Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Okay, so here's the. I'm going to go through these questions. I've got a ton of them. I'm not going to be able to answer all of them as usual, but I've got a lot of really good ones and I'll do my best to answer them in the time that we have.
[00:00:17] So, first question I have, if this person's speaking to me, if you had to reduce earliest Christianity to the smallest set of ideas that are historically defensible, what would remain?
[00:00:30] Ah, now that's an interesting question.
[00:00:33] And there are a lot of things that are defensible about historical claims about earliest Christianity.
[00:00:39] And so I'm not going to obviously go over everything, but I will say things that strike me as probably the most important aspects that I think we can affirm historically. And when this person says earliest Christianity, I don't know what they mean.
[00:00:54] And so I'm going to go with earliest Christianity. I'm going to talk about the first two years of Christianity. Let's say that's the earliest Christianity.
[00:01:04] What could we say about it?
[00:01:06] One thing we'd say is that people are not calling themselves Christians yet.
[00:01:11] The first time people call themselves, the first time the name Christian is used by a Christian about Christians is it's actually in the New Testament.
[00:01:20] First Peter has a couple references to this group being called Christians.
[00:01:26] We don't know exactly what these people called themselves at that time or when they started being called or calling themselves Christian, but it was later than this, I'm pretty sure.
[00:01:38] So the things I think we could say for certain about them is that they were probably everybody within two years of Jesus crucifixion who considered themselves a follower of Jesus was Jewish.
[00:01:53] They.
[00:01:54] They saw that Jesus, or they believe that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah.
[00:01:59] They believed he got raised from the dead, physically, actually raised from the dead.
[00:02:06] They thought that this. They probably thought that this indicated that the future resurrection of the dead itself was not far away, that the end was starting with his resurrection.
[00:02:18] They thought, I think in this period, I think probably all of them thought that since Jesus was clearly the chosen one of God whom he raised from the dead, that the death must have been his death. His crucifixion must have been part of the plan of God and that God had planned for his Messiah to die. And so they thought of Jesus death as some kind of sacrifice for the sins of others.
[00:02:44] They would have been continuing with their Jewish traditions. They would not have left Judaism or thought of themselves as something other than Jews, and they would have continued keeping the Jewish law as a result.
[00:02:55] So I think we could say at least that much about Christians early on in terms of their sets of ideas. There are probably other things too, but those are the ones that strike me as almost certainly right.
[00:03:10] Next question.
[00:03:12] This questioner says Mark has no virgin birth narrative.
[00:03:18] Then it appears in M and L, meaning that Matthew has an account and Luke has an account.
[00:03:26] But scholars don't think it came from Q, says this person.
[00:03:31] It seems to me that they don't.
[00:03:36] That they don't think it even comes from a shared source.
[00:03:40] That seems so unlikely to me, says this person. Just given basic Occam logic. This major addition appears in both Gospels five to 20 years after Mark, but it does so based on independent M and L sources. Why doesn't it make better sense that it comes from Q or some other source and then they change some of the details rather than coming from two unique sources? Okay, so. So I assume you all got that. So scholars are pretty sure that Matthew and Luke both copied Mark.
[00:04:08] Mark does not have a birth narrative. Matthew and Luke both do have a birth narrative, and scholars don't think they got it from the same source. It doesn't appear to come from the Q source. And this person says, why doesn't it make better sense that you just have one source instead of claiming two sources?
[00:04:23] And it would make better sense under some conditions, but the final statement this person makes is really kind of the clue where it says that they got it from some common source. Then change some of the details. Ah, therein is the problem.
[00:04:42] It's not that Matthew and Luke are different in some details.
[00:04:47] They are different everywhere.
[00:04:50] Simply list everything that happens in Matthew's gospel.
[00:04:55] Then list everything that happens in Luke's gospel in the birth narratives, chapters one and two in both of them. Then compare the two lists. They don't have any of the same stories.
[00:05:07] They have some basic pieces of information that they agree on.
[00:05:11] They agree that it was Joseph and Mary were the names of the alleged parents.
[00:05:17] They agree that Mary was a virgin.
[00:05:20] They agree that Joseph was surprised that she got pregnant.
[00:05:26] They agree that there were angels involved somehow.
[00:05:31] They agree that Jesus was born at Bethlehem.
[00:05:36] These are all agreements that you have to account for somehow.
[00:05:39] But the reality is that they don't have verbatim agreements, word for word agreements, which are what you need in order to say that one source was the source for the other.
[00:05:52] It's kind of like if you've got.
[00:05:55] Suppose you've got two stories about most anything, you got two stories about the final game of the World Series that are in two different newspapers. And they both recount that the Phillies beat the Yankees by a score of 3 to 2 on the basis of a. A home run that was hit in the bottom of the ninth.
[00:06:22] Okay, they, they agree on that. But when you read the accounts, it's like they're nothing alike other than the, you know, these basic factual pieces of information.
[00:06:31] And so that would not suggest to you if they get the score right and how it happened in the end and the home run in the 19, if they get all that right, and, and if they agree on that, you would not think that one journalist copied it from the other.
[00:06:48] You would think that they'd both heard about it or seen it or something had happened. But they're reporting it differently now. You say, well, it's different with the birth narratives, because with the World Series that's something that actually happened and. Yeah, that's right. But there are plenty of stories about, like made up stories that people tell or jokes that people tell, for example, that have. They have the basic stuff in them, but they aren't word for word the same. If you had word for word the same, you'd say somebody copied somebody. It's precisely because they're so different up and down the line, not just in the stories they tell, but even when they tell us basically the same ideas, like how did they get born in Bethlehem? They are so radically different. It doesn't look like one copied the other or that they both got it from a common source.
[00:07:34] And so that's why, that's why the differences are too great.
[00:07:40] One second, please. I need to make sure everybody is muted.
[00:07:45] If you are on here and are not muted, please mute yourself there. Okay, I think I've got everybody. Okay, Right.
[00:07:58] Next question in line.
[00:08:03] Okay, this question is actually about Matthew's. One of Matthew's stories in his birth narrative. Something that's not at all in Luke.
[00:08:11] It's just in Matthew, it's the account of Herod and the slaughter of the innocents, when King Herod kills all the baby boys two years and younger, has them killed two years and younger in Bethlehem because he wants to make sure that he wipes out the king of the Jews, the future King of the Jews.
[00:08:29] This person who's asking the question about that story which you get in Matthew 2:16, points out that in his or her view, the person asking this question sees it as a revised story about the Passover, where you have this account in the birth of Moses that the pharaoh was out to get Moses and this person says with Matthew account you have Herod as the new Moses, even though Herod wasn't Jewish, that in fact this is like trying to oppose Jews. So Herod is the new Mo is the new. Herod is the new Pharaoh. Herod is the new Pharaoh, Jesus is Moses. And this is the attempt, says this person, to make Jews the eternal enemy of Christ.
[00:09:18] And so he's saying that it's being told kind of like a secret story where he's supposed to connect the dots where it's Herod trying to kill Jesus, which is actually the Jews trying to kill Jesus just as the Pharaoh killed Moses. But this person says historians reject it, but it's still celebrated in virtually all the Christian denominations. Do you think this person's asking that most Christians see it as gospel truth and that its authenticity doesn't need to be established?
[00:09:50] Well, first thing. Well, I'll answer the question directly. Yes, I would say that most Christians think it happened. Of course most Christians think that what the Bible narrates as having happened in the life of Jesus actually happened in the life of Jesus. And they don't. Most Christians don't think that you need to establish historical basis for a story in the Bible because it's just, it's telling the truth, telling the historical truth.
[00:10:12] I will say though, I've never seen this as an anti Jewish story in the sense of the, the slaughter of the innocence is like somehow opposed to somehow that Herod represents Jews as opposed like Pharaoh represents the Egyptians, but Herod represents Jews. But because as question points out, Herod's not a Jew in this story and there's nothing that connects him with the Jews. And so this is showing the Roman, the Romans are out to kill Jesus, which they did in the long run. So it may be forecasting or foreshadowing his future death. The only thing in this story that in fact might be is very interesting for the light it casts on Judaism is something else. It's that the wise men who go to worship Jesus, the Magi are not Jews. They come from the east, they're astronomers from someplace, some eastern part of the world, from Babylon or Assyria or someplace or other. And they're following a star.
[00:11:12] They don't know where the Messiah is supposed to be born.
[00:11:15] They end up in Jerusalem because that's where the star takes them. And they ask around where's the king of the Jews to be born? And Herod finds out that they've asked. And so he asked his scripture scholar, where's the king of the Jews to be born, because these people say he's been born already.
[00:11:29] And the scripture scholars tell him it's supposed to be in Bethlehem. And so he tells the wise men in Bethlehem, but then he sends out his troops to kill all the children.
[00:11:40] The wise men go to worship the child before Herod sends in the troops, and then they leave by another way and don't return to tell Herod what has just happened.
[00:11:50] The reason that's interesting for understanding Matthew's view of Judaism is because it is precisely the Jewish scholars who know where the Messiah is to be born, who do not go and revere him.
[00:12:06] It is the pagans who learn what the scriptures say about the future Messiah who go to worship him.
[00:12:13] This is Matthew foreshadowing the fact that most Jews will reject Jesus, will not worship him, whereas Gentiles will.
[00:12:21] But I don't think the slaughter of the innocents itself is anti Jewish in that sense.
[00:12:27] Okay, next question.
[00:12:30] I heard you debate Ross Douthed on whether Jesus rose from the dead. Okay, so this is referring to a, a podcast interview I did with Ross Douthat of the New York Times that got published a couple weeks ago.
[00:12:47] That was more. It was supposed to be based on my book Love Life Stranger, which which just recently came out.
[00:12:53] And Ross wanted, in addition to talking about the book, he wanted to talk about the historical Jesus and things about Jesus. Ross is a, as a fairly conservative Roman Catholic who thinks the Bible is basically trustworthy on what it says.
[00:13:10] And you know, and he thinks that there's pretty good reason for thinking Jesus was raised from the dead. And he asked me, you know, why? Why? I didn't think so. And one of the things I pointed out is that if you try there, there's certainly some things we know about the resurrection. I mean, we know that people said Jesus got raised from the dead, but probably some of his own followers said he got raised from the dead. And everybody agrees he was crucified. These followers said they saw him afterwards, and that became the basis for thinking that Jesus got raised from the dead.
[00:13:41] So back to this question. I heard you debate Ross Douthat on whether Jesus raised from the dead. You claimed it could have been a case of mistaken identity.
[00:13:50] But says this person, the resurrection story was written decades after Jesus lived by unknown people who lived far away from where he lived, who spoke in a different language from what Jesus spoke, did not know Jesus, and they had no eyewitness accounts to rely on.
[00:14:05] This person says, in my opinion, the resurrection story was fabricated by unknown people who wanted to substantiate Jesus divinity and were not content to allow his story to end with him dying unceremoniously on the cross.
[00:14:21] These myths are a hallmark of religions.
[00:14:25] Their points, in my opinion. These points, in my opinion, are far more convincing than your mistaken identity theory.
[00:14:31] Do you disagree?
[00:14:35] Well, yeah, I do, but let me say several things about it, about why I don't think these things are myths. I don't think these are myths that are hallmark of religions. I'm not sure what this person means about that. I think maybe what they're saying, maybe what this person is saying is that the idea of a dying and rising God is found in many religions.
[00:14:58] I'm not sure how many religions it's found in.
[00:15:01] I'm actually not sure it's found in any religions, frankly, that a God has died and been raised from the dead. But maybe this person is referring to things like the founder of Rome, Romulus, who in Roman tradition was thought to have been exalted to heaven, or Apollonius of Tyana, somewhat after Jesus day, who's thought to have been taken up to heaven, maybe saying, well, this is the way you celebrate somebody's divinity. Julius Caesar going up to heaven after his assassination.
[00:15:34] So maybe. But I wouldn't say that this is like a typical view of most religions.
[00:15:41] But the big issue is this person saying, look, you're saying it's a mistaken identity. Isn't it just simpler to say somebody's just making it up?
[00:15:49] And some level, I suppose that is easier to say.
[00:15:53] But I think there are problems with it.
[00:15:56] I think there are problems with saying that later followers of Jesus wanted to confirm his deity by saying he got raised from the dead. That's what this person thinks is more likely than my idea that it may have been mistaken identity, first thing to say is, I don't believe that I said that that was my theory or that it was like the theory that I have.
[00:16:18] It's one of my theories. I think what I said, maybe I've talked about this a lot lately, so maybe I'm confusing things that I've said to different people. But I think what I told Ross was that there are other explanations for the resurrection that don't require a supernatural intervention. And that because these other ways of explaining why people thought he got raised from the dead are things that happen all the time.
[00:16:41] They're just by their very nature, they're more likely than an explanation that's never happened before.
[00:16:47] If the historian can only establish things that probably happened in the past and the alternatives are between things that happen all the time and something that's never happened. Well, which is more likely just on historical grounds, that doesn't prove that Jesus was not raised from the dead. And so I do not go around saying Jesus was not raised from the dead. I'm saying if you're a historian and trying to establish what probably happened, there are other options.
[00:17:14] For example, say Peter saw somebody in the distance and thought it was Jesus and really thought it was Jesus and came to believe he got raised from the dead.
[00:17:27] You know, a couple years ago, I was giving several years, about five or six years ago, seven years ago, I was giving a lecture, I forget where, and giving a talk.
[00:17:36] There was a guy off to my left in the third row that I was convinced was my father who had died, you know, 25 years before that. But he looked just like him, I was sure, as my father. I mean, it wasn't like I, you know, it wasn't. I thought, I was thinking that guy that. That looked like my dad.
[00:17:57] Is that.
[00:17:58] What. What is this? I mean, I was like, it's really shocking. And so that's what I meant by mistaken identity is, is not that.
[00:18:07] Not that they were like, talking to somebody who's wearing a costume to look like Jesus or something.
[00:18:11] You know, maybe they saw somebody, they thought it was Jesus, and they. He's back, you know, and then something like that, or, you know, so that's one. One option. But it's not the only option I have. I mean, there are all sorts of options. Suppose somebody had a dream and they thought that it was actually real.
[00:18:25] Happens all the time. Suppose somebody had a hallucination.
[00:18:28] One out of eight of us have a hallucination of a recently deceased loved one.
[00:18:34] People frequently have visions of important religious figures who have died.
[00:18:41] People have visions of Elvis.
[00:18:43] They really believe they saw him every time. When people have these visions, these hallucinations, they think that. They think they actually happen. They actually did see these people. So that's another option. You can go through the options, and these various options are not likely with Jesus, but they're more likely than the laws of physics being violated and being brought back from the dead.
[00:19:07] You know, life and death, they go in one direction. You're alive, then you die, and it doesn't. Doesn't come back. So, all right, so I'm not saying that's the only explanation, but isn't it more likely this person says that just people later wanted to make it up?
[00:19:24] So let me tell you a couple of problems with that.
[00:19:26] One is that the Apostle Paul indicates that he had a vision of Jesus himself. That. So he is an eyewitness. He's the one eyewitness we have. And if you look at the dates of you look set up Paul's chronology, it's pretty clear that this vision of Jesus would have occurred about three years after Jesus died.
[00:19:49] So we're not talking about much later people, later stories not based on eyewitnesses. This actually is a guy who claims to be an eyewitness. It is later, several years later, he does name other people who said they saw Jesus.
[00:20:01] And so, you know, I don't think this is compelling evidence they saw Jesus, but I don't think it's something like invented 10 years later or anything like that. But maybe this person means like some months later or something like that. I don't know exactly what he or she means.
[00:20:15] What I will say that I think it's problematic to think that somebody made this up in order to substantiate Jesus divinity because.
[00:20:29] They wouldn't have had a reason to assume his divinity apart from the story.
[00:20:37] It's the fact they thought he got raised from the dead that made them think he was divine.
[00:20:43] During his lifetime. Jesus didn't talk about himself as being God in my judgment.
[00:20:48] His followers certainly didn't talk about him being God in my judgment. It's not until after his death that people start saying that he got raised from the dead and that made him divine.
[00:21:00] And so if you know. So the question is what made them say that?
[00:21:06] So it's not in order to show he's divine. It's what led them to think he was divine, in my judgment. Again, I'm an atheist, so I don't believe in it, but I don't think that that people later were just making something up to make him a divine being. I don't see any. I don't see any reason to think that myself.
[00:21:20] Okay, next question. Again, dealing with Jesus as God. As it turns out, I did not arrange these this way. It just kind of happens. They flow sometimes. I'm curious to know Barth's thoughts on the meaning of John 1:1 and the absence of the article for Theos, the Word for God.
[00:21:38] My question is particularly aimed at getting Barth's thoughts on Jason Bedoon's opinion that it should be translated more simply as and the God was the Word. Was John trying to teach his followers that Jesus was God Almighty? Those are different questions. There are actually several different questions in there and I need to explain all of them.
[00:21:59] John Chapter one. I'll do this from memory. N R K ein hagos kai halagos ein prostantha an kai Theos ain't halagas.
[00:22:16] So in the beginning was the word.
[00:22:18] The word was with God, and the word was God.
[00:22:24] That's normally how it's translated.
[00:22:26] This person is pointing out that in Greek, the word for God, theos, when it means God, usually has the definite article with it.
[00:22:40] When you're actually talking, when you're talking about Greek, to say definite article is a tautology.
[00:22:47] People wouldn't know this, but there's no definite article. I mean, there's no indefinite article in Greek, there's no indefinite article in Greek. So if there's an article, it's the definite article.
[00:22:57] And so theos normally would be ha, theos, the God. In English, you'd say the God. But it's a way of saying God, capital G, G, God, as opposed to. If you're saying gods, you would normally say theoi, without. If you say hoi theois, then you're saying the gods with me so far. Okay, so in this verse, he's pointing out that Jason Bedoon, a fine scholar of early Christianity, argues that it's easier to translate this verse as in the beginning, it's the word. The word was with God, and a God was the word.
[00:23:37] So I'm not sure that's a simpler translation. I suppose it is.
[00:23:41] There are reasons that people think otherwise.
[00:23:45] Virtually all the translations that I know of, except for the Jehovah's Witnesses translation, the New World translation, does translate it this way.
[00:23:56] Jehovah's Witnesses do not think that Jesus is God. Capital G, God.
[00:24:02] And so what does the grammar say?
[00:24:04] The grammar actually could be read either way.
[00:24:11] There'd be a long discussion we could have about this verse.
[00:24:15] Let me say one thing, is that the reason it is phrased the way it is probably is if you look at that first verse and other verses at the beginning of John, it's an interesting way of doing, of writing. It's a very kind of poetic writing. The end of each thought, the word at the end of each thought, the final word of each thought is the first word of the next thought.
[00:24:40] In the beginning was the word. Okay, the word was with God and God was the word.
[00:24:48] And it goes on like that for several verses. And so.
[00:24:53] So it's important to understand the literary structure of it.
[00:24:57] What about the lack of the article?
[00:25:01] It doesn't say ha Theos, it says just theos. Doesn't that mean a God? Was the word the problem?
[00:25:09] How do I Say this in English.
[00:25:11] The problem is this is a copulative sentence where the.
[00:25:16] Where the. Where the subject is the noun that has the article.
[00:25:20] And there's a.
[00:25:22] It's not a rule in Greek, but it is a common practice in Greek that when you have a copulative sentence where, like this is that, like if you have is or was, it's a. It's called a copulative sentence.
[00:25:36] And where you're identifying two things, this is that, you know, and it could be, you know, my. My girlfriend is a sweetheart, you know, it's a.
[00:25:48] So you're saying two things are equivalent. When you have that in theory, you can reverse it either way, right?
[00:25:55] You could.
[00:25:57] But when you have it that way in Greek, it is the subject that gets the article and often the direct. Often it's not a direct object.
[00:26:09] It's a predicate noun. The predicate noun does not get the object.
[00:26:13] And the word sequence doesn't matter.
[00:26:15] Greek doesn't make sense by word sequence, by the sequence of words, although there are some sequences you pretty much have to keep. But a lot of times in Greek, you have to read a whole sentence before you know what the verb is.
[00:26:28] It takes you a while. You have a direct object before the verb and the subject after the verb. The Greek can mess around with the word order in lots of different ways. But if you have a short copulative sentence like this, where you just have the verb to be connecting two nouns, if one of the nouns has the article, that's the subject and the other is the predicate, the modifying word. And so in that case, this would be the word. Was God in English?
[00:26:59] Well, wasn't that fun? Okay, sorry about that. All right, next question.
[00:27:06] What are the most important things someone should understand about the social, political and religious world of first century Roman Judea?
[00:27:13] Right. Okay. So if you want to know about the context within which, well, this person is saying Judea. So that's where he was crucified, where Jesus is crucified.
[00:27:23] He spent most of his time up in Galilee.
[00:27:26] So far as we could tell, he spent his entire life up in Galilee until the last week when he and his disciples went down to Jerusalem for the Passover feast.
[00:27:37] What do we know about, Let me just say, like the entire homeland, both Galilee and Judea. What, what should we know about this? It's just kind of the very basics for start. For starters, the more you know about it, the easier it's going to be to understand the life and deeds of somebody who lived there.
[00:27:59] It, you know, it would be.
[00:28:04] It would be very, very difficult to explain any event in American history if he didn't know something about the history of America already.
[00:28:17] So. All right, so what would you need to know about first century Roman Judea?
[00:28:24] I'll just give five things.
[00:28:26] The most important things I think are that this land was controlled by the Roman world, that is one of the areas controlled by Rome and that as a result of that was under ro Roman protection, but was also obliged to pay tribute to the Roman protectors and it was ruled under Roman authority.
[00:28:47] So that's important to know. It's important to know that the population was largely rural.
[00:28:53] There were several large cities.
[00:28:56] There were two large cities up in Galilee.
[00:28:59] Not far from where Jesus lived was a city named Sephorus. He's never said to have visited there in the New Testament. Another large city was Tiberius.
[00:29:07] The large city in the south was Jerusalem.
[00:29:11] Apart from that, there are not too many large cities in the area. Most people are rural folk, as was true throughout the Roman Empire.
[00:29:18] This is something a little bit hard to get our minds around, but 80 to 90% of the Roman world lived in rural areas.
[00:29:27] Third thing to know is that there was very high level poverty throughout the Roman world at the time.
[00:29:34] Most of the wealth was located in the cities.
[00:29:37] Even in the cities there was a great deal of poverty.
[00:29:43] Many people, probably the majority of people, either living very close to the edge or just basically subsistence living or destitute in the urban areas.
[00:29:56] And it was worse than the rural areas. And most of the world was rural.
[00:30:00] So there was a lot of poverty, a lot of hunger, a lot of hand to mouth existence.
[00:30:06] Most people were, because these were rural areas with villages and towns, most people, and people just living off in the country. Most people had their own plots of land, small plots that they would raise crops on to feed themselves and possibly to barter with. And they might have some other job to make some money. Like if you could fix the gates in town and install a door in town, you would be the local carpenter.
[00:30:33] Not making fine cabinetry.
[00:30:35] So the poverty levels are high. So it's Roman, it's rural, there's high poverty levels. Illiteracy was widespread at the time. The most thorough comprehensive account of literacy in Judea and Galilee at the time indicates that only something like 3% or maybe possibly a little bit more, say 3, between 3 and 4% of people could read and far fewer than that knew how to write.
[00:31:08] Illiteracy was rampant.
[00:31:10] People could read things in the sense that they could hear somebody else read them and so the way Jews would learn the Torah by and large would be they'd hear them hear whoever was literate in their community would read from the Torah scroll and they would learn it that way.
[00:31:28] So illiteracy was very high.
[00:31:30] Fifth thing that I think is especially important, I think this person is probably asking about Jesus World. In Jesus World was the Jewish apocalyptic worldview that was widespread at the time.
[00:31:42] That was held by wide swaths of Jews, so far as we could tell, in Palestine, possibly outside a view that maintained that the reason Jews and possibly other people were suffering was not because God was punishing them, but because there were powers of evil in the world that were rampant and opposing God and His people and that were bringing suffering to people and that God had allotted a certain amount of time for these powers of evil to be in charge.
[00:32:17] The time was almost up and there was soon going to be a day of judgment to arrive where God would vindicate Himself, his world and his people and there'd be a future, there'd be a resurrection of the dead. Then when all those who had died will face judgment. Those who have sided with God will be rewarded. Those who have opposed God will be destroyed. And it's going to happen soon.
[00:32:42] I think if you understand that much, you got enough to start with and a lot more to do.
[00:32:50] But you ought to at least know that much, I would think about the first century world.
[00:32:55] Next question. Kind of related actually. What assumptions do modern readers, both religious and secular, bring to the New Testament that you think are so ingrained they don't even recognize them as assumptions?
[00:33:08] Well, one thing I think most people assume without kind of realizing that it's actually an assumption is that life in those times, New Testament times was pretty much like life is today.
[00:33:21] We are so accustomed to having our ways of living.
[00:33:27] We knew of course they didn't have automobiles and computers and things, but we basically. Most people basically think it's kind of like today. And so when they use their common sense to figure out what a passage means, what or what an action indicates or what a saying might, might what the significance might be in that context, they assume that it's, you know, well, it's basically like today. And so they, and so they assume that sometimes that comes out in expl. Explicitly economic assumptions when every, when most people are really very close to the edge, you know, and people who live in small rural areas are basically living a hand to mouth existence hoping they can surv.
[00:34:11] It changes how you think about things.
[00:34:13] Some of you've heard me do a couple of debates, or at least one of the debates with Jimmy Akins, who is a Roman Catholic apologist for Christianity who basically thinks the New Testament is completely true. And we've debated a couple of things, but I think one thing we've debated, maybe more than any, and maybe we've debated this one thing twice now that I think about it, is how to reconcile the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke.
[00:34:39] As I said earlier, they're really different from each other, and in fact, they contradict each other. One of the ways they contradict each other is that in Matthew's gospel, it's clear as day that Joseph and Mary live in Bethlehem.
[00:34:57] Where they live, Jesus is born there. And when Joseph and Mary had to flee to Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod during the slaughter of the innocents, they go down to Egypt, Herod dies, they come back. And the reason they can't settle again in Judea, which is where Bethlehem is, is because now his son is the ruler, so they have to relocate up to Nazareth.
[00:35:22] Okay, well, when you read Luke's account, their home, Joseph and Mary's home, is not Bethlehem. And they don't go down to Egypt and they don't have to relocate to Nazareth.
[00:35:32] They're from Nazareth. There's a tax they have to pay, and so they have to go down to Bethlehem to pay the tax because Joseph is from the lineage of David who was born in Bethlehem. So they have to go to Bethlehem. So they go there, and she goes into labor while they're there, and she gives birth there, and then they go back 40 days later, they go back to Nazareth.
[00:35:52] So in these debates, I point out, you know, there seems to be a contradiction here because Joseph, they're from Nazareth in one account, they're from Bethlehem in the other account, and, you know, it's one or the other. And Jimmy's argument is, no, no, Joseph had a second home.
[00:36:07] He had a second home in Bethlehem. And so, you know, had two residences. And so Luke's talking about the residence in Nazareth and Matthew's talking about the residence in Bethlehem, which makes perfect sense if you're, you know, middle class American or upper middle class or really upper class might have a second home.
[00:36:26] Why not? Of course, that, that makes sense. He's a carpenter. He probably, he probably has two homes. You know, business isn't going well. Bethlehem just goes to his other home for a few months and works there and then comes back. So that's Jimmy's argument, which makes great sense if you, you know, if you're living in Austin Texas today, that you might have a second home somewhere else, but somebody living in Nazareth or somebody living in Bethlehem as a second home.
[00:36:53] What?
[00:36:54] Okay, yeah, well, you know, if you know something about the ancient economy, that's the less likely assumption.
[00:36:59] Another, another common assumption people have, very, very common assumption is that all the books of the New Testament are saying basically the same thing.
[00:37:08] They're unified, the books, the authors, they agree on everything.
[00:37:13] That really affects reading. Because if they're agreeing on everything and they seem to be at odds with each other, then they only seem to be odds with each other. They're actually agreeing.
[00:37:22] And the trick of interpretation is figuring out how to reconcile them.
[00:37:28] That's a big problem because it means you're not actually reading what Matthew has to say or what Luke has to say or what John has to say or what Paul has to say.
[00:37:36] You're more interested in making them say what somebody else says.
[00:37:40] So that's a big assumption, and it's almost certainly wrong, I think. And go along with that. Assuming that everything in the New Testament agrees with everything in the Old Testament, like, you know, that there's pure continuity between the two. It's, it's a, you know, it's smooth sailing between. When you transition from one to the other. I think that's a big mistake too.
[00:38:00] So, all right, so those are some of the assumptions. There are lots of assumptions. And part of the task of historical scholarship is to get people out of their modern assumptions to understand things historically.
[00:38:12] Okay, next, this person says, I've just watched your conversation with CJ Cornwaith about atonement and other things.
[00:38:22] So Chris Cornwaith is a.
[00:38:25] He's a New Testament scholar, has an increasingly popular YouTube channel, and he interviewed me about something or other, including apparently atonement.
[00:38:35] And so this person says when it came to Jesus statement that it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
[00:38:46] I wonder if you've ever considered a possible clever juxtaposition of the religious meaning with the obvious, namely that no matter how much money a person has at the time of death, no soul has any money thereafter.
[00:39:04] So no one enters as a rich man or a woman.
[00:39:08] Okay, interesting question.
[00:39:14] So I'm not sure if you got all that, but they're saying, you know, why do you think that Jesus is condemning the rich man? He's simply saying that, look, you can't get into heaven with any riches because nobody gets any riches in heaven. You don't take anything with you.
[00:39:27] So. Good question.
[00:39:30] I have a couple responses to it. One is that in the non Jewish, non Christian world, this was precisely the problem of wealth.
[00:39:39] You get this in Stoic philosophers, and especially in Cynic philosophers who pointed out that if you live for wealth, you're really kind of missing the point because when you die, you're not going to have it anymore. So why is that what you're living for?
[00:39:54] That is a Greek and Roman attack on people who focus on wealth instead of other things that are more important during their lifetimes. Because after you're dead, you won't bring any with you.
[00:40:05] I do not find that in the Jewish or the Christian traditions so much.
[00:40:11] It is there in some of the passages that Jesus talks about. Jesus does have that similar line in the passage of the guy who builds barns, bigger barns, because he's got a bigger crop, and he's more concerned about building bigger barns than with his own soul. And he happens to die that night. Whoops. Wasn't concerned about the right thing.
[00:40:29] So you can find it there. But I don't think you can find it in the passage about, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. If you read it in its context. Jesus has been talking to a rich man who refuses to sell everything to follow him.
[00:40:45] And Jesus is pointing out to his disciples that it's impossible for a human to do. It's impossible for a human to give up all their riches if they're very rich.
[00:40:54] Disciples are kind of puzzled by that because they think the rich folk are the ones. God's blessing, obviously, but.
[00:41:00] And Jesus says, no, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into heaven.
[00:41:07] So in this context, he's definitely talking not about everybody going into the afterlife without wealth. He's talking about the problem of the wealthy.
[00:41:19] He's talking about rich people in particular.
[00:41:23] And so Jesus doesn't say, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for either a rich or a poor person to get into heaven. No, it's the rich person.
[00:41:35] Why is it impossible? Because they aren't fully committed to God. They're fully committed to their riches.
[00:41:41] When Jesus says, by the way, that it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.
[00:41:46] And then the disciples, you know, say, what? And he says, well, with humans it's impossible. With God, it's possible.
[00:41:53] That does not mean that it's possible to be filthy rich and Die and get to heaven.
[00:41:58] It means that if you are filthy rich, God can change your heart and allow you to commit yourself to the things that really matter.
[00:42:05] It's impossible for a human to do it on their own, but God can make it possible.
[00:42:10] It's not that you'll be one of the lucky few rich people to go in and also get mansions in heaven.
[00:42:16] Okay, so I don't think that interpretation, it would fit well in a cynic philosophy or Stoic philosophy would not fit well in what's happening here in this literary context where Jesus is condemning riches per se.
[00:42:30] Or at least, yeah, it's condemning riches.
[00:42:33] Okay, next question. Have you considered some parts of the Bible may be demon inspired lies which God allows and is using those lies to test us?
[00:42:46] No, I've never thought about that except when other people have asked me this question.
[00:42:52] Several people have asked me that recently, or maybe the same person has asked me a number of times. I don't know. I've gotten this question recently.
[00:42:57] I don't believe that the Bible contains demon inspired lies.
[00:43:01] The reason I don't believe that today is because I don't believe in demons.
[00:43:06] There it is. They're supernatural beings. I don't think there are supernatural beings of the sort this person's talking about. I don't believe there are forces of evil, actual personalities that are spiritual beings that are doing wicked things to humans that are, you know, causing, causing problems for us. So no, I don't, I don't think that's probably the best way to explain it.
[00:43:27] Next, suffering is a fundamental aspect of Christianity.
[00:43:31] What about Jesus? Did he also proclaim suffering as a main aspect of his teaching?
[00:43:39] That's a very good question.
[00:43:42] Jesus does talk about suffering.
[00:43:48] In the sayings that I think we can establish, as he probably did say, you know, and, and for example, he, he castigates people for thinking that people are being punished just for their sins. And he points out, you know, there's a, there's this, this tower that fell on all these people. And he said, you know, do you think they were like more sinners than you are?
[00:44:11] And so he doesn't subscribe to this idea that suffering is coming straight from the hand of God. At least in every case.
[00:44:19] Jesus does not come out and say anything about suffering being like the main point of his teaching. And to see it as one of his main points, you have to understand in a bit more detail about what his teachings were.
[00:44:34] I think that suffering is a key element of Jesus teachings, but not because he uses the word a lot, or because he addresses theodicy directly, the question of how there could be suffering in a world filled with God. But I think the reason that you can say that suffering was a major element of Jesus teachings is precisely because of his message of the coming kingdom of God.
[00:45:01] When Jesus pronounces his first words that we have that survive Mark 1:15, and he says, the time has been fulfilled, filled, the kingdom of God is near.
[00:45:13] Repent and believe the good news.
[00:45:16] That for me, is Jesus teaching in a nutshell.
[00:45:20] There's been a certain amount of time allotted for the powers of evil in this world. As I mentioned earlier, Jesus in Mark 1 says the time has been fulfilled. In other words, the clock has reached the point, it's midnight, it's 20 seconds to midnight here or so.
[00:45:42] Like, there's a certain amount of time, it's up, it's fulfilled. The kingdom of God is near.
[00:45:47] Sometimes that's translated is at hand, which is a. It's a good translation for it, but many people don't quite understand what it means. The words are not is at hand in Greek. The Greek word is near. The kingdom of God has become near. In other words, it's like it's almost here. And so in that sense, it's at hand.
[00:46:07] And so you're to repent and believe the good news. You're supposed to repent and believe that God's good kingdom is coming soon. Why do you need to repent?
[00:46:15] Well, elsewhere in Jesus teachings, he emphatically makes the point repeatedly that those who do not enter into the kingdom of God will not just be kind of excluded, they're going to be destroyed.
[00:46:33] People will be destroyed if they are not ready for this coming kingdom of God.
[00:46:39] And so you don't want to be destroyed. Especially because Jesus describes how they're going to be destroyed. They're going to be destroyed in fire.
[00:46:47] Well, it's not going to be nice. And so people are going to be raised from the dead and either brought into the kingdom or destroyed. And the reason for this day of judgment is because there are people in the world who are wicked, who cause huge problems for other people, who make other people suffer. And God is opposed to those people.
[00:47:08] Moreover, there's a lot of suffering now that God is later going to vindicate.
[00:47:15] People have sided with God and they're not succeeding much now.
[00:47:20] And they are going to be made happy then. So when Jesus says in Luke's gospel, when he gives the Beatitudes, he says, blessed are you who hunger and thirst, Thirst for yours is the Kingdom.
[00:47:36] The people who hunger and thirst are the ones who are going to get into the kingdom. And then he says, after that, woe to you who are filled now, for you have already had your fill.
[00:47:49] Whoa.
[00:47:51] Okay, so that's.
[00:47:54] So you don't want to be. If you're having a happy life now, it may not be good in the afterlife if you're not behaving the way you need to behave. Or elsewhere. He says in.
[00:48:05] In Luke, blessed are you who are persecuted now.
[00:48:09] And so. And bl. You know, so. So blessed are you who suffer now.
[00:48:14] Why? Well, because when the day of judgment comes, things will be good. So I think. I think teaching is actually quite central to the. The teaching of suffering is quite central to Jesus proclamation because the whole point of the Kingdom of God is that God's going to reverse what's happening here. Now, the first will be last, the last first.
[00:48:32] Those who are exalted now will be humbled. Those who are humble now will be exalted.
[00:48:39] Okay, next question.
[00:48:42] The Synoptic gospels seem to present Jesus death as having atoning or redemptive significance.
[00:48:49] For example, Mark 10:45, that's where Jesus says, the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
[00:49:05] And then the person, the questioner says, and Also Matthew, chapter 26, verses 27 through 28. This is the Last Supper, where Jesus is instituting the Lord's Supper. And he takes the cup and he says, this cup of wine, he says, this is my blood which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
[00:49:27] How does one make sense of this view? Says this questioner. How does Jesus death bring about the forgiveness of sins?
[00:49:34] Did these people imagine that God required Jesus death in order to forgive? Or is something else going on in these passages?
[00:49:42] This is a complicated topic that I deal with at some length in my book Love Thy Stranger.
[00:49:47] It is complicated in part because of the English words that we use for how God deals with sin in not holding it against somebody.
[00:50:02] And in my book, I argue that in my book, I'm not interested in the words that we use so much as the idea that we have. And there are two separate ideas that get confused. And because of the words we use.
[00:50:18] Hey, with me so far. So I'm not interested in what the word is per se. I'm interested in what. What it means in its context. Okay, just a word. And so it'd be like if you. If you use the word love, and you said, you know, I made love with My girlfriend last night. You would mean something different from. You would say, I really love my grandmother, or I really love Charles Dickens novels, or I really love my job.
[00:50:50] Those. The word love is the same, but it has a different meaning in these different contexts. You with me?
[00:50:56] So the two words at stake here are the word atonement and the word forgiveness.
[00:51:04] So those are the words, and I'm not concerned about how you use the words. I'm concerned about the ideas they convey.
[00:51:09] When I use these words, I use them to convey a particular. This is going to make sense of this question.
[00:51:14] I use them to designate two different things.
[00:51:19] Following philosophers of modern philosophers like Martha Nussbaum, for example, or Charles Griswold today, who have written entire books on forgiveness, they argue that for a particular concept of forgiveness, which is, I do something that hurts you, I know it's going to hurt you, but I have reasons for wanting to do it anyway. And so even though I know it's going to hurt you, I do it later. I feel like, you know, I regret it. I feel regret. Ah, I shouldn't have done that. And I feel remorse because I've hurt you and I shouldn't have hurt you. So I've done the act, I've regretted it. I feel remorse, and I vow I'm not going to do that again.
[00:52:03] And so I decide to change my ways. I go to you and I say, I'm sorry I did that. I knew it was going to hurt you. I did it anyway. I'm really sorry I did that. Will you forgive me?
[00:52:15] If you forgive me, you let it go.
[00:52:19] That's it.
[00:52:21] You just let it go. You return to the same relationship you had before. There's no penalty. There's no punishment.
[00:52:29] There's. There's. I don't have to pay a price. There's no payment.
[00:52:34] If I've humiliated you publicly, you don't get to now humiliate me public or. You don't have to do that before you let it go. You simply let it go because I've repented and you forgive me. Boom. Okay? That's what I'm calling forgiveness.
[00:52:50] Atonement is when somebody has to pay the price.
[00:52:55] You've. You've humiliated me, and I'm going to humiliate you in return. And once I do, then. Then we'll let it go.
[00:53:06] Okay? So atonement, somebody's got to pay a price. And so, you know, like I, you know, I wreck your car and I've got to buy you a new car before we let it Go.
[00:53:21] Okay. There's a price.
[00:53:23] All right? So that's what I'm calling atonement. Where there's a penalty, there's a price, there's a punishment, something to make up for it. Forgiveness. There's no penalty, price, punishment. You just forget. Okay?
[00:53:38] And in my book, I argue that Jesus in his teachings, taught forgiveness. That Jesus taught that God would let it go without any penalty, any price.
[00:53:50] Whereas after Jesus death, his followers began to argue, you need an atonement. God does not forgive you.
[00:53:59] He requires an atonement. Jesus died to atone for your sins.
[00:54:06] Now, I'm emphasizing two concepts because people, even in the Bible use the words sometimes to mean the same thing.
[00:54:16] So I'm not interested in the words, I'm interested in the concepts. But when Matthew says that Jesus poured out his blood for many for the forgiveness of sins, that's a contradiction of the concepts.
[00:54:28] It means you're using forgiveness and atonement is the same thing. And you can do that, but the concepts are different.
[00:54:35] This person is asking about atonement and he's trying to make sense of it.
[00:54:41] The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and John definitely teach atonement.
[00:54:47] When Jesus gives his life as a ransom for many, it means his life substitutes for those of others for other people's lives.
[00:54:55] If Jesus dies for your sins, it's so you don't have to die for your sins. It's so you can have eternal life. He gave up his life for your life. That's atonement.
[00:55:09] Forgiveness would be if God didn't require his son to die, he would just forgive you, just like you forgive your child. When your child does something wrong and they ask to be forgiven, you just forgive them. You don't require an atoning sacrifice. Jesus thought that's what God was like.
[00:55:24] His follower said required atonement.
[00:55:28] So this person is asking, so when the person asks, does Jesus death bring about the forgiveness of sins in the New Testament view? Well, you either have to say that Jesus of death atoned for sins or that God didn't require atonement and forgave sins. But the authors in the New Testament that talk about atonement are not talking about forgiveness in the concept that I'm using.
[00:55:54] And it's interesting that I said Matthew, Mark and John all have atonement.
[00:55:59] Paul has atonement. Hebrews has atonement. First Peter has atonement. Virtually revelation. They all have atonement, except for the Gospel of Luke.
[00:56:07] The Gospel of Luke in the Book of Acts does not have atonement. It has forgiveness.
[00:56:13] Interestingly, the idea of atonement is that somebody has to pay a price. And Jesus pays the atonement by paying the price of others.
[00:56:22] That's how the other gospels and the rest of the New Testament are understanding the significance of Jesus. Death is in place, the punishment that Jesus took upon himself so that we don't have to pay for it after we die. That was the teaching.
