← Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman
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A
A BetterHelp ad therapy isn't just for times of major challenge. It's a valuable tool for anyone wanting to improve their well being. It can help you develop healthy coping skills, set boundaries and Support personal growth. BetterHelp makes it easy to get matched online with a fully licensed therapist right from your phone. No commuting, no waiting rooms and you can switch therapists at any time. Sign up@betterhelp.com and get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com the apostle Paul went from being a devout Jew, one of God's chosen people, to an enthusiastic missionary for the Jesus movement. Today, Dr. Bart Ehrman and I look at Paul's writings to consider whether this shift also changed his self identification as a Jew and if he believed that God no longer favored the Jewish people. 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. Hello everyone and welcome back. Today on Misquoting Jesus, we are talking about whether Paul thought that God hated the Jews given that he himself was Jewish. This is going to be an interesting one. Be sure also to stick with us for our bonus segment where Bart is going to tell us about a scholar he thinks that we should know about. Before we get to that, Bart, how are you doing today?
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B
I'm doing well. It is wet and dreary here, but I guess we were in a bit of a drought so I suppose that's a good thing. But walking the dog is not fun when it's like this. How are you doing?
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A
Yes, not bad. Eight inches of snow outside. Well, kids are having a great time.
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B
Whoa. Okay. Yeah, but they are okay. Yeah.
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A
Yes.
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B
Well that's lovely.
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A
I'm very happy to be inside and.
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B
Yes, exactly. Yeah.
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A
Okay. So as I said, today we're going to be talking about Paul and his Jewish identity and, and how he felt about God's opinion on the Jews after he converted. Before we get really to that, I wanted to ask, when you were Christian or when you were a Christian, did you give any thoughts to Paul's views on the Jewish people?
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B
Yeah, well, yeah, I suppose I did. I mean, I, you know, when I started getting serious about reading the Bible and Christianity, I was an evangelical and I think like a lot of evangelicals at the time, I thought that Paul had realized the Jews were wrong and, and that he had been given the truth and that God had, had taken the covenant away from Jews and given it to Christians and that the Christians were the new people of God and Jews were all condemned because they, they believed they had to keep the law to be saved. And they didn't keep the law, so they were all damned. And Jesus came to save them from that. But that they, but if they didn't believe in Jesus, they're going to go to hell. And so I, I, you know, I think I. Mason had, I basically thought Paul had a pretty of, of what it meant to be a Jew.
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A
And when you became an academic, did you start looking into this or was it not really terribly interesting to you?
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B
No, it was one of the main things we, you know, had to deal with, obviously in graduate school, of course, any study of the New Testament, you got to deal with Paul every day. Paul, you got to deal with like, Paul and the Jews and Paul and the Jewish law and, and all of that. And so I think, you know, you know, when I was just even in my early 20s, I was already kind of wrestling with this issue because it turns out it's a really complicated issue, as we're going to see. It's, it's going to be hard actually to explain it all in our interview because it's in part because Paul himself could be interpreted in a range of ways and has been interpreted in a range of ways and does seem to say things that are at odds with each other. And so you have to figure out how to reconcile those things or whether just to leave them in tension.
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A
Now, when we're looking at this question, which of Paul's writings are helpful in trying to really get to the bottom of what's going here?
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B
Well, the first thing to say is that is what we've emphasized before, that we have, we have 13 letters in the New Testament that claim to be written by Paul and one other that got in because it was thought to be written by Paul, even though it doesn't claim it, that's the book of Hebrews. And we have to figure out which of these 13 letters, or Hebrews and Hebrews Paul actually wrote. Because if you've got a letter that claims to be written by Paul or that's assumed to be written by Paul, but actually was not written by Paul, it doesn't help, you know, Paul's views necessarily. And so, no, really, virtually nobody thinks Paul wrote the book of Hebrews anymore. But there are six letters that are disputed, and so there are seven letters that everybody pretty much Agrees, Paul wrote. And so those are called the seven undisputed letters. And in several of those letters, Paul actually talks about Jews and you get a sense for his relationship to Jews who are not believers. The main books on that are Second Corinthians and Romans, but there are also passages in, in other books, including his first letter for First Thessalonians, which is very important. And, and in the book of Galatians too. So actually most of them, now that you mention it.
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A
Now what kinds of things does Paul say in these letters about Jewish people who are not also followers of Jesus?
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B
Well, Paul's quite emphatic that God chose the Jews and, and that they were the chosen people. They still are the chosen people. They may reject their being chosen, but they, for Paul, they are the chosen people. God gave them, gave them the scriptures, God gave them the law, God sent them the Messiah. God told them how to worship. I mean they were, they were absolutely God's people. And, and Paul, Paul is actually emphatic in a couple places that he, he loves, he loves the Jewish, He, Paul loves the Jewish people and that he, at one point he says he'd be willing to give up his own salvation if the, if the, if the Jews would come to realize the truth about Christ. And so he says that he, he still loves the Jewish people and that they are God's chosen people, but he thinks that they, they in fact have not understood God's plan for salvation.
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A
What do you, what does it seem as though Paul is thinking that Jewish people have missed? Is it purely the importance of Jesus or is there something else going on as well?
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B
No, it's pretty much the importance of Jesus. The, There's a, you know, a well known New Testament scholar named Ed Sanders, E.P. sanders, who was my colleague, he taught at Duke for a number of years. He had taught at Oxford. He's a very prominent scholar, one of the top scholars at the end of the 20th century of New Testament, early Christianity. And he used to say that for Paul, the problem with the Jews is that they're not Christians. In other words, that's the problem is that they don't understand that Jesus is the one that God had promised and who came to bring salvation. And they're kind of stuck in their old ways. And there's something to that. I mean, Paul thought that Jesus fulfilled what God had planned all along to bring salvation. And salvation can come in no other way. And so whoever rejects the salvation, whether they're Jewish or Gentile, will not have salvation. And so most Jews do not Accept it. And so God. It's not that God has rejected his people, but his people rejected him.
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A
This is kind of raising to mind questions for me about religious identity and how people categorize or define themselves. For Paul, was being Christian and Jewish, Were those two things mutually exclusive, or could one be both?
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B
You know, yesterday I was teaching a class at Chapel Hill, my undergraduate class, and it was on the Gospel of Matthew. It wasn't on Paul. But I was trying to get my students to think about this question. You know, if I asked my students, can a Jew be a Christian? Most of them would say, yeah, they just need to convert to be a Christian. But instead I asked them, can a Christian be a Jew? And they had puzzled looks, like, well, kind of if they give up Judaism. And so. But it's an interesting. It's an interesting way to think about it. You know, can somebody who is a follower of Jesus retain their Jewish identity? And the answer historically is obviously, yes, they can. Because Jesus, even in. In the New Testament, is the Jewish Messiah who. And in the Gospel, Matthew, as it turns out, he says, I did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. And in Matthew, he tells his followers to keep the law, in fact, to keep it even better than the Scribes and the Pharisees. And so it's a possibility. And my view is that Paul understood himself to be a Jew. Still, we talk about Paul's conversion sometimes, and a lot of scholars are uncomfortable with that term for Paul and for others for a variety of reasons. But for one thing is when we say that Paul converted to be a follower of Jesus, many people have the idea that he left Judaism to become a Christian. And we think of conversion as leaving one thing and going to another thing. And I actually do talk about the conversion of Paul, but I don't mean that he left Judaism. What he converted on, the word convert means to turn around. What he turned around on was his understanding of who Jesus was, but he remained a Jew. He himself says that. I mean, he's a Jew. You know, there are Jews and there are Jews in the ancient world. Like, being a Jew didn't mean one thing. Judaism was not like this monolith. Like, everybody was the same thing. There were lots and lots of different kinds of Jews, just as there are today. And for Paul, his being Jewish meant that when he was. When he was in Jewish circles, he. He kept kosher, he kept the Sabbath, he observed the festivals. He was. He was a Jew. But he also says that when he's out trying to convert Gentiles. You know, he's not strict about keeping Jewish law because that would be an obstacle for him to try. And you can't even have a dinner at a Gentile's house. How are you going to convert them? You know, because they don't keep kosher. So. So he was flexible that way, but he still saw himself as a Jew. And I think it's fair to say he was. He still was Jewish.
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A
So he wasn't expecting or hoping for Jewish people to convert in the modern sense of the world. He wasn't expecting them to give up their Jewish identity. It was more of a. A Jewish plus a messianic understanding of Jesus. Would that be right?
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B
Yeah, it's more like he thought that Jesus was following Jesus is the way to be a true Jew. And that. And so part of the deal is Paul was the missionary to the Gentiles. That's what he calls himself, the apostle to the Gentiles. And I don't think he spent a lot of time trying to convert Jews. He may have done, but in these letters that he writes, it really looks like most of the people in his churches that he's founded, he's converted these people. They're predominantly former pagans. For example, in both First Thessalonians and First Corinthians, Paul, when he's talking to these people and explaining something to them, he reminds them how they used to worship idols. And he's writing this as kind of a blanket statement to the congregations. And he himself is out trying to convert Gentiles. And in the Book of Acts, it says that he's converting Gentiles. So he says that the mission to the Jews was headed up by Peter, and so it's not clear whether he was trying to get Jews. He, of course, he would have tried to convert Jews if he came across them, but it wasn't really his thing. And so I'm not sure, you know, how well developed his idea was about Jews in relationship to Jesus, except for his controversies with Peter over the issue.
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A
Thank you so much. We're going to take a very brief break, but we will be right back to continue our conversation.
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B
I'm Bart Ehrman, and I'm happy to announce that this summer, May 14th to the 26th, I'll be doing a tour to the Greek islands, giving lectures, enjoying the sights, reveling in the culture, and spending most of my free time with anyone who decides to join me. Are you interested? We're going to start in Athens, and over the course of the trip we'll be visiting the Cycladic islands of Tinos, Paros and and Antiparos will end up in Crete, home of the Minoan civilization that predates every other Western civilization. As you know, these islands have stunningly gorgeous landscapes and seascapes, incredibly beautiful villages and towns, museums, monasteries, churches, archaeological sites, and Minoan art. Most people see these things only in books and museums. We'll see them up close and in person. I can't tell you how excited I am on the trip. I'll be lecturing on the Greek philosophers and the Apostle Paul. That may sound a little highbrow, but it's not. My talks will be based on my forthcoming book, Stranger how the Teachings of Jesus Transformed the Conscience of the West. In my talks, I'll explain how in the civilizations that underlie our Western world, ancient Greece and Rome, people understood what it meant to lead ethical lives and why they should do so. I'll then reflect on how later Christians changed ethical thinking in significant ways so that people in the Western world today understand somewhat differently what it means to be good and to live well. One of my ultimate goals is to consider lessons from the ancient world that can help us find satisfying and fulfilling lives. Today, when I'm not lecturing, I'll be living the good life myself with you, my fellow travelers, joining the activities, enjoying the sights, discussing whatever strikes our mutual fancy, answering questions, eating great food, drinking great drink, and generally having an amazing time. It simply doesn't get any better than this. I hope you can join me.
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A
Welcome back. We were just talking about Paul's opinions of the Jewish people and whether he expected for Jewish people to renounce their Judaism upon deciding to follow Jesus? The answer is no. For those who missed the first 10 minutes of our conversation, I wanted to ask Bart, are there passages in Paul's writings that seem to argue, or that can be used to argue that Paul did actually have some kind of misgivings about some Jewish people or disapproval or felt that. That God wasn't super happy with them?
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B
Oh, yeah, absolutely, that. That God wasn't happy with them and they weren't happy with Paul. So you get both, you know, early on, his first letter. The first letter we have of Paul is First Thessalonians, probably dated to around the year. It's usually dated to 49. So it's early. It's within 20 years of Jesus death. And in this letter, he's talking to his converts in Thessalonica, which is in modern Greece, and he points out that they've undergone Persecution from their compatriots, people who they've converted away from paganism. And they're getting pressure and some persecution from neighbors and locals. And he says the churches in Judea, he says, in Judea, he says, because they're being persecuted by the Jews who killed the Lord Jesus and his prophets and, and tried to prevent us from preaching the message to the Gentiles. And so this is the, you know, it's our earliest Christian writing. And already in our earliest Christian writings, we have somebody saying that the Jews killed Jesus, which is not, not in the Gospels at all. And it's not true in the sense that they actually killed Jesus. But I think Paul must mean that, you know, they were ultimately responsible for handing Jesus over to the authorities who killed him. It's a bit of a translation problem. Some people might know this, and I. So I need to say something about it. He says that the people, that the churches in Judea have this problem. And he says the Judeans killed Jesus. And so the, the problem is that the word Jew and the word Judean is the same word in Greek. And so it's not clear if he's saying, like, if he's. I don't think he's castigating Jews. He's talking about the, the people who lived in Judea. So he's not castigating worldwide Jews or anything, but, you know, easily you could take that and say, well, there it is. Already Paul's calling them Christ killers. And it's certainly true that. I mean, Paul's quite clear that, that he didn't get along with, with Jews himself. He says that non followers, non. Non Christian Jews. He, he says in 2nd Corinthians 11, when he, he's giving a category of a list, a list of things that make him an apostle. In 2nd Corinthians 11. It's an interesting list because the things that make him an apostle are things that show that he's weak and powerless and is getting beat up all the time. And his view is that he's just like Christ, Christ got crucified. If you want to be a follower of Jesus, it means having this kind of horrible life. And he lists the things and he says at 5.5 times he suffered the 40 lashes, minus one. That's a synagogue punishment for, for blasphemy or for doing something really horrible that you would be flogged within an inch of your life. And he Sundays it happened five times. And so he, he must have some connections with Jews out in his Gentile mission. And five Times, you know, maybe he just goes to synagogue on Sabbath because he's a Jew, and they, they go after him five times, basically beating, you know, beating him into a pulp.
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A
Are there any writings that suggest he thinks the Jews have lost God's favor? I know you said at the beginning that he views them as God's chosen people, but it occurs to me that you can be chosen people and still have the person who chose you be very upset with you.
- [18:59]
B
Well, throughout, throughout the Bible, God is upset with the, with his people. The, the Hebrew Bible is just all about that, about how they aren't keeping God's will. And so God's like destroying them. He's making them sick. He's. He's making them lose battles and they're being slaughtered. There's epidemics, there's droughts. There's all sorts of things that God's doing. And so that's a common motif within Judaism itself, within the Hebrew Bible. Interesting. It's in Paul. Paul, it's a little bit more complicated and a little bit more mysterious because Paul has to account for the fact that most Jews don't understand that Jesus is their Messiah. And Paul in several places claims that God has blinded these people. He's blinded his own people so they don't see it. At one point in Second Corinthians, he talks about God putting a veil over their eyes so that they, they, you know, it's. It's like when Moses came down from giving the Ten Commandments, he was glowing so much that nobody could look at him. And Jesus, you know, he's even more glorious than, than Moses and, and man, you just. And why don't you see who Jesus really is? God has put a veil over their eyes. Well, why would God put a veil over their eyes? Paul has this interesting idea that the way God planned to save the entire world, not just the Jewish people, but also all Gentile people who make up at his time, you know, 93%, 95% of the world, the way God planned to do this is that God would bring salvation to Jews. The Jewish Messiah would come, but they wouldn't recognize him. And because they didn't recognize him, the message then had to go to the Gentiles. And so Paul talks about it as a, as a mystery that it's this strange thing that, that God has done as a way of saving the world. He's provided temporary blindness to Jews, and so they just don't see it. And that's, that's one of his main points. Jews just don't see it. So it's not that. It's not that. I mean, it is that, you know, God, God is going to punish them, but, but God himself has put a veil over their eyes.
- [21:20]
A
Does Paul seem to anticipate that at some point this veil will be lifted and Jewish people as a whole will recognize Jesus as the Messiah?
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B
Absolutely. I mean, you know, he, he explains that the reason that they don't see that he's the Messiah is that he was crucified. As we've said on the show before, the. In Jewish expectation, the Messiah was supposed to triumph over the enemy and bring in the power of God to earth and destroy everything that's against him. And that didn't happen with Jesus. Just the opposite happened. And so Paul says that that's a stumbling block for the Jews. Jesus crucifixion in First Corinthians, chapter one. This is why Jews don't accept him. The stumbling block is a crucified Messiah. But he also says that in the end all Israel will be saved. And so he thinks it's. What's going on is that God needed a mechanism to take the message of the salvation that came to Israel to the Gentiles and the, the unbelief of the Jews is what brought it about. And so now the message is spreading throughout the world. Paul seemed to think that he himself was the one who was mainly bringing it to the world. And once the world gets it, then Jews will jump on board too. And then every, you know, then all Israel will be saved, he says.
- [22:44]
A
You mentioned that Paul at one point says that these people in Judea, possibly Jewish people, are responsible for killing Jesus. Does he seem to suggest anywhere that following Jesus death, the way God felt about his chosen people changed at all? Or is it more that this was part of the mechanism for the saving of the entire world?
- [23:11]
B
Yeah, Paul does not think that God changes his mind. And so Paul's, Paul's emphasis is that this is the plan of God all along. And he calls it a mystery because it's something you wouldn't expect. And it seems, it might seem a little bit strange, but this is how it's happened and God had had this plan. And so it's not that God is upset in the sense that he wasn't expecting it and he really thought they would all accept him. They knew, he knew they wouldn't. But he. He did this so that he could save the world. And, and so, you know, Jews, Jews just need to see that Jesus really is the Messiah. And so a lot of Paul's argumentation is about how a crucified man can be the Messiah. That's a, that's, that's a major issue for almost all the earliest, earliest Christians. How can a crucified person be God's power? And Paul's. Paul's. Paul in 1st Corinthians 1 is rather clever about it. He says that the, the, that the, that the wisdom of humans is foolish is foolishness of God. Like what seems foolish about is foolishness is wisdom, and wisdom is foolishness, and strength is weakness, and weakness is strength. And so what people see as weakness and foolishness is in fact is the strength and the power of God. And so the, the crucifixion is all tied up in that. Because Gentiles think that the crucified person being like the Lord of the Universe is ridiculous, it's foolish. And Jews think that, like, there's no way that's not what the Messiah is. So it's a stumbling bl.
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A
So we've spoken elsewhere about when Gentile people convert to Christianity. Paul did not expect them to follow Jewish law, so they didn't have to keep kosher. They weren't expected to be circumcised. When a Jewish person kind of adds this belief in Jesus into their religious identity, were they expected to. Or did they have to compromise on their religious beliefs or their religious practices and tool.
- [25:08]
B
Ah, right. This is the issue I alluded to earlier about the conflict between Peter and Paul. Many people, many people who know something about early Christianity have in mind that Peter and Paul were at odds on how salvation comes, that Peter insisted, you have to be Jewish. And so if you become a follower of Jesus, you have to convert to Judaism. And Paul said, no, Judaism's got nothing to do with it. You don't have to. You have. Don't have to be Jewish. And that they, they conflicted on that. They actually did not conflict on that. They've. But they conflicted on one of the implications of it. Peter agreed that Gentiles who became followers of Jesus did not have to keep the law. The problem is what you do within a Christian church when you've got Jews and Gentiles who are both followers of Jesus. The Gentiles have given up their pagan religions, their idolatries and stuff. But do the Jews give up their Judaism? And the reason this is a problem is because for someone like Paul, Jews and Gentiles are equal in Christ. There's not priority. It's not. The Jews, like, are better off because they're Jewish. And so they have like, they're first class citizens versus gentiles are second class citizens. And it's also not that gentiles are first class citizens because they got it. And most Jews didn't, you know, most Jews were Jewish. So they're equal in Christ. But the problem is that if you've got a community that comes together and you've got both Jews and gentiles, and Jews are remaining Jewish, how do you eat your meals together? And it sounds like a trivial thing, but it's for, it's not a trivial thing at all. In the ancient world because of kosher food laws. It's not just, you know, don't eat a ham sandwich. I mean, there are complications about keeping kosher that make it really almost impossible in the ancient world for Jews and gentiles to be sharing meals together if Jews can be strictly kosher. But that means that if Jews and gentiles can't like have meals together, they can't have the communion meal together, they can't have their worship services together. Which means you've got to have a church with two separate groups. And for Paul, this is completely unacceptable. This is the conflict with Peter. We find out about it in Galatians chapter 2, where Paul indicates that he and Peter were both in Antioch. And they end up having this knockdown, drag out argument, a public argument, because Peter originally thought, well, it's okay, we can all stay together and eat together and have our meals and communion. But then some people from Jerusalem came representing James, the chair, the head of the church there, and, and talked with Peter. And Peter decided to pull out. He and the Jewish people pulled out of fellowship with the gentiles. And Paul went ballistic. And he publicly accused Peter being a hypocrite. He said, you know, you used to act like a gentile, now you're refusing to and you're making other people nod. He says it's hypocritical. And the thing is, we don't have Peter's response. This is Paul writing his letter. Paul, It's Paul. It's one of those he said, she said things where you're getting only the, he's saying, oh, yeah. And then I told her, you know, it's the kind of thing where you show that you, you, you really wipe the other person out in this argument. But, but it was a real conflict. And the conflict is Paul had to insist that these Jews not keep their Jewish traditions when they're with gentiles. And Peter thought, that's not right. They're Jews, they should be allowed to maintain their traditions. And so I would say they both agreed the Gentiles don't have to become Jews. But the implications of Jews remaining Jews were serious within the congregations. If Jews and Gentiles are equal, war.
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A
Do we know how this affected the development of the church, especially with regards to Jewish people joining this new kind of Jesus movement? Did it, is it likely to have decreased the number of people joining or is it more that they had their own separate faith related gatherings?
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B
So there are two things to be said. One is just Jewish conversions generally. When I was in graduate school, almost every scholar said that until the end of the first century most, most Christians were Jews. And I don't know where they got that idea from, but it just, I don't see any way it could be true that, you know, the, all of the, you know, virtually all of our writings are, suggest that the people, early Christian writings are virtually all to former Gentiles, to Gentile former pagans. And so I, even Paul's letter, I mean Paul's letters, but, but others as well. So I, I don't think that can be right. I, I think that most Jews did not. Most Jews simply didn't accept the message and that Paul's right about that. They just rejected it because it made no sense to them that a, a crucified criminal is the Messiah sent from God. And so I think the, I think by far the majority is Gentile. And so the other part of the question then is the fact that you get these Jews and Gentiles, did it lead to different kinds of Christian communities with like a, you know, within a, like in, you know, in a place like Corinth or someplace, you've got Christians who are following, you got Gentiles following Jesus and you got Jews following Jesus and they meet separately. And did that keep Jews from joining? Because like it was a small kind of group. And I don't, I don't think that had much to do with it. I don't, I don't, I don't think that usually they were separate groups, but there, there were, in some places, you know, in some places there would have been Jewish Christians who are not associating with Gentiles. But almost all the congregations we know about are mixed in one way or another. So they figured out some way to resolve it. And I don't think that internal situation within the church of Jews and Gentiles in the church had much of an effect on the evangelistic efforts of the Christians.
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A
I have two questions left before we wrap up for today. I wanted to ask you, Bart, about the modern community of Messianic Jews. How do they kind of fit into this whole picture of, of Jewish Christian religious identities?
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B
No, that's a good question. Because the, you know, as I said earlier, that in the ancient world there were Jews and there were Jews, and in the modern world, there are Messianic Jews and there are Messianic Jews. And so when I was, when I was, when I was in, I guess when I was a late teenager, in my early 20s, I knew people who were in the group called Jews for Jesus. And these were people who followed Jewish law strictly, they claimed, and. But were believers in the Messiah and were trying to convert Jews to believe in Jesus. Later I found out that the vast majority of Jews for Jesus were actually Gentiles who had converted to Judaism. They weren't what I had thought, which were, you know, Jews who became believers in Jesus and then maintained their Jewishness. But there are Messianic Jews like that as well. There are people who were raised Jewish who have become followers of Jesus. And the term Messianic Jew usually refers to groups that are evangelical. They're Christian evangelicals who have a hardcore view of the Bible and traditional Christian doctrines, but who nonetheless keep the Jewish law. And so there are groups like that, but they're not large. And for, for fairly obvious reasons, because it's kind of hard to maintain Jewishness if you, you know, without that kind of background and such, and also to be a follower of Jesus. It's just unusual. So they do exist, and there's no reason they should not exist because, you know, Paul himself understood himself to be a Messianic Jew in that sense.
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A
That is fascinating. Thank you. My final question is the title question of the episode. Does Paul think, based on everything you've talked about, does Paul think that God hates the Jews?
- [33:02]
B
No, Paul thinks that God loves the Jews, but God loves everybody. And it doesn't mean that everybody's going to be saved. He, Paul does say all Israel will be saved. He does say that, but he thinks the entire world is going to be saved. But when he says that, he doesn't, he doesn't seem to me that every individual is going to be saved because he talks a lot about people being destroyed when Jesus comes back and being wiped off the planet. And so I think Paul has this idea that many people have had since then that it's not that God has turned his back on Jews, but Jews have turned their back on God and that there's a necessary justice that goes with that, which is that if you, if you reject God, he's, he cannot accept you. And so that's, it's not a, in my view, it's not a great theology, but it's one that many people have, that the justice of God in the end triumphs over the love of God. And so, yeah, so that's that. But it's complicated, especially in the case of the Jews when Paul says that God is the one who put the veil over their eyes. Well, and so that's, that's why Paul gets into things about like God can do whatever he wants. There's pre, you know, he kind of predetermines what's going to happen. That itself leads into very serious theological problems. If God, God decided that, I wouldn't be able to see it. Why am I being punished for it? Paul, Paul doesn't have an answer to that.
- [34:31]
A
Thank you very much, Bart. We are going to now go to our upcoming event segment and then we've got a bonus segment which is Scholar Spotlight.
- [34:42]
B
Welcome to our upcoming highlights and events segment where we catch up on Barth's courses, community updates and all the latest news from the Biblical Studies Academy and beyond.
- [34:59]
A
So we have a couple of things to talk about today. Bart, I wanted to start by asking about the, the blog. We spoke about it relatively recently, but I wanted to ask if there have been any updates or new goings on over there.
- [35:11]
B
You know, I decided to, to do something new on the blog. And so as I said in our earlier thing, I post five or six times a week and have been doing it since 2012. And so lots, you know, I mean, thousands and thousands of posts, millions of words that I've been writing. And I decided to do something I've never done before. I don't know why this never occurred to me. I'm going book by book through the New Testament and I'm devoting four posts to each book and I'm calling it the Nutshell series because I, I talk about Matthew in a nutshell. And so like the first post, I give a 50 word summary of Matthew's distinctive emphases and then I give about a 1200 word summary of Matthew kind of explaining Matthew. In the next post I have. So I've got four posts on Matthew. The next one is about what do we know about the authority? When was he writing? Why did he write? And then there's another one where I give suggested readings for people who want to pursue study of Matthew on their own. And then I have a A fourth one on some like, major topic within Matthew. Some kind of really particularly interesting thing. And so you get these four posts on Matthew and then you get four on Mark and then Luke and then John. It's like I'm going through the whole New Testament this way. And, and I asked people ahead of time, have you read Matthew? If you have, like try and do it, summarize in 50 words, see how you do. And then I give mine and I say, well, this is one way to do it. And so people are, people are really enjoying this because it's like, it's like you. What is Colossians about? I don't know. Well, here's a summary, you know, or what is Romans about? I don't. And so, and so that's, that's what I'm doing now on this blog. It'll take, it's going to take, you know, half a, more than half a year to do it. And it's, it's challenging for me, but I think it's really, people are really enjoying it a lot. So people are on the blog. This is the kind of thing you can get it.
- [36:57]
A
That sounds really, really cool and definitely, I think, very valuable for people. I'm going to be checking that out later today. I think I hadn't realized. That sounds amazing. Now I have another question. The BSA community was polled recently and it looked like the main thing that people wanted was deeper biblical and historical insights, which is, you know, not surprising. This is kind of what BSA is built around, is providing in depth information to people who are not trained academics. This next bit was quite surprising though. The number one problem people said that relates to understanding the Bible. They could have said something like confusing jargon or the cost of finding quality biblical sources, trustworthy sources. All of that. Not at all. None of those were the answer. Do you know, can you take a guess what people thought was the number one problem they have when it comes to understanding the Bible?
- [37:57]
B
Huh? No.
- [38:00]
A
So this is a great answer. And this is why the Biblical Studies Academy was created. There's a community of over 900 Bible enthusiasts with regular community events, all this kind of stuff. And the answer is that people will feel alone. They don't have anyone to study with or anyone to talk about the Bible or biblical issues with. And you come to Biblical Studies Academy and there's, there's a community already there of, like I said, over 900 people. And there's a, an example of the community events happening this month. There's a biblical trivia event, Shout out to Brian Chang for winning the inaugural inaugural trivia events. That can't have been easy with the kinds of people who join the Biblical Studies Academy because by and large they are very, very on their biblical game. We've also got two monthly member mixes, a general meet and greet and then the other one is much more topical in nature. And then there's obviously the schedule of live lectures by Hugo Mendez on the New Testament. And I think it's really, really important that no one feels alone when it comes to something that they're passionate about. And if you do feel alone in your, your love of the Bible, you don't have to. You can sign up for a free 14 day trial of the BSA which is@bartiman.com BSA but that, that element is, I think, really, really valuable.
- [39:23]
B
It's fantastic. And as, and you know, the thing is, as it's growing and it's continually growing now, it's, you get more people and you get all sorts of people. You definitely have these Bible nerds in there who like, know a lot and you have people who like, are thinking, man, I just don't know anything. And, but you know, the discussion groups are set.
- [39:41]
A
It's like our conversations. We've got one Bible nerd, which should be you and you' one person who doesn't really know anything, which perfect.
- [39:47]
B
If people are interested in the Bible and like they know nothing, they're completely, they'll feel completely welcome and they'll be able to talk to people who might know a little bit more, some who know a lot more and just it's this entire range and we accommodate that. And so it's, it's turning into a lot of fun for people. People are very enthusiastic about it.
- [40:06]
A
All right, we have our Scholar Spotlight. So in just a moment, Bart is going to be telling us about a scholar he thinks we should be aware
- [40:13]
B
of, interested in the most influential scholars of the New Testament and early Christianity. In this segment, Barthes shines a light on a scholar making waves in the world of biblical studies. It's time for Scholar Spotlight.
- [40:34]
A
All right, Bart, who is on your mind? Who should we be reading?
- [40:39]
B
Well, you know, when I was, when I was a graduate student, I kind of looked around at the biblical scholars who are big shots in the field. And I, and I thought, man, you know, there are some really, really amazing biblical scholars out there now. And I looked around at my colleagues and thinking, you know, is there going to be somebody to replace these people? He's like, is our generation going to be Anything like it. And, you know, the answer is kind of no. There were some, like, I mean, there are some fantastic. So I just want to mention one of these people that I thought was really, he was, this is like a superior scholar of the New Testament, early Christianity. His name is Wayne Meeks. He taught at Yale University for many years. He was extremely, extremely bright and insightful and, you know, one of these people who knew everything, but he wasn't arrogant about it at all. But the reason I mentioned him is because he, he was one of the people who started the entire movement to move away in study of the New Testament, away from being interested only in the theology of the New Testament and what it means religiously for people's individual lives and in, like, interpretation of texts just at the detailed level where you're trying to unpack the theology of it. And he got interested in the importance of the social history of early Christianity. What was actually happening on the ground in the Christian churches? What were they, who, who made up these churches? What kind of people were in these churches? What are their backgrounds? What's their educational level, what's their income levels? What, what kinds, what things happen in the churches? What, what is with these rituals of baptism and Eucharist? You know, you might know the theology of it, but how they're being practiced and what do they actually mean in the broader social context? How is Christianity affecting the social world that they're in? And so asking questions about, like, the lives of these people and the lives of these communities, not in terms to figure out what they believed, but however they were living, not just ethics, but also including ethics. And so he wrote a book that was on the Apostle Paul. It was called the First Urban Christians. And it does this with Paul's churches where he's not, you know, he has to, of course, deal with some kind of things about what Paul believed. But the book is not about, you know, Paul's Christology, Paul's understanding of salvation, Paul's understanding of sin, Paul's understanding of this. That it's not like that. It's more like who are, who are in these communities, how these communities communicate to one another. How did they, what did they, how did, how did their leadership development. So kind of practical social issues, that at the time when this came out in the 80s, I thought, well, that's not very interesting. I want the theology. But then I started realizing, oh, my God, this is really interesting. And it's become something that I've, I, I spend a lot of my time on the kind of social history stuff. But so Wayne Makes the First Urban Christians is a classic in this field that I think if people are interested in this kind of stuff, that's, that's where they should go.
- [43:36]
A
That sounds absolutely fascinating. I love a bit of social history. All right. Now, Bart, before we finish for the week, would you mind summarizing what we spoke about?
- [43:46]
B
Well, we were dealing with a complicated issue of Paul and Paul's view of the Jews and what Paul thought God's views of the Jews were. And it's not a straightforward issue, but it's a very interesting and important issue because Paul himself was Jewish and he became a follower of Jesus. But most people think of Christians and Jews as different things, so how is it they can be the same thing? And how did Paul deal with that in the very earliest stages of thinking about it? And so it ends up being a really important issue for understanding Paul, but also for understanding the New Testament and understanding early Christianity broadly.
- [44:25]
A
Audience, thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, please subscribe to the podcast to make sure you don't miss future episodes. Remember that you can use the code mjpodcast for a discount on all of Bart's courses over at www.barterman.com. misquoting Jesus will be back next week. Bart, what are we going to be talking about next time?
- [44:46]
B
Well, next time's a very different thing. I'm. I'm currently writing a book. I'm finishing up a book on. On how altruism was changed and developed within Christianity, how it actually completely changed, how what altruistic behavior is and in one way, several ways. And we're talking about altruism. What does it mean to be altruistic and how did Christianity affect that?
- [45:09]
A
Make sure you join us then. Thank you all and goodbye. This has been an episode of Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman. We'll be back with a new episode next Tuesday. So please be sure to subscribe to our show for free on your favorite podcast listening app or on Bart Erman's YouTube channel so you don't miss out. From Bart Erman and myself, Megan Lewis, thank you for joining us.