Gold Q&A - November 2026

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Right. So Jen, do we need to do anything before we start? [00:00:04] Speaker B: No, I just want to say hello to everyone and thank you all for joining us this afternoon or whatever time it is, wherever you are in the world. We always love doing these each month and you all always submit great questions and just kind of a reminder on the format, Bart's going to spend the first half answering pre submitted questions and then during the second half we will open it up and you can come on camera, raise your hand, come on camera and ask any questions that you have for BART Live. So Bart, with that I will pass it back to you. [00:00:37] Speaker A: Okay, great, thanks. Thank you all for coming. Thank you all for being gold members. As usual, we have gotten a large number of very good questions and I'm not going to be able to get all through through all the pre submitted ones, but I'll do what I can in order to give justice to the ones rather than just kind of going, you know, bang, bang, bang through them. All right then we'll take yours on any topic that you want. So. Right. I began with do you have an opinion on using AI agents to translate and interpret biblical passages? Is it necessary to be a language expert now that the agents can do a passable job of translation? Well, it's a great question. I haven't really thought about it much. I mean, I do use AI myself to look things up quite regularly for factual information. When it comes to translation of biblical passage, it's problematic for a number of reasons. I'm not saying it will always be problematic, probably won't be. One thing I've stopped doing is saying that, yeah, well, AI can't do that because, yeah, I can't this week or the AI can't become conscious. I don't know, I can't. I mean, I suppose I can. So I've given up on that. But I will say when it comes to biblical translation, it's a little bit trickier than asking for when what's the history of the Notre Dom or something where you have like factual information. Translations aren't just factual information, although they can be that, they are that. But especially when you're dealing with a complicated text as opposed to like most novels or short stories. If you're dealing with a complicated text that has a lot of intricacies to it and hundreds of years interpretation behind it and the translation depends on certain interpretive decisions. It's a little bit tricky if you really want the nuance of something thing to ask the AI to do it. I think though that if you you know, I'm sure I haven't tried it. I'm sure there are ways to ask for multiple translations. They won't be able to give you translations that are in a copyright, so. But they are, but they will be able to probably translate things in a variety of ways. And my guess is, again, I haven't done this, but my guess is that if you're confused about how to translate a particular thing, prob. It can tell you. Jen, could you mute everybody, please, or have everybody mute all y'. All. Y' all mute yourselves, please? Or you could ask it, you know, what are the, what are the debates about how to translate this verse, for example? And it probably could tell you because I think they've scanned all like 8 zillion commentaries or something. And it's, I'm sure it's that way with interpreting biblical passages. You could probably say, you know, what's a range of interpretations of the parable that gets Samaritan, you know, what are the interpretive problems that scholars have? And since it doesn't really have a, A horse in that race, you won't get an answer that's biased per se, if you, if it's giving you a list of things, in theory. But I think that it, I, I don't. I mean it. Do we need language experts now? Well, yeah, because there are developments in, in, in language understanding that happen all the time. These understandings, of course, will appear in print, and so then can be part of the AI's knowledge. And so it's going to get better and better that way. What it does to the field of biblical translation, I just don't know. Okay, number two, quite different. If Paul believed the end was imminent and advised unmarried Christians that it was better to remain single, is there any evidence that early Christian communities experienced practical difficulties sustaining themselves across generations? Now, that's a good question. And so the issue is, if Paul's telling people, look, it's better to remain celibate, then does this create problems for population growth among, in the Christian communities? And, you know, it probably would if everybody took him seriously. We have almost no evidence that people did. And so, no, I don't think we do have any evidence that that was a problem. The people who are converting to Christianity are usually convert. Usually you'd have a situation where somebody in a family, especially like if it's a potter familiar, the head of the household, would convert. That person would convert his entire family. Even if Christians were less willing to produce children, it would take a long time before that really had much of an effect because of the fact that most people are converting into Christianity rather than being born into Christianity. But over time, it would make an effect. But I don't think we have any good evidence that, in fact, Christians were having fewer children than. Than others. The person goes on and asks whether as time went on, people started being more interested in childbearing because the earliest apocalyptic expectations, you know, didn't come true. That part of the question means if people weren't having children because they thought the end was near, but then the end didn't come, we know, would they realize, yeah, we need to populate here? And it's an interesting question, but again, I don't think that there's good evidence that the failure of apocalyptic expectations led to increased birth rates among Christians. It's like, it's almost impossible to come up with data for something like that. Okay, next question. So different, very brief. From where do we come? A designer or evolution? So, all right, I don't think. I don't think this person is asking, you know, like, for the definitive answer that, like, so nobody will ask the question anymore. People in my. My realm, people I associate with, don't have this question, but a lot of people do who. Especially people who are raised in religious communities who grew up just thinking, you know, the God created the heavens and the earth if they're Christian or Jewish. And so, you know, what about that? Well, so let me just say a couple of things about it. I started out, of course, as a conservative evangelical Christian who believed that the world was created by God as the, you know, the intelligent designer. I left that view as soon as I started actually learning something about the science. Must have been 20 years ago. I used to. I'd have these large classes. I have this large undergraduate class. Be 300, 400 students in this class. And at a major university like unc, like a big university, when you've got a big class, if you hold office hours, nobody comes because they're too intimidated, right? You're the guy up there on the stage dancing around twice a week, and, you know, they're one of 400 people in the audience. And, like, it's like you're unapproachable, even if you try to be approachable. So what I started doing was I started holding what I called informal office hours at the Armadillo Grill in Carrboro. And people could come and they could, you know, buy a taco and buy a Pepsi and sit around and chat for a couple hours. And so I do this once a week and one week, about 20 years ago or so, I have this table of students around me. They're smart, smart students. Like, they're, you know, they're intelligent. And we're talking about this, that or the other. And this question comes up about evolution. And students found out that, yes, for me, of course, I believe in evolution. And they were really, they just, they had trouble figuring out, like every one of them had trouble figuring it out. These students didn't believe in evolution. And they said they had trouble figuring out how, how I could possibly think that we descended from, from earlier forms of primates. And I said, the problem isn't that I think we came from, we descended from earlier forms of primates. The problem is I think we descended from mud. That's the problem. And so I think even people who are Christian, who are raised believing that there's a intelligent design and that God created the world, need to take seriously because claims of science, because the word science means knowledge and refusal to accept knowledge means accepting ignorance. And if anyone does not recognize the overwhelming evidence of evolution, well, they've got some agenda not to, because there's no other explanation for it that I can think of. You know, and look, I mean, you know, the universe came into being 13.8 billion years ago. It didn't happen in six days, you know, 6,000 years ago. And so, yes, absolutely, evolution. And even people who are Christians don't have to be afraid of that. Even if they're conservative Christians, they don't have to be afraid of it. Because if it's true, it's true. And if it's true, then, you know, God's behind it. If God exists, He does like the truth. All right, next, given that we have ubiquitous burial practices that point to a belief in the afterlife for long before First Temple times, is it more likely that they had no belief in an afterlife or that the Torah was written as a polemic against centering the afterlife in priestly practice? Am I mistaken that some concept of an afterlife is found everywhere across time and cultures of the ancient Near East? This is a complicated question, and there's a part, but I don't quite understand what the question is. But is it true the humans have a view of the afterlife as far ranging across the middle ancient Near East? Yes, I think my, my own view is that humans naturally believe that there's life after death, and it's because there are a range of reasons. I mean, I, I'm not sure I've ever written much about this or talked about it much, but I Have thought since I was in college that the human being, by its very nature is a thinking being, has always existed while it's thinking. And that existence and thinking go hand in hand. And we have never. You can't think when you didn't exist before, but the entire time that you have thought, you've existed. And so you can't really imagine not existing because you've always existed since you could think. And so you just. So people. And you know, when somebody dies, they look like they're. Could you mute. Mute yourselves, please? So when somebody dies, they, you know, they, you. They look like they're asleep and you kind of seems like they are asleep. And so I think it's just a natural tendency of humans to believe that there's gotta be something after this because we've always been alive as long as we've been alive. So, yes, it's widely spread. When this person says, given that it's their most ubiquitous burial practices before the First Temple times, I think this person must be referring not to within Israel, because I don't know what the ubiquitous evidence would be for Israel. We certainly have burial sites throughout the world that have been dug up that prior to first temple times. So prior to 900 BCE or so. We certainly do have evidence of that. But do we have ubiquitous evidence of belief in the afterlife? You know, the problem with archaeological discoveries involving burial sites is that these sites never interpret themselves. This is the big problem with material culture generally. Archaeologists who dig things up don't find the explanations for those things. They have to posit the explanations for those things. And so you will often read about how, like at this burial site, you know, this woman was buried with kitchen pots, you know, or this man was buried with his sword and with, you know, or they were buried with treasure. And this is evidence that they were expected to use these things in the afterlife. Well, it may be evidence of that, but it doesn't have to be evidence of that. When my father died in 1989, we buried him with. He was a pipe smoker his entire life. Like, pipe. Smoked his pipe the whole time. He was very funny about his pipe because my mom, my mom one time tried to get him to stop smoking and my dad said, look, it's my pipe or my thumb in my mouth. Which do you want? So he has this thing about smoking a pipe. When he died, we buried him with a pipe, but it wasn't because we thought he was going to be using it. And so I don't know about whether there's ubiquitous practices I think that the best way to figure out what the most ancient Israelite views were is to figure out how they understood the relationship of body and soul. And as far back as we have record, ancient Israelites understood that the body and soul were not separable and that your soul did not live on after your body died. The most widespread belief, extremely widespread in ancient Israel, was that the soul was like your breath. In fact, in some ways, it is your breath. And then when you stop breathing, your breath doesn't go anywhere. And so there's not. They believe this life is all there is. And so I don't think that this idea that there's no afterlife came about as a response, some kind of polemical response to some other perspective. I think this was just how Israelites thought about it. Most Israelites. But as I said, since humans tend to believe in that, certainly there were other Israelites who thought otherwise. Okay, all right, next question. Given that Jesus ministry was primarily directed toward Israel, and given that the later writers of the New Testament had powerful reasons to universalize his message, what positive historical evidence establishes that Jesus himself, rather than his followers, extended the command to love one's neighbor to all humanity? Okay, this is a nuanced question. In my book, Love Thy Stranger, I argued that Jesus began the motion that ended up taking over the Western world, that we should help those who are in need, even if they are not biologically or socially related to us. And even by socially, I don't mean just our friends, but like people in our community or in our tribe within ancient Israel. Love thy neighbor as thyself originally meant. Love your fellow Israelite with the proviso that the Book of Leviticus is explicit, that it also includes anybody who immigrates into Israel. So born Israelites, immigrants into the country, they are to be treated as, you know, you're supposed to treat them well, to love them as yourself. This person is saying that. I'm saying that Jesus started this. How do I know Jesus started this thing that you should love everybody, not just the Israelites. The logic this person's using is that the Christians have good reason to want to universalize his message so that it applied to everyone rather than just Israelites. Okay, well, that's a good point. And it certainly has to be taken quite seriously. I would say, number one, you have to ask why they wanted to universalize his message if he didn't? Why did they want it? Why did they want to convert everybody in the world if Israelites didn't? You know, if we don't have evidence of other Israelites trying to convert others outside, trying to make everybody Jews. So why would this group of Jews do it unless they got the motivation from someone else? So I think that's a good point. Another point is that the idea that Jesus maintained that you should love those who are outside the Israelite community is found throughout our traditions at numerous levels and in independent sources. Just as a kind of a simple example. The parable of Good Samaritan certainly teaches that lesson, and it's only found in Luke. The parable the sheep and the goats, which also teaches that lesson is found only in the Gospel of Matthew. And these are both attributed to Jesus. And I think a saying like the parable of the sheep and the goats absolutely goes back to Jesus. And I'll give you a reason for this. The parable of the sheep and the goats is where Jesus says that the Son of Man is sitting on his throne as the day of judgment. All the nations of earth are in front of him, separates them into the groups of the goats and the sheep. The goats on his left, the sheep on his right. And he allows the sheep to enter into the glorious kingdom of God because they helped those who were in need. They fed the hungry, they gave some to drink to those who were thirsty. They visited the lonely and the imprisoned. They clothed people, they did things for others. So come into the kingdom because you did this. And they're surprised, like, well, Lord, because he says, you did to these. You did it to me. Well, Lord, we've never even seen you. And then he says to the goats to depart to destruction, to the fires of destruction, because he, they did not help those in need. So in this parable, how do people get eternal life in the kingdom of God? By doing good things to help others in need. Would a later Christian after Jesus death make that up, that that's how you have eternal life, by helping those in need? I don't think so. Every Christian we know thought that the way to have eternal life was the belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus here is contradicting that. So I think Jesus had to tell this parable, and it's about helping those who are outside your social community. So I think the teaching does go back to Jesus, although certainly it's an objection that needs to be taken seriously. Next, what do you think about Tom Schmidt's monograph where he argues that Josephus famous testimonium Flavianum is authentic? So the testimony of Flavianum is a reference to a passage in Josephus work, the antiquities of The Jews. Josephus was a historian of the 1st century, a Jewish historian, quite active in Jewish life. He is by far the best source of information we have about first century Israel, especially Galilee and Judea and lots of other things. So in this account, this 20 volume work that he has called the Antiquities of the Jews, he has a passage, a short passage about Jesus, as he does about many other people, including a number of other people named Jesus. But he talked about Jesus of Nazareth at one point. And what he says about him is that at that time there was a man, if you would call him a man, for in fact he's the Messiah, says the passage is coming down to us. And he taught great things, he did amazing deeds. But the leaders of the Jews turned him over to Pontius Pilate, who had him crucified. But he was raised from the dead on the third day to fulfill the Scriptures. And so it's a short passage with that kind of stuff, that short stuff in it. And almost all modern scholars recognize that Josephus could not have written that passage as it stands, because he did not become a Christian. He did not believe Jesus was the Messiah. He did not believe Jesus was raised from the dead or that he fulfilled Scripture. We know this because he wrote an autobiography. And he clearly does not become Christian. He's a Jew and remains Jewish. So what scholars have long thought is that scribes in the Middle Ages who were copying this for reasons I'm not going to go into here, because of time, Josephus writings were preserved by Christian scribes rather than Jewish scribes. Most Jews thought that Josephus had been a turncoat during the uprising against Rome. So they didn't preserve his writings, Christians did. Most scholars think that Christian scribe inserted these lines about him being the Messiah who was raised from the dead to fulfill his Scriptures, inserted that into a passage that Josephus had, that didn't have that confessional stuff. Tom Schmidt's recent monograph last year argues that in fact Josephus wrote the whole thing. It goes all the way back to Josephus. What do I think about it? Tom Schmidt's a very smart guy. He knows a lot. And I think he's completely wrong. There's no way that Josephus wrote that, in my opinion. And I don't know if Thomas convinced people or not. I haven't really the only people I've talked to about it agree with me. But I don't know. But it's certainly controversial and it's learned. It's worth reading. All right, next. So you often say that Jesus did not think that he had to die for sins for people to be saved, and that that contradicts Paul's atonement theology. I'm curious what you think about Mark 10:45. Does this statement go back to the historical Jesus? If so, does it teach an atoning theology similar to Paul? Okay, so Mark 10:45 is this passage in Mark where Jesus is telling his disciples, the Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Ba boom. That is atonement. So they're asking, what do I think about it? Do I think it goes back to the historical Jesus? No, I do not. The passage presupposes the atoning death of Jesus. When you read Jesus teachings about being in a right relationship with God, it's always about repenting so that God will forgive you. You turn your life around and you start doing good things for needy people. That's his message. This is a different message. This is a later Christian message. So this passage certainly teaches an atonement theology similar to Paul's, but I don't think it could go back to the historical Jesus. Next question. Why isn't God's name pronounced Yahuwah instead of Yahweh? The person goes on to ask something. I'm not quite sure what the relevance is, but asks. Many Hebrew names include literature, another name for God, such as Daniel, Yael, and this is true for Eliyahu and Yeshayahu as well. Okay, so I'm not sure what the el business has to do with the Yahweh business. The word el is not actually a name for God. It's a designation. And so, like, if you, you could call me professor, you could call me Ehrman, but Professor isn't really my name, and Ehrman is my name. See what I mean? Yahweh is actually the name that was the Tetragrammaton, the four letters. Tetra, four grammaton letters. Because in Hebrew, it's made out of four letters. If you transliterate those letters into English, the transliteration is Y, H, W, H. Ancient Hebrew did not use vowels. The readers of these texts knew which vowels to put in, and so they knew how to pronounce the words. Later readers ended up not really knowing the language well enough. And so Starting in the 5th or 6th century, there are scribes who started adding vowels to them by putting dots around certain consonants so you know which vowel sound to make. So Yahweh is a reconstruction of what the Tetragrammaton probably said. This person Says why isn't it now? It's Yahuwah. And I'm not sure exactly what the person's asking, because Yahuwah, he or she is spelling it Y, a H, U, a H. And the u's a vowel, but the letter is a consonant. It's a W. So Yahweh, or in Hebrew or Yahweh. So it's pronounced that, because that's what the consonants sound like. And it's a guess about the sounds, whether it's an ah followed by an eh. That is a guess based, not just a pure guess. It's based on kind of knowing how Hebrew works. And so I think almost everybody agrees that's probably how it was pronounced. Okay, I have time for just one last question. Recently, Tim Whitmarsh of the University of Cambridge has written a book called Rome's Age of Revolution, Augustus Empire and the Making of Christianity. This book posits that Christianity took much of its shape from the cult of Augustus. And Whitmarsh says, quote, the Christian idea of a savior, God is partially shaped by the prior model of Augustus as a world savior, but that model was itself partially indebted to Jewish messianic traditions. And this person wants to know if I'm familiar with the hypothesis, whether it's commonly held, and what my opinion is. I have not read the book. I've heard about it, but I haven't read it yet. I'm interested in it because I wrote a book on how Christianity took over the empire, and so I'm naturally interested. I'm also interested in the idea of Augustus being a world savior. I have a kind of an anecdote about that. When I was in graduate school, one of the ways I was trying to make ends meet for my family was by, in addition to the other things I was doing, I was working part time at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, editing ancient Greek inscriptions for a inscription project that was undertaken by a classicist. And so every day I'd go in. Not every day, every week, I'd go in for some hours and edit inscriptions that had come from various cities in Turkey. And one of the cities was Prieni, which is western Turkey, and was a spot where they found a lot of inscriptions. Years later, probably 10 years ago now or so, my friend Dale Martin and I, professor of New Testament at Yale, we went to Turkey for two weeks and we just decided to rent a car and drive around. We didn't make any reservations. We just decided to drive around. We want to look at archaeological Sites. So we did. We went to archeological sites like nobody was going to. It was really interesting. And we went to Pryene. I had edited the inscriptions, Prione, but this one had passed me by somehow, because we're there, and I am not an expert in inscriptions. Oh, boy, am I not an expert in inscriptions. But we're there, and there's this temple there, and Dale's wandering around someplace. And I'm just sitting down looking at some of these stones that have inscriptions on them. I see one of them that mentions Augustus Caesar Augustus as lord and savior, using the words soter and Kuyas, the Savior and Lord. And all of a sudden, just like it hit me out of the blue, whoa. When Christians called Jesus the Lord and Savior, this was a competition. They were competing with Augustus and. No, they were. What Whitmarsh apparently is saying is that Christians modeled their understanding of Jesus as a world savior on Augustus, who is worshiped as a divine being in the provinces of the empire, using some of the terminology that used about Jesus, and that the Jesus religion about Jesus was modeled on the religion of Augustus given to Augustus, the worship given to Augustus. So Whitmarsh, I don't know Whitmarsh, I suppose he's a classicist. I really don't know. But he, you know, I'm not sure how he provides nuance for the statement. And so I can't really comment on what his views are, just what the statement is. I don't think the Christians intentionally were trying to copy the imperial cult, the worship of the emperor, although I do think that they were influenced by the reality that the Roman emperor was worshiped as a God and was believed after his death to be taken up into heaven, just as Jesus after his death, is said to be taken up into heaven. But I don't think that the resurrection traditions about Jesus are modeled, certainly not modeled on that of Augustus, because, well, you know, they might. You know, they might have. I mean, probably not. Probably not. Justice had died before Jesus did. But I think, though, that the whole idea behind the imperial cult did have some impact on Christianity, but I'm not completely convinced it had a huge one. I absolutely don't think that the imperial cult was indebted to Jewish messianic traditions. So I'd have to see what Whitmore says in terms of evidence for that. Julius Caesar was favorable toward Jews in Israel, so was Augustus after him. And they knew some of the Jewish hierarchy, and so, you know, knew Herod and Herod Antipas and all that. So it's possible they knew about Jewish messianic traditions. I really don't think the imperial cult was modeled on Jewish messianic tradition. I would find that quite remarkable. But if he has evidence I don't know about, I, you know, I look forward to looking at it. So am I familiar with that particular hypothesis? No, not really. Is it common? No, I don't think so. What's my opinion about it? I think there's some elements of truth in it, but I'd have to see the argument to say anything more. Okay, I think I'm going to stop there, Jeb, if you want to tell me how we're doing the rest of this. [00:32:49] Speaker B: Yeah. So I think we will use the raise hand function. If anyone wants to come up and Charlie is already on top of the game here with the hand raising. You can find that under React on your bottom Zoom navigation bar. If you click React, expand the menu. There is a raise hand option in that menu. So go ahead and raise your hand if you have a question and would like to ask Bart. And we will just go in order. So, Charlie, we'll start with you. [00:33:18] Speaker C: Hi. Thank you. I was just wondering, that was an interesting question about the Hebrew. Could it possibly be pronounced Yahuwah? I never heard that before. But I'm wondering if it might not be plausible because that letter that we usually render as the W vowel in that name also can function as. I'm sorry, W Consonant, I meant to say, can also be function as a vowel, as an U or an O vowel in Hebrew and often does. This kind is called of an emhakiriya, an A to reading. To help you read a text without vowel, it indicates that you've got either an OO vowel or an O vowel there. Even though that same letter is used. That is often usually rendered as a W or a V. [00:34:03] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. And when it. When the math reach started adding their vowels to it, of course, they just use the VAV as a. You know, they can make it into. Yeah, so they can make it into a definite vowel. I'm not sure how you get the H out of it that yahoo. [00:34:20] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. You would put under the hay at the end, you would put a patas under that letter. So it would be. Yeah, it would be. Yeah, [00:34:28] Speaker A: right. [00:34:29] Speaker C: So [00:34:29] Speaker A: I don't, you know, I. Look, I'm not, I'm not a Hebrew linguist. And so. Yeah, but thank you. That that's helpful. It is a guesswork, I think, Charles. I mean, you know, you know, it's, it's. It's really, you know, people are trying to figure out what it probably sounded like. Yeah, yeah, [00:34:45] Speaker C: yeah. It's just another possibility. Yeah, yeah. [00:34:48] Speaker A: Okay, good. Great. Great. Yeah. All right. I think Frederick's up. [00:34:53] Speaker D: Yeah. Hello, Professor Man. So thanks again for this session. [00:34:57] Speaker A: Yeah, good. [00:34:58] Speaker D: How's [00:34:58] Speaker A: life down in Ghana, Frederick? [00:35:00] Speaker D: Yeah, everything is fine. It's extremely warm down here now. [00:35:04] Speaker A: Hey, Fred, I got to do a side note here really quickly. Do you watch American TV series at all? [00:35:11] Speaker D: Yes, I do watch some of them. [00:35:13] Speaker A: There's one called the Diplomat that I'm like, really completely hooked on. I haven't watched TV in decades, but I've started watching it now that I'm retired. And there's one, the Diplomat, one of the star figures is a. Is from Ghana. He's a advisor to the. To the ambassador to England. [00:35:28] Speaker D: Wow. [00:35:28] Speaker A: Yeah, [00:35:29] Speaker D: I think I've seen it. [00:35:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So he goes on, but being from Ghana and stuff. So. Yeah. Okay. Brett. Yes, Frederick, Your question [00:35:36] Speaker D: anyway. Right, so my question actually has to do with some geographic location. So I've often wondered how widespread Christianity was during the early periods, for one, as in how widespread it was into Africa during the early periods. For one thing, I know it somehow encompasses the northern belt of Africa. I know Augustine of Hippo also traces back to the north part of Algeria. If I am right, Algeria also shares borders present day with Mali, so that dovetails into West Africa. So, and again, as you mentioned, Ghana, West Africa, our history is telling us that it took European missionaries to bring down the gospel during their period of colonization and creed to our part of the world. So I'm just wondering whether it's possible Christianity could have been a bit more widespread beyond just the tip of the northern part of Africa. [00:36:48] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, completely. It depends on a couple things. One is what time period we're talking about, and the other is how. How we would know. It's a real problem with all of Africa, including actually Egypt, surprisingly, because you would think that you have pretty good evidence for like Alexandria, Egypt, but you, you don't really evidence, like solid evidence that Christianity came to Alexandria, Egypt, which is probably where it first made a foothold, probably in the middle of the second century or so. We don't really have evidence until the end of the second century. Alexandria, though, was a Greek speaking place and so is more. Kind of more like a lot of the rest of the Mediterranean. When do we have solid evidence of it? Well, I don't know. You start getting. You start hearing about churches in various parts of North Africa, especially Hippo in Carthage, the Carthage area by the middle of the third century. I don't know that you have much evidence before the beginning of the third century, but in terms of Western Africa, I really don't know what the earliest evidence is. I don't recall hearing anything about it. So if you, if you like, do find out, let me know. I'd be interested in knowing the, the scholars who work in early Christianity, like, who are patristic scholars who work from, say, the second to the fifth century when they, when they deal with Africa outside of Egypt, it's always very much northern Africa, you know, Tunisia and I mean, kind of northern areas. Nothing western that I know of. [00:38:31] Speaker D: Okay, all right, thank you. Thank you very much. [00:38:34] Speaker A: Thanks, Jeff. [00:38:36] Speaker E: Hi, Bart. There's a very puzzling episode in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 12, and borrowed as well by Matthew and Luke, where Jesus asks his hearers in the temple, how can the teachers of the law say that the Messiah is the son of David? David himself said when inspired by the Holy Spirit. And then Jesus quotes Psalm 110, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I put my enemies under your feet. And then Jesus makes the observation, David himself calls him Lord. How can he also be David's son? What in the world do you think was Jesus point here or the writer point? [00:39:27] Speaker A: I'll tell you the most common interpretation among scholars. Then I'll tell you my interpretation. Scholars often argue that this is Jesus trying to show that he could be the Messiah even though he wasn't descended from David. Now, in Mark, that might make sense because Mark doesn't have a genealogy. Mark does call him the son of David, though. Near this pass, I can't remember where it is. But when he's going into Jerusalem, the blind guy calls out, you know, son of David, have mercy on me. So anyway, but like Joel Marcus, my friend Joel Marcus, who has, I think, probably the best commentary on the Gospel of Mark that's ever been written, thinks that Jesus is claiming that the Messiah does not need to be of Davidic descent. In Matthew, that's more complicated because it's the point of the genealogy. But, you know, Matthew may sometimes. All authors keep traditions that run against their particular views, like by accident, or they overlook them, or they don't think it matters or whatever. My interpretation is somewhat different. My interpretation of that passage is that it may be because I'm such a fan of Plato, but, you know, in the Platonic dialogues, Socrates will often get somebody so confused, they don't know what they're saying. Anymore. And he'll pose like a problem for them they can't solve. And if you can pose a problem that somebody else can't solve, it shows your intellectual superiority to them. I think Jesus is giving them a puzzle they can't solve just to show they're not as smart as they say. As they say they are. Well, yeah, you think you're smart. How do you solve this one? And they can't answer. So, you know, so. But he, you know, he doesn't give a reply. But it's just showing the superior intellect that. That's my view. It's just a way of humiliating his. His interlocutors, [00:41:32] Speaker E: of confusing them. That's cool. Do you think his point is. Is to say David would never call his son superior to David because David's superior. Is there something of that in [00:41:50] Speaker A: maybe. I mean, it may be. I mean, I think. I think he's trying to say that, you know. Yeah, it may be. I don't think he's denying that he's the son of David. I don't think he's denying that he is the Lord. He's both son of David and the Lord, but he's not. Rather than trying to teach this, he's just trying to show these Pharisees that they don't have the understanding of the stuff they're supposed to be talking about. [00:42:19] Speaker E: Do you think this even comes from the lips of Jesus? Or is it put on the lips of Jesus by the church? [00:42:26] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know. I really don't know with this one. I mean, my. If. If you think that it's him trying to say that he's not a. That. That the Messiah doesn't have to be a Davidic descent, then that would more likely be something coming from the church, I would think, because they. They might be trying to justify how somebody like Jesus could be the Messiah. And, you know, but even, even the reality is, I mean, nobody. How's somebody supposed to really, like, trace their line back to David in a patri. In. In the ancient world, people have this idea that Jews all kept their genealogies or something. There's no way. And so I don't know how somebody could even accuse him. Unless. I don't know. I don't know. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks. Anna. [00:43:17] Speaker F: Hey. [00:43:18] Speaker A: Hello. [00:43:20] Speaker F: I was wondering, when Christians first called themselves Christians, did they call themselves Christian or someone else have called them Christian and how they call themselves? The beginning. [00:43:35] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a good question. And one reason it's especially good is because a lot of scholars today object to calling first century followers of Jesus Christians. This became a kind of a movement in the 1970s where people wanted to talk about the Jesus movement rather than talk about Christians. And behind it was, was a kind of an understandable motivation, which is that it was a time when scholars were trying to play down the early tensions between the followers of Jesus and the non followers of Jesus. Because of issues of anti Judaism that were coming up historically, New Testament scholars have embraced views that are really pretty anti Jewish. And so one way to deal with that is to insist that the earliest followers of Jesus were all still Jewish. And since they're Jewish, it doesn't make sense to call them Christians. That's the logic of it. And so I still have friends who really get upset with me if I talk about Paul as a Christian, for example. I understand that motivation. I don't agree with the conclusion that's wrong. What you should call these people. My view as a Christian is anybody who understands that Christ is in some ways the way of salvation. And so, you know, it doesn't mean you're not Jewish. It just means, you know, you think Christ is the way of salvation. So when did, when did it start? When did the name start? Could you all mute yourselves? Some, Somebody's. So according to the book of Acts, it started by outsiders calling them Christians in the city of Antioch and that others were calling them Christians to identify them as a particular group of people who thought that Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ. That may be true, but I don't trust Acts for those kinds of details. Usually the term does appear in the book of 1 Peter as a self identification. This is one of the reasons I think that it's wrong to say you can't talk about people being Christians in the first century. I think 1 Peter was written in the first century. Definitely calls followers of Jesus Christians. The earliest designation we have for the followers of Jesus is again in the book of Acts. And they called themselves the Way, as in, you know, the Way, the truth and the life. And so they called themselves the Way and they called one another brothers and sisters. Christians simply mean something like a little Christ or a follower of Christ. And so I don't know when it started. My guess is it's sometime in the middle of the first century. Paul never uses the term. It's a self designation in First Peter. Does that answer your question? [00:46:34] Speaker F: Thank you. [00:46:35] Speaker A: You're welcome. Eugene, I think you're up. [00:46:39] Speaker G: Yes, thank you. I wonder if I could push back a little about the sheep and goats interpretation. And this is not a historical question. It's trying to read that within the larger context of Matthew's Gospel, particularly in chapters 10 and 12 and where Jesus says, when he's told his mother and brothers are standing outside and want to see him, he says, well, who are my mothers and brothers? Turns around to his disciples and says, here are my mothers and brothers. Whoever does the will of God, the Father is my mother and brothers. So it seems to be a very narrow understanding of brothers and also the way that one Encounters Jesus. Chapter 10. Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. So that if we use that Matthean context to interpret Matthew 25:40, would it be possible to interpret the judgment scene of the nations as those who have visited the imprisoned, least of these, clothed them, took care of them as care for those original emissaries of Jesus, 12 or 20 or 50 against the world. And so it's how the nations will be judged as righteous to the extent to which they treated Jesus emissaries as in those positive, favorable, caring ways. [00:48:40] Speaker A: Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Eugene. It's a really good question and obviously based on a close interpretation of Matthew. So thank you. And one thing I'll say, I don't think Matthew 10 works because the brethren doesn't show up there, I don't think. Does it? No, But I think the thing about these are my brothers and sisters who do the will of the Father. And so the idea then would be that the sheep in the. The goats are not people who are just helping strangers or anybody. They're the people who are helping the emissaries of Jesus. So I'll say a couple things about that. One is that we have to ask at every point if we're interpreting what Jesus would have said, or are we interpreting what Matthew means? And they may be the same thing. They may be different things. So if you're using Matthew 12 to interpret Matthew 24, that's legitimate. It's only legitimate with respect to Jesus if Jesus said both things. See what I'm saying? So a couple of things about it, though. The nations of earth are gathered from this is all the nations of the earth. It's a little bit hard to imagine that Matthew or Jesus would imagine that everybody who's existed on earth has had a chance to help one of the 12 disciples or some of his emissaries. Because it isn't just like those who have been evangelized. It seemed all. It's the sheep and the goats. It's all the nations of Earth is one thing. That doesn't mean it's wrong. Your interpretation is held by a number of scholars, as you probably know. I mean, it's, it is a widely held interpretation. The other thing though is that within the context, when Jesus says whoever has done this to the least of these my brothers and sisters, he appears to be talking about people who are there of these people who are my brothers and sisters. So I'm not dogmatic on this, but I think on balance it makes better sense given the multitudes in front of him. And I think this really is something Jesus said. And if Jesus said it, he would have said it before there were emissaries to the ends of the earth. [00:51:11] Speaker G: May I just quickly follow up? I think in History of interpretation, the shift towards a more generalized universal understanding began to take place somewhere in the 1890s with the evolving of the so called social gospel and the treatment of all men as brothers, you know, the old bomb fog, brotherhood of man, fatherhood of God. But up to that point it had been one version or another limited to Jesus series. And the other thing is, I guess I would identify myself as a progressive Christian and read it more widely. But I'm also concerned that in doing it for Jesus, one would be losing the humanity of the actual person that you're trying to help because he's kind of a shield for really Jesus. See what I'm saying? [00:52:03] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I do. So the genealogy of the interpretation is not something that I find persuasive one way or the other. [00:52:12] Speaker G: Oh, right. [00:52:13] Speaker A: You know, in other words, if people didn't think of this before the 1890s, I mean, it's, you know, in part it might be because before the 1890s, every interpreter was very, very Christian centric themselves. [00:52:24] Speaker G: Yeah, [00:52:25] Speaker A: right. And, and, and it's all about believing in Jesus, you know, and it's, and so, so, yeah, but you're right, I mean, I, if, if I interpret the second thing you're saying correctly, it's that, you know, the reason to help these people so you can get into the kingdom is that if you take. Yeah, yeah, and that's. Right. But it's true of almost all of Jesus teachings on altruism. Right. Sell everything you have and give to the poor so that you can have treasures in heaven. It's like, well, how about because they're poor? Right, but, but yes. So that is, it is a troubling thing. But you know, [00:53:07] Speaker G: thank you. [00:53:07] Speaker A: Yeah, well, thank you. Thank you, Eugene. Phil, let's get a British accent. In here. Phil, you're muted. You're muted, Phil. Phil, you're muted. [00:53:23] Speaker D: Thank you. Paul had completed his life's work and was dead and written as all epistles, which went on to become part of the New Testament before the Gospels were written. So what do we make of the fact that only Luke. Luke talks about Paul in his book too and the others don't mention at all? [00:53:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Why don't the gospel writers mention Paul? That's what you're asking? [00:53:45] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah. [00:53:46] Speaker A: Well, Luke himself doesn't. The Gospel of Luke doesn't. He [00:53:50] Speaker D: writes in book two. [00:53:51] Speaker A: Yeah, because. Yeah. So Luke Acts, as most of you know, Luke Acts is a two volume work, I think almost certainly written by the same person. Luke, we don't know his name is. We call him Luke. And the first is Jesus, birth to his resurrection. And the second is from after his resurrection, next 30 years of Christianity. So the first is life of Jesus and the second is the life of the early church. And so Luke naturally mentions Paul in the second half because Paul's actually the hero for the second two thirds of the book. And so he tells us a good bit about Paul. The question is why don't the gospels. And the reason I think is because they're not talking about the life of Christianity after Jesus. They're talking about what's happening in Jesus life. And Paul had no role in Jesus life. So I don't think that they're ignoring him. I would say that Mark is. I'm not sure any of them actually had knowledge of Paul's. The letters of Paul we have. I don't think there's good evidence that Luke knew the letters of Paul that we have. We have seven letters that were written by Paul. We have six others that claim to have been written by Paul that probably weren't. But Luke doesn't ever mention these other letters. Luke never mentioned that Paul was a letter writer. That's interesting. And doesn't show that he knows any letters, ones we have or we don't have more than that. Luke doesn't accept Paul's theology that we have in his letters, like the letter to the Romans and Galatians. The view of the significance of Christ's death and bringing salvation is completely different from what Luke has. So all of that's interesting. I think that Mark though does have theological views that are comparable to Paul's in many ways. That doesn't mean that he read Paul or that he knew about Paul. There were other people who had those views too. But I would think he would Be pretty sympathetic with Paul. And I think that Matthew had some antagonisms with people embracing Paul's views. I mean, Matthew insists that, as Jesus insists, you have to keep the Jewish law if you want to have salvation. And Paul's whole point is you don't. And so, you know, maybe there's tension. So I think they. If they didn't, I. I would imagine that maybe they knew about him, but I'm not sure that they read his letters. And I don't. I don't think they really had an occasion to mention him. That makes sense. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Chuck. [00:56:16] Speaker H: Yeah. So I grew up in a very conservative evangelical tradition, and in that tradition, the Psalms fit right into what it's all about. They're used all the time. And I know you were an evangelical for a while, and it's very curious to me, given the focus of Judaism on the temple and sacrifice, curious as to how those psalms fit into all of that, particularly things like, you know, Psalm 51 created me a clean heart, O Lord, you know, that fits into evangelicalism beautifully. But how does it relate to Judaism? [00:57:10] Speaker A: How does it relate to Judaism? Yeah, Well, I think so, Chuck, you're asking, how do you can see how the Psalms might be effective for evangelical Christians, but you're wondering why Jews would find them attractive. Yeah, I want to [00:57:24] Speaker H: know just how they fit into first century Judaism, for example. [00:57:28] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, it's a really good question. And I think, you know, part of it is they're poetic and they're very powerful. And even if somebody isn't religious, it's hard to read these things and not be moved by some of them. Really very powerful. But Jews always valued the Psalms as being part of their tradition because better than almost any other part of the Hebrew Bible, they represent the kind of struggling with the issues of God and life and death and. And things that happen and guilt and sin, and they're wrestling with the existential issues more than almost anything else. And like that Psalm 51, you know, when you let me say a couple things about one is most these psalms are attributed, I don't want it, maybe 2/3 of them to King David. There's no way that King David wrote these things or that the other attributions are right. So that's later. But that was the tradition that these are from major figures from our past who are wrestling with their understandings of God. And Psalm 51, I think the heading in our Bibles, that is an old heading, says that this is after David committed adultery with bathsheba say, oh God, forgive me. It's like he's really wrenched with guilt. And anybody who reads that, who has any experience of guilt before God just resonates with, with it. Yeah. And so I think, I think that it's not because these psalms provide Jews historically with like how to practice Judaism per se or anything like theological per se in the sense of like forming doctrines. It's really kind of the emotional power behind them of how to relate to a divinity who, you know, you should be serving. You know, you failed, you desperately want to help, you know, he can help you. And so, so it's, it's all that kind of emotional side of religion which is very much a part of Judaism. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. One last question, I think. Is it new shade? Is it new new. Somebody has their hand up with an end. No. Jen, any clues? [00:59:52] Speaker B: Not going once, going twice, new chase. Otherwise we'll give Mark the last. [00:59:58] Speaker A: Okay, Mark, you get the last one. [01:00:01] Speaker D: Hi, thanks. Speaking of AI, my avatar, mine relates to the first question in a way. And I'll take this question to the community in the blog and forum because I know they'll have some great insights. I think my question is sort of on the topic of AI, you know, how to set some constrictions on what data sources it pulls from, like what might be, you know, feedback and guidance that received from apologist writings versus text critical and the like. And so sort of setting those guardrails [01:00:32] Speaker I: as you [01:00:33] Speaker D: ask [01:00:33] Speaker I: it [01:00:33] Speaker D: to discuss a topic is important. So, [01:00:37] Speaker I: you know, as I [01:00:37] Speaker D: prepare myself [01:00:38] Speaker I: to kind of see that question [01:00:40] Speaker F: in the forum, [01:00:41] Speaker I: I'm curious if there are any terms or guidelines or restrictions you [01:00:46] Speaker D: might [01:00:46] Speaker I: kind of start with when saying, okay, only give me [01:00:50] Speaker D: answers that pull [01:00:51] Speaker I: from things that [01:00:51] Speaker D: may be this criteria. [01:00:54] Speaker A: Absolutely, you could definitely do that. You say you can ask what do biblical scholars say about X? You know what, what do non evangelicals say about X? And it'll recognize depending on which bot you use. I mean, but. But it can do that. But it's. You are identifying precisely. The problem is that it can only give back what's been put in, put into it. There's been so much put into it that it tends to balance out. But you can never be completely sure that's the problem. But I think, you know, if you just ask something like you ask something simple like you ask why did Jesus curse the fig tree? You know, or why do scholar actually the things you could do in different iterations and see what happens. Right. Why did Jesus curse the fig tree? Then later you say, why do. Why do scholars say Jesus Christ, the. And, you know, it can probably give you. And it'll probably name names. And the nice thing about naming names is you can just look it up then to see if it's right. And I think for that. That kind of stuff, it's so. It's. It's doing so much better. I mean, it was so. Okay. Yeah. So it used to just make kind of crazy mistakes, stupid mistakes, and now it's. It's better. Thank you. Okay. You're welcome. Okay, I think our time is up. So, Jen, thank you for doing this. [01:02:24] Speaker B: Well, thank you, Bard, and thanks to all of you for all of your great questions. As usual, we will get the recording out. I'll send an email out tomorrow or. No, tomorrow or Monday. Probably Monday, since it's Saturday today. But you can look for that in your inboxes. And then we will also get out the information for the December Q and A as well. So if you have questions, you can start sending those in to ermendvlogmail.com or you can send them to the support inbox. Either way, they get to me. But, yeah, thank you all. And, Bart, I'll leave you with the last word. [01:03:00] Speaker A: I'll just say Jen can't do it tomorrow because she's got to go off and buy a new cheesehead for the packers game. [01:03:07] Speaker B: Well, we'll see what happens when they go to Foxborough. Bart. [01:03:10] Speaker A: Yes, I know. Yeah. Drake May. Unc Guy. Okay, so thank you all for being here for doing this. I really appreciate the questions and I appreciate you all being blog and platinum members, and we're doing our best to make this a good experience for you. If you have feedback for us, just please let us know. All right, good. And we will see you again next time.