← Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman
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- [00:01]
Megan Lewis
The risk of wildfire affects all of
- [00:03]
Bart Ehrman
us and protecting communities is everyone's priority.
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Megan Lewis
At Pacific Power, we may implement a public Safety power shutoff or PSPs, which
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Bart Ehrman
temporarily turns off power in areas where dry vegetation, low humidity and high winds meet.
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Megan Lewis
We understand the impact and difficulty of an outage. This step is taken to protect our
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Bart Ehrman
neighbors, our communities and the places we call home. Learn more about psps@pacificpower.net wildfire if you
- [00:31]
Megan Lewis
have a passing familiarity with the Christian Bible, then you probably know that it splits into two parts, the Old and New Testaments. The New Testament is the part with all the stuff about Jesus. While the Old Testament is drawn largely from Jewish religious scriptures. Today, Dr. Bart Ehrman is joining me to talk about why early Christians insisted on keeping the Old Testament despite not being Jewish. Welcome to Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman, the only show where a six time New York Times best selling author and world renowned Bible scholar uncovers the many fascinating little known facts about the New Testament, the historical Jesus and the rise of Christianity. I'm your host, Megan Lewis. Let's begin. Hello everyone. Welcome back to Misquoting Jesus. Bart, how are you doing today?
- [01:26]
Bart Ehrman
Well, you know, as we record this now, this is my, this is the last week of, of the semester. And so things are a little crazy on the university scene right now for all sorts of reasons. But one is the kind of the regular reason that. Yeah, so getting to the end, got final exams, got, you know, all the grading. And so yeah, this is the time that you, this is kind of one of those times you just, you know, you'll be glad when it's over.
- [01:51]
Megan Lewis
You just keep going and at some point it stops.
- [01:53]
Bart Ehrman
It stops. Yeah. And you know, I'm, I'm, I'm 69 and I still organize my life by semesters. So it's like, here we go. Yeah. Every year. How are you doing?
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Megan Lewis
Yes, good. Similarly, just trying to keep my head up above water work and children and all the things. But good.
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Bart Ehrman
But probably not as cyclical as when you were in graduate school and you had college.
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Megan Lewis
Not quite as cyclical, but because we have small children in the school system, it still is aligned somewhat.
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Bart Ehrman
Yeah.
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Megan Lewis
And I do find myself doing the thing that I think a lot of academics do, especially if they do like field work. You spend three quarters of the year in the classroom, so me at the computer and then the summer is for literally everything else that I didn't get to do during the year. So yeah, it's good. It's going to be busy.
- [02:53]
Bart Ehrman
Busy. Yeah.
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Megan Lewis
Okay, now we have, coming up, a very interesting conversation. I'm looking forward to it. About why Christians kept the Old Testament. We also have some listeners questions and we've got some pretty exciting news about a milestone that the blog has just reached. So everybody please definitely stay for that. But before the blog and the exciting news and the listeners questions, when you were a Christian, Bart, what were your views on the Old Testaments?
- [03:23]
Bart Ehrman
Ah, right. Well, you know, I, I suppose it's like with, you know, as with everything we talk about, it kind of depends which part of my Christian life we're talking about. And so when I was an evangelical Christian, I suppose what I thought was that the Old Testament was an important prelude to the things that really mattered. And that the Old Testament was anticipating what was going to happen when Jesus came. And not only that, it was predicting him. Most of the Old Testament was in fact a prediction of the coming of Jesus, but also it was, it was in a way kind of showing why Judaism could never work on its own. That, that God had given, you know, God had created the human race. They blew it. He, he called Abraham and they became the children of Israel, become a nation. He gives them their law and they can't keep it. And the prophets keep telling them, you're not keeping that' God's mad at you. And, and, and you know, and it, so it all is heading toward the solution, the divine solution. And so the, the Old Testament was kind of like laying out the difficult problem and the New Testament providing solution. And so when I was an evangelical, it was very much something that was preparatory to Christianity. Both preparatory and preparatory. I just came up with that. I hadn't thought of that before, but when I was an evangelical, that's how I viewed it.
- [04:50]
Megan Lewis
When you started looking at this kind of thing from a more academic mindset, did that understanding shift or was it kind of delayed until you, you deconverted?
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Bart Ehrman
No, it, it shifted because I, you know, it's really a theological reading of the Old Testament that is trying to show that, that Jesus is the only answer. And that's, that's not a historical view of, of the Old Testament. And, you know, I came to realize in graduate school mainly that, that the Old Testament, you know, has to be read on its own terms. And it's not like there's one thing in the Old Testament, you know, it's 30, 39 books and they all are written at different times by different, you know, many, most of them by different people and have different views. And it's not for one Thing, it's not like a continuous message that goes all the way through. There are different books, different with different views. So I, so, and also that the, the Old Testament needs to be read, read like you read other books where you, if you read a novel, you don't assume that this novelist is saying something that some other novelist is also saying. You know, you read the novel for itself. And I realized you can't read the Old Testament in light of the New Testament if you want to understand the Old Testament. And I, I remember, I have a pretty clear recollection of my PhD exams where it was at a theological seminary. And it was not evangelical at all, but it was, it was a Christian Theological Seminary, Princeton Theological Seminary. And in my PhD exams, I, I was, I had PhD exams on the Old Testament as well as on the New Testament. And I remember in my Old Testament exam, I was asked a question about interpreting the Old Testament. I made a very strong statement that you cannot interpret it from a Christian perspective if you want to understand it as, as, you know, on its own terms. And the faculty got kind of, some of the faculty got upset by this. And it turned out that they started arguing with each other. And I kind of just sat back and watched them fight it out. It's the best thing I ever did in an exam, because I didn't, they stopped paying attention to me. But, but, so there's a tension even, you know, not just among evangelicals, but kind of generally, I think, within the Christian tradition. In what sense is the Old Testament a Christian book? And if it is a Christian book, what does that even mean? And how does that affect its interpretation?
- [07:12]
Megan Lewis
So thinking about that, then, and the fact that despite what I said in my little introduction, the original followers of Jesus were Jewish and this would have been their religious scripture. The continued importance for early Christians of the Old Testament does make a certain amount of sense. So when we then shift forward a little bit and we see formerly pagan Christians, how are they relating to the Old Testament? Do they have a similar understanding that the Old Testament is kind of the precursor, explaining almost why Jesus was necessary, or do they have a different view entirely?
- [07:54]
Bart Ehrman
Well, yeah, so I, I think I'll answer that in two parts because the, because I, I do think that the, the people converted from paganism inherited their views of the Old Testament from their predecessors who were Jewish. And I think it's important to stress for any discussion of this that Jesus and his followers did have scriptures and they didn't call them the Old Testament. You don't have an Old Testament until you have a New Testament. And so Old Testament is really a Christian term for these books. But Jesus and his followers certainly had scriptural texts. What we call the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament was not a fixed canon of Scripture. Yet in their days, almost all Jews around the world agreed that the Torah was given by God and that some of many of the other books, the prophetic books, were given by God and were revealing God's word. And so they accepted that. And Jesus did. I mean, Jesus absolutely was. That was his Scripture. And I don't. Jesus, the historical Jesus, had no idea there'd be other books like you know about him that would be put on that level. And the Scripture provided them with guidance from God about how to live, about how to, how to worship him, how to understand their own history as the people of God. And that was simply, that was simply accepted. When the followers of Jesus came to believe that he had been raised from the dead, one of the first things they appear to have done is try to figure out how this could be in light of Scriptures, because they did believe that the Scriptures provided guidance into understanding how God worked through history. And here was, you know, this amazing event that the Messiah had been raised from the dead. And so they started searching Scripture to find passages that would be useful for them understanding Jesus. And that's probably, probably fairly early on, they started reading passages that were originally, not nobody really thought were about a future Messiah in light of the coming of Jesus. And so I think that was really kind of the first move that led to a different way of looking at the Hebrew Bible among Jews that than had ever been around before. The methods were similar. We have Jewish interpreters from the time of Jesus who were interpreting the Hebrew Bible in light of things going on in their own day. We know this from the Dead Sea Scrolls, for example. So there it is an accepted mode of interpretation to see how it applies to your current situation. But the Christians are doing that in light of their current realization that Jesus was a crucified Messiah.
- [10:36]
Megan Lewis
Did early Christian writers have anything to say about the continued relevance of the Old Testament? Were they wholly in favor of it? Was this a point of contention for some people? What did, what do people think?
- [10:49]
Bart Ehrman
Well, it, you know, it relates to the second part of your question earlier about how do pagans deal with it? You know, former pagans, people who converted, who were gentiles, who didn't even have a Hebrew, didn't have a scripture, who all of a sudden inherit it, and they, once they become followers of Jesus, he's the Jewish Messiah, he fulfilled Jewish scripture, and they worship the Jewish God now. And so they've got to make sense of, of the Hebrew Bible. And so they, they start looking at it really more intensely as predicting of Jesus. But as it turn within the Christian movement already, you know, in the first century, there are different ways of understanding how the Bible, how the Hebrew Bible relates to the Christian faith. And what, what ends up developing over time into the second to third centuries is you've got different groups of Christians who are, who have different views of this. We can talk more about this, but you have some, you have some groups who insist that the, the Hebrew Bible is still valid. You have to, you know, it's still the word of God, you still have to keep it. The other people are saying, well, it's the Jewish book and we've superseded that. So it's really not even a Christian book. And you have a lot of things kind of in between that. Some people completely accept it, some people reject it, and, and some people try to make sense of it in light of their Christian faith.
- [12:08]
Megan Lewis
Are these different views linked at all to the splintering of early Christian groups? Do you see different sects holding specific understandings of the Old Testament?
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Bart Ehrman
Yeah, you do. And, and, and all of them appeal to Jesus and Paul or whatever. You know, they all, they all appeal to their predecessors. So within, within Christianity, say, suppose you're talking about in the second century, so say like 125, 130 years after Jesus death in the middle of the second century. We know of a variety of groups of Christians who insisted that they had the correct understanding of the Jewish Bible. There are groups of Jewish Christians who continue to identify as Jews who keep Torah, who observe Sabbath, who keep kosher food laws, who circumcise their babies, who do you know, they observe the festivals and they think that God gave this law and he meant as an eternal covenant. He calls it an eternal covenant in the Scriptures themselves. And so an eternal covenant means it's not going to change. It's always there. And so sometimes there are groups called a group called the Ebionites, for example, which are a group of Jewish Christians that seem to have had this view. They still absolutely believe Jesus is the Messiah, but you have to keep the law. Jesus kept the law. You have to keep the law. And on the, on the extreme end of it, the other side there, at the same time, there's a group that are called the Marcionites, who are followers of a philosopher teacher named Marcion who has the opposite view, he thinks that Jesus came to save people from the wrathful God of the Old Testament. That the Paul, Paul talks about the difference between the, the law and the Gospel. And Marcion thinks he was a, it was a literal dichotomy that the law is given by a God who is wrathful and vengeful. And he's just, I mean, you know, he's just, he gives you a law, you break your law and he punish you. He sent you to hell forever. And that happens for everybody. And Jesus comes. Jesus. God is not like that. The God of Jesus is a God who saves you from that God. Jesus brings salvation from the wrathful God of the Old Testament. And so in this view, I mean, it's pretty extreme. There are actually two gods and the God of the Old Testament is not the same as the God of Jesus. And so the Old Testament is a Jewish book which is predicting a Jewish messiah who hasn't come yet. Jesus is not the Jewish Messiah. Jesus is from the, from the other God. So those are the two polar extremes and in between you have all sorts of groups arguing all sorts of things about, you know, the relationship of the Hebrew Bible to the Christian faith.
- [14:51]
Megan Lewis
Thank you very much. We're going to take a couple of minutes for a brief break. When we come back, we're going to be talking about how the view of the Old Testament solidifies and looking at why exactly non Jewish people are insisting on following a Jewish text. A better Help ad therapy isn't just for times of major challenge. It's a valuable tool for anyone wanting to improve their well being. It can help you develop healthy coping skills, set boundaries and Support personal growth. BetterHelp makes it easy to get matched online with a fully licensed therapist right from your phone. No commuting, no waiting rooms, and you can switch therapists at any time. Sign up@betterhelp.com and get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com.
- [15:48]
Travis Proctor
Hi everyone, I'm Travis Proctor. I'd like to announce an online course titled Demons and Ghosts in the Bible. The course consists of 26 lectures that guide you through significant stories of demons and ghosts and biblical texts and related writings. These lectures explore topics like the figure of Satan, demonic possession and exorcism, spirits of prophecy, ghosts and magic, and the origins of the Holy Ghost. Many of these concepts form key parts of Jewish and Christian thought and practice and they make for some entertaining reading as well. I spent the better part of the last decade researching, writing and teaching about demons, angels and ghosts. My first Book Demonic Bodies and the Dark Ecologies of Early Christian Culture examined how ideas regarding the bodies of demons were important for things like early Christian ritual, belief and embodiment. My time as a college professor, I've shared these insights with my students in the classroom. This is an important opportunity for you to step into that classroom and experience the same lessons that I share with my students. We'll answer questions like who's the serpent that's in the Garden of Eden? Where did the idea of Satan come from? What's going on? With stories of demonic possession and exorcism in the life of Jesus? What are fallen angels and how do they relate to demons and Satan? Does the Bible include stories of ghosts and hauntings? And much more? In this class, we analyze these questions from an historical academic perspective so that you can learn how to approach the Bible like a scholar. This course helps you rediscover familiar texts of the Bible, understanding them in a new light, as well as encounter some new demon and ghost stories sure to entertain or enlighten. This is a great opportunity to learn about demons and ghosts in the Bible. I hope you'll join me.
- [17:27]
Megan Lewis
Welcome back, everybody. Before the break, Bart very kindly explained some of the very early views on the Old Testament for us, looking at how this aligns with early sects and the splintering of early Christianity. I wanted to now start to look at what happens when one group becomes dominant. So we've talked before about the Proto Orthodox Church, which becomes kind of what we know today as mainstream Christianity. Once this group becomes the dominant group, how does the view of the Old Testament solidify?
- [17:58]
Bart Ehrman
Well, you know, it's interesting. It solidifies like a lot of theology in early Christianity solidified, which is that this group knew they had to oppose both extremes on either side, leading to a kind of a paradox. So, I mean, this happened with, you know, with understanding Jesus. Is he. Is he. Some people are saying he's completely human and he's so he can't be God. God. Others saying he's completely God so he can't be human. And the proto orthodox group says, oh, no, no, he is human and he is God and is at the same time. And in fact, he's 100 of both. What. How does that's. What. But it. But the theology develops in part because you're opposing the extremes that you can't accept. And that's what happens with the Hebrew Bible, that the proto Orthodox group realizes that, you know, it's principally made up of Gentiles now, and these Gentiles are They're, they're not keeping kosher food laws, you know, and they're, they're, they're not observing the Sabbath. They don't come from that world. They don't have to be Jewish. And so you don't have to keep the Jewish law anymore. So to that extent, the Hebrew Bible is not valid for these Christians. And that to that extent, on the other hand, Marcion is completely wrong. Because in Marcion's view, you got two gods, there's only one God, and Jesus, God is the God of the Old Testamen. And so in some sense you've got to have the Old Testament. And in part you have to have it because it's what predicts Jesus. It's what shows you that Christianity is right. Because Isaiah, hundreds of years before Jesus was born, predicted his birth, you know, and predicted his crucifixion. And this is proof that Christianity is true. If you have somebody who 600 years earlier says something and it comes true, it's divine proof. So you've got to keep the Old Testament, but you don't keep the Old Testament. So how does that work? Exactly? And that, so that, that's the dilemma that the Proto Orthodox faced. And it led to another one of these kind of theological paradoxes that you, you have to keep it, but you don't keep it. So how do you do it? That was the issue.
- [20:07]
Megan Lewis
So how, how did they resolve this? And maybe before that, did anyone actually come out and say that this was an issue or was it just kind of, people just went along with it until they found a way for it to make sense.
- [20:22]
Bart Ehrman
What you don't have are people saying, okay, look, you know, this side wrong, that side's wrong. We're gonna, we're gonna get some kind of, you know, kind of middle position here. They don't do it like that. What they do is they argue against both sides vehemently, but when they do that, they end up kind of creating this, this different position in the middle. And there were different views within the Proto Orthodox tradition. So that, you know, there, there are, there are a lot, a lot of Proto Orthodox. Almost all the Proto Orthodox agree that the Hebrew Bible did come from God. They disagree on very ways to understand it. I mean, some, some, for example, say, even within the Proto Orthodox tradition, they say that we need the Old Testament because it, it show how God has worked among his people. But sometimes they would liken it to an architect, an architect who, who builds a model of the building that's going to be constructed. And that's the model that is followed when the building is constructed. When the building is constructed, you don't need the model anymore. And so the model is important to recognize as being there. But you, you know, you don't keep the model. And so it's that. So that's one way of kind of imagining how it works. It puts them in a bind, though, still, because they. They acknowledge that God gave these laws to Jews, but now you don't have to keep them. And so one view that becomes very popular sometimes, it's called supersessionism. It's a supersessionist view, is a view that it's not that the old was wrong, the old was right for its time, but it was building to the thing that was going to be. And now that we've got the thing that's going to be, we don't need that thing before. And so we have superseded it. So Judaism was valid and it was true at its time, but it was inherently flawed. And now we have the perfect version of it. But. So you can't get rid of it, but you also aren't going to keep it. But there's a reason for it because of this kind of historical continuity that it provides.
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Megan Lewis
What competing views were there to supersessionism?
- [22:39]
Bart Ehrman
Well, you know, it. The hard thing within the orthodox tradition is, I mean, you get these kind of funny tensions, even with the people who want to argue for supersessionism or anything else, which is that you have. You have these authors who want to quote the Old Testament when it serves their purposes, but deny the Old Testament when it doesn't. And so, and so they're just, you know, so you can, you can do that. You can do that in a variety of ways. I think everybody keeps the Messianic prophecy thing. Everybody keeps the Jewish Messianic prophecies. Some people, though, instead of thinking that, like it. That it has been superseded, they think that it. They wouldn't put it quite like that because they would still say that God is still, you know, the, you know, it was all. It was all part of God's thing. So it isn't that we're. We're superior to what came before. It's more that we're. It's a straight line of continuity. So you don't destroy the model anymore. You keep the model because you got to have the historical connection. This ended up being the most important thing, I think, for the Christians, they had to have some kind of historical roots in the Old Testament one way or the other. And that if it that if you don't have historical roots, it means that you've just come up with an invented religion and nobody wanted that, especially in the ancient world. And so there. And so, so that's it. A lot of times what one way, one approach that was taken to it that was kind of somewhat different from supersessionism is understand the beginning to understand the Old Testament in a more metaph. Metaphorical or figurative way. And that it's, that it's not that it was like literally true and now not literally true. It was always meant to be figuratively true. And that Jews, we have this book, the Epistle Barnabas. The Epistle Barnabas is one of the apostolic fathers written around the year 135or so by a Christian author who maintained that the Old Testament laws never were meant to be followed literally. And so it's not that we've gone beyond that now, it's that the Jews just never understood it. And so when the Old Testament laws, for example, says it says don't eat pork, what's it talking about? Barbara says it doesn't mean you can't eat, eat, you can't eat pork. What it means is that you're not supposed to behave in the way that swine behave. And how do, how do. And it uses a specific application. It says, look, when, when pigs are, are hungry, they're grunting and they're making a ton of noise. You feed them and they're quiet. You shouldn't be like that when, when you need, you shouldn't come to God praying the whole time when you're needy. And then when you're satisfied, you don't pray to him anymore. You should pray all the time. So don't live like pigs pray. You know, talking to God only when you're in need of something. And he says that was actually the original message and Jews misunderstood it. And so for him, for Barnabas, the Old Testament is actually a Christian book, not a Jewish book. And it was never meant to be a Jewish book. So it's not superseded. It was always just misunderstood until Jesus came along.
- [25:49]
Megan Lewis
How did these different interpretations or appropriations maybe impact the relationship between early Christians and their Jewish contemporaries?
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Bart Ehrman
Oh yeah, no, this is a big deal. And I've actually long wanted to write a book about this because I think it is absolutely key to understanding Jewish Christian relationships in the ancient world and how Christianity and Judaism ended up splitting into two different religions and why Christianity became, in most parts of Christianity throughout most of history became anti Jewish. That led eventually to modern anti Semitism, anti Semitism is a modern phenomenon, it's not an ancient phenomenon. Anti Semitism is the opposition to Jews for being Jewish. And so that's that, that's what leads to things like the Holocaust where, where if you're, if you're born of have, you know, Jewish parents or you have Jewish grandparents, you are Jewish. You know, in other words, it's traced out by bloodlines. And so in the Holocaust, people who had Jewish ancestry, you know, they were sent to the camps whether they were Roman Catholics or not. That's a modern phenomenon. Really starts big time in the 19th century in the ancient Christianity though they were, they were definitely anti Jewish in terms of religion, not in terms of ethnicity. If a Jew converted to be a Christian, that was great, you know, but, but they weren't, you know, condemned for being, haven't been born Jewish. So with that said, the anti Judaism in Christianity that eventually led to anti Semitism was directed toward Jews for misunderstanding their own scriptures. And it's because Christians believed that Jesus had, was the Messiah who had been predicted by the Jewish scriptures. And most Jews thought that that was ridiculous. The Jewish scriptures do not predict a crucified Messiah. They don't. And so what ends up happening is that Christians start advancing interpretations of passages of Scripture, such as Isaiah 53 talking about the suffering servant, or Isaiah 7 talking about a birth from a virgin, or you know, Micah chapter 5 about the Messiah coming from Bethlehem, they started interpreting these passages, they saying that this is talking about the Messiah. And the Jews who are not followers of Jesus said, no, they're not. And this led to these big conflicts. But the conflicts got really pretty rough because they, each side was saying the other was flat out wrong about the same thing. And at first it didn't matter much, but Christians were this tiny minority. But when Christianity takes over the Roman empire in the 4th 5th centuries, the people in power now take this earlier, these earlier discussions literally. And they think Jews are enemies of God and now they've got the power. And so, and they use the power and there begin to be anti Jewish legislation at the Rome, at the imperial level at the end of the 4th century. And so this leads to the anti Judaism. It's all about interpreting Scripture. It's about what is the Jewish Bible. And if you've got the Jewish view, if you've got the Christian view, it ends up leading to millennia of animosity.
- [29:16]
Megan Lewis
I have one final question before we wrap up for the day. Do you see any substantial changing in how Christians understand or use the Old Testament? From these kind of proto orthodox understandings into what we would consider modern Christianity. So I suppose, why is it that modern Christians are still using the Old Testament?
- [29:41]
Bart Ehrman
My view is that most Christians haven't really thought about it much. It's just, you know, it's kind of given. You buy a Bible, you got an Old Testament in it. So, you know, you know, there's something there. Most Christians don't read the Old Testament much. Many Christians who do read the Old Testament, I'd say most who read it tend to be evangelical, and they tend to be reading it to, to find predictions of Jesus. And so you'll land on a verse, Isaiah 7, 14, and you'll be really excited about this verse because it's predicting a virgin birth in your interpretation. But you don't bother to read Isaiah 7, the entire chapter. If you did, you'd realize it's not predicting a future birth of a Messiah. So I think Christians have inherited this idea that you've got an Old Testament, you need an Old Testament and it's preparatory for Jesus. And it's, in some ways, you know, it's not really valid for us, but it's important because it predicts Jesus. One clear indication that this is the kind of standard Christian view is what typically happens in Christian churches during worship services, the ones that I, I've attended over my life, back when I was a Christian for many, many years. Would you'd have a, you'd have different scripture readings. Like if you, you might have a reading from, like in the Episcopal church. Church, we always had a reading from the Old Testament, a reading from, from the New Testament and a reading from the Gospel. You know, so, so specifically a gospel reading that. And then, then there'd be a sermon preached. The sermon was never preached on the Old Testament. You know, it was a third of the biblical readings. But, you know, it's just because you got to have it. And usually it's something that made you think about Jesus or something. But I mean, it wasn't like you would never take it seriously as a text in and of itself itself, at least in the pulpit. And you'd ask people, why do you even have this Old Testament reading? And they'd kind of. Well, it kind of, you know, kind of sets up the New Testament reading. And so that basic idea that emerges out of proto orthodoxy, that you have it, it comes from God, and it was valid in it today, but it's not really valid anymore. But we still got to have it. I think that still resides in most, in most Christian Churches today. Let me, let me clarify by all of this. You know, there are exceptions to all of these things that I've been saying and I want to emphasize in case anybody misunderst me. I'm not saying that Christianity is inherently anti Semitic and I'm not saying it's inherently anti Jewish. But historically, I think you can trace what we think of as anti Judaism from the Christian theological debates over the Old Testament and what we think of as modern 19th and 20th, 21st century anti Semitism does emerge out of that kind of Christian anti Judaism.
- [32:21]
Megan Lewis
Thank you very much, Bart, for your time. We are about to done for this portion of the discussion. Well, no, the discussion part is done. We're done for this part of the podcast. There we go. Sorry, phrasing was a little off there. And we are going to now talk a little bit about some really exciting stuff that's happened at the blog.
- [32:44]
Bart Ehrman
Welcome to our upcoming highlights and events segment where we catch up on Bart's courses, community updates and all the latest news from the Biblical Studies Academy and beyond.
- [33:00]
Megan Lewis
Now, Bart, so for people who don't know, you run a blog, you update it every day, which is a massive commitment. And all of the profits from the blog go directly to charity. And you very recently celebrated $3 million in lifetime donations, which is amazing. Congratulations.
- [33:21]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, thanks. I know it's, it's, it's a big deal. And it's, yeah, it's actually not just the profits. It's, everything goes to the, it's like, yeah, like I don't get salary or something. It's like, but, and we do have paid employees, but we, we have a separate fundraising thing for that people pay a membership fee, a small membership fee. It's like, you know, at the beginning, at the low level, it's like $2 a month, you know, for. And I, you know, I post five times, five or six times a week every week for 13 years now with archives going back 13 years. But people, people join the blog just because, you know, they basically, they want to, they, they're interested in what we're doing. You know, Biblical studies, early Christianity, early Judaism, Hebrew Bible. It's just, you know, Roman religion, whatever. I deal with all these things on the blog and they pay these membership fees. And you know, when I started this thing, I thought it was going to, I don't know, I, in 2012, I thought I was going to raise about $7,000 a year and I'd wait three years and then decided, wanted to keep doing it. And man, it has taken off Last year, last year we raised $580,000 and all of it went to charities dealing with hunger, homelessness, disaster relief. And so we hit three. Yes, we hit the 3 million mark. And that's, that's a lot of them. That's a lot of. Yeah, yeah. So we're really happy and we want people to know more about it, you know, and people to go. It's just, you go to ermenblog.org and ehrman blog.org and you'll see it. And, you know, you can just join for this. And we have different tiers, like at upper tiers, at upper levels, people pay a little bit more. You know, they pay instead of 29.95 a year, maybe, you know, 39.95 a year, and they get more perks and it goes up to various, various kinds of levels. And it's, it's going extremely well. We're really, really quite pleased with how it's developing.
- [35:14]
Megan Lewis
And it's, it's an invaluable resource, as you were saying. And if people are interested, you can go and take a look and there are like snippets from different posts that you can read and see if it is something that you would find useful before you go ahead and donate. Although honestly, for $2 a month, I think it's, it's probably well worth it if this is, is your kind of thing. We also have a Paths in Biblical Studies updates. Many of you know that throughout 2025, we're supporting a fantastic charity called Charity Water, where we donate $1 for every course sold at Paths in Biblical studies and then 50 cents for every biblical Studies academy renewal. And this money all goes to funding clean water projects across the world. And I am very pleased to report that through the end of March, we've now pledged $3,718 to Charity Water, which is going to bring 4 million, over 4 million liters of clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. And if you'd like to learn more about the project or make a donation and see how you can get involved, you can visit bart erman.com/forward/charity water. And now we have some, as ever, wonderful listeners questions.
- [36:28]
Bart Ehrman
Now it's time for questions from listeners where Bart answers real questions submitted by misquoting teasers fans. If you'd like to submit a question for future segments, Please visit bart ehrman.com AskBaht.
- [36:47]
Megan Lewis
All right, Bart, I say this every time. We have some good questions. Are you ready?
- [36:52]
Bart Ehrman
We'll see.
- [36:53]
Megan Lewis
Maybe so. Question 1. Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet, seemed more concerned that one behave in a way that ensures admittance into the coming kingdom of, of God than what is beneficial to a longer term society. As your next book is on the ethics of Jesus, do you have any thoughts on the idea that encouraging such behavior for personal gain may not be particularly good or ethical?
- [37:18]
Bart Ehrman
I deal with it in my book. So my, my next book is on the ethics of Jesus and it is interesting that he, for one thing, it's absolutely right. Jesus was not interested in how we can improve society for the long haul because he didn't think there was going to be a long haul. It's going to. The kingdom of God was coming soon and people needed to prepare for it. My sense is that Jesus taught his ethics, which were that you should give of yourself for the sake of others, even if they are strangers, people in need. That he thought that for several reasons. For one thing, that's. That's what's, that's what scripture says you're supposed to do in his interpretation is what. And second, it's what God wants you to do. It's the right thing to do. But also the way he incentivizes it is for you because that will allow you to enter into the kingdom. And you see this kind of most pointedly maybe in this passage where he tells this rich man that feel if he sells everything and gives to the poor, then he'll have treasures in heaven. And so it's incentivizing it by, you know, that will. It'll be good for you. So I think it's, I don't think that it's clear cut that it's, it's complete like an egoistic thing, that you're just concerned about yourself getting into heaven because it does require huge sacrifice. And it, and it does, it ends up generating empathy and sympathy for others. But there is that element of it. There's definitely an egoistic element. And it's not pure altruism because you're getting something out of it yourself. And that's how he incentivizes it.
- [39:00]
Megan Lewis
Thank you. Now the next question. We've talked about this a little bit, well, quite a lot actually on previous episodes. But I think this, the way it's framed, might be helpful for people. Is it reasonable to think of the historical accuracy of the Gospels in the same way that we think about Hollywood biopics? Walk the Line will give us a pretty good sense of the life of Johnny Cash, but not every detail is gospel truth.
- [39:24]
Bart Ehrman
Well, that's an interesting way to think about it? Yeah, I suppose it's roughly analogous. I mean, you have somebody who's making a film that is trying to, certainly trying to base it on the person's life, but can't really record the person's life and has to make connections between the various things that happens in their lives and has to make sense of various things they do in light kind of an overall picture. And the, the screenwriter has like this picture in his own or her own head and has to use factual information to, to get there, but also has to shape the factual information. And so it's something. It, it is something like that. I mean, it's different because the Gospel writers aren't able to do research on the person and don't have direct access to factual information. They, they're basing on oral traditions that have been floating around and so for years and years. And so it isn't quite the same process, but it, It, I guess, analogous situation.
- [40:29]
Megan Lewis
Thank you. Next question is about miracles. In the Gospels, Bible scholars who are Christians naturally accept that as a divine being, Jesus could contravene laws of physics and medical science. But as a non believer, how do you account for the miracles? Do you think they were invented by people writing the accounts? Were they mass hallucinations or simply not performed by Jesus at all, but by imposters who were skilled in illusionists?
- [40:58]
Bart Ehrman
I think it's interesting that when I, I often get a question like this and it's usually framed in terms of did it happen or is there some deceit going on? And I don't think that that's the, the right either or. And this person gave several options, obviously, but it's not, you know, either either it happened or somebody was lying about it. You know, somebody made it up. You know, there are reports about each and every one of us that are in circulation, maybe among our families or friends and things that are not, not accurate, as those of us know, who know people are saying something about us, which means like all of us just, they just. And it's not necessarily that somebody's lying. Most often false information is not a matter of deceit. Rumors start, gossip starts. And it isn't, it's. It's almost. It's rare. It often, sometimes it is malicious. Rarely it just happens. It's just what happens when you tell stories that information gets changed. With the miracles of Jesus, you know, since I am not a Christian believer, I don't think that Jesus actually did multiply the loaves for the 5,000 or I don't think he really walked on water. You know, I don't think. I don't believe in those miracles. I don't think they happened. But, you know, I don't think it's necessarily the case that somebody was just making them up. I heard of miracles when I was a Christian where, you know, such and such had happened there. And it's the kind of thing where like, somebody just, like, misunderstood something or somebody said something or misinterpreted something or. Or came up with something. And it almost never. I don't think it was almost most ever was because of maliciousness or trying to deceive is because that's what they generally thought. Somebody saw something that actually didn't happen. And so I, I think that if you have somebody that you believe has been. Is a son of God, that you naturally, in the ancient world assume that this person did miracles, because there are all sorts of stories about sons of God doing miracles. And, and you l. And these in, in the, the. In the gossip and in the rumors and the discussions, the oral traditions, these things get magnified. That's just how oral traditions work. And so it's not. I don't think it's a matter of maliciousness. I don't. But. So I don't think it's a choice that somebody kind of made it up and lied about it or, you know, they happened.
- [43:28]
Megan Lewis
Thank you. Final question. The Hebrew of the Hebrew Bible contains a lot of puns and wordplay. Does the Greek of the New Testament contain the same name?
- [43:40]
Bart Ehrman
Well, sometimes. I mean, it's not. It's. Yeah, not. I would say not as much. I would say not as much. In the New Testament, there. There are some plays on words here and there and there are, you know, you can use synonyms. You can. One of the tricks you can use is a word that. A homonym, where a word sounds just like some other word. And it's not really. It's not meant to be funny necessarily. But you can, you know, you can use the word which could mean two different things, and it could mean, you know, depending on what the context is. And so, and it. That ended up leaving as a side note, it kind of ended up leading to problems for scribes who are copying the New Testament. When, when you'd have a situation where you'd have an, Like a. The. The. Like the. The monk reading the text and, you know, three different scribes writing down what they're hearing it say, if the word can mean the same thing, can mean. Mean two different things. The sound of the word can mean Two different things could be two different. Then you might write a different thing. And so like in the, in the, in the book of Revelation, in chapter one in Revelation, it talks about Christ, whose, who's. We were washed with his blood or we were freed with his blood. Were you washed with the blood or freed with it? It's the same word, luo. And so, I mean, it's a different word, but, but it sounds the same Luo. It's spelled differently, same thing. And so one scribe the other. And you wonder, you know, does are kind of using this as a, kind of, as a kind of a play on it, on things. So you can see both, both meanings of this.
- [45:14]
Megan Lewis
Thank you very much, Bart. AUDIENCE thank you all for your questions. Now, before we finish for the week, would you mind just summarizing what we spoke about?
- [45:24]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, so we're talking, we're talking about the Old Testament and this kind of, in a way, kind of mystery. Why do Christians have an Old Testament? They don't keep it. In other words, I mean, Christians might claim they keep it, but they, they, you know, they don't. Most Christians don't keep kosher and they don't, you know, they don't observe Sabbath and things, and yet they've got scripture which tells them they should do that. So why do they keep it as scripture and yet not follow it? And it has very ancient roots. And so we were talking about the ancient roots of that. How did the earliest Christians starting out as Jewish, but then as Gentiles coming in? How did they deal with the fact that they had a Bible that they, they thought was sacred, but they didn't think was still applicable?
- [46:04]
Megan Lewis
AUDIENCE thank you all for listening. I hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, please subscribe to the podcast to make sure you don't miss future episodes. Remember that you can use the Code MJ podcast for a discount on all of Bart's courses over at www.bartehrman.com misquoting Jesus will be back next week. Bart, what are we talking about next time?
- [46:24]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, well, next time we're kind of getting to the heart of what it means to have a Bible with many books in, in it, a New Testament with many books in it, and it has to do with how is Jesus understood in the New Testament? Do we have like a Jesus who's portrayed in the New Testament or just within the Gospels, are there four different portrayals of Jesus, four different ways of understanding Jesus, Four different Jesuses? So that's, that's what we were talking about.
- [46:50]
Megan Lewis
Thank you all. And goodbye. This has been an episode of Misquoting Jesus, 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.