← Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman
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- [00:00]
Bart Ehrman
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- [00:36]
Megan Lewis
Welcome to Ms. Quoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman. The only show where a six time New York Times best selling author and world renowned Bible scholar uncovers the many fascinating little known facts about the New Testament, the historical Jesus and the rise of Christianity. I'm your host, Megan Lewis. Let's begin.
- [00:57]
Welcome back to Misquoting Jesus everyone. Today we're going to be talking about Luke, supposedly a doctor and traveling companion of Paul, and he's traditionally named as the author of both the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts. The reason behind this attribution is tenuous at best. So why was he named author of those books? What are the arguments against this attribution? And what do the books themselves reveal about their author? But before we get into that. Bart, good morning. How are you doing today?
- [01:24]
Bart Ehrman
Good morning. I'm doing fine, thanks. How are you doing?
- [01:27]
Megan Lewis
I am well. I am well. I've spent the past several weeks building bookshelves. And when I say building bookshelves, I'm not like just putting together flat packs from ikea. I mean, I did that too. But then they've been screwed against the wall and painted all prettily and I've got nice wallpaper on the backing. And then I put a wood trim up and also built extensions so they all go all the way up to the ceiling. It looks like a built in bookcase and I'm very proud of it, but I'm very tired of building now.
- [01:55]
Bart Ehrman
Well, so like, is there a ladder you can get up to the top of this thing?
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Megan Lewis
There will be. I haven't ordered the ladder yet, but we're going. We need to replace the floor in the library and then I will be putting a library ladder in which I'm excited about. And I think the children will be even more excited about when they see that it has rolly wheels.
- [02:12]
Bart Ehrman
Is it one of the ladders that kind of is on a roller or is it a. Oh my God. Yeah, I want one of those I think those are fantastic. Wow. Sounds like a lot of work.
- [02:22]
Megan Lewis
Yes, it's been quite a lot. These projects are always more than I anticipate they're going to be. And the building is finally done and we're now putting the books back on the bookcase, which itself is a huge task because we've had to. Well, Josh actually has spent several weeks devising an ordering system that makes sense for how he uses the books. But because of the shelf spacing, we're having to put things in slightly different places than they were supposed to be. So it's a little bit of a trial and error process, but it's going really well and I'm very excited to have all of our academic research books in one place.
- [02:59]
Bart Ehrman
Wow. No, that's good. That's great. Good on you.
- [03:01]
Megan Lewis
What are your thoughts on home projects? Do you tackle those yourself or do you outsource?
- [03:06]
Bart Ehrman
Well, you know, these days I outsource. You know, I kind of miss that gene somehow. Both my mom and my dad were really good doing things and making things and kind of like refinishing a basement, you know, but. Or repuls upholstering furniture or they could do all that stuff. And I was okay at it, but it wasn't. I just gave up doing that kind of stuff about 30 years ago. So I'm really pretty awful at it now. But the weird thing is my son got the gene. My son is really good and loves doing that kind of stuff. And I just, you know, for me, I'd rather, you know, just do most anything than that.
- [03:39]
Megan Lewis
There are definitely things to be said for occasionally hiring the professionals so you can do the things that you would rather do.
- [03:44]
Bart Ehrman
Well, I mean, my last project was this recording studio, which I'm in now, and I didn't do a lick of it. I just said, okay, this is what I want. And so I'm always reading and writing. I guess I just. I used to read and write and do that, but I don't do that stuff anymore.
- [03:59]
Megan Lewis
More reading and writing is probably a better use of your time. Yeah, we should get into Luke. So I think pretty much most people listening at some point would have assumed that the Gospel of Luke was. Was written by Luke. And if you're unaware, listeners, the book of Acts is traditionally attributed to Luke as well. They're taken as a two volume set and Luke is understood to be a Gentile physician who was a traveling companion of Paul. Like I said in my introduction, do the books themselves actually make this claim or is this something that was put on them by later readers?
- [04:34]
Bart Ehrman
No, they make no such claim. The Gospel of Luke is. Is completely anonymous, as is the Book of Acts. The author never names himself. He begins both books by using the first person singular pronoun saying I, and addresses both books to the same person, some person named Theophilus, but he doesn't give us his name. Unlike, for example, when Paul writes a letter. Paul start off by saying Paul the apostle, and he'll go on and say something about himself. But neither Luke or Acts does that. So like other books of the New Testament, they're anonymous.
- [05:10]
Megan Lewis
Why? And I know we've talked about this in previous episodes, but I don't think it's come up for a month or so. So I think it's worth revisiting. Why would an anonymous book be given an author by later Christian readers?
- [05:22]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, well, it happened a lot. Like, most of the time, almost all of the time. And the reason it happened was because there were a lot of books floating around in early Christianity that were claiming to present authoritative views about Jesus or about what to believe or about how to behave. And they had different views on all of these topics. And so eventually, when Christians were deciding which books they had to accept as authoritative, by and large, they wanted authoritative books to come from authorities and an authority. In this case, the author would be the authority. And if the author had some kind of connection with Jesus himself or with one of Jesus apostles like Paul, then that would provide authority because they would have a kind of a direct line. If they got a direct line to Paul, then they got a direct line to Jesus from Paul and then put Jesus in a direct line to God. And so you do with God's words here. You don't want a book that is just like, nobody has any idea who wrote this thing because then it lacks the kind of the power and authority that they want.
- [06:23]
Megan Lewis
Why would Luke be chosen as this authority figure to be named as the author of these books?
- [06:29]
Bart Ehrman
Right. Yeah. So this is a complicated issue. This one's not simple, but there's a logic to it. There's a logic for just about every choice of an anonymous book. In the case of Luke and Acts, it's a particularly interesting logic, and it has to do with the author himself. Says in a couple places, never identifies himself, doesn't say what his name is. And in the Gospel of Luke, you'd have no clue at all. There's nothing that suggests who it is. The Book of Acts picks up the story of the Gospel. So Luke's Gospel is like the other gospels it gives an account of Jesus life, his miracles, his teaching, his death and his resurrection. And Luke gives his own version of that. The Book of Acts is, like you said, it's a second volume of a two volume work. Because in the beginning of Acts, Luke, the author, we call him Luke, picked up right there where Jesus has been raised from the dead. And it starts with him talking to his disciples and telling them to now spread the gospel throughout the world. And the rest of the book is principally about them spreading the gospel first in Jerusalem, where they are, but then they start going outside. And eventually Paul converts and he spreads the gospel to the wide ranges throughout the Roman Empire in four passages. In the account of Paul, which takes up the final, like 2/3 of the book, the author all of a sudden starts talking in the first person, not first person singular, and not I, what I was doing, but what we were doing. And so Paul goes to Philippi in chapter 16. And you're just hearing stories about Paul going to Philippi. And then all of a sudden you hear, and we did this, we did that, we did. And like out of the blue, just completely out of the blue. And then it stops completely out of the blue. Like there's nothing like, well, I joined them. And then we, you know, it's just like all of a sudden we. And that happens in four passages in the Book of Acts. And so scholars for a long time have called those the we passages of Acts. And the traditional thought that goes way back, way back in Christian history, the second century, is that these we passages show that the author was a companion of Paul. Because there are some places where the person talks about what we did, Paul, me, and others. And so that was the first clue. It's got to be somebody who's connected with Paul, who was one of his traveling companions.
- [08:45]
Megan Lewis
Why is Luke specifically chosen as the author as opposed to one of Paul's other traveling companions?
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Bart Ehrman
Well, that's right, because we know of a lot of traveling companions of Paul, both from the Book of Acts and from the letters of Paul himself. And so the trick is, okay, so let's assume this is a traveling companion. Which one is it? And so what people, I think early on noticed was that the Book of Acts is principally concerned with how Christianity spread to the Gentiles. And it's all about how Gentiles don't have to keep the Jewish law to be followers of Jesus. And there's very heavy Gentile emphasis. And so the conclusion people have is, well, okay, so it makes sense the author would be a gentile so which Gentile do we know were Paul's traveling companions? Okay, so you go on a hunt. When you go through the New Testament, you find a passage that actually gives you a hint in the book of Colossians, which claims to be written by Paul. There are debates among scholars whether Paul actually wrote it. The widespread view among scholars is it wasn't actually written by Paul, but by somebody claiming to be Paul. But in the ancient world, they didn't know that. And so at the end of Colossians, in chapter four, Paul talks about some of his people who were with him, and he mentions those, and he says, these are the only ones who are from the Jewish race. And then he names some others. And the three others he names are a person named Epaphras, a person named Demas, and a person who is named Luke, the gentile physician. Luke, the beloved physician, it says. So these are all Gentiles. So, okay, those are three Gentile companions. So can we guess which one it might be? Well, it's probably not Demas, because elsewhere in writings connected with Paul, Demas is said to have abandoned Paul. And Paul's really ticked off about it. So doesn't seem likely he's going to have Paul as his hero. Or Epaphras is in the Book of Colossians, apparently the founder of the church in Colossae. So he started the Colossian church. But the Colossian church is never mentioned in Acts, so it doesn't seem like the guy who founded that church would avoid mentioning the bit where he founded the church. So that leaves Luke. And that means that Luke, the beloved physician, who's a Gentile, Ah, that must be the author of Luke and Acts, because it's a companion of Paul who's a Gentile. And this is the one process of
- [11:07]
Megan Lewis
elimination who first identified Luke as the author of the Gospel in the Book of Acts.
- [11:13]
Bart Ehrman
So Luke is usually thought to have been written maybe in the 80s or so of the Common Era, 50 years, 50, 60 years after Jesus death. And it gets quoted. It appears to be quoted by authors after that, starting in the second century, authors will quote it, but they'll never say who the author is. They won't quote Luke. And that continued through most of the second century. Even when you get up to Justin Martyr around the year 150 in Rome, he talks about memoirs that the apostles wrote, and he quotes them. He appears to quote Luke, but he doesn't say who it is. And so you get that until two sources near the end of the second century, there's a church father named Irenaeus who wrote a book against heresies, as it's called. It's a five volume book that we still have today. And he explicitly names Luke, the gentile physician, the follower of Paul, companion of Paul, as the author, as does the first canon list that we have. A canon list is a book that lists which books the author happens to think are part of the scriptures. And in early Christianity we have a number of these canon lists with differences among them about which books an author thinks are in or out. And the first one we have is something called the Muratorian fragment. It's a fragment of a text, but it lists books that are scripture. And Luke is named as the author of the third gospel. And so they're both writing around the year 180, 185, something like that. So about a century has passed before anyone has identified the author that we know of.
- [12:48]
Megan Lewis
Why is this attribution persistent then?
- [12:51]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, you know, once somebody names it like nobody has a good alternative and so they just, you know, and somebody says it, especially an authoritative figure like Irenaeus, who is a very well, well known figure in proto orthodox circles of Christianity that, you know, if he said it then people just assume, well it makes, you know, that's right then. And they just assume it's right because that's what they've heard. And if they bother to look into it they think, well it makes sense because looks this physician and he's a, he's a gentile and you know, Luke and act seem like they've got more of a gentile view. So it makes sense. So it made sense and somebody had said it, who's an authority. And so it just caught on. So there were no, you know, real objections to it after that.
- [13:30]
Megan Lewis
So we've mentioned several times now that Luke is identified as a doctor, he's a physician. Why is this important for the attribution? Is there anything in the books that makes people think maybe the author was a doctor?
- [13:44]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, that's an interesting point of conversation because it used to be and that people would say there's so much medical terminology in these books that it looks like it's written by a physician. They would just say that and people would start noticing that there's a lot of medical terminology there. It's kind of like you buy a car, you know, you buy a Volkswagen, you look around, you start seeing all these Volkswagens on the road. You didn't notice them before. You see all these. Everybody's got a Volkswagen, it's like that kind of thing. And so people started noticing these medical terms, and no one bothered actually to figure out if there's a disproportionate number of medical terms. Until about 100 years ago, there's a British New Testament scholar who actually looked into it, and he counted up all the things that could be medically related in Luke and Acts and then did the same thing for other authors writing about the same time, like Josephus, the Jewish historian. And he showed, in fact, there's no difference. There's not more medical terminology here than anywhere else. And so this has been known by him, you know, for a hundred years. This is like in the 1920s. It's been known for 100 years. But you still read people who say, oh, there's all this medical terminology. It's just ignorance. They haven't looked into it.
- [14:50]
Megan Lewis
It turns out that actually every book in the ancient world was written by a doctor.
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Bart Ehrman
Exactly. Was written by Luke.
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Megan Lewis
So what are some problems that we see with this attribution of Luke, the Gentile physician, as the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts?
- [15:06]
Bart Ehrman
I mean, the first thing is to point out that we don't have any record of anybody saying that for 100 years. That's one thing. The book itself didn't have a title where Luke identified himself. The manuscripts we have now have titles. You know, Mark, Matthew, Luke. They have titles on them, but the titles are not titles that an author would have given them. This book is entitled Greek. It's Katalukon, according to Luke. Well, nobody writes a book and calls it. According to me. That's not a title. That's somebody later telling you who, in their judgment, wrote the book. So that, you know, this isn't the one that Mark wrote. This is the one that Luke wrote. Okay? This is Luke's book. So it's not in the title. The main reason for thinking it's problematic. One of the main reasons for thinking it's problematic is that, as I said, the Book of Acts is largely about the apostle Paul. About two thirds of the narrative deals with Paul's missionary journeys and his teachings and his being persecuted and his arrest and his trying to defend himself. And so it's largely about Paul. Many of the things the Book of Acts talks about Paul involve things that Paul talks about himself. And so there's overlap between what Luke said, what the Book of Acts says about Paul, and what Paul says about Paul. And the thing is, every time you do a comparison, a detailed comparison of what Acts says Paul said, and did with what Paul says he said and did in the same situation. They're different sometimes just little differences, like little like I had this person with me there. And Paul says, no, I didn't have that person. He explicitly says, no, I didn't have that person with me there. Or there'll be a, like Paul will preach a message that is just completely contrary to what he preaches in his own writings. It looks like whoever wrote this book is getting his information later, second, third, fourth hand. Part of this has to do with the date of the book. If it was written in the mid-80s, for example, you know, it's possible it could have been a companion of Paul or it could be that somebody in one of the churches Paul established who's heard stories about Paul. I will say though, that a lot of scholars now, I'm not completely on board on this, but it seems to be the wave of the future. A lot of scholars now are thinking that the Book of Acts was not written until the year 120 or so. Their reason for that is because they think that whoever wrote this book got some of its information about Jews and Judaism and such from Josephus, who was writing in the 90s, which means he has to write after the 90s. And so a lot of scholars are saying 120. And if that's the case, then I certainly wasn't a companion to Paul who would have been dead for decades.
- [17:50]
Megan Lewis
Thank you. We are going to take a very quick break. Audience, please stick with us. We will be right back. We're going to be talking about why people think the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts are connected works and what the books themselves can tell us about their author.
- [18:02]
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- [19:14]
Welcome back, everyone. So, continuing with the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, why. But do scholars think they were written by the same author?
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Bart Ehrman
Yeah, I think, you know, probably just about everybody's always thought that, and it's. And there's good reason for it. There are scholars today who doubt it, especially the ones who are dating Acts around the year 120. They think maybe they're not by the same guy, but sure, it looks like they're by the same author. As I mentioned earlier, the author begins both books in a very, very similar way. He says he's I. And then he's writing to this person, Theophilus, and he's dedicating this person to Theophilus. And in the second book, in the book of Acts, he says, now in the first volume, I told you about the things Jesus said and did. And now, just on the face of it, looks like it. But also the writing style is very similar. Even more important, the themes and the ideas are very consistent with each other, that it looks like the Book of Acts is a continuation in some really kind of interesting thematic ways. I mean, in Luke, of course, Jesus gets baptized and he receives the Spirit at the baptism. In Luke 3, in the book of Acts, people get baptized and then they receive the Spirit. Jesus does these miracles. He heals the sick and he casts out demons, and he raises the dead. In the book of the Apostles, in the book of act, do these miracles, they heal the sick and they cast out demons, they raise the dead. You know, Jesus gets in trouble with the Jerusalem authorities and they persecute him. The apostles get in trouble with the Jerusalem authorities. It's like it's similar stuff all the way through. And so it really does look like the same person wrote the two books, has two volumes of the same work.
- [20:49]
Megan Lewis
What do people think the author was trying to achieve with these two books?
- [20:54]
Bart Ehrman
It's a very important question, and it's one that I think a lot of people overlook, especially because people tend to think that the Gospel of Luke is saying the same thing as Matthew, Mark, and John. You know, people tend to treat the Bible as having one author, God, and so it's all internally consistent with itself. But when they do that, they overlook the significant differences among these books. And Luke does stand out in rather striking ways that, you know, we could go into a great length, we won't hear. But one of the things that Luke emphasizes at the very beginning of his Gospel. Virtually the first thing Jesus does is he goes and preaches a sermon in his hometown, Nazareth, and he gets rejected by the people there, by his townspeople. The Gospel of Mark and Matthew both have this episode, but for them it's in the middle of Jesus ministry. In Luke, it's the first thing. So Luke is moved when it happens, apparently. And because they reject him, Jesus indicates that it's not Jews who are going to be accepting this message, but Gentiles. And then you go through this gospel and Jesus is rejected by Jews at the end of the Gospel, as he is in the other gospels. But then in the book of Acts, after he's been rejected and crucified, he's been raised from the dead. And then he tells his disciples, now go to the Gentiles and they then take his mission to non Jews. This is a two volume work that is emphasizing that Jesus ministry wasn't just for his lifetime. His ministry was to convert the entire world. It wasn't a ministry just to Jews, the way you might suspect by reading Matthew or Mark, but that in fact the intention is God's plan is to use Jesus to convert the entire world, including Gentiles. And this plan involves people finding salvation through Jesus without keeping the Jewish law. That is something that's very different than you get say in Matthew, for example. But the idea is that the whole thing is a planned movement of God. And so, for example, the plan of God, the abuletu feu, for example, is very important in Acts. And the word it is necessary is often in Luke and Acts, because it's all planned. And the plan is that salvation will come to the Jews in Jerusalem and it'll go from Jerusalem and the Jews to the rest of the world. And so it's all structured that way.
- [23:20]
Megan Lewis
So based on what you've just said, I think we could maybe make the argument that the author of Luke was a Gentile. Do the books Luke and Acts give us any additional insight into who may have written them?
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Bart Ehrman
Right, so that's the, you know, for this episode, that's the big question, who might have actually written them? You know, if Luke wrote them. One of the interesting consequences of that, in other words, if there was this person, Luke, the gentile physician, I think there was a person like that. Let me just back up a minute. I said that in Colossians Luke is identified as the beloved physician, but I indicated that Paul probably didn't write Colossians. And so it's not clear whether Luke the Beloved physician was a person. But there is an authentic letter of Paul Philemon which also mentions Luke. It doesn't tell us anything about him though. It just uses his name, mentions him as somebody that Paul knew, Luke. And so there's no identifying marker there. So I assume there was a Luke and possibly he was a Gentile. That'd be fine. If that's true though, that would mean that the Gospel of Luke was not written by an eyewitness, it's identified as Luke to connect it with Paul. Just like Mark is not one of the disciples, but he's a companion of Peter. And so when they put the canon together, they chose two books that allegedly were written by disciples of Jesus, Matthew and John, and two that were connected with the two most important apostles, Peter and Paul. So that would mean, you know, with Luke we're not dealing with eyewitness testimony for the Gospel. What can we say about who this person was? I assume he's probably a Gentile. The other thing we know about him is that he's highly literate in Greek. His Greek is among the best in the New Testament in a couple places, especially at the beginning of the Gospel of Luke, he kind of shows off what he can do. The first couple sentences there, the first four verses are really finely structured Greek. That is the kind of Greek that you got to be really well trained to write. And so this is a highly educated, Greek speaking Christian of a later generation. I think that rules out that he could be from Israel. I don't think he was from Israel. We don't have people from Israel at the time writing this kind of thing unless they were named Josephus. He's about the only one we know of. And he said he had trouble with his Greek. Luke doesn't seem to have any trouble. All we can say really is that he's somebody who in some way is connected with Paul. Paul is his hero. He doesn't seem to know Paul. He indicates a couple places that he was with Paul probably so that you would think that he really was with Paul, so that you would really think he knows what he's talking about. Even though whenever he says something about Paul he seems makes mistakes. And so all you can really say is that he's a Gentile follower of Jesus who's connected with Paul living somewhere out there in the Roman Empire, probably in an urban area, but who knows where.
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Megan Lewis
Do the genres of the book offer any additional insight to this?
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Bart Ehrman
The genres are an interesting thing because it's an unusual two volume set. I think most people don't reflect on this. But it is interesting because Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, you know, we call them gospels and that means proclamations of good news. But the things they're most like are ancient biographies. And so in the ancient world, people like Plutarch or Suetonius, we have these authors who wrote biographies of famous people. And sometimes we have biographies of religious, famous religious people. And the Gospel of Luke is more like these Greco Roman biographies of religious people than the other Gospels because he has a miraculous birth. Just like you get miraculous births in biographies of religious people in the Greek and Roman world. Plato or Alexander the Great, they have miraculous births. And also you have these fantastic deaths, things happening at their death where they might like ascend to heaven, which happens in Luke. And so it's more like a Greek and Roman biography than even the other gospels. But the book of Acts is not a biography. It's really more like what experts would call a general history. It's a history that tries to explain where a people come from. And so you can have a history like, you know, the English people or something. This is a history of the Christian people. And so it's a general history. It's a different genre which has different kinds of expectations and ways people do them. But he's made them into, you know, these two different genres in a two volume work, which is pretty interesting and creative. You know, normally if you write a two volume work, it's the same genre, but he couldn't really do the same genre because one of them is about the life and death of Jesus and the other is about the spread of Christianity after his death. So he had to use different genres even though they're closely related thematically.
- [27:57]
Megan Lewis
Would you say that the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts are better works of literature maybe than some of the other books of the canonical
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Bart Ehrman
New Testament in the early church. Some of the intellectuals of early Christianity faced a problem because their pagan opponents would point out, you know, this literature you're touting really isn't very good. Just as literature, it's kind of low class. If you read high level Greek literature, you know right away you're not reading the Gospel of Mark. You know, it is like the sentence structure, the grammar, the style, mainly style is very different. You know, if you read a novel by a, like a senior in college who's a creative writing person, you pretty well know that you're, you know, you're not reading something by, you know, George Eliot or something. You're not, this is not on that level you might be perfectly fine grammatically, but it's not on that level. And early Christians knew this and they actually tried make something of it by pointing out that this just shows just how God was behind these books because they are so powerful and they're overturning so many people's lives, despite the fact that they're not high literature that shows that God's power is working through them. Luke, though, can write better than most of the others. The author of Hebrews also writes well. Most of the others don't write particularly well. They're better constructed. It's better style, better Greek. And so I think it's, in terms of literature, literate quality, it's better, but it's still not at the highest levels.
- [29:25]
Megan Lewis
Thank you very much. We are going to take a very quick break and then we'll be back to hear about an upcoming course.
- [29:33]
Bart Ehrman
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.
- [29:48]
Megan Lewis
We are back. So. But you have a new course, except it's not you this time. It's through your company service. I'm not sure what we're calling it.
- [29:56]
Bart Ehrman
What do we call it?
- [29:58]
Megan Lewis
Educational endeavor. Let's go with that. But this One is by Dr. Jody Magnus. Can you tell us about Dr. Magnus and about the course that she's going to be teaching?
- [30:07]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, so I've done a bunch of these courses now for a couple years. I do, I do about four years, so actually I do about eight a year, but four of them are full, like eight lecture courses. And I call it the Bartiman Professional Services. It's a, you know, know, it's a company that I have that I run. And I'm calling these the Bart Ehrman courses online. And so we have a bunch of these that people can see on my website, bart erman.com and I've done all of these. And the idea when we started this is I just do courses every year, do eight courses, some big, some short. And then it occurred to me, you know, there are a lot of things that are closely related to what I do that I've just. I either can't do or have no interest in doing. And I thought, wouldn't it be fun to produce a course by someone else for the barnarman courses online? One of my first thoughts was, you know, people would love a course on archeology, the Time of Jesus. And as it turns out, one of my Closest colleagues at unc. Jody Magnus is the world expert. She's like one of the top archaeologists of Israel in the world. And she's a fantastic teacher. Like her, she has an endowed professorship at UNC which is a teaching professorship. She got it because she's a good teacher and she's been there for years and years now. But so I thought Jody would be perfect. And she's written books on Jerusalem and on Qumran where they found the Dead Sea Scrolls. And like she's an expert on this stuff. And so I asked Jody, I said, jodi, you want to do a course? And she said yes. So she's going to do a four lecture course that's called Archaeology in the Time of Jesus. And it's going to be great. She's going to have four lectures. One will be Jesus in Galilee where she talks about what's happening in Galilee. Like some people have said Nazareth never existed. Is that true? What do archaeologists know? Some people say that Jesus spent a lot of time in the city of Sephorus. Is that true? Did Sephiroth attract, I mean, and did it affect Jesus thing? And what do we know about cities and Galilee, Capernaum, you're like, what do we know? And she knows what we know. She's going to do something on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the place it was found and what we know about these Dead Sea Scrolls and the whole thing at Qumran. Then she'll move to Jerusalem where Jesus spent his last week and talk about the archaeology of Jerusalem or what we know about it at the time. And finally she's going to do one on death and burial, talking about what we know about burial practices at the time of Jesus in relationship to the accounts of Jesus that we find in the New Testament being buried. So all of this is really incredibly interesting and she's incredibly good. So that's the course and it's coming up soon and so we're looking forward to it.
- [32:40]
Megan Lewis
It is, it sounds wonderful. And for people who are interested in watching live, it will be taking place on March 2nd and 3rd. It's going to be turned into an online course. So if you can't make that weekend, then you can watch it afterwards. So there are four lectures, question and answer session also, and you can get lifetime access to that for $39.95. Again, if you can't attend live, that price will get you access to the course for the rest of your life. So if you want to watch it like five times, you absolutely should, because I think there'll probably be enough material to keep you going for that long. And you can sign up@buterman.com timeofjesus and as always, you can use the code mjpodcast for a discount on that course prize. And now we're going to go to some listeners Questions.
- [33:30]
Bart Ehrman
Now it's time for Questions Questions from listeners where Barthes answers real questions submitted by misquoting Jesus fans. If you'd like to submit a question for future segments, please visit barterman.com Ask Bart
- [33:48]
Megan Lewis
okay, we are opening with a question about Luke. The questioner says, In Luke chapter 9, verse 27, Jesus says to his disciples, but I tell you truthfully, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God. However, in Luke 23:43, Jesus says to a criminal on the cross, truly, I tell you today you will be with me in paradise. Assuming that paradise is heaven. Don't these statements contradict how come this non divine criminal gets to go to heaven? And why should he get there immediately when his disciples have to wait a couple of decades?
- [34:24]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, right. Okay. It's a complicated question. It would take a long time to unpack. But one thing I'll point out is. Yeah, okay, so in Luke, Jesus tells his disciples they'll see the kingdom of God coming in Luke's Gospel, in some sense, the kingdom of God is already present in Jesus ministry. You find this hinted at in Mark, for example, but it's really put out in Luke's gospel where, for example, in chapter 17, Jesus says that the kingdom of God is among you. And Jesus indicates that the things he's doing reveals that the kingdom of God is making its appearance here on earth when he's being crucified. You know, this passage is only in Luke, he tells this crucified man, today. The man says, lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus says, truly, I tell you today you will be with me in paradise. The idea is that when they die, they'll go to the heavenly realm, you know, and so that they'll be rewarded that way. I think the idea is that for Luke, and only in Luke, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the idea is that when. Well, maybe John, but in Matthew, Mark, you don't get this. In Luke, when you die, if you're a follower of Jesus, you go into paradise. When the kingdom of God comes, that's paradise on earth. And so there's an interim period between people dying and going to paradise and paradise coming to earth. The kingdom of God will be lived out here on earth. But in the meantime, followers of Jesus go to heaven.
- [36:01]
Megan Lewis
Thank you very much. Next question. I was told that the Greek word staros originally meant an upright, stake or pole and it was only associated with the cross through later tradition. Is there any truth to that? And if so, does that mean we can definitively say that Jesus died on a stake and not on a cross?
- [36:18]
Bart Ehrman
I'd say the answer is no. We can't definitively say that the word stauros means both things. It's pretty clear when you read descriptions of Roman crucifixion that the thing they're being nailed to is an upright with a cross beam. The earliest references to the thing itself, to the cross in the Christian tradition are early Christian writers who, you know, Justin lives in Rome. I'm sure he's seen crucifixions. And what they liken it to is what we would think of as a small T letter T, because they. And even before Justin, Barnabas, the Epistle Barnabas, which almost made it into the New Testament, likens the cross to Moses standing with his arms reached out on either side, extended on either side, that that represents the cross of Jesus. And Barnabas says that the tau, the letter Tao, the Greek letter tao, which looks like our T represents the cross of Jesus. And then you get that in just. And then you get it on. And so these knew about crucifixion always talked about the stauros like a T. And so staurus can mean stake, but when it involves crucifixion, I think it always involves a stake with a crossbeam.
- [37:33]
Megan Lewis
Thank you. The earliest account of resurrection appearances is in first Corinthians. Even though Paul says that first Peter, then the 12 saw the resurrected Christ, the book of Acts has Matthias replacing Judas only after the appearances were over. How do reputable scholars deal with this discrepancy?
- [37:51]
Bart Ehrman
So the discrepancy this person's asking about is that Paul says that Jesus appeared to the 12, and according to both Matthew and the book of Acts, Judas was dead. So there aren't 12 now there are 11. And Matthias becomes the 12th after Jesus appears to the disciples. And so why does Paul say he appeared to the 12? Really good question. And there are a couple of standard answers that people, that scholars make. One answer is that Paul doesn't know about the death of Judas. I'm rather inclined to that view myself, frankly. The only places it's mentioned that Judas killed himself are Matthew and Acts. And their two accounts are really contradictory. If you want an interesting exercise, just like to do in Your spare time on a Friday night. Take Matthew's account, which is like one verse of Judas dying, and then the account in Acts, and compare them carefully and try to figure out what. Whether you can reconcile them. Good luck with that one. So, you know, I don't know that Paul, writing 20, 30 years before either one of those, even knew about the death of Jesus. So maybe he thought there were 12, I don't know. The other answer that people sometimes give, which is also attractive, is that the 12 is a technical term that doesn't mean they're necessarily 12 of them. It's just the way people referred to the 12 disciples of Jesus, probably because he originally chose 12. But even after there were 12, they're still called the 12. And you think, yeah, that's not plausible, really, is it? Do you really call them the 12 if there are 11 of them? Well, okay, Think about college football leagues. The Big Ten has 16 teams in. Used to be 10 teams, they added teams. Now it's 16. They don't call it the Big 16, they call it Big Ten. Why? Just because that's the name. And so it's like that with the disciples, I think.
- [39:35]
Megan Lewis
Thank you. In ancient times, there were many different pantheons of gods, and they all seemed to coexist quite well. People were able to find similarities between pantheons or even equate them on a certain level. Today we have a world with three major Abrahamic religions and their various factions essentially worshipping the same God. But they don't get along. Why did it work so well with gods of so many different pantheons? But it doesn't work when you're only dealing with the one God.
- [40:01]
Bart Ehrman
Okay, yeah, good question. The idea of it not working well with the one God really goes back to Christianity, Judaism. Of course, Jews worshiped just their God, Yahweh, the God of Israel, but they didn't insist anybody else do that. They weren't evangelistic or trying to convert people. They had their own religion. You've got your religions, okay, we don't think you're right, but whatever, that's your problem. And they didn't really believe in an afterlife. And so it wasn't like you're going to go to hell for it. It's just we have our God and we have our customs and we're our own people. And so they worshiped one God. The Christians came along and they thought their God was for everybody, and Jew and Gentile, as in the Book of Acts. And if it's one God for everyone, then that one God is the true God. The Christians insisted that the other gods are not really gods and they weren't to be worshiped, and that if you did, you were disobeying the one God who wanted you to worship him. And so they became exclusivistic early on. Right away, I think almost right away, they became exclusivistic. Islam picked it up from Christianity so that today all three religions, well, Islam and Christianity are especially exclusivistic because they both insist that if you don't accept the worship of our God, you are going to be punished. Most Jews don't really believe in an afterlife, and so it isn't quite like that, but they still insist on their own worship. I mean, Orthodox Jews are really kind of a different kettle of fish. So why doesn't get along? Because Christianity introduced exclusivism into the world, and monotheistic religions are more inclined toward exclusivism. Because there's only one option. If there are lots of options. Take your pick. But if there's only one option, you got to pick that option.
- [41:41]
Megan Lewis
Thank you. One final question before we wrap up. In chapter five of the Book of Acts, Ananias and Sapphira sell some land to the poor. During the early days of the church in Jerusalem, Ananias laid the proceedings at Peter's feet and promised that this was all of the money that was a lie. And. And soon both of them dropped dead. This seems to be a very Old Testament type of God treatment for sin rather than following the teachings of Jesus. Do you believe that this was just a teaching moment for the church, or is this representing something that actually happened?
- [42:12]
Bart Ehrman
I don't think it's something happened, no. I think it is consistent with the teachings of the Book of Acts generally that God is very active in the Christian movement and that God has rules and you need to keep them. The idea that the Old Testament God is the only one who is concerned about people following his law and keeping his law and not breaking his law and will punish those who don't. It's not really quite true. I mean, Jesus also talks about people being punished for their sins. And throughout the New Testament, people get punished for their sins. The Apostle Paul talked about people in Corinth who don't observe the Lord's Supper properly. It's just like they're not sharing their food enough. So God kills them. And the Book of Revelation, of course, the entire world goes down. So it isn't just an Old Testament, New Testament thing. But I don't think Jesus, who knows what Jesus really would have said, but Jesus was teaching more the idea of forgiveness and such. The thing is, Ananias and Sapphira didn't ask for forgiveness. They just lied. And so Peter, through the power of God, zaps them both. It's kind of one of these things in Acts where you're saying, yeah, you don't want to cross Jesus because that's bad. So don't tell lies.
- [43:25]
Megan Lewis
Not a good life choice there.
- [43:26]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah.
- [43:27]
Megan Lewis
Well, thank you so much, Bart. Thank you, everybody, for your questions. Now, Bart, before we finish up for the week, would you mind just summarizing what we spoke about today?
- [43:35]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah. So we're talking about the author of the Gospel of Luke in the Book of Acts. It's almost certainly the same author, and traditionally he's been called Luke, thought to be the Gentile physician who was a companion to Paul. We talked about all of that. He probably was a Gentile, but we don't know who he was. He doesn't identify himself. And there are very good reasons for thinking he was not a companion of Paul, let alone the specific companion of Paul. It actually matters a bit because it matters a lot, especially for the Book of Acts. Because if the Book of Acts is recording what Paul said it did, and an authority writing this was with Paul for chunks of his ministry, then you know, that would be good. That'd be good. But it appears that that's not the case.
- [44:17]
Megan Lewis
Thank you very much, audience. Thank you all for listening. I hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, please subscribe to the podcast to make sure you don't miss future episodes. Remember that you can use the code mjpodcast for a discount on all of Barth's courses over at www.bartehrman.com. that includes the upcoming course with Jodi Magnus about archaeology, the Time of Jesus. Misquoting Jesus will be back next week. Bart, what are you going to be talking about next time? Because I will not be here.
- [44:45]
Bart Ehrman
I will be talking with Jodi Magnus, my colleague. We get along great. We've done a lot of speaking things together. We have lots of disagreements. They're very heated because we both love to argue. But I'm not going to argue with her about archeology because I'm telling you, she's the world expert. So I'm going to be interviewing her about this course and finding out what she's going to be talking about. It's going to be great.
- [45:05]
Megan Lewis
That sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun. Make sure to join Bart and Jodi then thank you all and goodbye.
- [45:14]
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.