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- [00:00]
A
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B
hello everyone and welcome to Misquoting Jesus. Using Biblical passages to try and win arguments about modern life has always seemed a little bit odd to me. But for anyone who's been paying attention to US Politics for the last few decades, it's not surprising when a political figure throws out some claim about what the Bible apparently says. Depending on who you listen to, the Bible is both pro life and pro choice, pro and anti immigrant, pro and anti homosexuality. The list really does go on. So on today's episode we're going to explore how people use the Bible to win arguments and whether the Bible actually says what they say it does. 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. In some segments of society, citing a Bible passage to strengthen your position in an argument can be incredibly effective. But is this a practice that was known in early Christianity? What kinds of arguments is the Bible commonly weaponized for? And when it is weaponized, is what the text says actually misrepresented? Before we get into all of that, Bart, how are you doing this week?
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C
Yeah, I'm doing well, thanks. In England for the summer and it's all going well. England hasn't had these kind of heat spells that the US has had earlier in the summer. But the problem is, as you know, even a little heat goes a long way in England because people generally don't have air conditioning and it makes for a different, a different kind of situation. But right now we're doing just fine.
- [02:20]
B
Heat waves in the UK is a very different or are very different experiences to the continental US how does Sarah like being back in the uk? Does she miss it when she's in the US or has she been away long enough that it doesn't matter so much?
- [02:33]
C
Well, no it matters. I mean, you know, her family's still here, so she moved to the US in 1989, and so she's been there a long time, and, you know, she does consider it home, but her mother's still living 94 and getting around and doing great, and she got two brothers here, and we got nieces and nephews, so this is really, you know, there's really more where her heart is, but I think, you know, she really loves where we are in the US as well, so it's nice to be able to go to both places for. For years, you know, when we would come over, we'd have to, you know, couch surf and stuff. But now we have our own flat, and it makes a huge difference. Do you miss it? Do you miss England?
- [03:09]
B
Oh, every day. We would all, I think, like to move back when possible, but moving a. Well, like I said in the last episode, moving a young family across the country is a little challenging, and then it's also very expensive, so.
- [03:24]
C
Boy. Yeah. Yeah. But moving back. Josh isn't from England, right?
- [03:28]
B
No, no, he's. He's actually grew up about half an hour from where we currently live.
- [03:34]
C
Okay.
- [03:35]
B
So all of his family is. Is around here, but they're not terribly close, and I'm. I'm very close to mine.
- [03:41]
C
Pretty soon, you got to start this it's my turn thing. I know a lot of academics do that. It's my turn now.
- [03:49]
B
He'd honestly be thrilled to move over. We're just kind of waiting until it' financial possibility. But, yeah, I'm going back to see family with Oliver this summer, so that would be lovely. Okay. We should. Before we get too into this and people get frustrated that we're not actually, you know, talking about the thing I said we would be talking about in the introduction. Why do you think it's important to talk about how people use scripture in
- [04:15]
C
arguments in Western culture, especially in the parts of the west that have been influenced by Protestant Christianity? The Bible is an authority, and for many people, it's the authority. And so for a long time, people have quoted the Bible in order to support whatever issue they were interested in. Obviously, religious issues make sense, but also social and political issues. And because it has an authority, then it is seen as an effective way to pursue an argument. And this happens at every level from the president on down. So, you know, rhetorically, it's very, very important in parts of the west, especially those connected with Protestantism.
- [05:01]
B
Is this something that we see also in early Christianity, or is it more of a Modern phenomenon.
- [05:06]
C
You know, one of the reasons the New Testament became the New Testament and the Bible became the Bible with Christians was because Christians considered these books to be authoritative in what they taught about how you should believe and how you should behave. And so naturally wanted to know, you know, what God had to say or what God's authors had to say, what the apostles had to say about these things. And so knowing what the Bible said became very important after the Bible was seen as scripture. And the Bible was used for all sorts of debates. In early Christianity, we know the theological debates the best. You know, when church fathers would get together and argue about the doctrine of the Trinity or an understanding of the Atonement or anything like that is clearly important, but also for lifestyle issues about how you ought to live and behave. And there were debates. There are big debates. This is an odd thing that isn't well known, that our first commentary on the Bible, the New Testament, the first commentary on a New Testament book, was written by a gnostic Christian named Heraclion, who did a Gnostic commentary. And the church, Father Origen, wrote a commentary to oppose Heracleion's interpretation. They're both advancing their own views, but it's a little bit strange. You wouldn't expect a Gnostic Christian to write a commentary. But the idea of arguing about what the Bible meant goes all the way back, both in terms of theological stuff and in terms of behavioral issues.
- [06:39]
B
What are some of the early social problems or conversations that the Bible was weaponized for?
- [06:46]
C
It's a little bit hard to say about the ethical issues, because most of the disputes in early Christianity, they weren't quite like our disputes today. Because the context within which the Bible gets disputed in social and political issues today are rooted in the idea that people can assume that we're in a Christian culture and that therefore the authority of Christians, the Christian authorities, should have weight. And since the Bible didn't have a canonical status, you know, before the 4th, 5th century, before you have a Christian empire, it wasn't really weaponized in the same way. It was used more for kind of inner church debates about how to live and how to behave. You know, even in the New Testament, when Paul is trying to correct an ethical, something he thinks is an ethical problem. For example, in the book of First Corinthians, he'll quote a passage of Scripture when he's telling the Corinthians in First Corinthians that they've got this problem with this guy who is apparently sleeping with his stepmother. Paul is urging the church that they need to expel this person from the church. Well, he quotes a Bible passage from the Old Testament to do that. And so that use of the Bible is very common, but it's not used so much for kind of social and political issues that were kind of empire wide concerns so much as what to do within the community.
- [08:10]
B
Do we see similar uses of religious texts outside of Christianity in these kind of ancient times? Or is this something that is kind of of new with the development of the new religion?
- [08:23]
C
Most people today think of religion as having certain kinds of components that all religions have. They have gods and ways of worshiping gods and ways of saying prayers and things. And most people think of scriptures as an essential part of religion. Most people in the west, because the Western monotheistic religions all have scriptures. Jews have their Torah, Christians have their New Testament, Muslims have the Quran. And so we're kind of accustomed to, to the idea that people have scriptures. And in these three traditions, of course, scripture gets quoted in order to buttress a view, an idea or doctrine or ethical position in all three of those traditions. And that goes all the way back in early Christianity. But outside of that, no, not really. Because the religions in the Roman world, the Greek and Roman worlds in which Christianity developed, the various religions, hundreds of religions, thousands of religions, they didn't have scriptures, they didn't have texts that were authoritative instructions about what to believe about the gods, how to worship the gods, how to behave. Scripture really is a big deal in Judaism and nowhere else before. Christianity comes along for the most part, and then Christians come along and they actually kind of put it on steroids for a while and then Islam as well. So I think within the monotheistic traditions, yes, but outside of that, no, not really.
- [09:48]
B
Thank you. We are going to take a very brief break and we'll be right back to talk about how this works in modern Christianity.
- [09:57]
C
If you're interested in the Gospels of the New Testament, the Book of Genesis, the resurrection of Jesus, the historicity of the Exodus, or anything else connected with the Bible, you should check out my online courses where I cover all these topics and and more. If you'd like to learn about the courses, check them out@barterman.com you can receive a discount on any of your purchases simply by entering the code. MJ podcast.
- [10:28]
B
Now, in previous episodes of the podcast, we've talked several times, I think, about how modern Christians use scripture to argue for or against things that are often completely related to what the biblical passage they're citing actually says. Just to kind of refresh Our collective memories. Could you give us a couple of examples of this?
- [10:46]
C
Well, you know, in one of our recent episodes, I was on my soapbox about this very topic. You know, I have the soapbox thing we do occasionally when I feel like ranting about something. And this was about the misuse of scripture by a congresswoman. Everybody knows Marjorie Taylor Greene. And there's this legislation about antisemitism and trying to define anti Semitism to preclude the persecution of Jews from being Jews in educational settings. She was very upset with the legislation and she said that she was against the bill and if it passed, it would make it impossible for her to state publicly what the Bible itself says, that Herod handed Jesus over to the Jews to be killed to be executed. So she's using the Bible to oppose this bill. And I went on my soapbox because, I mean, three of our gospels don't even mention Herod involved with Jesus execution. And the one that does mention it says that Herod found him innocent. And even in that gospel, the Jews don't kill Jesus, the Romans killed you. And so like this, for me, this was like a blatant, a blatant thing. That's why I got my soapbox. So like that's one kind of thing where today you frequently have people who are, especially people who are evangelical Christians, who are Bible believing Christians who see the Bible as an authority, who will simply misquote it and sometimes say the opposite of what it says. But you know, there are other ways of doing it. You can put something in the Bible that's not there, just like makes up something wholesale. You can cherry pick the Bible. You pick like one thing you like and ignore everything else in the context. You know, you can ignore the Bible when you want to press ethical issues and kind of ignore the ethical issues that the Bible talks about. So there's a range of things you can use the Bible for. You know, often it's not good because it's just trying to win an argument. It's not really being serious about the Bible. So it's really kind of offensive. I think it's offensive to the Bible. You're weaponizing it, even though it's like it's not saying what you're saying that doesn't seem right.
- [12:46]
B
Is this kind of misrepresentation and cherry picking something that we also see in earlier Christian arguments, theological, social or otherwise? Or is this something that has kind of risen out of more modern political activities?
- [13:02]
C
In early Christianity, there were debates about the Bible not only within Christianity, but especially in relationship to Judaism. And a place where you might find similar kinds of ways of using the Bible would be Christians quoting passages that did not exist, or quoting passages to make them say something that is absolutely not what they were saying. You know, like a famous instance of the latter that people probably will have heard us talk about before is the way Christians used Isaiah chapter 7, verse 14 to prove that Jesus had to be born of a virgin and that Jesus in fact fulfilled the prophecies of Isaiah that a virgin shall conceive and bear a son. And in Justin's dialogue with Trypho, Justin Martyr was a mid second century church father writing about the year 150. He has a book that we still have which is a dialogue which he has with a rabbi. The whole thing's made up. But he has this thing and he's trying to prove that Jesus has to be the Messiah because he's born of a virgin that fulfilled Isaiah 7, 14. And Trypho doesn't buy it because Isaiah 7:14 doesn't say, and in fact it's absolutely true. It doesn't say that. It doesn't talk about a virgin who's going to conceive. So you get that kind of thing, especially in debates between Christians and Jews because they're the two that had this scripture.
- [14:23]
B
Do you ever see non canonical texts being brought into these arguments or are they kind of automatically not even considered because they're not in the canon and therefore are unauthoritative?
- [14:36]
C
Well, these days you rarely see anything that's non canonical. You actually, you know, suppose you've got a gospel that has a saying of Jesus, the real gospel, we have it and it's non canonical. Almost nobody's going to quote something like that because it's not going to be the authority. And so it's really, it's precisely because it's an authority. They have to refer to the Bible itself, not to something outside the Bible because otherwise they'd get slam dunked because people say, yeah, actually that's not the Bible. Are you an idiot? You know, and so they don't do that.
- [15:06]
B
Do you see any significant similarities or differences between how early and modern Christians use scripture in arguments and debate?
- [15:14]
C
One way that it was used extensively in antiquity among Christians was precisely in their discussions with Jews, where Christians used scripture in order to prove that Christianity had to be true and used the Old Testament. And they used the same argument with pagans to try and convince them that there's no way to explain how Jesus could have said and done the things he did. If you don't believe that he's the Messiah, because these things were predicted hundreds of years earlier. You pick passages from, you know, Isaiah and the Psalms and Micah and Jeremiah, and each one you say, see, this is predicting the Messiah, and this is exactly what Jesus did. Read this gospel. This is what Jesus did, and this is what Isaiah said he was going to do. And it's the same. You can't explain that unless it's a miracle. So Jesus must be the. The Messiah. So Christians would try to convince Jews to have a different interpretation with pagans. They'd simply convince them that it's a miracle. And they had better success with the pagans because the pagans didn't have an alternative interpretation as a rule. I mean, they didn't study the Hebrew Bible. And so you had that in antiquity, and you certainly have that today with Christian apologists who continue to use that argument that Jesus fulfilled Scripture, which demonstrates that he has to be the Messiah. And it's a very effective argument for insiders in the church. Every semester a student will come up to me and say, I just don't understand why Jews don't see that Jesus is the Messiah. Because it's predicted here and here and here and here and here. And Jesus did this, this, this. It's all right there. Are they stupid? Are they, like, blind? Are they, like, I don't get it. Why don't they see it? So that apologetic argument is a very still, a very much alive argument. And many people who've never even heard the term apologetics simply think that that's true. There are some misusing the Bible and there are other ways of misusing the Bible. One way of misusing it is to apply an interpretation to it that is not necessarily correct and insisting on it. Another way to misuse it is to just invent something, you know, just to make something up and claim it's in the Bible. That happens a lot
- [17:26]
B
when you interact with people who say, oh, Jesus was foretold in the Old Testament. Here are all of the examples. Do you, or have you in the past ever tried to walk them through the contexts of the passages that they're quoting to explain to them that actually this Old Testament Hebrew is not saying what you think it says. And is that an effective way of discussing these kinds of arguments?
- [17:52]
C
I think it's really the only viable way to deal with it. If the other person is serious and actually wants to talk about it, if they want to just convert you and don't care what you have to say. Then there's no point. But when my students do this, I'll pick one of the passages that they're interested in and we'll just look at it. You know, like Isaiah, chapter 53. He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement for our peace was upon him. By his wounds we were healed. That's Jesus. And so I said, okay, well, let's figure this out. And so I'll take the students through, you know, what Isaiah 53 is talking about, how it's one of the songs about the servant in Isaiah. And here are these other passages that also talk about the same figure. And do any of these other passages, do they suggest who the figure might be? And I kind of lead them through it, so they come to realize, oh, wait a second, maybe this isn't really, you know, that can be convincing for people who have an open mind who actually want to see the truth. It's not convincing for people who think they already have the truth and don't care what you have to say about it.
- [18:52]
B
So do you have maybe other examples of ethical or social issues that this gets used in?
- [18:58]
C
Sometimes I think they are less harmful than others. You know, sometimes I don't think that harmful at all, actually. I mean, I mean, as an example, when I was a kid, young teenager, my dad would say that the Bible says God helps those who help themselves. And I thought the Bible probably said that. It does not say that. The phrase was popularized by Benjamin Franklin and Little Richard Almanac. But, you know, my. My dad had a very good, strong work ethic, and he believed that you had to earn what you were going to get. He didn't believe in handouts. He was Republican. And he didn't really like the welfare state as it was back in the 60s. And he wasn't like, crazily, you know, one way or the other. He just thought, you know, people ought to work. And he saw that as. As what the Bible says. And. And so it's supporting his idea about a personal work ethic, which I inherited from him. And so I, you know, I appreciate that, but also about government to the poor, where I. I would differ with him some on the. On that. But he's quoting the Bible to support something that's not. But it's not in the Bible, so you get that kind of thing. And sometimes I'd say it's even less problematic. I mean, maybe. I mean, there still can be problems with it. But I was telling people, somebody that I was writing this book on the ethics of Jesus. And one of the things I was going to be talking about was Jesus understanding of forgiveness. And this person jumped all over and says, you know, what I really want is a discussion of how unconditional forgiveness is rooted in the Bible. And I had to say, yeah, sorry, it's not. But people today, especially, I think, especially in liberal Protestant churches, I'm not sure, but they frequently hear about how we are to be unconditionally forgiving of others. And by that they mean if somebody does something really awful to you, you know, and you don't harbor any resentment, you don't get angry with them, you just let it go. It's actually a very good attitude to have to avoid stress and to keep the blood pressure down and to kind of be a happier person in the world. So I'm, you know, I'm not against it at all, but it is not the teaching of the Bible. Oh my God. And so Jesus never taught unconditional forgiveness. He just didn't teach that at all. What he taught was that if somebody realized they had done something wrong and they regretted it and they repented of doing what they did that was wrong and they apologized and repented and asked for forgiveness, then they'd be forgiven either by God or by another human being. So it's not unconditional. It's a reconciliation between two people or between a person and God in which one person realizes they're wrong, they admit they were wrong, they apologize for being wrong, and then they're forgiven. So it's conditioned on repentance. It's not unconditional. And, you know, people just don't want to hear that. They want. Well, but Jesus must have taught unconditional forgiveness, right? No, wrong. He didn't. Sorry, but. So that's another case, you know, where they just assume it's in the Bible, but it's not.
- [21:58]
B
What would some, maybe more severe or problematic examples of this, this kind of thing be?
- [22:05]
C
Well, one we've talked about a little bit. I think we've talked about this, but I've done a, I did a course on it recently, a two lecture course dealing with the issue of abortion. In my course, and here I didn't take a stand on whether abortion is ever acceptable or not. I certainly have very strong views about this, but it wasn't. The course is about what does the Bible say about whether a fetus is a human being. Because opponents of abortion almost, I think, almost universally think that this is murder and that the, the fetus is a human being and that you're taking an innocent life and that's murder. And you can't do that. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how you got pregnant or why you got pregnant or like if you want to get pregnant, you can't murder people. So that's a watertight argument as far as I'm concerned. If the fetus is a human being, it's a human being. But what I object to is saying that the Bible says that. Everybody assumes the Bible says that. The Bible doesn't say anything like that at all. Jesus never talks about abortion. Abortion is never mentioned in the New Testament, period. So people think that the Bible opposes abortion. They don't even talk about abortion in the, the Old Testament either. It doesn't explicitly talk about abortion, but the couple of places where it does mention an intentional act meant that is intended to bring about a miscarriage before the woman gives birth. So, you know, that's what we call an abortion, either medically or some other physical way. The two passages that talk about that are quite clear that it's not murder. They do not see the fetus as a, as a human being yet because of the understanding of what it meant to be human in ancient Israel and in earliest Christianity during the New Testament period. And so again, I'm not saying that the Bible is pro life or pro choice, which terrible terms, by the way. Who's not pro life? Who's not pro choice? What? Oh no, I'm not pro life. I prefer death, thank you very much. No, the reality is nobody is in favor of abortion. Like nobody goes around saying, yeah, let's abort everybody. It's very, very serious. Nobody's like that. That. So that isn't it. So these are very, very bad terms. But my point is you should not use the Bible for that because it's not in the Bible. And the biblical passages that deal with this, by the way, Exodus, chapter 21 and numbers, chapter 5 are quite clear. These authors do not understand a fetus as a human being.
- [24:30]
B
Do you have examples of people kind of cherry picking the evidence they use to argue something specific that the Bible is not really arguing for?
- [24:39]
C
Oh yeah, I mean, well, in terms of cherry picking, I mean, people all the time, especially when it comes to the Old Testament, people will take one verse here and ignore the other five verses around it because this verse says what they want to say. And the other verse is, man, they don't want to pay attention to that. So you get that kind of thing all the time. Like where in the same passage that says that a male should not sleep with a male in Leviticus also says you should not wear a shirt made of two different kinds of fabric. Well, I'm sorry, but, you know, why do you have all these protesters about, you know, against pride parades, but you don't have protesters against, you know, shirt makers stand out with your side about fabrics and shell eating shellfish, you know, or. So you just got to go down that. Or you know, that you can't have a field that has two different plants in it. I mean, you can't have a garden plot. I'm sorry, you've got your corn growing next to your tomatoes. You can't do that. It's against the law. You know, but you don't have anybody pick that. You pick the one that you prefer. And, you know, and the other one we talked about recently is, you know, people, you know, insist that we have to keep the Ten Commandments, but, you know, one of them is, you cannot work on the Sabbath day. That's Saturday. You're not allowed to work. Yeah, well, that. That doesn't apply anymore. That's my point. You're convenient. You're picking the one you don't want to keep for other reasons and saying that one doesn't apply. Why. Why not say the other ones don't apply? You know, it's like you're just choosing which one and which nine. And so, like. But it goes. Goes like that because people basically, they want the Bible to support their point of view, whatever that point of view is, and they use it to that end. That's not respecting the Bible. It's weaponizing the Bible. I don't think it's good.
- [26:25]
B
My final question I wanted to ask. Do we have examples of different English translations of the same passage being used or causing problems for these kinds of arguments?
- [26:36]
C
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So back to homosexuality for a second. What people will often say is that the reason that this Leviticus passage about male sleeping with male is still applicable is because Paul also says. The Apostle Paul says that homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. This is a very, very problematic issue. The passage I'm referring to is in 1st Corinthians 6. I don't know, what is verse 9 or something 9 or 10 where Paul's making a list of people who won't get into the kingdom of heaven. Okay, so let me read you the verse. So it's 1 Corinthians 6, 9. Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God, don't be deceived. Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, effeminate thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers. None of those will inherit the kingdom of heaven. There are very big problems with translations for this that I'll point out in a second. But point is, well, look, you cannot then be a homosexual. You won't get into the kingdom of heaven. And so. And that means you cannot have sex with another man if you're a man, and if you're a woman, you can't have sex with another woman or you won't get into the kingdom of heaven. Well, okay, what about these other things? Fornicators is somebody who has sex outside of marriage. So have you ever had sex outside of marriage? Well, you know, you're a fornicator. I'm sorry, you won't enter into the kingdom of heaven. Greedy. You ever been greedy? Drunkard? Huh? What were you doing last Saturday night? So you kind of go through this list, you say, you know. Yeah, okay. You're picking the one that you particularly are interested in, and you don't care about the others because these are things you do. Okay, so there's that, that. The other problem, though, is how to translate these terms that in some translations are homosexuals and effeminates. So I'll stick with the homosexual one because we don't have all day. And it's the more interesting one. This word that sometimes has been translated as homosexual is a problematic term because it appears that Paul made it up. It doesn't exist in Greek before this. The Greek term is arsenicoites arsenokoites. And what Paul's done is he's taken two Greek words and put them together into, like, a single word. The first part, arsinos, refers to a male adult, and the second part is the word for bed. So male beds will not inherit the kingdom. Coites. We get coitus from it. And so it's usually taken to mean something about a man in bed. And people have interpreted that that means two men going to bed together. It might mean that it might mean men who are overly fond of going to bed with women. There's a range of alternatives because there's no way to know what it means in other contexts, because there aren't any other contexts later. It does get used by church fathers when they use it. It's usually in the context in a list of sins that usually involve economic sins. And so some people have argued that what this probably means then, that some kind of economic sin involving men and beds. And maybe it's men visiting prostitutes, maybe it's male prostitutes. The thing is, it's a problematic word. One of the other big problems is that the term homosexual itself is a problematic term when talking about the ancient world. The reason it's problematic is because when we use the term homosexual, we're talking about people who have an orientation toward a certain kind of sexuality. They're attracted to people of the same sex sexually. The ancient world did not have a term for that, but they also didn't have a concept of it because they didn't have a concept of sexual orientation that you're kind of built one way or the other. You're born one way or the other. You're, you know, you're deprived of something when you're a child. And so you go one way or the other. You know, they didn't have anything like that. They didn't think about orientation at all. And if homosexuality involves an orientation, then it can't be the right translation of a Greek text because the Greek text, Greeks didn't have that idea of an orientation. And so it's hugely, hugely problematic. And yet this verse gets used all the time. So it's not only cherry picking within the verse where you pick the one thing you're really opposed to. You say the others, yeah, you probably stop fornicating. It's really not a good idea, you know, but with homosexual man, you're going to hell, you know, so that isn't right. But also the, the translation is a huge problem.
- [30:59]
B
That is really interesting. Thank you for sharing. We're going to move on now because you're right, unfortunately, we don't have all day. I wish we did. I suspect most of our viewers wish we did, but we don't. We're going to go to some news on upcoming events and then we'll have our bonus segment which is this week Listeners, questions.
- [31:16]
A
This is Bart's weekly update where we get to catch up on all the latest about Dr. Ehrman's book releases, speaking engagements, ehrmanblog.org happenings and online course launches.
- [31:31]
B
And we are back for this week's weekly update, which is not, not so much a weekly update, but a course announcement. Not even a course announcement. A conference announcement. There we go. Got there in the end. You've heard us talk about it before. You will remember this time last year, us talking about its predecessor. This is the new insights into the New Testament conference for 2024, which will be taking place on Saturday and Sunday, September 21st and 22nd, this year's topic is the Apostle Paul, and there are going to be ten fantastic scholars, including Barthes. So Bart, why the Apostle Paul? What was the prompting for that topic?
- [32:06]
C
Well, you know, last year we did the gospels. We had 10 speakers who gave lectures for people who are not scholars, but these are expert scholars. It went so well, we decided we're going to do it again this year. And we thought, well, okay, so we did the Gospels last year, we'll do Paul this year. And because, I mean, you know, Paul apart from Jesus, there's no one even close to as important as Paul. But the understanding of Paul is fraught. It's boy, is there a ton of scholarship on Paul. We're going to make some of the scholarship accessible to people on some of the really, really important issues by some of the top scholars in the world who work on Pauline studies.
- [32:41]
B
So similar virtual conferences typically will cost 150, $200 plus, and several hundred if you're talking about an in person event. And they don't have nearly as many benefits as new insights into the New Testament. So people will get the chance to meet with the scholars, have Q and A's, and then obviously get lifetime recordings for the events and, and standard tier pricing for new insights into the New Testament is only $99. And even with the standard pass, you get access to a pre event attendee mixer, access to Bart's new historical Paul lesson, which is kind of like a prequel to the event. We recorded that a couple of weeks ago. And as I said, lifetime access to all of the recordings. If you register before the 24th of August, however, you get that for frankly amazing $79 instead of the $99. And if you want even more of a discount, and everybody does, I don't know anyone who would say no thank you to that. You can use MJ podcast code to get your podcast discount as well. Now we have, like I said, ten fantastic speakers. I wanted to just quickly go over a couple of them to give people a taster what they can experience. Jenny Nust is talking about the Apostle Paul's sexual vocabulary, which sounds fascinating.
- [33:57]
C
This is a really important topic and it's one that a lot of people would not be intimately aware of because it involves understanding Greek things and Jenny's going to explain it. But Paul, you know, is often said to be opposed to homosexuality, for example. Well, is that true? You know, it depends on which words that we think he's using. And there are huge debates about that. But also there are all sorts of sexual things in Paul's writings. I mean at one point he's trying to deal with whether a man should even touch a woman, yes or no, with men visiting prostitutes. And like all of these are tied up into the a detailed study of the text and and her conclusions are not going to be what a lot of people would expect.
- [34:36]
B
We also have Dr. Ben White who is talking about the challenge of counting Paul's authentic letters, which is something I think we've spoken briefly about on the podcast before. But I'm sure he's going to go into a hell of a lot more detail than we managed to get to.
- [34:49]
C
Oh yeah. So Ben teaches at Clemson and he was actually my PhD student many years ago and wrote this amazing dissert that got published. Most scholars always say there are seven undisputed letters of Paul and Ben is, you know, it's not that like he's a conservative fundamentalist or anything, but he has some really good grounds for wondering if we're too complacent and that in fact either, you know, they're fewer or they're more or whether the criteria we use to decide what is Pauline or not is valid. So yeah, that that's going to be important even for scholars.
- [35:22]
B
That one that's going to be interesting stuff. And if you are interested in finding out more about this or signing up, you can go to bart ehrman.com nint that will also give you a lot more information about all the pricing tiers. Like I said, standard pricing is $79 until August 24th. You can get even more money off with the code njpodcast. But if you're interested in additional bonus materials, there are higher levels that you can can look at and explore with other kind of exciting learning and community building opportunities including meeting some of the scholars at a VIP mixer, a roundtable panelist discussion and a hot topic debate between Jenny Nuss and Robin Faith Walsh. All of which sound wonderful. So take a look and sign up if you are interested.
- [36:12]
A
Now it's time for questions from LA listeners where BART answers real questions submitted by misquoting Jesus fans. If you'd like to submit a question for future segments, Please visit bart erman.com Ask Bart.
- [36:30]
B
Are you ready Bart? For some amazing listeners questions I'm desperately
- [36:34]
C
hoping I am Always
- [36:37]
B
in Matthew 5:39, Jesus is said to have instructed his followers to turn the other cheek when struck by an evil person. To me this sounds like wise advice to insurgents resisting an occupying force like the Romans to choose the time and place of conflicts carefully without being goaded by immediate outrage. Has there ever been any serious scholarly interest in this idea?
- [37:00]
C
I don't know of instances. There probably are some where scholars have said this is a teaching about how to strategically plan your revenge. When do you strike back? Don't do it right away. I don't think normally scholars read it that way because the passage says if someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other. Also it means that you simply take the blow and rather than returning the blow, you say, okay, do it again. The problem people have with this is a very serious problem. Doesn't seem like a right thing to do. But also, how does this work as a social policy? No country can have this policy. They'd be wiped out in a week by other countries. So you can't just turn the other cheek. And so people think, well, that can't be true. And so you come up with an alternative explanation for what he means. This would be, I guess, an alternative explanation, but I don't know of any scholars who have taken that line.
- [37:55]
B
Thank you. What was the impact, if any, of the Jewish Roman wars on the emergence of Christianity as a gentile oriented religion?
- [38:03]
C
It's a good question. I don't think there's a way to know for sure. Many scholars have argued that that the Jewish war was instrumental in the spread of Christianity, in part because Christian could say that Jesus predicted it and it happened. It shows that he's the Messiah he actually knew, in part because it shows that Judaism is a failed religion. I'm not saying it is a failed religion. I'm saying this is what scholars say that Christians were saying in antiquity that obviously God has opposed the Jews and had their temple destroyed. Christians early on weaponized that by saying that, that it's a punishment to Jews for killing Jesus. Already in the second third century, you have Christians saying that God destroyed Jerusalem for that reason. You know, people were talking about it that way. Another thing I'll say about it is that we have pretty good evidence of Gentiles converting to Christianity more than Jews prior to the destruction of the Temple. And so Paul's congregations of course, are a natural indication of that. But he's out trying to convert Gentiles. But also like the Church of Rome, Paul writes the Roman Church, he didn't start it. He had never even been there. And when he writes it, it's clear as day that most people in there were Gentile rather than Jews. And so I think Gentiles were flocking in already, relatively speaking. And I'm not sure if the destruction of Jerusalem helped that cause much, or not? I don't think we have much evidence to. Hard evidence to say thank you.
- [39:29]
B
One manuscript of John's Gospel does not include the story of the woman caught in adultery, but leaves a space where it would have been. Do you think the scribe was copying a manuscript without the story and thought that it should have been there, or was copying a manuscript with the story and refused to copy it in himself?
- [39:47]
C
If those are the two options, I think maybe the first one makes better sense. Usually when a scribe leaves out a passage, they don't leave a space. And often what happens when you have a space, not just in copying of New Testament manuscripts, but in other kinds of settings. If you leave a space, it's often an indication that there's something you might want to fill in later. Later. But in this case, it wouldn't be like, enough space because it's a long story. I would imagine it's more likely one of these things where sometimes scribes will mark a verse with an asterisk and to indicate that there's some problem with it. And maybe this person just thinks there's a problem with the text at this point.
- [40:27]
B
I grew up going to Catholic school and was always taught that belief in the Eucharist being the literal body and blood of Jesus has been a concept that goes back to the apostles. I've always wondered about the historicity of that. When did these practices and beliefs actually begin?
- [40:41]
C
It's hard to say. And there are debates about it. Of course, Catholic and Protestant theologians will disagree on this. And part of this has to do with the words of Jesus at the Last Supper, where he takes the bread and says, this is my body, this is my blood. That kind of thing. This is. This is because technically you could say, actually, that's not your body, it's a piece of bread. And so if you say it is my body, then isn't that suggesting that it's become his body? That's the doctrine of transubstantiation that you get in the Catholic tradition that in the Mass, the words over the sacrament transform the bread into Christ's body and the cup of wine into his blood. And so that's transubstantiation. It takes onto a new substance, the bread and the wine. That doctrine of transubstantiation cannot be documented for several centuries after Christianity. Although there seems to be hints of it earlier, it does not seem necessarily to be related the correct interpretation of Jesus words at the Last Supper. You know, last night I showed somebody a picture and said, oh, this is my dog. And, you know, they didn't say, well, no, it's not your dog. You know, this is a picture. So it does not necessarily. So the doctrine of transubstantiation does not start showing up until, I don't know, 4th or 5th century. There are clear indications that some church fathers are thinking that something really is going on here and that this really is eating Jesus his blood and drinking his blood and eating his flesh. But those hints are not necessarily completely compelling.
- [42:11]
B
Thank you. Final question before we wrap up for the day. Is it reasonable to think of the historical accuracies of the Gospels in the same way that we think about Hollywood biopics? Walk the Line, for example, will give us a pretty good sense of the life of Johnny Cash. But not every detail is gospel truth.
- [42:28]
C
That's a good question. And I've never really quite thought about it that way. I teach a class on Jesus that is undergraduate. Just read a bunch of gospels inside the New Testament, outside the New Testament, and watch a bunch of films. And the point of that is to show how each gospel writer and each filmmaker is portraying Jesus in his own light. I guess I just get a little nervous about Johnny Cash because, yeah, okay, I will accept the comparison. It's just that with Johnny Cash, like we have so many much information. You can watch the film and know if you want to look around, you can find out what's actually being made up. And a lot of film, yeah, films, they're looser in the historicity than in others. That's true of the gospels as well. So, yeah, I guess I'm willing to accept that. They're like film bioptic on paper.
- [43:18]
B
Thank you, audience. Thank you so much for sending in your questions. If you would like to ask Bart a question, you can go to bartehrman.com Ask Bart and submit your questions that way. Bart, before we finish for the week, would you mind summarizing what we talked about today?
- [43:33]
C
We're talking about how people use the Bible to make and win arguments, especially about social and political issues. And the point I'm making is that I don't have any particular objection to that per se, but I do object when people quote the Bible to say something it doesn't say, or they make up something and say the Bible says it, or they misinterpret the Bible or they don't pay attention to the context in the Bible. I think, you know, if you want to use the Bible to argue for an ethical or social political agenda, you should at least actually quote it correctly.
- [44:02]
B
Audience thank you all 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@bartehrman.com Misquoting Jesus will be Back next Week Bart, what are we going to talk about next time we're
- [44:21]
C
talking about John the Baptist? You know, where would we be without John the Baptist? Some people have said, look, you know, if it weren't for John the Baptist, you may not have had Jesus. I mean, he would have existed, but he wouldn't. And so we're going to talk about what we know about John the Baptist and what we don't know.
- [44:33]
B
Thank you all and goodbye. This has been an episode of Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman. We'll be back with a new episode next Tuesday, so please be sure to subscribe to our show for free on your favorite podcast listening app or on Bart Ehrman's YouTube channel so you don't miss out from Bart Ehrman and myself, Megan Lewis. Thank you for joining us.