← Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman
Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman
Love Thy Stranger: The Radical Origins of Western Compassion
00:36:10
Loading summary
Transcript53 lines
- [00:00]
A
I'm Kiana and I leveled up my business with Shopify. Once I figured out that Shopify was a thing, I never turned back. I can create a site with my eyes closed. Shopify thinks ahead of us, you know, and it thinks about the customer more than anything. Every day I'm thinking about some other new business, but Shopify is doing it
- [00:21]
B
to me because it's so easy to use.
- [00:23]
A
It's like I can't stop. I'm addicted. Start your free trial@shopify.com what did it mean to be a good person in the ancient world? And what did ancient cultures say about how we should treat one another? Today, Dr. Bart Ehrman joins me to discuss Jesus teachings, the cultural norms of the time, and how early Christians changed his message. Welcome to Ms. Quoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman, the only show where a six time New York Times best selling author and world renowned Bible scholarly 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. Before we jump into today's episode, a quick announcement. The past three years we've held a live virtual conference called New Insights into the New Testament every September where we've averaged over 2,000 attendees each year. Due to the success of Nint, I'm excited to announce a brand new addition to our conference lineup where you can learn the newest research and insights about the Hebrew Bible or what Christians usually refer to as the Old Testament. It's called New Insights into the Hebrew Bible or nihb or NIB if you're but. This inaugural event happening live March 20 to 22 is focused on the Book of Genesis and features presentations from 10 world class Hebrew Bible scholars like John Collins and Joel Baden and keynote speaker Dan McLellan. All registrants will also get an exclusive Genesis Primer from bart, a short pre conference setup that walks through the key scholarly questions around Genesis so everyone comes in oriented and ready. I'm excited to say that I'll be giving a presentation as well, so if you want to learn how my expertise as an Assyriologist applies to Genesis, you'll have to visit the event page to see what my talk is about. Early Bird pricing is available until February 28th. You can learn more or register at barterman.com hbconference and be sure to use the code MJPodcast for a discount. All right, let's get to the episode. Welcome back everybody to Misquoting Jesus where today we are talking about how Jesus teachings impacted the Development of the Western world. We've also got our bonus segment, Barth's Books at the End, where Barthes gives his recommendations for books on the New Testament he thinks we should read. But before we get to that, how are you doing this week?
- [02:56]
B
Yeah, I'm doing fine. I've. I, two days ago moved down from seeing my daughter and her family up in New Hampshire where they had 20 inches of snow to Durham, North Carolina, where they had a half inch of solid ice. All. All told. I prefer the snow.
- [03:13]
A
I was gonna say, which is better.
- [03:15]
B
Oh no, let's know. You can like, you know, but man, that ice, it's dangerous and there's not a lot you could do about it. And it's just, just walking a dog, man. It's so. But it's, it's warmed up now and it's, it's all melting away. So fortunately. Yeah, so things are okay. How about you? How are you doing?
- [03:33]
A
Similar with the. I think our ice was about 2 inches. It's still mostly out there. And my 4 year olds both want to have picnics, so we keep having conversations about how we can have an indoor picnic or we can wait until the snow melts and have a picnic outside. They're leaning towards the outside picnic after the snow. But they do wake up every morning and ask me, can we have a picnic today? Is the snow gone? So, yeah, it's, it's. We're playing a waiting game right now.
- [04:02]
B
Okay. Yeah, right. Yeah, well, that's how it is. And it's just a weird, weird winter. Weird, weird weather. And so it goes.
- [04:09]
A
Absolutely, absolutely. So our icebreaker question for today, People watching and listening probably know that you do an awful lot of online teaching and through the pubs in biblical studies, you've also done recordings for the Great Courses franchise and taught through there. So I wanted to ask, what's the difference between recording a course for something like Great Courses and doing one for your own company?
- [04:35]
B
Yeah, well, you know, I got, Yeah, I started with the Great Courses. My first recordings were in like 1999 and so. And they've changed a lot because they've, they've professionalized just incredibly and they're, it's a very, very professional production that they do there and with very high quality production. And you know, it's. In terms of production quality and all of that, it's as good as it gets. The Great Courses and they, I've done 10 courses for them over the years and they are really hard to do. They're just, they're incredibly Difficult because in order to get the quality they get, it's really more like recording in a TV studio. In fact, it is recording it, it's doing, it's doing a TV presentation or. And so my courses that I do are, are quite different because I, I do them here, you know, I'm in my, my studio. I don't have to produce massive amounts, a book length, amount of written materials for them. And it's more, in some ways it's more kind of personal because I'm interacting with people. I do it in front of a live audience instead of recording. The great courses are all recorded and you say something wrong, they go back, they make you do it again. It goes back and forth and it's, you know, it's that kind of thing. And this is more, it's more like I'm teaching a university class remotely, but I'm doing it with a live audience, with Q and A, live Q A. And so it's a very different, it is a very different experience. Even though the content is, you know, virtually the same. I mean, it's the same kind of thing, but it's a different kind of format. And so personally, you know, look, I, I really love doing those great courses and I did a number over the years and that was great. But I prefer this personally because it's, we shape it ourselves, we can do it the way we want to and we're not sort of as rigidly structured as the great courses are.
- [06:26]
A
That was going to be my follow up question. What she prefer?
- [06:28]
B
Yeah, this is, I mean, look, it's just, it is so much easier. I mean, I come out the door and I go into my student instead of going to Chantilly, Virginia for a week, you know, staying in a motel and being recording and having, dealing with directors and publishers. I was like all the, it's, it's, it's a very, you know, it's, it's like doing a TV show, as I said. And this is not, this is like coming into my, I stand, you know, talking to people.
- [06:56]
A
Well, thank you for sharing that with us. As I said in the beginning, we're going to be talking about what it means in, or what it meant in the ancient world to be a good person. And this conversation and the next few interviews are going to be structured around your new book, Love Thy Stranger. So I think we'll probably talk more a little bit about that a little bit later. But when is that book coming out for people who want to keep their eye open?
- [07:20]
B
Yeah, well, it's beginning to be the exciting time for me. It's coming out March 24th and I'm starting to do. I'm booking, you know, speaking engagements and interviews and all that kind of thing. And, and so it's a very exciting time. So March 24th, love thy stranger. It's being published by Simon and Schuster that I've published several books with now. And I, I just really. They're a fantastic, fantastic company. And so I'm, yeah, really, really happy about this one.
- [07:48]
A
So we're going to open by talking about Greek and Roman religion. So kind of the backdrop against which Jesus was born and raised and did his own teachings, did either of those cultures, either of their religious practices have any kind of divine imperative to treat other people?
- [08:05]
B
Well, you know, it seems, it probably to some people seems a little bit weird if you want to talk about Jesus to start with the Greek and Roman world. But like, to my graduate students, it's not weird at all because this is how they. To understand early Christianity at all and to understand the New Testament, you have to put it into its context. And Jesus was born in the Roman world when the first Roman emperor was the emperor, and he was crucified when the second Roman emperor was the emperor. And he was very much influenced by, I mean, maybe not directly by Greek and Roman thought, but he was in that world. And so to make sense of Jesus teachings and the teachings of the early Christians, you have to situate it in that context. And so, yeah, you know, that people, I think a lot of people, a lot of my students at Chapel Hill have always kind of assumed that pagans, you know, people who are polytheists in the ancient world were, were not, you know, they were not moral and, and there was no reason to be moral or ethical and stuff. And they didn't really, you know, they're just, they're ranked pagans, so. And it's actually not true. I mean, the people in the Greek and Roman worlds were just as moral as, as people are today and had had rules of ethics that they, they tried to follow. And so it, it's not that Jesus appeared on a scene that was immoral and he introduced morality. It's not like that.
- [09:27]
A
So there is like a moral background and an ethical background in the, the world that Jesus is existing in. Did either of these have like, religious thoughts about how we should treat people of their like, equivalent to the Ten Commandments about how you should live your lives? Anything like that?
- [09:46]
B
Yeah, well, you know, the deal is, is that the, the human race would not survive without Codes of ethics. You know, any species has to have certain ways of its individual members to behave in order to survive because if it was every individual for themselves, they are easily picked off. And so there has to be cooperation within communities. Whether you're, you know, whether you're honeybees or chimpanzees or humans, you've got to have kind of codes of behavior that work for your culture to, to provide cohesion internally, but also to protect yourself from aggressive opponents. And so the Greek and Roman world definitely had very high ethical standards in many different ways. And so that's, so that, that's absolutely right. They didn't have, what they didn't have was, were religious sanctions for, for behavior so much. They had some. But it wasn't really located within the religious traditions that their ethics arose. It was, it was outside of religion. And that seems weird to modern people that you'd have religions without like ethics. But that is, it's kind of the case. The religion, the religion was a different thing. But it doesn't mean that they were non ethical, they're unethical.
- [11:09]
A
So if the ethical system wasn't tied to religion and it wasn't any kind of divine imperative, what seems to have been the driving force behind. Is it, is it just this, we all need to look after each other because otherwise another nation is going to come in and wipe us out. Is there an understanding that this is how you build community? What is it that's going on there?
- [11:32]
B
You know, a lot of it, A lot of ethical codes throughout human history are not consciously derived. You know, it's not that you people trying to convince other people, look, we got to hang together here or we're going to get wiped out. You, you certainly do get that. But we have built within us, just as part of our DNA, the sense of how we ought to treat one another. And it's not that, it's not that we develop these things so that we would survive. What, you know, the way evolution works is that the, the individuals that have certain kinds of genetic makeup that promotes group cohesion and to protect against outsiders, those are the individuals who survive more often. And because they did, because the group would be wiped out otherwise. And so we have inherent within us the sense that we ought to be moral. It's just built within us. But there are different ethical systems that allow that, that, you know, that describe how that's supposed to work. Exactly. And so there certainly was that in the Greek and Roman world. The reason the religions didn't have it was because religion in the Greek and Roman world was all about worshiping the gods, about praying to the gods and performing sacrifices to the gods so that gods would be kind to you and help you when you, when you needed things. And the gods were not that concerned about whether, you know, you insulted your neighbor or you stole his lamp or you slept with his, his spouse. You know, they weren't, that just wasn't what they were concerned about being worshiped. And so religion was about that. And so when you ask, you know, where, where then is it if it's not? Where are these ethics coming from? It seems weird people today that you don't have religious ethic, you have some, the gods didn't like some things, but they're not a lot. It comes within, broadly it become, come within the realm of philosophy. You know, we're thinkers who are, who are trying to think how can we best live individually and as coherent groups, how can we do that? And they start developing rules and principles, some of which are common sense and some might be counter to common sense that they can help society get along better.
- [13:42]
A
We're going to be getting into the ethical systems next week, so I'm not going to follow that particular train of thought any more than we have done. So if you're interested in that particular branch of thinking, tune back in next week and we'll be covering all of those things. So this isn't a divine imperative for Greek and Roman religion. How about ancient Israelite religion? What does that say about how you should be treating other people?
- [14:06]
B
Well, yeah, so ancient Israelite religion in some ways is distinctive because you have a God, you have a single God, you don't have multiple gods. You worship this one God. And to worship this one God involves certain worship practices, but it also involves obeying how you're to behave with other people, people who worship the same God. And so within the Hebrew Bible, of course, there are, there are, there are laws about how to behave and there are things you absolutely are not supposed to do. You're not supposed to murder, you're not supposed to commit adultery, you're not supposed to steal, etc, but, and there are also things that you, you, you are supposed to do. And, and so there are these laws and they're given by God and so they're divine. They are divine imperatives, to use that phrase, that God commands certain kinds of behavior. And it's understood within Israel that this is all good because it makes the, makes the Israelite culture coherent and it unifies it and it, and it makes it distinct from Other peoples. And so the Law of Moses contains a number of ethical injunctions about how to behave.
- [15:17]
A
So my final question before we go to the break, do we see anything similar to modern charity, so charitable giving, helping people that you don't necessarily know? Do we see anything like that in the ancient world?
- [15:29]
B
You know, one of the things I argue in this book that's coming out is that in some ways material giving to those, you know, to, to other causes, giving your, your resources away is a, can be a really concrete way of manifesting ethical behavior, especially manifesting love. And in the ancient world they absolutely had modes of charitable giving. But they, one of the points that we'll get to at some point either today or in some other episode and in my book is that that charitable practice has changed significantly with Christianity. It's one of the major things that shifted is how, how, how to give. But, but when you, when you read ancient Greek and Roman and Jewish ethicists who are talking about how to behave. Absolutely. When you, when you have a family member in need, you're supposed to, you know, you supposed to provide material resources for them or friends or communities. You know, you live in a community and it's good to, to contribute to the community. So there absolutely were, were charitable institutions at the time of a sort. But we'll be seeing that in fact Christianity introduced something very different that's made a huge difference to the, to the entire history of the West.
- [16:51]
A
We'll get into that in a quick moment. We're going to take a brief break. We've got a couple of announcements. First of all related to today's topic. As we said earlier, Bart's new book Love Thy Stranger is coming out March 24th. Bart, you said.
- [17:05]
B
That's right.
- [17:05]
A
Yeah, I did remember correctly. And you are doing a free companion course to the book, a two lesson course called Love Thy Stranger how the Ethics of Jesus Changed Our World. And to access that all people need to do is buy the book and then register@loveth stranger.com what are you, what are you excited about for that particular course?
- [17:26]
B
So this, so this is going to be, it'll be a two course thing which is dealing with some, some of the issues that we're dealing with here, but at greater length and, and some other issues as well. But it's, it's really, it's for people who can, who pre purchase. The book publishers these days, they're all into like pre, pre orders, what do you call it? Pre purchase orders, where you like, you buy it, you tell Amazon. Yeah, when it comes out, I want it. And publishers are all over that and for good, if it gets pre ordered then it improves the kind of the spread and the range of the book. And so that's all good. So if people do that, if they pre order the book, I'll be doing this two course webinar with them and it'll have, I'll dig into some of the really most interesting aspects of the book. Things you wouldn't expect about the early Christian tradition and how it changed Western civilization in ways I was completely surprised about when I started doing my research. I had no idea that actually these, there are these Christians, I mean just to give you an example, Christian in the West, Christians invented hospitals, public hospitals. Like what? Yeah, yeah. And so you can prove all that. So anyway, so, so There'll be this 2, 2 lecture with Q A and live Q and A. So if people pre order they can, they can get that.
- [18:43]
A
And the web address again for people interested in that is www.lovethystranger.com. our second announcement for today. We've just released what might be the most visually stunning course we've ever sold, Judaism in the Time of Jesus. Taught by archaeologist professor Jonathan Adler, this course takes you beyond the classroom and out into the field, exploring ancient synagogues, Qumran, Nazareth, the Temple Mount and more, while showing how Torah law actually shaped everyday Jewish life in the first century. If you want to better understand the world Jesus lived in, and we're all about that, that's exactly what we're trying to do today. This course is honest, something very special. You can learn more and grab it now@bart ehrman.com forward/jesusworld. It is currently on sale until March 8th. And as always, use the code MJ podcast at checkout for a special discount. All right, back to Jesus and ethics and charity and all of that good stuff. So we were talking before the break about kind of the ethical backdrop that Jesus lived in, what Greek and Roman religions said about ethics, how Israelite religion treated it. So how did Jesus teachings on how to treat people relate to typical Jewish beliefs of the time?
- [20:01]
B
Okay, so you know a lot of, a lot of things Jesus teaches, some of his main ethical teachings are rooted in the Hebrew Bible and not just the Torah, not just the law of Moses, although certainly that, but also, and, and in great part in the writings of the prophets. So the prophets, the prophetic writings in the Hebrew Bible are in the English Bibles. You know, they're authors like Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and, and Hosea and Joel, Amos and there, there's a whole, you know, they're about 15 of these, and they, they're all addressing situations in their own time. People today think of prophets as someone like, predicting the distant future. And that's not really what's going on in the Hebrew prophets. They're dealing with situations in their time, and they're explaining how people need to change their lives because God is upset with them and, and things aren't going to go, are not going to go well if they don't change their lives. And a lot of these teachings in authors like Isaiah and Amos are what we would call ethical teachings about how people behave. And especially the prophets are upset about those who are wealthy not taking care of the poor, those who are powerful not taking care of the weak, that they, that they are shunning their responsibilities to those in need, who are hungry or who are homeless or who are widows or who are orphans. And that, that to be right with God requires you to, to act that way. And Jesus absolutely picked up on that. And that, that is in some sense is a core teaching of his, that he in some ways even revolutionizes above what you find in the prophets and makes and insists on a very extreme ethic of, of loving one another in the sense of really helping people in need.
- [21:52]
A
So Jesus is kind of following in an established tradition. He's not reinventing the wheels, so to speak. What is his big innovation in, in the ethical field?
- [22:04]
B
The deal with what I try to explain the book, it takes a while to explain it, but, but what I try to argue in my book is that Jesus has this ethic, but he also has this apocalyptic worldview that says that the world has gotten so evil that God is soon going to destroy the current order and bring in a new order, a kingdom ruled by God, as opposed to these wretched kingdoms going on now. And that people who are opposed to God are going to be destroyed, but those who are siding with God will be rewarded by being brought into this kingdom. And Jesus thought this was happening very soon in his own generation. And what if you really think that, if you really think the end is coming soon, it radicalizes your teaching and it makes it more, you know, radical. I mean, it intensifies, it makes it even more urgent to do this, this kind of thing, behave this kind of way. And so Jesus ethics end up being really very radical, more so than people are willing to admit today or to acknowledge today, because they seem impossible to keep. These kind of extreme demands he makes. But, you know, he's. He. He thinks the end's coming soon. And if the end is coming, you know, sometime in, you know, in a few months, your changes how you're supposed to behave.
- [23:22]
A
So what was he, what was the radical side of what he was saying? Is he just kind of extending this looking after people idea to the extremes? Was he telling people to do something more substantial? What was he saying?
- [23:37]
B
So within the Israelite tradition, unlike what you find in most of Greek and Roman thinking, in the Israelite tradition you are to. You're to behave well toward those you don't even know, towards strangers who are. If, if a stranger is in need, you're supposed to help them. So love your neighbor as yourself within Israelite tradition. And that's the, that actual, that phrase love your neighbors yourself is from the Torah, Leviticus, chapter 19, verse 18. And what it means is when your fellow Israelite is, is in need, you're supposed to treat them the way you treat yourself. You feed yourself. You need to feed somebody, an Israelite who's hungry. You clothe yourself. You have to clothe somebody who doesn't have a clothing. You have to, you have to take care of people the way you take of yourself. You. Even if you. They're not like family or friends, but within, within the Torah and within Israel generally, that that referred to other Israelites. It's quite clear in the Torah that that love your neighbors yourself does not apply to, to Midianites and Moabites and Canaanites who are outside the community. It does apply if they immigrate in. You know, if somebody immigrates into the community, you have to treat them like an Israelite. But if they're an outsider, you're not. You have no responsibility to love them. And throughout, even in the Torah, even in the Book of Numbers, you're supposed to destroy them. The stranger. What Jesus does, is he in part because of this apocalyptic vision where God was going to destroy not just like the, the enemies of Israel, but like everybody in the world opposed to him. Jesus universalizes this ethic so that love thy stranger no longer means love. Love the person within your ethnic or national or religious community. It means love everybody in need, even if like they've got no connection to you. And that it's that universalization of this ethic that ends up making such a huge difference in, in Western civilization and, but also in our own ethical thinking today.
- [25:43]
A
How did this call to love strangers who would outside of your community, not related in any way, shape or form to your own social network? How did that impact the Roman world as Christianity gained popularity.
- [25:56]
B
When people turn to telehealth for weight loss, they're looking for real support. That's why more people are choosing orderlymeds.com Orderly Meds connects you with real doctors and access to proven GLP1 medications like semaglutide and Tirzeptatide. No guessing, just a more supportive experience. And all ship directly to your door in discreet packaging. Do your research, ask questions, then visit orderlymeds.com podcast for an exclusive offer. That's orderlymeds.com podcast. Individual results may vary now. Medical advice eligibility required. C site for details. So we'll probably, you know, have more extended discussions about this at some point. But the, When I said earlier that Christian, that, you know, Christians invented hospitals, people are going to doubt me about that. But I'm telling you, you can prove it. And in my book, I show it, you know, I didn't come up this idea, but you people have shown this. And you know, a public hospital is taking care of people you don't know who are sick. And within the Christian tradition, it isn't just hospitals. Christians invented orphanages and Christians invented old people's homes. And they, they invented the idea of having governmental assistance to the poor simply because they're poor or hungry or needy. And they invented the idea of private charities to take care of disaster relief and things like that. And you know, people hearing that will think of exceptions. Yeah, what about this? What about that? You know, and I, I know about the exceptions and I, I deal with them in my book. But I think you can, you can absolutely show that Christians invented these things. And you know, just imagine a world where you didn't have public hospitals or orphanages or foster homes or old people's homes or governmental assistance to the needy or, you know, care Doctors Without Borders and all these things. You wouldn't have these. We, we don't know if we wouldn't have them. We know that they came into being because of the Christian movement. If they had come into being for some other reason, yeah, maybe would have happened, but it didn't. It happened because of the Christian movement.
- [28:01]
A
So I am assuming that early Christians did not just take Jesus message and say, yes, absolutely, I'm selling everything and giving it to, to the poor tomorrow. So how did people change and modify in the very early days of Christianity, how did they change and modify this message?
- [28:17]
B
Well, pretty much like the people way people do today. They say, Jesus said, Jesus tells, he tells this guy, sell everything, give to the poor. And people, people today say, yeah, he Just met him. He didn't mean me. And of course. And, but, you know, his disciples had to sell everything and give, and give it, and they, you know, they left everything to follow him. And, and he really. And, and so people say Jesus didn't mean it, you know. No, I think Jesus meant. And he meant it because the end's coming soon. And so, so soon after Jesus death, of course his followers believed in keeping his teachings, but they had to moderate. They had to, they had to soften them because if they didn't soften them, nobody ever would become a follower of Jesus because everybody would be, you know, and so everybody would sell everything. There'd be nothing, no, nothing left. So people did, did soften them. But the thing about, the thing that happened, what I argue in my book is that even though very few people, some people follow Jesus literally, but very few did and do. But the basic idea that you should care for those you don't know if they are in need, that was not, you know, not related to you in any community, nationality, ethnicity, religion, nothing like that. They're in need. That, that came into the moral conscience of the west through the Christian teachings of the Christian church that they inherited from Jesus. And it's why today, even people who are, say, an atheist or not agnostic, they hear about a, you know, a flood somewhere or a hurricane or they, they hear about a wildfire and they feel like they need to donate something. You know, they need to give some money away and, and support, you know, support Doctors Without Borders or support, care or provide some money or funds or volunteer, go to a soup kitchen to feed people. You have no idea who these people are, and you probably wouldn't like them if you did know them. And. But you do it. What, where does that impulse come from? It doesn't come from the Greek and Roman worlds. It, it comes from Judaism in a sense, but it, it really comes to Jes. Judy mediated through Jesus version of it. And so this is why I say that Jesus actually did change our world.
- [30:32]
A
Those are all the questions I had. But I did want to take the opportunity and ask you to tell us about your blog. And given that we're talking about charity and looking after people, why people should go and become members of your blog.
- [30:45]
B
Oh, well, thank you. Yeah, yeah, I didn't expect you to do that, but I'm glad you did. The blog is very important to me. It is probably for me, in terms of personal importance, it's the most important thing that I do. And I would probably give up everything else Before I give up the blog. I mean, the blog doesn't seem like a thing that you'd be like, committed to like that, you know, and, and you know, and the idea that a blog would raise money for charity, what is that? It's like, it's kind of a crazy idea, but it works. So I started this thing, well, almost 14 years ago now. And it was designed to be a charity. A charity. People, people have to join the blog to receive the posts that I make. There's a small membership fee and I, I post five or six times a week, every week. I've done it for almost 14 years. Post 12 to 1400 words, not about charity and not about the blog, but about the New Testament, early Christianity, historical Jesus, the Hebrew Bible, Greek and Roman religion, like anything related to the kinds of stuff I do. And people can read these posts and they have the ability to comment on them and ask questions. I've answered every question I've ever gotten on this blog in 14 years. I mean, thousands and thousands. Oh my God, why am I, I
- [32:08]
A
struggle to answer questions that people take the time to email to me. So answering every single question that someone posts on the blog is, is quite an achievement.
- [32:18]
B
Well, it's a chunk and I don't, you know, it's a chunk. But the thing is that even though the membership fees, you know, they start at like 24.95 a year, it's like $2 a month or something. And they go up, they, there are more benefits the higher up people go in the tiers of the blog. But you know, we've, we've last several years, we've been raising over half a million dollars a year. And in the life of the blog, we've raised something like three and a half million dollars. And it all goes to charities dealing with hunger, homelessness, disaster relief. We have a set number of charities and so it's a really, it's a really good thing and I, I hope people can learn more about it and join it. Just go to Bart Ehrman blog. What is it called now? It's called urbanblog.org and if you go there, you can just see what it is. And you can see there, there are thousands of po. There must be thousands of posts. I mean, I post 300 a year times. So there are, there are thousands of posts dealing with interesting things about this stuff that I work on. So people should think about it.
- [33:22]
A
And there are also snippets you don't have to like, the whole thing isn't paywalled. You can read the first paragraph of
- [33:29]
B
each entry to see if this is
- [33:30]
A
something you get some, some value out of.
- [33:32]
B
Oh, and let me say, by the way, I don't, I don't get a dime out of this thing. And we don't, we actually don't have any overhead, we don't take any expenses out of the donations. I do a separate fundraising thing to raise money for, to support the blog and I support it myself financially. But, but so every time somebody, and it's, it's tax deductible, your membership fees and so people, people should think about joining.
- [33:58]
A
And that's ermenblog.org for anyone who wants to take a look and hopefully become a member. Now, now we are done with our interview, so we're moving on to the bonus segments which this week is Bart's Books. Bart, what book are you recommending for us this week?
- [34:16]
B
Well, I have kind of a strange recommendation this time, but it occurred to me the other day I was doing a webinar on something I know, the Book of Hosea or something, I forget what it was. And my, my go to, whenever I'm doing anything connected with the Bible, if I want to be brush up on anything, I go to the HarperCollins Study Bible Bible, which is a, which is a study Bible that has introductions to each of the books by a high level scholar and notes at the bottom of the page to explain difficult passages. And it's, it's a fantastic resource. And so anybody who has any interest in biblical studies, this is like the first thing to buy the, in my opinion, the HarperCollins Study Bible.
- [35:03]
A
Thank you so much, Bart. Now before we finish for the week, could you please remind us what we spoke about today?
- [35:09]
B
Well, we're kind of dealing with the broad, broad thing that I'm dealing with in this new book I've got coming out, Love Thy Stranger, just coming out in a month and a half and it's dealing with ethics in the ancient world and how Jesus had his ethical systems were similar to lots of others but with distinctive characteristics that ended up making a big difference in our world. And so talking about these ancient ethical systems a little bit and, and the teachings of Jesus.
- [35:37]
A
And we'll be talking more about ethics next week. So come back then. Audience. Thank you all for listening. I hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, please subscribe to the podcast to make sure you don't miss future episodes. Remember that you can use the Code MJ podcast for a discount on all of Bart's courses over at www.bartehrman.com and if you are interested in checking out the blog that is ehrmanblog.com misquoting Jesus will be back next week. But what are we talking about next time?
- [36:05]
B
Yeah, well, so next time we're going, we're going to get into interesting material that, that is not, you know, it's, it's not talked about enough, which is what? What were the ethical systems in the ancient world? Like what, why would people be ethical? And what did it mean to be ethical in the ancient world before Jesus came along? And what can we actually say about that? It turns out it's interesting stuff because it has be to to deal with things like what did stoic philosophers say that could be interesting? Oh, my God, can it be interesting? As we'll see.
- [36:37]
A
Ringing endorsement there from Bart on stoic philosophy. Make sure you join us all then. Thank you 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.