, you'll get. And so it's based on that. But in almost every case, it involves preachers who themselves are getting very rich, some of whom I've known who are getting rich on the backs of people who are giving money to their ministry, even though it requires huge sacrifice on the people's part and so has a very, very negative side to it, I think.
- [46:41]
Megan Lewis
Thank you very much, Bart. AUDIENCE thank you all for your questions. Now, Bart, before we finish for the week, would you mind reminding us what we spoke about today?
- [46:51]
Bart Ehrman
Well, we went to the beginning, Genesis 1 and 2, and we dealt with some of the differences between these two accounts and they appear to be contradictions and that they're written by different authors at different times and how this has caused problems for people who are believers because the accounts of how the world came into existence do not seem to be accurate as to how it really did come into existence. And so how does somebody deal with that?
- [47:17]
Megan Lewis
Thank you very much, audience. Thank you all for listening. I hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, please subscribe to the podcast to make sure you don't miss future episodes. Remember also that if you buy one session of the Face to Face on the Bible conversations, you will get the other two absolutely free. So go to Bart ehrman.com and check that out. Remember also that you can use the code mjpodcast for a discount on all of Bart's courses over at www.bartehrman.com. misquoting Jesus will be back next Week Bart, what are we talking about next time?
- [47:53]
Bart Ehrman
Well, next time we're shifting gears. We're moving. We're moving up to historical Jesus. And is Jesus and John the Baptist, were they related to the Essenes, the ones who produced the Dead Sea Scrolls? Were they like a member of the Dead? Were they members of the Dead Sea Scrolls community? We'll find out.
- [48:09]
Megan Lewis
Thank you all and goodbye. This has been an episode of Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman. We'll be back with a new episode next Tuesday, so please be sure to subscribe to our show for free on your favorite podcast listening app or on Bart Ehrman's YouTube channel so you don't miss out. From Bart Ehrman and myself, Megan Lewis, thank you for joining us.