← Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman
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- [00:00]
Podcast Host/Announcer
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Megan Lewis
Jesus has been seen as fulfilling various prophecies from the Old Testament for an extremely long time. It's one of the reasons that we know he's the Son of God and not just a wandering preacher who got a little too big for his boots. The Book of Isaiah is often pointed to as one of those that predicts the arrival and subsequent suffering of Jesus. But scholars have a very different understanding of the book, one that's firmly rooted in the purpose of Hebrew prophecies. Stay tuned for that and much more.
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Podcast Intro/Outro Narrator
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.
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Megan Lewis
So does the Book of Isaiah actually predict the coming and suffering of Jesus as many Christians believe? Or is it talking about something else entirely? Here to answer, as always, the wonderful Bart Ehrman. But before that, Bart, how are you doing today?
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Bart Ehrman
Doing well, thanks. Moving solidly into summer. When this is playing, I will be be in England where it's not hot and humid as it probably is in Maryland.
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Megan Lewis
If you're lucky, it will be mildly warm.
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Bart Ehrman
Yes. Right. How are you?
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Megan Lewis
Okay. And every time I mention the weather, someone in the comments tells me that I should move to Florida. There's a reason I don't live in Florida, or really any further south than Maryland. And that reason is that I grew up in a country that very rarely hits 41 degrees Celsius and rains statistically every other day. So I am not built for the heat.
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Bart Ehrman
Yeah, you know, I have friends who live in Phoenix and I don't get it. I just don't get it. It's hot. It's really hot. But Florida? Really? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
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Megan Lewis
No, I wanted to ask you. We've talked about the blog a couple of times before, but I wanted to kind of touch base. I Guess and see how everything is going with that and what kinds of things you've been writing about lately.
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Bart Ehrman
Well, you know, it's going great. The blog was one of my first attempts actually to reach a wider audience with the kind of biblical scholarship that I do. I started this thing in 2012 and I've posted five to six times a week, every week. I've never missed a week. And people write comments and you can read the comments and I, I answer questions and it's like it's going on for like, you know, 12 and a half years almost now. And you know, the whole point of it is to raise money for charity. People have a small membership fee. I mean, it's kind of pathetically small. I mean, and if people can't afford it, I just give it to them. People write me. So they want to be on. They can't afford. I. But the whole point is to raise money for charity because I don't, I keep zero at the money. And for the first eight years I paid for the whole thing myself. I mean, I guess this is not a profit making endeavor. I think I might have said earlier. The last couple years we've been making about donating charities about $500,000 a year.
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Megan Lewis
That's amazing.
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Bart Ehrman
Yeah, it's, it's some serious money and it deals with the stuff we're doing here on the podcast. You know, just like all of these topics we're doing on the podcast, I post on all the time. You know, I've got thousands of posts that I've written for this thing and so if people don't know it, they should check it out. Just check out Bart Ehrman blog and they'll find it and can see about joining. There are different levels of membership. So like for example, I'm in England when this is being played and usually when I travel, I ask if people are around, let's have dinner. And so like I do a blog dinner, there'd be like eight or nine people come and we hang out and have a nice meal and they all meet each other and talk about blog stuff. And so, yeah, historical Jesus or the New Testament of Paul or apocryphal gospels or persecutions of Christians or women in the church, whatever, like a millions of things. It's nice because it reaches out to a lot of people like the podcast does, but in writing and for a different purpose. It's to raise money for charity.
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Megan Lewis
It's got a really useful search function as well, because I'm a member and I use it when I'M doing my research and I need a quick hint on where your thinking lies with certain topics. And you can just type in whatever it is you're wanting to know more about into the search bar and it'll spit out a selection of posts for you to go and read.
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Bart Ehrman
I use that all the time myself because, like, I think I want to write about, like, the second Isaiah, talk about Jesus. Wait, did I do that one already? Oh, God, I did it. I did it three months ago.
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Megan Lewis
Oh, and if people aren't sure whether they're interested, each blog entry has a paragraph or so that you can read for free. So you can always go and take a look and see if it's something that, that you would be interested in reading. But the entries are very easily understood. You don't need to be an academic to get what's being said. They're just, they're really fun. I'm enjoying.
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Bart Ehrman
Well, thanks. It's really written for a general audience. It's an unusual model, you know, to charge for a blog, but it's. It works. It's somebody else's ideas gave me the idea and I thought, okay, I'll try it. And yeah, going strong.
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Megan Lewis
It's an excellent resource. We should shift gears and move over into the Book of Isaiah. Now, why do you think it's important to look at whether the Book of Isaiah bears any relationship to Jesus?
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Bart Ehrman
Well, it's certainly quoted a lot to talk about Jesus and has been from the days of early Christianity. Already in the New Testament, the Book of Isaiah is quoted. I didn't count it up. It's probably next to the Psalms. It might be the most quoted book of the, of the Old Testament. In the New Testament, Jesus is shown quoting the Book of Isaiah, especially in the Gospel of Luke, for example. But, you know, as Christianity went on, Christian apologists started using the Book of Isaiah as proof that Jesus was the fulfillment of these prophecies. Isaiah was thought to have been written back in the 8th century BCE going back to Justin Martyr in the middle of the second century. You have Christians saying, we have these predictions hundreds of years and Jesus fulfilled them. Listen to this. It's talking about Jesus. And so it's always been an important book and continues to be for Christian understandings of Jesus today.
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Megan Lewis
So what can you tell us about the book itself? When and where was it written? And what kinds of things does it describe?
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Bart Ehrman
I think one of the frustrating things for scholars when it comes to how people understand the Book of Isaiah today is that very few people think about it. As a book written in a particular time and a particular place for a particular reason. Scholars are very big on thinking that context matters for something and that you can't just take a verse out and apply it to something. You've got to see what the author's trying to say, and you can't see it unless you put it in its context. So Isaiah is one of the. It's a long prophet, it's a long book, 66 chapters. It's called, in English Bibles, is usually called one of the major prophets, the first of the major prophets in the Old Testament. And we're lucky in this case because the author begins by dating himself. He didn't say he lived in the 8th century BCE because they didn't have our calendar yet, but he tells us that his prophetic ministry was in the southern part of Israel. And he names four kings that he was prophesying during their reign. And since we know when these kings were ruling, we know when he was writing, it's usually thought that he started prophesying in the year 738 BCE and he had a ministry that went on for about 40 years. And so since we know things that were going on in that period, and since we know what he himself says, a lot of his book is about stuff happening at his time and he's dealing with issues coming about in his time, then we have a pretty good sense of what he means in his context, as opposed to ripping him out and thinking he's talking about something else.
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Megan Lewis
Why do scholars think the book of Isaiah was written? And what kind of purpose would it have served in its community?
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Bart Ehrman
One of the complications with Isaiah in particular is that scholars, for a long time, since the 19th century at least, have realized that this book that we now have, that we Call Isaiah, the 66 chapter book, actually appears to be three different books that have been combined. Three different books written by three different authors at three different times. And so scholars talk about first Isaiah, second Isaiah and third Isaiah. And the idea, as we'll see in a minute, is that the first 39 chapters, most of those seem to go back to this person from 738 for the 40 years they call him Isaiah of Jerusalem. Second Isaiah appears been written by somebody about 150 years later, third Isaiah from some decades maybe after that. There's coherence among these three sections. The three authors had very similar conceptions of God and God's relationship to his people and what God expected of his people. And so there's coherence. But there's also clearly different situations that they're writing in. The same person could not have been writing. When First Isaiah is presupposing a situation where the nation of Assyria was on the prowl and was threatening to destroy the southern kingdom of Judah. And Second Isaiah is presupposing a situ that was. That was in the like in the 720s is when that ends up happening in second Isaiah. The next book is presupposes that Babylon has already destroyed Judah, which happened 150 years after that. So he's got to be writing after 586. All of these books are written in context of stress for the nation, all three. And all of them are addressing what God wants them to do in this situation. Particularly God wants people to turn the first part. God wants them to turn back to him because he's threatening them with disaster if they don't turn back to him.
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Megan Lewis
How would it have been used when it was written? Would it have been read for instructional purposes to provide some kind of comfort and solace? What function would it had?
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Bart Ehrman
Boy, I wish we knew. I mean, because we don't have records of how these books were being used at the time. The vast majority of people living in Judah, for people who don't know, by this time, after King Solomon in the 900s BCE, the nation of Israel is divided into two countries, Israel in the north and Judah in the south. And so they both had people in them who we would call Israelites or Jews. But there are two different countries, two different kings. There were sometimes at war with each other. So it wasn't just a harmonious thing. And Isaiah is in the southern part in Judah. Most people in both places would have been completely illiterate. They would not have been able to read. And most of what going into this book appears to have been oral proclamations that the author had. At least they're presented as oral proclamations that then get written down. And so how were they being used? We don't really know because we don't have any records of what liturgical life was like, substantial enough to know how this would have been used. It definitely was preserved. Somebody was copying it. And so we have copies of Isaiah that came down over the years. He meant it as a direct message to the people of Judah, trying to tell them how they needed to live in order to be pleasing to God in First Isaiah to avoid this coming disaster.
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Megan Lewis
Thank you. We're going to take a very quick AD break. We'll be right back to talk about why Isaiah has been important for Christian communities and look at some of the language used in there and see is this actually talking about Jesus or is something else going on there?
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Podcast Intro/Outro Narrator
Jesus and Paul are the two most important figures in the history of Christianity. But did they even agree with one another? Join acclaimed scholar Bart Ehrman in his online course Paul and the Great Divide, where you'll dive deep into the complex relationship between Paul and Jesus explorer their differing views on crucial issues and uncover the profound impact of their teachings on the early Christian faith. In this eight lesson course, you'll gain valuable insights into the historical context of Jesus and Paul's beliefs, their views on salvation and their understanding of the Jewish law. Don't miss out on this unique opportunity to enrich your understanding of these influential figures. Visit Paul bart ehrman.com Paul to learn more or sign up today and remember to use discount code mjpodcast for a special offer. Once again, that's barturman.com Paul with a discount code mjpodcast okay, so obviously looking
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Megan Lewis
at the context of the original book is incredibly important. And probably just as obviously a lot of people don't consider the context when they're using it. So why then has the book of Isaiah been important throughout Christianity to Christian communities?
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Bart Ehrman
I would say that, you know, people don't know about first Isaiah, second Isaiah, third Isaiah. The parts of Isaiah that have been most important for Christians are ones that Christians have thought are referring to the coming of Jesus. And these are scattered mainly some parts in first Isaiah and then a lot in second Isaiah that are used this way as prophecies, what Jesus would be. And so the most famous one probably occurs in chapter seven where this is Isaiah of Jerusalem who is trying to explain to the king, king Ahaz, that the military threat that he's under is not going to materialize and that his nation will be fine. The situation is that the northern part of Israel has joined up. There are two nations that are trying to get Judah to join them in a coalition to stand against the Assyrians who are coming in and they want to have a unified military to withstand the assault. The king of Judah, Ahaz, doesn't want to get involved with this and so they're attacking him to force him his hand. So basically Jerusalem is under siege and Ahaz is really worried. And so he calls in Isaiah the prophet to find out what he's supposed to do. And Isaiah predicts that, you see this woman here, she's pregnant. Before the child is born and able to recognize the difference between good and evil, these kingdoms will have dispersed and so you'll be fine. And that's what ends up happening. Christians take this passage, especially verse 14 of chapter 7, where Isaiah says, a young woman is conceived and she will bear a son. And when he's old enough, you know, he does it like that. But it's quoted in Matthew, as a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call him his name, Immanuel. And so Christians from the time of the second century took this as a prediction of Jesus. So you have that kind of thing, predictions in Isaiah that maybe talk about it seem to be talking about a future son of David who would rule. And people say, well, that's Jesus. The main thing, though, is a chapter we'll probably spend more time on, which is the part of second Isaiah. And so just to make sure people understand this, first Isaiah is written like in say around the year 700, roughly, for the nation of Judah before Assyria wiped out the northern kingdom Israel. Assyria did not wipe out Judah, as it turns out, but 150 years later, the Babylonians who took over the area became a world empire, did destroy Jerusalem. And second Isaiah is written after that. And that has passages especially that Christians have always said. We're talking about Jesus.
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Megan Lewis
I actually wanted to read a passage from 2nd Isaiah. It's 533 6. Just so people can kind of get a feel for the language that we're talking about. He was despised and rejected by others. A man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity. And as one from whom others hid their faces, he was despised, and we held him of no account. Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases. Yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the punishment that made us whole. And by his bruises we are healed all we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Now, as someone who's sat through numerous church services, this language is very Jesus adjacent. What is the right actually talking about here?
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Bart Ehrman
I'll tell you, it is impossible for a Christian to read that and not thank Jesus. It cannot be done. I mean, it just can't be done because it's so deeply ingrained in us that this is a prediction of the suffering Messiah and that this is talking about the one who's going to be executed for the sins of others. He's wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. I mean, boy, it's Jesus. And so I get that. I was raised that way, too. And I understand that historical scholars think it's important to read any book and any passage of any book in its own context to try and understand what it's talking about. And a very big issue for the interpretation of this passage is, is it talking about a future figure, a messiah who is going to suffer and die for the sins of others? That's how Christians have always taken it. And the question is, if you put this part of Isaiah, second Isaiah, in its historical context, is it making a Messianic prediction? There's nothing supernatural about Messianic prediction itself. In other words, there's no reason why somebody living in the sixth century after Judah's been destroyed, there's no reason that he can't predict there's going to be a messiah come to die for the sins of the world. There's no reason he couldn't predict that. And so the question is, is that what Isaiah is talking about or not? And how do we know?
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Megan Lewis
So question is that what is going on and how do we assess really what's. What's being talked about?
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Bart Ehrman
There are several things to pay close attention to if you want to know what the author is saying. Now, if you don't care what the author had in mind, but you think it's, you know, God is predicting something later. Okay. But if you're interested in what the author really was thinking about and what he had in mind, there are a couple things to notice about this. First of all, when you read this entire section, it begins the last couple verses of chapter 52, and then it goes through all of chapter 53 of Isaiah. There's no mention of a Messiah. He doesn't call this person a messiah. He doesn't call him a son of David, doesn't call him a future king. He doesn't use Messianic language for this person. This is a reference. He does use the term servant. This is the servant of the Lord. And so he's talking about somebody named the servant that he calls the servant of the Lord, does not call him a Messiah. So those are two things to notice. A third thing to notice is that he, in three other passages of second Isaiah, also talks about the servant of the Lord. So there are four passages. They're called the four songs of the servant or the four servant songs of Isaiah. They're all talking about the same figure. Okay? So that's important to note. It's Especially important because in two of those passages he tells you who it is, so that matters.
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Megan Lewis
Is it Jesus?
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Bart Ehrman
He does not mention Jesus. I suppose some translations probably do, but no, Jesus does not appear there at all. But the other thing that I'll notice, we'll get back to who he identifies him as. But the other thing we'll get back to is that if you look at the passage closely, he is not predicting that this person is going to suffer. He's saying that the person has suffered, the suffering has already happened. He's predicting that the person who has suffered is going to be vindicated. Okay. So if you bear those things in mind, that helps you a lot to figure out what he's trying to talk about.
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Megan Lewis
So it's not a prediction of future suffering. It is an account of suffering that has happened. And it's suffering that has happened to a person who is named elsewhere in Isaiah. What is going on?
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Bart Ehrman
So the context is everything. I indicated that this comes after the Babylonian destruction. Somebody can see this pretty easily if they. Well, it would take reading through Isaiah, which maybe isn't easy, so, but. But it's not hard. It's just, you know, people who want to read the Bible, you know, this is part of the Bible and it's a fantastic book, by the way. Isaiah is a really, really good book. It is very powerful. The imagery is stunning. And if you pay close attention, what I say, it is a. It's a. One of the great books of the Bible. So this should not be a hard task. But if you read the first 39 chapters, you see that the author is basically talking about how people need to turn back to God, otherwise they're going to be judged. And then all of a sudden in chapter 40, in chapter 40, he starts on a completely different note. Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people. You know, which Handel's Messiah where he's trying to comfort people because they've already suffered and he's trying to tell them that the nation has been wiped out and the leaders of the people have been taken into exile into Babylon and God is going to allow them to return from their exile to Babylon. He's going to make the mountains into plains and he's going to make the paths straight. And he's going to prepare a way for the people to come back to their nation and re establish themselves as the people of God in Judah again. So chapters 40 through 55 are about that, about how God now is going to. They've suffered for their sins and now God's going to restore them and so just read it. That's what it's about. And so the question is, what's the servant? Because the servant is in the middle of all that. And so two of the passages of the suffering servant songs are chapter 44, chapter 49. They also have songs about the servant. And both of those, the author tells us who it is. Chapter 49, verse 3 is the closest, the clearest. I mean, they all identify, but the absolute clearest at chapter 49, verse three. Just read it. You are my servant, O Israel. Whoa, wait, what? Israel? Yeah, Israel, the people of God are the servant of God who have suffered and now are going to be vindicated. That raises a lot of questions. I bet you have some of them.
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Megan Lewis
I do, I do. So if the servant is Israel and is the nation of Israel, who is responsible for the sins that are talked about, the punishment that makes them whole? Who are the them or the US in that passage?
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Bart Ehrman
I think one of the big problems in the Bible is being able to deal with the imagery that's used. The problem with using imagery, with using metaphor, with using symbol, is that these things can never translate into some kind of literal language that makes sense as literal language. Even on the level if you say, with the sun sets tonight, sun sets at 7:49 tonight. And somebody says, well, in what sense does it set? You know, because in fact, you know. You know, I understand what you're saying, but it doesn't really make sense, literally, does it? You know, you say, no, it doesn't make sense. It's, you know, I'm just saying it's the sun setting at 7:49. You know, it's like. And so it's like that with metaphor. Generally, if you put this in literal language, it's hard to kind of get your mind around the people, the leaders of Judah, the aristocrats, the wealthy folk, the people who are in power, they have been taken away from their nation and sent to Babylon. They're living in a different country, in a different city, and they're really miserable about it. They want to get back home and, you know, restart their lives now that the nation's destroyed. The temple was destroyed, Jerusalem was wiped out. There's no nation there, there's no king. And they're horrified at what has happened because according to first Isaiah, they had sinned, and, you know, God punishes them. What this is saying, what this appears to be saying, is that the people have suffered for their sins. The nation of Israel suffered. And now those who have been suffering off in Babylon are going to be brought back. And so the servant has suffered and it will be restored. It sounds like it's saying one group has suffered and another group's going to be vindicated. And it kind of is saying that, but it's also saying that the nation as a whole has suffered and now is going to be vindicated.
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Megan Lewis
I see. Thank you. Now, as, as a Jewish man, Jesus, I assume would be familiar with these passages from Isaiah. Is he likely to have seen himself as some kind of fulfillment of this prophecy even though it's not really a prophecy because it's something that happened already? Or would he have understood it in its original context?
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Bart Ehrman
So the first thing to say is that we don't know of any Jews prior to Christianity who thought that this passage was talking about a future Messiah. This comes as a big shock to people because they just assumed the Jews were expecting a suffering Messiah. Or you know, with my students, my undergraduates read this, they don't understand why Jews don't believe in Jesus. I mean it's right there in Isaiah 53.
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Megan Lewis
I mean, how it is right there.
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Bart Ehrman
He's predicted, can't they read, are Jews like stupid? Are they so hard hearted they can't even see what their own scripture says? You know, and so because it's sure it's Jesus. And so, but, but it's a very important point. We do have Discussions of Isaiah 53. No Jew thought this was referring to a future Messiah. And so that would be point one, which would suggest that probably Jesus wouldn't have either. We don't know that Jesus ever quoted this passage. Some conservative theologians would say that Jesus saw himself as the suffering Messiah and that he knew he had to be crucified because that's was going to happen to the suffering Messiah. And I would say that's interpreting the book of Isaiah through a faith claim. It's interpreting this through theology instead of just reading what it has to say and realizing that Jews weren't saying this about the passage. Could Jesus have thought this about himself? Sure, it's possible. I mean, he could have thought anything about it. We don't know what was in his mind. The historical Jesus does not appear to have thought that. In the Gospels Jesus says he has to be crucified. But the historical Jesus I don't think expected he was going to get crucified. He was expecting God was going to bring his kingdom soon. And so I definitely don't think that the historical Jesus ever thought this applied to him. He may have thought that he was the final prophet sent from God, but he was sent to give a proclamation. He wasn't sent to be crucified for Jesus.
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Megan Lewis
So since prophecies in the Hebrew Bible were so tied into current events, as you've explained to us, I think very clearly how the book of Isaiah relates to the time in which it was written or the times in which they were written, how did it come to be so important to Christian communities as foretelling Jesus hundreds of years later?
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Bart Ehrman
You know, the problem that the early Christians had after Jesus death is one we've talked about several times on the podcast, which is that they weren't expecting Jesus to die because they thought he was the Messiah. And nobody thought the Messiah was going to suffer and die. And so this was not a Jewish expectation. The Messiah is going to be a great figure of power and grandeur who destroys the enemy and wipes them out and rules Israel as a sovereign state, and the other nations will serve Israel. And so that's what the Messiah is going to be. The idea that a Messiah was going to be crucified made not just zero sense. It was like, nonsense. That's why most Jews never did, you know, accept Jesus. He's not the Messiah by definition. The followers of Jesus during his lifetime thought that Jesus might be the Messiah. He was executed. They thought, I guess we were wrong. And then they came to believe he was raised from the dead. Once he was raised from the dead, they came to think we were right. He is the Messiah. But how could he be the Messiah? Wait a second. He hasn't done what the Messiah is supposed to do, but he obviously is the Messiah. So they did two things. One thing is they said he's the future king who's going to wipe out the enemy. So the Messiah is coming twice. There are two Advents. And so by the second century, they talk about the two Advents, the two comings of Christ, once in suffering, once in glory. And that continues to be a Christian teaching today. The other thing is they thought, well, he must have died according to God's plan. Well, I don't remember that part of God's plan. And they start looking through the Bible to figure out, are there passages that were predicting this. We just misunderstood. And this would be one of those passages. They read this, and all of a sudden they thought, whoa, this is talking about somebody who serves God, the servant of God who suffers for the sake of others. And now we know that the Messiah was crucified for our sins. He's someone who suffered for others. And once they said that, they latched onto this thing and it became what the passage meant. So much so that, as I said, Christians can't read the passage without thanking Jesus because of the shifted interpretation after Jesus death.
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Megan Lewis
So are Christians today wrong, do you think, to view the Bible as predicting Jesus?
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Bart Ehrman
Well, it kind of depends on what it means to be wrong about something. The Bible, like any book, can be used for many purposes. I mean, literally many purposes. You can use it as a doorstop if you want to. I mean, you can use it as a booster seat for your child if you want to. You can use it for all sorts of things, but in terms of its content, you know, you can open your Bible at random and put your finger down on a verse and, you know, wonder what God is trying to teach you today. You can use it that way. You can read the Bible for what does this have to say about how I ought to live? Or what should I do in this particular situation? You might turn to the Bible or I'm feeling very sad. What would the Bible do to help me with that? Or I want to know how to have eternal life and the Bible might help me. There are all sorts of ways to read the Bible. One way to read it is historically to understand what the authors wanted to say or what they actually did say. What are the texts saying? And if you use the Bible for that, then it would be inappropriate to say that the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, is predicting Jesus. These authors were not thinking about Jesus. They were thinking about situations in their own day. Does that mean that it's wrong for Christians to think about the Bible that way? No, it's not wrong. That would not be a historical reading of the Bible. It would not be trying to see what the author's trying to say. It would be engaging in a religious exercise, a theological exercise that for many Christians. Christians, is very positive, which is that you, even if you recognize that this Isaiah is not talking about a future Messiah, still for you, the Bible is a book that somehow or other conveys the word of God and somehow God communicates to you through the Bible. Reading the Bible that way could enrich your understanding of how the Bible works as not just historically contingent, but also as of relevance for the whole plan of God's salvation and of relevance for you today. I'm not saying that it's an incorrect reading. In general, it's an incorrect reading if you're interested in knowing what it actually meant. If you want to know what it actually means for you, then a historical reading isn't your only guidance. There are other things you can do to figure out how it's relevant for you. So I do think it's incorrect historically and it's not how I teach, how the Bible should be read. You know, I'm not teaching in a church. I'm teaching in a secular university and in a church setting. It's a very different setting. But you need to realize what you're doing. You really shouldn't be saying Isaiah meant that because he did not mean that. He really did not mean that. But if you want to say that this is like how you're understanding. It's like interpreting an Emily Dickinson poem or something. She might be saying something different from what you're thinking, but like this is how it's meaningful for you. Meaning comes in all sorts of ways, and history is not the only one. But I think history is an important way for us to acquire meaning.
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Megan Lewis
Thank you so much, Bart. We are going now to go to some news on upcoming events and after that we have our bonus section. And this week we are listening to more listeners questions.
- [32:56]
Podcast Host/Announcer
This is bart's weekly update where we get to catch up on all the latest about Dr. Ehrman's book releases, speaking engagements, early and blog.org happenings and online course launches.
- [33:11]
Megan Lewis
So, Bart, the New Insights into New Testament Conference is fast approaching. How are you feeling about that?
- [33:18]
Bart Ehrman
Well, I'm feeling great about it. I mean, it's a lot of our listeners would have known about this conference. We did it last year, New Insights into the New Testament. They can see it on my website@bartehrman.com. we had 10 scholars give 10 papers on the Gospels and with Q and A for each one of them. It was fantastic. Two days. It was really good. These are really good scholars who knew what to do, how to present to general audiences. And yeah, it went so well. We're doing it again this year. But it's about the Apostle Paul. It's still a couple months away. We're going to be doing it in in September, but we're we're gearing up for it. And it's about the life and writings of Paul. And we've gathered together an impressive group of scholars, really, some from last year and others new ones that are it's a really nice array of speakers who have very interesting insights into the Apostle Paul. So everyone's talking to each other, trying to figure out what they're going to be, you know, what the different talks are going to be on because, you know, we don't want the same lecture each time. These are internationally known scholars who are able to talk to a popular audience about things that really matter. It's been interesting to me here on the podcast that when we have episodes on Paul, there's like a heightened interest. And so this is going to be this entire conference on. So I really think this is going to be great. And so, so we're going to give more information on it as time goes on, but we're getting pumped for it already.
- [34:37]
Megan Lewis
It's going to be fun. And like Bart said, we'll have more information and there will be definitely more information on the website as it comes out. We are now going to go to our final segment of the day, our Listeners Questions.
- [34:52]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Now it's time for questions from listeners where Bart answers real questions submitted by by misquoting Jesus fans. If you'd like to submit a question for future segments, Please visit bart erman.com Ask Bart
- [35:10]
Megan Lewis
okay, first up, are there any pseudonymous writings in the name of Jesus?
- [35:15]
Bart Ehrman
Oh, now that's a great question. Not sure. I've gotten that one very often. Yes, but not many in the New Background in the New Testament, Jesus is never said to write anything except in the story of the woman taken in adultery, where he writes on the ground. He actually writes something. It's the word for writing, so it's not doodling or something. But that story was not originally in the New Testament. It's a later edition. So we do have apocryphal accounts of Jesus writing. One account is a I'm not sure if you'd count this as an apocrypha or not, but there's one of the apocryphal gospels where Jesus is hanging on the cross and he dictates a letter to the cherubim up in heaven to tell them the robber next to him that he said, today you'll be with me in paradise. Jesus dictates this letter for the cherubim up in heaven to let the guy in. So that's good. We actually do have a letter from Jesus, though, that people don't know about. You can read this in my book, the Other Gospels, where I translated it from the Greek. And it's a situation where there's a king in the city of Edessa in Syria who is very ill during Jesus ministry. This king is very sick and he's heard that Jesus can heal people. And he writes Jesus and says, jesus, you know, I've heard about you. I'm very ill. Could you come and heal me? And Jesus gets the letter and he writes a letter back that we have where he says, you know, dear, dear, you know King Abgar, this is his name, King Abgar. I'm sorry I'm not able to come. I've got basically, I've got a busy schedule. I've got to go to Jerusalem to get crucified is what he says. You know, I'm on my way to my. So I'm sorry I can't come. But after I die, I'll send one of my disciples to you who will heal you. And that's what happens. He sends one of his. Jesus dies. So we have the letter and then in the story that follows, one of Jesus disciples goes and heals Abgar and the whole city of Edessa then converts to Christianity. Yeah, so we do have that. That one letter allegedly is by Jesus.
- [37:14]
Megan Lewis
Thank you. Next question. Are there differences between the Protestant New Testament and the Catholic New Testament and are there structural biases that affect. Affect the approaches to translating each book?
- [37:26]
Bart Ehrman
There are not differences in terms of the content. Same 27 books in the Roman Catholic Bible and the Greek Orthodox Bible and the Protestant Bible, they're arranged in the same order. They have the same number of chapters in each one. It's the same content. There are translational issues. One of the reasons the King James Bible got produced is because King James of England wanted a translation that was clearer on the divine right of kings. So there are passages that one can translate that would be favorable to one position or another. But today if you get a New Testament, you can get the same translation, say the New Revised Standard Version that's used by Catholics and used by Protestants and Greek Orthodox. And so the difference between translations tends not to be because of denominational preference today.
- [38:18]
Megan Lewis
Thank you. Do we have any references to writings of Paul that did not survive? Do we know of any reason that specific writings of Paul that we have, why they were kept as opposed to whether other ones were.
- [38:30]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, we do have. We have a lot of writings by Paul outside the New Testament that do survive that were not written by Paul. So for example, in the New Testament we have 1st and 2nd Corinthians. Many people don't know. We also have 3rd Corinthians. And in the Book of Colossians the author mentions a letter he wrote to the Laodiceans. Well, we have a letter to the Laodiceans. And so we have an exchange of letters between Paul and the romans philosopher Seneca, 14 letters that went back and forth. And so we have things we have. We also though know of writings that once survived that we don't have any More, including, for example, a different letter to the Laodiceans, a letter to the Alexandrians. And so there are, there are a number of things that we know about that we don't have, including letters that Paul himself mentions in his writings. And so when he writes First Corinthians, Paul talks about an earlier letter that he sent them. Man, we wish we had that one. So, yes, there are some. Why did these get in? It turns out to be a complicated question, but these were the books that basically the proto Orthodox Christians valued as actually having come from Paul because they taught things that basically everybody thought were, you know, the Orthodox Christians thought were correct. The most frustrating thing is that Paul almost certainly wrote hundreds and hundreds of letters, probably thousands of letters. If you just map out he's got a 30 year career, he's got a bunch of churches, he's obviously writing them periodically. We must have had thousands. And we've got 13 in the New Testament and only seven that are certainly his. And so, yeah, there must have been lots.
- [40:11]
Megan Lewis
Matthew 16:28 says, Some standing here will not taste death until the kingdom comes in power. I have heard it said that this was a prediction of the transfiguration and not the second coming. Is this a reasonable explanation and how would you respond to this?
- [40:27]
Bart Ehrman
Matthew, of course, is getting this from Mark. It's in Mark 9:1, and immediately after he says it in both places, he takes three of his disciples and goes up on the mountain and is transfigured before them. And so it may well be that Matthew and Mark are trying to say this was fulfilled at the transfiguration, but it doesn't make sense that it was for several reasons. One thing is he says, some of you standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God in power. And then he takes three of them up on the mountain. Why would he even bother to say this? I mean, of course they're not going to taste death. It's like he's going to do it in five minutes. Why does he say that? It doesn't make any sense. And why suggest that some of you will taste death? In other words, some of you won't taste death. That's presupposed. Some will taste it. So that doesn't make sense. And the other thing is, when he's transfigured, it's not the kingdom of God coming in power. When Jesus talks about the coming kingdom of God, he says things like, you know, in the coming kingdom, people will feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob up in the heavenly realm. You know, and that this is what the kingdom of God's going to be like. It's going to be like this, it's going to be like that. His transfiguration isn't any of that. It's when he begins to kind of radiate and reveals his glory. But it's not the coming of the kingdom of God in power. So I don't think it's really what Jesus could have meant.
- [41:44]
Megan Lewis
Thank you. And final question for the if Paul had known about other lands such as China or Japan, do you think he would have tried to start churches there?
- [41:55]
Bart Ehrman
Yes, I think so. He thought he was going to the ends of the earth. So he's going to go to the ends of the earth and he's going to convert people because the whole world has to hear. And he thinks Spain is the end of the earth. And I don't think that's why he's going to go to Spain because that's where the earth ends for him. But he didn't say anything about going far east. One of the reasons I was laughing just now is because I'm going to be doing a cruise in December to Antarctica giving lectures. So I started thinking, you know, am I going to lecture on Bible, the penguins in the Bible or something? How am I going to decide? I'm going to do a series of lectures on going to the ends of the earth because, you know, we kind of will be. And what did the apostle mean when he thought that he was going to go to the ends of the earth? And so I've been thinking about this a little bit. It by the way, this is a tour we'll probably be now, I guess we need to announce this thing sometime, but it's an actual tour I'm going to be doing with people to go to Antarctica to talk about penguins, but in December. So anyway, yeah, if he knew about China. Yeah, I suppose he would have felt like he had to go. Yeah.
- [42:55]
Megan Lewis
Thank you. And thank you everyone for sending in your wonderful questions. But before we finish for the week, would you mind just summarizing what we spoke about today?
- [43:03]
Bart Ehrman
Well, the book of Isaiah is one of the great books of the Old Testament, one of the major prophets of illuminating, very powerful book. Christians have long used it to indicate that it is filled with predictions about Jesus as the Messiah, especially passages that talk about the suffering servant who suffers for the sins of others. And we talked about whether that's what these passages are really talking about in their historical context or not. I argued that when you actually read what Isaiah was talking about. He wasn't talking about a future Messiah. But that raises the question, is it legitimate to use passages to talk about something other than what the author had in mind? It ends up being a pretty important issue and relevant not just just for Isaiah.
- [43:47]
Megan Lewis
Audience, thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, please subscribe to the podcast to make sure you don't miss future episodes. Remember that you can use the code mjpodcast for a discount on all of Bart's courses over at www.barterman.com misquoting Jesus will Be Back Next Week Bart, what are you talking about? Next time Time.
- [44:06]
Bart Ehrman
Well, this is going to be fun. So as everyone knows, Megan interviews Bart. Not next week. Next week I want to interview Megan. Megan Megan is a scholar, as you all know, in her own right, and she and her husband, Josh Bowen run the this Digital Hammurabi thing where they deal with assyriology and ancient near east and it's all related. Of course they're interested for what it is, but you know, some of us are interested because it is is highly relevant for biblical studies and involves biblical languages. I want to interview Megan and so I've convinced Megan that I'd like to interview her next week about Digital Hammurabi and what she herself is doing. That'll be fun. No pressure on me. It's all on you now.
- [44:48]
Megan Lewis
It's going to be a lot of fun. So make sure you join us then. Thank you all and goodbye.
- [44:56]
Podcast Intro/Outro Narrator
This has been an episode of Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman. We'll be back with a new episode next Tuesday, so please be sure to subscribe to our show for free on your favorite podcast listening app or on Bart Erman's YouTube channel so you don't miss out. From Bart Ehrman and myself, Megan Lewis, thank you for joining us.