Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Personal My book on the Ethics of Jesus, written by Bart Ehrman, read by Mike Johnson. I am happy to report that I have now finally finished my manuscript on the Ethics of Jesus and have sent it in to my editor for her to peruse and suggest edits. Whew, this one seems to have been a slow train coming Huge relief. I've changed the title that I've been giving it for the past couple of years. I very much liked what I had the Origins of Altruism, how the Teachings of Jesus Transformed the Moral Conscience of the West. But my editors, in the end, weren't thrilled with it. They liked the subtitle but didn't think the title was catchy enough. I disagreed, but eventually Kicking and Screaming came to see their point. I'd always felt like I'd have to defend it anyway, since the book is emphatic that Jesus did not invent altruism. But that was part of the catch, I thought. In any event, even though a lot of people liked it, others were ambivalent. So I've changed it so far. The editors like the new title, but we'll see what it ends up as. For now, it's called Stranger how the Teachings of Jesus Transformed the Moral Conscience of the West. I like it because it's more accurate, as I'll explain in a second. Catchier, I think. Pretty unusual, and in particular because it's a double entendre. It's about the love of strangers that Jesus insisted on and is highly unusual. Strange kind of love, especially in the time of Jesus. The overall point of the book is that Jesus's ethics revolutionized moral thinking in Western civilization, affecting ethical common sense down till today, not just among his followers. Often ironically, precisely not among many of them, but among everyone in the west, including those who identify as agnostic and atheist. We, most of us, have a moral sense, not part of the human DNA from time immemorial or any animal DNA, and not held at all in the Greek and Roman civilizations out of which our Western world emerged. When we hear today of a disaster in some far off place seriously harming or destroying the lives of others, we most of us feel an obligation to help out somehow, for example, by donating to disaster relief. Not all of us, of course, but lots of us, it just seems like the right thing to do. Think recently Hurricane Helene and the LA wildfires. If we don't pitch in, we often feel like maybe we should have done so. Or possibly we wonder why we don't feel that way when others do. And more than natural disasters. We wish there were not wars of aggression senselessly killing entire populations and making life a living hell for survivors. We want our government to do something about it, and we simply expect that any civilized place will have public hospitals, orphanages, old people's homes, private charities to help the homeless, hungry and outcast, governmental assistance, at least on some level, whatever our politics, for the elderly and those in desperate need, and so on. Somewhat weirdly to our thinking, few people realize this. None of that could be found in the Greek and Roman civilizations out of which Jesus and his followers emerged. It was, however, in Judaism. So isn't Judaism responsible for our moral sense? We should help even people we don't know, never will know, and may well not like if we did know. Yes and no. Jesus acquired his ethics from his Jewish environment and modified them. Every good teacher modifies. But Judaism did not directly give us our ethical views because Judaism did not take over the Roman world, Christianity did, and Christians promulgated Jesus ethics. They also seriously changed them, often softening them to make them palatable and, well, practicable, and sometimes altering them significantly for their new situations. But Jesus basic ethical principles lived on in one form or another and eventually became the moral common sense among people in the west after centuries of socialization and enculturation. Our world would be radically different if that hadn't happened. So the book examines Greek and Roman understanding of morality. Most Greeks and Romans were just as moral as most Christians in most ways, but with a difference. Jesus's ethical teachings, their roots and differences from his environment. How the ethical teachings came to be transformed but ultimately took over the Western world and its understanding of what it means to be a good person and lead a moral life. I'm excited to be at this stage of things. What happens now to a book, in case you wonder? 1. It will take about a year for it to be published. That's normally how it works. They're shooting for March 2026. 2. Now that my editor has the manuscript, she will provide editorial suggestions. Hopefully not major, but one never knows. Certainly a lot of minor. This particular editor at Simon and Schuster works over her manuscripts very carefully for style and clarity. 3. Then I will go through every editorial suggestion. There could be thousands, but we're hoping for mere dozens and decide what to do. Go with it. Leave it as it was called. Stet. That means leave it or change it some other way. 4. Resubmit it. 5. An index is prepared. I'll have someone else do it. Probably someone at the press. These things are a major pain to make.
[00:06:08] 6. The whole thing will then go to the compositor. They used to be called typesetters. Now they don't set the type, but do it all electronically. Who puts it into the form. It will appear when published, page by page.
[00:06:23] 7. Then it goes or may go to a copy editor who corrects spelling mistakes, etc. Unless the editor has already caught them all. 8. Then it comes to me to review page by page, line by line, word by word, to see if I agree with the copy edits. 9. Then back to the publisher. 10. The compositor corrects the copy edited mistakes. 11. I see the final copy, usually for final approval, to read the whole thing again just to make sure. 12. Then they publish it along with all that we have to decide the COVID design, etc. I'll have some input, but they make the final decision. As with almost everything in the process, it's a joint negotiated procedure. I have something in mind, but I'm not sure they'll go for it. We'll see. In any event, the hardest parts are now passed. There's a lot of grunt work ahead, but hopefully not too much of substance.
