← Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman
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One of the biggest challenges of earning a degree while on active duty is transitioning your lifestyle and goals from military service to academic studies. National University gets it. As a top educator of the US Military, they provide dedicated military support and
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advising services, credit for your military experience
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and all the benefits of a military friendly school. That's why 30% of their students are military affiliated. Nu education that serves those who serve the disciples were Jesus closest companions during his ministry. The collective Robins to his Batman. As such, we might expect them to be more enlightened, more intelligent, more attuned with God's divine plan than some of the other people that Jesus came across. The Gospel of Mark, however, seems to defy that expectation. Today, Dr. Bart Ehrman will be talking to me about how the author of Mark Put portrays the disciples, how that treatment advances his aims for the Gospel, and whether this portrayal is representative of a personal vendetta.
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Welcome to Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman. The only show where a six time New York Times best selling author and world renowned Bible scholar uncovers the many fascinating little known facts about the New Testament, the historical Jesus and the rise of Christianity. I'm your host, Megan Lewis. Let's begin.
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Good morning Bart. How are you doing?
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B
Yes, I'm doing well, thanks. Yep, things are all good. I'm still in England and you know, don't exactly have wintry weather this time of year. You have wet weather.
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A
I was going to say how's the rain?
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B
Yeah, it's good, it's doing great. And how are you doing?
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Yes, similarly good. No rain. I believe we're supposed to expect snow soon. Josh messaged me last week to check that we actually have a snow shovel because our driveway is like a vertical downward.
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B
Oh God.
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Into some forest which is beautiful but a little bit lethal in the winter. So we have both de icer salt and snow shovel.
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I was going to say, man, the combination does wonders and yeah, you need them.
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It does. Now today we are talking about the disciples and Mark and how Mark portrays the disciples. So everyone should stick with us for that interview. I'm also going to be talking about a new charity sponsorship with a group called Charity Water. The short form is that we're going to be donating $1 for every course sold to Charity Water. We sold over 12,000 courses last year, so that is going to be hopefully replicated this year, which means $12,000 going to charity. Charity. I'll be telling everybody a bit more about what Charity Water is, what they do during our intermission period. I guess if you want to learn more right now or donate directly to the charity? You can find details@bart ehrman.com forward/charity water. Now getting down to the business of the day. Mark and the disciples. It's fair to say that a lot of scholars seem to think that Mark portrays the disciples in quite a negative light. Is that something that you noticed when you were kind of first starting on your career?
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B
No. Everybody who reads the Gospels recognizes that there are some bad moments, especially when Peter denies Jesus three times, for example, or Judas, one of his disciples betrays him, and the disciples appear to flee the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane. And so I think everybody pretty much sees that it's the problem you have with just about everything in the Gospels, which is that if you read all four Gospels as if they're telling the same story, then the unique emphases of any one of them gets shuttered out. You don't notice them because you're assuming this Gospel is saying the same thing. But if you just read the Gospel of Mark, pay attention to how the gospel portraying the disciples, it becomes clear that it's really quite different from other Gospels and the disciples are not portrayed in an overly positive light. In the Gospel of Mark, do you
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think that it's a negative portrayal, or is he simply showing them to be imperfectly human?
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B
Yeah, maybe a bit of both. Betraying your master so he gets crucified isn't, you know, just like a slight character flaw or denying you actually know the man isn't good. But within Mark, a lot of it may just be that they. They're being portrayed as people who are, like, doing their best, but it's not very good. Or it may be that, you know, there are other issues. Part of the problem is that they're consistently in Mark. They don't understand who Jesus is. Unlike the other Gospels, in Mark, they just don't get it. And Mark emphasizes this time and time again, even up until the end, when at the end, they never even hear about the resurrection. They know that Jesus has died and they fled. They don't hear about the resurrection. And so it's a very interesting portrayal if you just stick to Mark itself and see what he has to say. It's not a lot of positive stuff about the disciples.
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A
So one of the things that happens in Mark is that, as you said, the disciples don't really understand what's going on. They don't really understand who Jesus is. A counterpoint to that is that some people who we might not expect to get it really do. Could you give us an example of the disciples not getting the point and then someone else understanding what's going on?
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B
Well, I'll tell you the first time I realized that this was significant in Mark, I was in graduate school, I was taking a semester long course in Mark. And I realized in this course, this really significant thing in Mark that like I'd never noticed before, which was that there are three specific occasions where Jesus predicts that he's going to be go to Jerusalem and be executed. And in these three instances, so they're called the Passion predictions, you get three passion predictions in Mark. The whole gospel kind of alludes to Jesus death in one way or another throughout the entire thing. But there are three times during his ministry where Jesus says, I'm going to Jerusalem, I'm going to be rejected, I'm going to be executed. And in each case the disciples clearly show they don't know what he's talking about, even though that's the point of the gospel, that Jesus has to go get crucified and then be raised from the dead. But they don't get it. I'll give you these three things. It's kind of mnemonic device we used in graduate school is that these predictions are found in chapter 8, verse 31, chapter 9, verse 31 and chapter 10, verses 33 and 34. So 8 31, 9 31, 1033 and 34 in 8 31. So I'll first describe this first one which is that Jesus, throughout the gospel up to this point, nobody seems to understand who he is. His townspeople can't understand how this fellow from our community, who's you know, carpenter, whose mother and brothers are here, how he got all this learning all of a sudden. So they don't get it. The Jewish leaders think that he's possessed by the devil, which is why he can cast out the demons. His family doesn't get it. They think he's gone crazy. They think he's gone out of his mind. Explicitly says that the disciples don't get it. They just throughout. And Jesus keeps saying, don't you understand? Don't you get it? They don't get it. Then in chapter eight, halfway through the gospel, Jesus predicts, well before he predicts, he asked them, who do people say that I am? And some people say, well, John the Baptist, or you know, maybe you're Elijah come back from the dead, or maybe you're like one of the other prophets. And he says, well, who do you say that I am? And Peter representing the others Says, you're the Messiah. That's all he says, you are the Messiah in Mark. And Jesus is pleased, but he says, don't tell anybody. And then he says that the Son of Man has to go to Jerusalem to be rejected by the scribes and elders and be executed, then raised from the dead. And Peter says, no, Lord, not you. And Jesus says, get behind me, Satan. He's talking to Peter and calls him Satan because Peter doesn't understand he has to go get crucified. Peter knows he's the Messiah, but he doesn't understand what that means. Peter just assumes that that means that Jesus will become the next king and that he'll rule the people. And so the idea of going out and being crucified is just the opposite. At that point, Peter and the disciples, Peter, as a representative of the disciples, are clueless. And even though he's right that he's the Messiah, it's satanic to understand the Messiah the way that he is. So that's not good.
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So what then are the other two instances that this happens in?
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B
Oh, right, yeah. So when Jesus says that, he goes on to say, then, you know, if you want to follow me, it's not a path to glory. You have to take up your cross if you want to follow me. And so they hear that the Next chapter, chapter 9, verse 31, Jesus again tells the disciples that he has to go to Jerusalem and be executed and raised from the dead. So he says it, and then the next verse, they're walking someplace, and Jesus starts asking and says, what were you talking about on the way? Because he was ahead of them, apparently, and turned out they were talking about which of them was the greatest among them. Jesus is saying, wait a second, I just told you, you've got to take up your cross to follow me. It's people who deny themselves and give up their lives that are my followers, not people who are great in this world. And so he reprimands them. Said, don't you get it? You've got to give up everything. And so the next chapter, it happens again. The next time Jesus says basically the same thing. He's got to go to Jerusalem, be rejected, be executed. And then right after that, the next thing happens is James and John to the disciples. The sons of Zebedee come up to him and say, we got a favor to ask. He said, what? Well, when you come into your kingdom, we'd like to sit at your right hand and your left. In other words, they want positions of
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glory in the coming kingdom.
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Jesus, you guys aren't getting it here. You have to be willing to be crucified with me if you want to be my follower. Once I saw that this is the pattern, that Mark has done this intentionally. He says, give some passion prediction they don't understand. Another passion they don't. Another passion prediction they don't understand. Once you realize that, then you start looking through this gospel and you start thinking about the disciples. You wonder, where are they portrayed positively? They're thick as a brick, but is there anything good about them?
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So do they have redeeming qualities or are they just stupid all the time?
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Well, I think the point is in Mark's gospel, the point is not that they're intellectually deficient. They're not stupid. They don't have low IQs. They do try hard. They don't really get it. The reason they don't get it is Mark's entire message is trying to show how Jesus can possibly be the Messiah if he was crucified as a criminal. Mark has a rather big task. He's the first to write a gospel that we know of, and he's trying to explain that Jesus is the Messiah. He begins his gospel by saying, this is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God. And you think, well, Jesus, he's the guy who got crucified, right? No, he calls him Messiah right off the bat. And so the point of Mark is that he's a messiah, but he's not the Messiah people are expecting. He's not going to be a great warrior. He's not going to be the king to set up the kingdom in Israel. He's the Messiah who has to die for the sins of others. That's a big task to demonstrate because there weren't any Jews expecting that a messiah was going to die for others. That's the furthest thing from their mind. And so Mark's trying to show that that's the case. But in order to show that's the case, he has to show that people, even in the gospel, just don't get it. Even his family, his neighbors, his leaders, his disciples, they just don't get it. And so part of it is that they're thick, but they're not thick if you're like, in their situation. In their situation. It just doesn't make any sense that at first he says, you know, he's admitting that he's the future king and then saying he's going to get crucified by the enemy. It doesn't make any sense. And so Part of this is to help readers, I think, understand that it's hard to figure out, but the truth is he really is the Messiah who had to suffer and die.
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Is there anyone who does get this truth in the Gospel of Mark? If the apostles, the disciples, and all of Jesus, friends and family are completely missing the point, who does get what he's saying?
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B
Yes, that's a bit of an irony. So, you know, you go through this whole gospel and he has his ministry, then he goes to Jerusalem, as he said he would. And the Jerusalem visit takes up about a third of the gospel. So it's a large chunk of the gospel, just his last days. There are debates about how many people recognize who he is in the gospel. One thing you can say is there are people in the gospel narrative who recognize him. You know that Mark recognizes him as the Son of God because that's how he introduces him. Jesus gets baptized, and the voice from heaven says to Jesus, you are my son. In you I am well pleased. This is in chapter one already. And so obviously God knows Jesus is the Messiah. So that's two and three. Jesus knows because the voice speaks directly to him. It doesn't speak to the crowds as it does in Matthew or to John the Baptist. It speaks just to Jesus. So Jesus obviously knows he's the Son of God. In addition to that, the demons recognize that he's the Son of God. When he casts out demons, they come out of a person. They'll cry out, you're the Holy One of God, or we know who you are. And Jesus has to silence them because he doesn't want them spreading it around. So the demons know. So those are four figures in the Gospel. Who knows? The other one knows is the reader. The reader knows he's the Son of God because he's introduced that way. And the reader sees all these things, but also sees that the others aren't seeing it. And it's not to the very end that there's a human who gets it.
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Who is the human who gets it.
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Ah, so this is where there are some debates, because there might be two humans. The two humans who, one who definitely gets it, one who might get it, are both unnamed, unlike the disciples. The first is when Jesus before the Last Supper, there's an unnamed woman who comes to anoint him with oil. She brings an expensive jar of oil and she pours it on him as an anointing. This is a. It's a perfumed oil. It's a nice. Like an extremely nice gesture. Kings were anointed with Oil. That's why they were called the anointed one, the Messiah, the Mashiach, the Messiah. This woman anoints him, and the disciples get all upset because she's this expensive oil that could have been sold and given to the poor. This is where Jesus says, the poor you will always have with you, but me you do not always have. She's anointed me for my burial. And so, you know, the reader might think he's being anointed as the king. And he is, in a sense. But to become king, first he has to be crucified. And the question in the text is, does the woman get it? Does she know that's why she's anointing him? Or is she just doing him a favor? Or is this an anointing to be king or something else the text doesn't say? So this unknown woman is maybe somebody who recognizes that he has to die being anointed for burial. But the person who definitely does is, oddly, the Roman soldier who crucifies him. And so nobody else has gotten that he has to die as the Messiah, even though he keeps saying it. When he dies in Mark's Gospel, he doesn't say anything on the cross, doesn't speak to anybody, say anything at all, until the very end when, hanging on the cross, he cries out in Aramaic, in Mark's Gospel, eloi, eloi, lama sabachtoni, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Then he dies. And when he dies, the moment he dies, the curtain in the temple in Jerusalem rips in half. We're told the second he dies. This is the curtain that separates God, who lives within the holy of holies, who dwells in the holy of Holies. It separates God from everyone else. Nobody can go behind this curtain except once a year on Yom Kippur, the day of Atonement, when the high priest goes in to perform a sacrifice in the presence of God, both for his own sins and for the sins of the people, to bring atonement for the people. So in the sacrificial cult of Judaism, God is separated from people and connected with them only through sacrifice, but he's not available to them personally. When Jesus dies in Mark, the curtain rips in half, showing that this is no longer in force, that now God is available to his people. In other words, Jesus death has brought access to God. The second after Jesus dies, that happens. And then the very next thing that happens is the pagan soldier who's just crucified, sees how he's died, and he says, truly, this man was the Son of God. He realizes it by how he died. And so this is the only person that we know for sure recognizes the death of Jesus. And it's this irony, right? It's like not one of the Pharisees or one of the chief priests or one of the Sadducees. It's not one of his family, not one of his disciples. It's this pagan gentile who's just crucified him, who realizes. And so that's surely symbolic that the recognition of who Jesus really is is mainly going to be accepted by Gentiles, not by Jews.
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We'll be getting into that a little bit more after our break, but we are going to take the briefest of breaks.
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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 Ms. 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 why did early Christians say the Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Lynn, 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 math. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John actually write Matthew, Mark, Luke and john@barterman.com Authors thank you.
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So we've talked a bit about the disciples and their portrayal in Mark and how they just do not understand, really, who Jesus is. They know he's the Messiah, but they don't get the whole crucifixion thing. And the two people, the two mortal people who seem to understand what's going on, an unnamed woman who anoints Jesus and then the Roman God who is responsible for actually crucifying him. Now, something we talk about quite regularly on the podcast is the fact that writers have a purpose in writing what they do. What is the purpose behind Mark's Gospel?
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Right. One overarching purpose is to show that Jesus is the Messiah, not despite the fact that he was crucified, but precisely because he got crucified. When you put it like that, many Christians find that very, very puzzling. Well, of course he had to be crucified. He was the Messiah. The Messiah had to be crucified because that's what Christians have always said. But it's a difficult issue because there were no Jews prior to Christianity who thought the Messiah was going to be crucified. And as I said before, they're expecting a king or some kind of warrior figure to deliver Israel from the Romans. And that wasn't what Jesus was. He was a crucified criminal. So Christians were the ones who came up with the idea, you don't have it before Christianity. You don't have the idea that the Messiah is somebody who's going to be crucified. And the reason most Christians have difficulty believing that is because they have passages in the Old Testament that they turn to that seem to say that the Messiah is going to be crucified. And so it's right there. It's in black and white. Just read Isaiah 53. What are you, blind? It's right there. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon him. By his wounds, we were healed. The Messiah has to suffer. It's right there in Scripture. And, you know, a bunch of other passages as well. We've talked about these before on the podcast. I'll just reiterate a couple of brief points. One is none of These passages, Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, any of these that people quote, none of them mentions the word Messiah or in its original context is referring to a future Messiah. Second, no Jews interpreted these as referring to a Messiah. Third, Jews did have expectations of a Messiah. There were various kinds of expectations, but all of the expectations was that the Messiah would be a powerful figure who would wipe out the enemy and rule the people of God, not that he would be a crucified criminal. And so that's what Mark is fighting against. And he's trying to show that he really is the Messiah, despite. Not despite the fact he got crucified, but because he did. And that's the beginning of the understanding. I mean, Paul is earlier, but this is the early Christian understanding that the Messiah precisely had to be crucified, which is why people today think that the Messiah has to be crucified, because that's been the tradition for 2000 years.
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A
So how does his treatment of the disciples and then his recognition by the Roman guard serve that purpose.
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B
So it fits neatly into this message of Mark. Mark is famous. I think we maybe had an entire episode on this for his messianic secret, where Jesus tries to keep his messiahship secret from people. He doesn't want it spread around that he's the Messiah. Part of that secret is that nobody gets it. Nobody understands. They don't understand what he's teaching. In chapter four, he intentionally teaches parables so that people won't understand. Mark says that explicitly. But also when anybody does have an inkling of who he is, he shuts them up. The demons he casts out say you're the Son of God. He silences them. Peter admits, says he's the Messiah, tells him, don't tell anybody. And throughout this, don't tell anybody. Anything happens throughout the Gospel. So that you have the secrecy. And accompanying the secrecy is the fact that nobody gets it. Even people who partially get it don't fully get it. And this is a really interesting literary ploy of Mark because Mark then is trying to tell his readers, you get it now, even though people during Jesus Day didn't get it, even his own disciples didn't get it. And as I briefly pointed out before, and as we've talked about on the podcast before, Mark's Gospel ends with the resurrection. Jesus definitely gets raised from the dead in Mark chapter 16. And the women who go to the tomb find the tomb empty, and they learn that he's been raised from the dead. They're told they're supposed to go tell the disciples that he's been raised from the dead, and instead of telling them, they don't tell anybody anything, and that's it. So the disciples never do learn. And so in some ways, this is trying to show that the disciples don't get it. But it's part of the whole thing is this mystery about how a crucified man can be a messiah.
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A
So why then does he allow the Roman God to understand what on earth is going on? Is that just something interesting to keep the plot moving forward, or is there a point to that?
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So within the plot itself, within the narrative itself, there are two questions. The narrative in relationship to historical reality. I should put it like that. There are two issues about the relationship of the story to what's going on in reality. In Mark's time, one has to do with this centurion. By Mark's time, Mark is writing probably around the year 70, slightly later than that. The tearing of the curtain in the temple that I mentioned may be a reference to the fact that the temple was destroyed shortly before Mark's Gospel was written. And then Mark is showing that he knows that it's going to be destroyed and that the Jewish sacrificial system is no longer a way to access God, but that the death of Jesus is but the only one who realizes it is a Gentile. And it may be because in Mark's day, most Jews were absolutely rejecting this message of a crucified Messiah. And most converts were coming from Gentile realms. And so Mark's Gospel may be, at this point, trying to show that this is already anticipated at Jesus death, that Jews aren't going to accept it. None of the Jews do. I mean, the Jewish leaders, the people in Jerusalem, the disciples, none of them accepts it or knows about it that he's raised from the dead, but this centurion does. And so it may be showing that Roman pagans will be more likely to convert. So the other historical reality is about the disciples not getting it. I think there might be some historical reason why Mark is doing this, why Mark is showing. The disciples don't understand, not just within the story about secrecy, but there might be something going on in historical reality that Mark is trying to explain. And I have two explanations for it that are at odds with one another. And I'm not sure which is right. The explanation that I long subscribed to was that Mark is writing for Christians. And many Christians themselves face doubts and violate what they know is right and are not as faithful to Christ as they know they should be. And that Mark may be showing that this happens. It goes way back to the time of Jesus. Even the disciples, they had trouble accepting what he had to say. They had trouble believing it. They had trouble doing what he wanted them to do. They wanted to be great rather than to serve others. You know, they just. One of them betrays him, one of them denies him. And it may be that the disciples are being used as a way for people to understand themselves in the story as people who are also flawed. But Jesus dies for them anyway. So that's the explanation I've had for a very long time. Over recent years, I've had another explanation that I find tantalizing. And I don't know if it's right or not. It relates to the fact that throughout the Gospels, there is a problem with believing in the resurrection that is specific to the disciples. You would think that if Jesus was raised from the dead and they talked to him later, that they'd all believe. But in the Gospels, every time somebody finds the empty tomb, for example, they can't figure out what it means. They doubt what it means. When Jesus appears to his disciples, often they doubt it's him. They don't believe it's him and they can't believe it's him. And what's all this doubt thing? And in Mark's Gospel, Mark alone, in Mark's Gospel, the disciples never even hear about the resurrection. Why would you end the gospel that way? One historical solution I think, which is not widely spread about, that I know of among scholars, but it's one that I think is a real possibility, is that some of the disciples of Jesus, some of the 12, did not actually believe he got raised from the dead. And Mark's Gospel in part is trying to explain that, as are the others. Why are people doubting the whole time? It may be because disciples doubt it. Some of the disciples doubt it and were known to have doubted. You know, why don't the disciples hear about it? Well, maybe Mark knows that some of the disciples never did come to believe it, that he was raised from the dead. Now, of course, we have accounts in the Book of Acts that all the 12 disciples saw Jesus and believed it. In later Gospels, the disciples all believe it, even doubting Thomas in the Gospel of John. So in the Christian tradition that develops, of course, all the 12 disciples believe it. They all become missionaries and so forth and so on. But Mark is writing at an early stage. Is it possible that Mark knows that there are disciples who act? You know, we don't know. Part of the problem is when we say the disciples, we're talking about 12 people and we're not even sure who these people were. They're named in the Gospels, but the Gospels give different names for some of them, so we have very little record of them. Maybe Mark knew some of them never came to believe. That would explain his ending, I think, and the way he's showing the disciples never do get it.
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A
It's interesting that Mark goes through the whole gospel showing that they're told time and time again and they don't understand. And then right at the end, they're not even shown. It seems like a kinder way maybe to explain their lack of belief. Rather than saying, oh, they saw him, they were shown evidence. They were just too stupid to really understand it.
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B
Yeah, so he's not going to do that because Mark wants, wants people to believe that Jesus is the Messiah because of the resurrection. What would you do if you knew that some of the disciples didn't believe it? Well, you could make up stories that they all came to Believe. But maybe people in Mark's community know that, you know, Nathaniel never believed it, you know, or that Bartholomew didn't believe it, or that, you know, Philip never believed. It's like maybe they know that. I don't know. It's, it's pure speculation. But any solution is pure speculation. In other words, it's not that speculation versus my interpretation. They're all speculation. You have to weigh it. And I'm really impressed with how these stories of the resurrection include so much doubt that scholars even don't even point this out. And it seems to me there needs to be a historical explanation for why there's doubt in all of these narratives. I mean, the funniest of all is funny. I mean, it's unusual in the Book of Acts, chapter 1, verse 3, where Jesus does appear to all the, all the disciples, the 11 remaining disciples. He spends 40 days with them proving with many proofs that he was raised from the dead. Why would he need to spend 40 days proving it? What is that? It's got to be because there are some people who thought the disciples continued to doubt after the resurrection.
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A
I'm going to wrap up with just one final question. Returning to Mark in general. Do you think that the negative portrayal of the disciples is there purely to serve the overarching message that the author of Mark is trying to portray? Or does it seem like there's maybe something personal going on? So do you think that Mark had a vendetta against the disciples or is this about serving the purpose of the text?
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B
You know, it's actually been debated by scholars. There have been scholars who thought that Mark had something in for some of the disciples. Well, I mean, Peter and Judas in Mark, but then also all of them not understanding and stuff. Is there something going on? In other words, in that case, if there is something going on, if there's a vendetta, then it's another historical explanation that Mark knows some of the disciples and thinks that they're thick as a brick or that they don't really get it, or they don't fully understand. And so he portrays them in the negative light. So there have been scholars who have argued that, but it has not been a widely held view because Mark does emphasize the importance of the disciples. They're the ones who receive the teachings of Jesus. They're the ones who observe the deeds of Jesus. They're his right hand people and he favors them. And so his comments to them tend to be about them not understanding, which fits into Mark's themes rather than them being wicked. Or evil or like willfully disobedient or so forth. So I personally don't think Mark has a vendetta. I think that he's using the disciples as a way of enriching his message. That it's mystical, it's mysterious, it's secret, that you have this crucified Messiah who really is the Messiah and that it's hard to get your mind around, but it really is true.
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A
Thank you so much, Bart. We are going to give you some information about upcoming events and then we have some business questions to get on with.
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B
Welcome to our upcoming highlights and events segment where we catch up on Bart's courses, community updates and all the latest news from the Biblical Studies Academy and beyond.
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A
So, as I mentioned at the top of the episode, I'm going to give you some information about a new charity sponsorship. We're now an official Charity Water supporter. So I just grabbed some information from the Charity Water website and from the Bart Ehrman website to share with you because I think this is a really important thing that we're doing and it is relevant to all of you because everybody who buys a course from bartlman.com courses will be directly supporting the work that Charity Water does. So according to their website, 703 million people worldwide, which is a ridiculous number, don't have access to clean drinking water. Turn on the tap, there's nothing there. Or it's just muddy water that really isn't safe for drinking. And what Charity Water does is they fund projects to help get clean water to people who need it. They amazingly have a 100% donation model, which means that all of their operating costs are funded privately through philanthropists. So all the funds that are raised by the course donations will go directly to helping fund clean water projects. Now, since 2006, Charity Water has provided clean water to 18.6 million people through 154,000 water projects over 29 countries, which is an incredible achievement. And we're really, really excited that we're going to be helping fund a small part of that now, a well project. So putting a well in through Charity Water costs as little as $10,000. And that gives whole communities fresh water for as long as the well is in operation. We're going to be donating $1 for every course sold and 50 cents for every BSA Biblical Studies Academy renewal. And we've sold, like I said, over 12,000 courses last year. So the goal for this year is to fund two water projects which cost a total of $10,000 each. That's $20,000 so again, every course purchased $1 will go towards funding those water projects. You can learn more or donate at bart ehrman.com forward/charity water and the website I don't have the charity water website. It's linked through that that link I just gave you. But they have a lot of information if you want to go and take a look for yourself. But this is something we're really, really excited about and people who have been with us for a while will know that Bart's blog also all the payments for the blog memberships go to other charities. So charity partnerships, charity donations is something that is very important to the whole team here and we're really excited about this one. So hopefully you all are excited as well.
- [35:21]
B
Now it's time for questions from listeners where barta 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
- [35:39]
A
all right, Bart, are you as ready as you will ever be?
- [35:42]
B
Yes.
- [35:45]
A
First question I know there was a man named Jesus mentioned by Josephus, but how do we know that there was an actual Jesus with all of the characteristics of the one in the Gospels? Could it be that that Jesus was more of a legend, like our Superman, whom everyone treats as a character, albeit real in their culture, that writer after writer enhanced as time went on?
- [36:07]
B
That view would be the view of the mythicists, the people who claim that Jesus never actually existed, but that he's a fictional character who developed over time. I've written a book dealing with this because I don't think it can be right. So the book is just called Did Jesus Exist? I show why it is that scholars are confident there was a man Jesus. Josephus does talk about him in two passages. He mentions a number of other Jesuses. By the way, Jesus was a common name back then, but he definitely mentioned Jesus of Nazareth in two places. But there are so many sources of information we have about Jesus. Even though almost all of them are Christian sources, they are still sources of information that independently attest him, including one of them, the Apostle Paul, who knew Jesus, brother James. And so as I say in my book, you know, if Jesus didn't exist, you'd think his brother would know it. There certainly was a person Jesus. Does he have all the qualities and characteristics found in the Gospels? I think the answer to that is no, that a number of the Gospel stories as we talked about in just last week's episode number of the Gospel stories, have legends and myths in them. And so we have to separate out what is legendary from what is historical. But that's a task for scholarship and something scholars do. But there's virtually no doubt he existed. The question is, what can we say about him historically?
- [37:32]
A
Thank you very much. Next question is about Luke. Why did Jesus supposedly say, the kingdom of God is within you? That's Luke 17:21. Could he have been a mystic?
- [37:44]
B
This is a question I get a lot. And part of this is that it's a problematic translation. It's hard to know how to translate this verse in Luke 17. It occurs only in Luke. One of the reasons it's hard is because when it's translated like that, the kingdom of God is within you. It does sound like the kingdom is an internalized thing. That's problematic. In other words, that everybody has the kingdom within them. So that's problematic for a couple of reasons. For one thing, Luke is quite clear elsewhere in his gospel that the kingdom is some kind of actual kingdom that's coming to earth. It's not some kind of mystical spiritual entity within each person. Definitely Luke thinks that there's a future kingdom that is coming to earth, an actual realm that Jesus will be ruling this king in. Secondly, within the Context of Luke 17, when Jesus says this, he's talking to his enemies, the Pharisees. Jesus definitely does not think that the Pharisees have the kingdom of God within them. He thinks that they are corrupted inside. They're awful inside. They don't have the kingdom inside. This passage you will see this verse is translated in different ways in different translations of the New Testament. The word may, instead of meaning within, may mean among. The kingdom of God is among you. If that's what it means, it makes perfect sense in Luke's context. Luke's Gospel does not think that you've got a mystical kingdom within you. He thinks that Jesus ministry is bringing the kingdom of God to earth in a kind of a minor way before it arrives in a big way with the Second Coming. And so Jesus is showing what the kingdom is like, and so you can already see it here. He's healing the sick. He's casting out demons. He's raising the dead. He's doing these natural miracles. He's doing things to show what the kingdom will be like. And so it's already here among you. If you don't see it, you're just closing your eyes to it. So I think that's probably what it means. Not that it's within you, but that it's among you.
- [39:46]
A
Thank you. Next question. Why did people Start sacrificing animals for the removal of sin. It never made sense to me that a creator would instruct humans to murder other animals that the creator also created.
- [40:00]
B
Yeah, it's a really good question. And one of the difficulties answering it is the sacrificial practice of sacrificing animals was going on for a very, very long time before we have recorded history. And so we don't have records of, like, why. We have guesses based on anthropological studies of various cultures and based on archeological evidence about why. But the idea that there was a deity who required this would be fairly late in the history of religion, because virtually every religion in the ancient world didn't have a single deity. And it's not always clear that the deity was demanding sacrifice. It may be that people were sacrificing because they thought the deity would find this pleasing. You can think of reasons, you know, why. You know, for example, you could say, well, you know, this animal will die in my place, for example, or maybe the God also needs to be fed. So I'll kill an animal for the God, and obviously he can't eat the whole thing, so I'll burn parts of it, and the smoke will feed him. You know, you could think of things, and people have thought a lot of things. The short answer is we really don't know. But it didn't originate in the Jewish Christian traditions. It was throughout all ancient religions that we know of.
- [41:13]
A
Thank you very much. Now, final question for the day. On YouTube, I saw another biblical scholar say that there were really two messiahs expected and not just one. Is this your opinion?
- [41:26]
B
Well, it's not a matter of opinion. It's a matter of fact. I would phrase it differently from that. Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, there's one of the scrolls that mentions two messiahs. One of them appears to be more like a Davidic messiah, more like a messiah who'd be the future ruler. The other is said explicit to be a priest. So not a king, but a priest. Both kings and priests were anointed, so both of them were mashiach. In this Dead Sea scroll, the priestly messiah was superior to the king messiah, and so was the top messiah. So in the Dead Sea Scrolls, we have these two expectations, but we have more than that as well. We have other expectations. For example, in the book of first Enoch, that talks about the messiah as a supernatural figure of some kind, a divine judge living up in the heavenly realm, who's going to come to earth. And so we have at least three expectations of a king messiah, a warrior king, a priest, and a cosmic judge. And there probably were other expectations. The thing that these expectations all would have had in common is that the Messiah would be one specially chosen by God in order to rule the people of God in the future. So it'd be a powerful figure who could rule God's people. That's what they all had in common. There's a really good book about this by John Collins called the Scepter and the Star, which talks about Messianic expectations in the time of Jesus.
- [42:54]
A
Thank you very much, audience. Thank you all for your questions. If you would like to submit a question to Bart, you can go to bartehrman.com courses audience thank you for listening. Listening. I hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, please subscribe to the podcast to make sure you don't miss future episodes. Remember that you can use the code MJ podcast for a discount on all of Bart's courses over at www.bartehrman.com. misquoting Jesus will be back next Week Bart, what are we talking about next time?
- [43:22]
B
Yeah, well, next time we're talking about a kind of a broader issue that's pretty interesting about the Jewish law. When I was growing up, we heard nobody could possibly keep that law, man. There's too many laws in there. It's too complicated. There's no one can keep it. That's why you need jes. Is that true? Is it impossible to keep the Jewish law? Did you think it was impossible to keep the law? So, interesting question. That's what we'll be talking about.
- [43:45]
A
Join us then. Thank you all and goodbye.
- [43:51]
C
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 listener app or on Bart Erman's YouTube channel so you don't miss out From Bart Erman and myself, Megan Lewis, thank you for joining us.