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A few weeks ago I posted on a weird event that significantly contributed to my becoming a research scholar, involving my problems with ninth-grade Latin. You can see it here: https://ehrmanblog.org/one-of-the-weird-events-in-my-life-that-led-me-to-be-a-research-scholar/ Today I would like to talk about another one. It involves, well, hepatitis.
The background: I was always a competitive kid growing up. I loved games, I loved competing, and I loved winning. I wasn’t flippin’ *crazy* about it like some people, but I enjoyed it a lot. When I was young, competition mainly involved sports. I wasn’t a standout in any of them (in the least): I was pretty good at some things and not at all good at others. I mainly liked sports that involved balls and things to hit them with. I played varsity tennis in high school and played baseball up through my junior year.
I was far more interested in competing in things than in doing school work. I was smart enough and did well enough, but I never really threw myself into anything academic. I ended up in the top 10% of my graduating class in high school, but only barely squeaked in. There were *lots* of people – lots and lots (it was a good school) – smarter and more focused than I was.
So, here’s the story. Between my junior and senior years I was playing on a kind of lower-level American Legion baseball team; we mainly played other teams around Kansas, but we had a scheduled trip to play a three-game series against an all-star team in Bartlesville Oklahoma. When we got back from Oklahoma, I started feeling badly. I thought maybe I was just depressed (I was in a hitting slump). But nope. Not just that. Physical symptoms starting showing up, I went to the doctor, and lo and behold I had somehow gotten hepatitis A. So much for my baseball season.
Doctor’s orders: no physical activity. I was down for a couple of months. Lethargic, not feeling well at all, no appetite, etc. But, competitive guy that I was, I couldn’t stand just sitting around watching TV doing nothing.
SO, the other side of the story. Back when I had started high school I wasn’t interested in playing any of the fall sports on offer in high school, and so my sophomore year I wanted something competitive and joined the debate team. I actually liked it a lot–competition with the intelligence and rhetorical skill instead of brawn and physical prowess. I was pretty good at it — but only above average good, not *really* good. My school did have a really good team year after year, and I had some knock-your-socks-off colleagues.
In high school debate, the topic for the fall is announced in the summer (or at least it was then), and the kids who were *really* into it worked on in July and August. I wasn’t and I didn’t. But now I had hepatitis. With nothing to do. And eager to do something. Something competitive. I decided to throw myself into the debate topic for the year (a different topic every year). The topic was: Resolved: The Federal government should fund all primary and secondary education in the United States. You had to prepare to argue either affirmative or negative; at a tournament, right before your next round, you were told which you would be arguing. It was always two against two, so you had a partner and the two of you went at it against two others)
I knew nothing about the topic. But there were (non-athletic) guys I knew on the team (amazingly good at debate), I got some advice, and I started reading books and articles, making note cards for evidence (having zillions of “pieces of evidence” – that is note cards with quotations etc. – was a status symbol). After a couple of days I got *really* interested in it. I started cranking out the evidence. I realized I could come up with 100 note cards a day with this that or the other piece of evidence for one aspect of the issue or another. I did this for weeks. Many weeks.
When the season started I matched up with another reasonably good partner (she ended up teaching in university), and we did well. But we were not one of the top three or four (two-person) teams. That mattered, because we could send only so many teams to tournaments and the best two-person teams went to the best tournaments. If you won one of *those* you were hot property.
After a few weeks, one of the two best debaters on the team (he was *really* good; he and another fellow from the team ended up winning the national tournament in college as sophomores) decided to switch partners, and asked me if I’d be interested. I was. We went from there. We won a bunch of tournaments throughout Kansas and western Missouri. In the end, three (two-person) teams from my school went to the State Tournament, and we won that as well.
By the time the season ended, I was completely hooked on research, evidence, rhetoric, making arguments, and exposing the flaws of other arguments. During that time I had also become a born-again Christian, in developments unrelated to baseball, hepatitis, and debate. For that reason I decided not to go to Kansas University and try out for the debate team, which was one of the top ones in the country (my partner, btw, not only won the national tournament at KU but also ended up as the debate coach there for many years), but to go to Moody Bible Institute.
When I went, I threw myself into my studies with more passion even than I did with high school debate, since it combined my two recent recent obsessions, research and religion. And I made it a competition (get the best grades!). This obsession with research continued on past my fundamentalist days into graduate school and onward, and ended up making me into a research scholar – in religion but no longer in order to defend religion.
None of this would have happened if I had not gotten hepatitis. I would have ended the baseball season in a hitting and personal slump, probably would have gone to KU, done about average, and .. and who knows what I’d be doing. Or I might have gone to Moody, done about average, and ended up as a pastor of a small fundamentalist church in the middle of nowhere. Hard to say. But I would not have become a research scholar. No one on the planet ever imagined I would become a research scholar. No one. Especially me. Had no interest in it. All that changed when I got sick.
When I have written about suffering in the past, I have often had people tell me that I need to realize that suffering can have a silver lining, and that *that* is why people suffer. I don’t buy that for a minute. The 3000 people who died from Covid yesterday (I’m writing this post a while before you’ll see it); the many, many thousands who have died this past week from starvation, malaria, unclean water; and the many, many others who have been killed in the crossfires of wars they had no interest in; and many, many others who unnecessarily died: NONE of these had a silver lining. I’m not hard-hearted enough to say they did.
But a lot of our minor suffering does have a silver lining, or at least can if we look for it. Or even make it. Hepatitis can obviously be serious. Mine was highly unpleasant, but more inconvenient (OK, extremely inconvenient) than life-changingly serious. Except it did change my life. If I had not gotten it, I am absolutely convinced I would not be a scholar. I am so glad I am a scholar. Go figure.
So in another word we had Barth Ehrman, tennis pro?
What I meant to write was:
“So in another *world* we had Bart Ehrman, tennis pro?”
It was my asperation for this world, but alas….
Regarding plagiarism. You dont need to have this in the comment, but I’m at loss to where to reach you and need you to contact me one way or another, or at least confirm that all is well. I am paying member in great courses and was listening to a lecture called Confucious, Jesus, Buddha and Mohammad. And in the chapters regarding Jesus I swear it was hearing your lectures. I’m not sure which book of yours he is talking from because I listen to you a lot, but I am sure if you listen to them you will hear the same as I. I will try to find out what lecture or book it’s from, but I can not rest without telling you. The lecturer on that program is named Mark W Muesse. I hope you will look into it and dont let anyone steal your work. My email [email protected]
This is the best place to reach me! It’s possible he does know my work!
As usual a very revealing aspect of your personal history- thank you for sharing it- and in a somewhat tongue in cheek way thanks to impersonal nature for that hep virus.
I wish I could have been good at debate. I never could win a debate with my late wife.
About an hour after she totally dismantled me, I’d think of a point I should have made.
I never thought of index cards!!!
Unrelated question about the Bible: Romans 13:1-7. This passage in which Paul urges Christians to submit to governing authorities has been a major contention point for Christians in the past, and although mostly forgotten, it still flares up (Jeff Sessions once cited it in defense of Trump’s family separation policy). It has been occasionally suggested that it’s an interpolation, although this passage, afaik, has no manuscript transmission problems.
It has been suggested by some interpreters that in these verses Paul actually says that ungodly rule is illegitimate, but this seems to be a very strained interpretation, especially when you take the passage as a whole.
Even if these verses are simply Paul stating that you should wait for the upcoming apocalypse instead of foolishly rebelling like various Jewish insurgents, it’s strange to imagine any early Christian who knew Jesus was crucified by the Romans reading that “rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong”.
How do New Testament researchers explain this?
Lots of Christians over the centuries have had this difficulty, realizing that their religion was at odds with what the authorities wanted nad insisted on and yet not wanting to get on the authorities’ bad side but be considered upstanding citizens of their communities. The paradoxes are evident already in Paul, who is regularly being beaten by authorities and then saying that they are only ruling for good. As you point out, you can’t really have it both ways! But I know modern Christians who want it too as well!
I am reminded of my first thought of becoming a university professor: I was listening to a particularly crappy lecture in my Instrumental Analysis class when suddenly it struck me–“Heck, I could do better than that.” Several years later, in grad school, when I realized that I did not have the constitution for the competitive life of the big time researcher and that someone else was going to have to save the world from disease, etc., I decided to plug into the system at the chem teacher level.
Seems like you were meant for this.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Bart, thank you for a wonderful blog you have created. You really made something extraordinary !!, so many great members you have, who make many great comments, reflections, thoughts. I really enjoy it!
I can relate to this because when I was eighteen (August of 1981) I was injured in an accident. I ended up in a medically induced coma for about three weeks and with a leg that nearly needed amputation. How this ended up being similar to yours for me is that I was a few days away from going to Army basic training. Instead of a military career I ended up recovering and having a lot of time to read and reorient myself. I ended up going to university the next year and eventually becoming a teacher of incarcerated youth. But never losing that passion for learning and reading that forced immobility inspired. Your books are a source of intellectual joy for me (just bought your latest as my birthday gift to myself!) and I am glad that my belonging to your blog helps those in need!
Wow. You have quite a story. I hope you’re doing OK now, all these years later.
Bart,
I am curious if you think intellectual positions arrived at from research among some biblical scholars are sometimes distorted by how they imagine it would play out in a debate. Have you ever found yourself picking, or being tempted to pick, a position that is more easily defended in debate but is not what you think is actually true?
I kind of doubt it. Very few biblical scholars actually get into formal debates, and so probably never look at it that way. In my own debates I never consciously argue something that I think is false. But with my students I sometimes to play devil’s advocate to force them to think harder about their views, so I guess that is similar….
Professor, I still find it hard to believe you had trouble with Latin. Now, if you had been in my Latin class I could have showed you what real trouble with Latin looked like!
I’ve taught myself, literally, five times; and had to get much better at it for my last book (just going into its final stages), because of the texts I had to deal with — the Aeneid at length and some of the Xn texts.
I think it was the way it was taught…. as intermingled, almost mathematical, systems of tenses and cases … which could not possibly be the way Romans learned and spoke it. I could read it but, composing sentences… ugh!
Have you said what that next book is going to be?
The book I’m referring to is a scholarly monograph on journeys to the afterlife in Christian texts from the second to sixth centuries; the next book is about conservative Christian misunderstandings/misreadings of the book of Revelation.
Ha! I was wondering why I felt like coming back to your blog tonight!
First hepatitis is a Liver desease..
What the Liver! .. yes in french we call it Foi..
You mean the Liver, the person who lives and Foi (faith) in french can be connected?
Well I dont know about you but look into the Phlishtin when they took the Arc of the Covenent and got the hemorrhoids!
You mean that it is written in the Torah that our Spirit and Body are connected?
Yup…
Ok but what about Bart’s debating Career?
Ah, don’t worry, put two jews in front of each other and there will be three conclusions, thank G.od! 🙂
Regarding suffering: I was listening to an interview with Sen. Warnock – who is also Rev. Warnock – the other day. He made a comment that touched me; he said that his job as a preacher was to help people get through grief. Nothing about suffering being good for the soul, just that it was something he had to help with.
dankoh, I will tell you what is good about suffering: If you and your wife are always in bliss, I am sure you are happy… because she brings you happiness… but what if at some point you and your wife have a big argument! … ouff being happy is not as easy… but then you learn Unconditional Love… Unconditional Love is not love without conditions, it is love regardless of the conditions… and that can only be learned in hardship… not sitting on a cloud drinking wine together! … Ok you may ask, what’s the big deal with Unconditional Love? … Well look at the testimonies of people, like Paul, who had an NDE (you can look it up at IANDS for example), there is one common denominator: In that Light we saw and felt UNCONDITIONAL LOVE! … and that is what we are here to learn and Be, Love regardless of the conditions, and sometimes that hurts!
Dr. Ehrman,
In light of your last comment about how most suffering doesn’t have a silver lining, I’m curious what you make of the level of religious devotion among the countries which suffer most acutely from these things. Angola, for example, is 95% Christian, and yet had 3 million malaria cases in 2018 and a child mortality rate of 20%. While the problem of evil is certainly a great one, I personally am struck that many people in these unimaginably difficult situations seem to find no problem reconciling their personal experience of such immense tragedies and their religion. Just curious what your thoughts are.
Yes it’s striking, and one can see why people suffering like that would have that view. Often the people most affected by something are not the ones you would turn to find out the best way to look at it. As a kind of obvious example, to understand which economic theory would most help end the problems of poverty, you would turn to a range of economists, whether or not they themselves were impoverished.
I see what you’re saying, but if the problem of suffering is one that ought to be solved not in the ivory tower but rather through the experiential lens of those actually suffering, then shouldn’t the outlook of those who actually suffer be of major importance? I know you criticize theologians who view it as a mere logical puzzle to be solved, but if that’s a fair criticism does it not cut both ways? In this case, might the experts be those who are suffering, rather than philosophers or theologians? Thanks for responding to my first comment, by the way.
No one on the planet has not suffered. If the question is “who has suffered the most” then I suppose none of us has a right to speak about it. Maybe one person on the planet does. But most philosophers and theologians suffer, and some suffer quite intensely. You will notice that not everyone who suffers has the same ideas about God. Have you read Elie Wiesel? Or Primo Levi? (etc….)
I was listening to a teaching of a Rav on the Book of Daniel… he was asking “How could Daniel sing high praises to G.od as he was in Exile in Babylon and his People were suffering … of course, if the Rav asked the question, he had at least one good answer ready!… Well let’s just put it this way… most people on this planet thought that the reason “the People of G.od” were exiled and so mistreated was because either G.od doesn’t realy exist, or because G.od has abandoned his People… but there is an other Alternative… it is to show that what ever the suffering we all go through, G.od never abandon anybody, just look at the People that were chosen to show this… suffered thousands of years… through the hardes of times… look at 39-45 … and then 48, you better keep your eyes open on what will happen in Israël… because the world will see in all it’s Glory, that we are never (even if some religions would have liked it to be so) abandoned, left alone, or suffer in vain, and this will be one of the greatest message of “the People of G.od”
One of the most counter intuitive realities of life is that apparently terrible events can end up having improbably positive outcomes. My daughter was fired from what seemed to be a dream job at Stanford. It was crushing. Now she has a new, and better career working at John’s Hopkins. Go figure.
Wow, you have one bright daughter. Well done her.
Yes, it seems she has a bright father! High Five Sir! 🙂
BTW Mr. Ehrman,
I do not and will never make it my life mission to try and change someone…
But what I will do, if G.od (and notice here the dot in the word as I canot define the infinite) wills it, it is to address the matter that someone said hurts theme the most!
Why wouldn’t I? Why would anybody not?
As for me, what hurt me the most was “the Church”… it is very difficult for me to hear passages of the Gospels at this point… but I sill come to your blog … when I feel it’s the right thing to do, and to speek!
Shalom!
I first saw you give a lecture at the Smithsonian maybe 20 years ago. I’ve listened to some of your Teaching Company courses. I’ve watched many of your videos on YouTube, sometimes multiple times. I don’t think I’ve ever run across anyone who knows their subject area as well as you know yours. I’m always awed when you can recite multiple verses of the Bible off the top of your head.
I’m really puzzled though at why you are attracted to the Bible and early Christianity, especially since you are not a Christian! Of all the fields of study you could have pursued, why this one? (Don’t get me wrong, I’m REALLY glad you’ve gone down this path!)
Ah, I started out as a heavily committed evangelical Christian deeply religiously interested in the Bible. I lost the religion but kept the interest. Then again, in a university a huge number of professors are fascinated by topics they do not “believe” in — e.g., experts on Marxism, Nazism, and, well, crime.
Ah, comme on.. you think people fascinated about Marxism are not fascinated by how we humans interact and they do not believe in human interaction? Ok they do not believe Marxism, but something brought them there … you think that people fascinated by Nazism are not fascinated by how we humans can hurt and hate each other and believe that we can, ok they do not beleive in hurting each other, but something brought them there? … Of course people studying the Bible are interested in what is our Relationship with G.od… someone studying this calling himself atheist is like someone looking at his arm and asking “who are you” as he is writing about it! 😉
I understand the steping back… Religion is like the nahash… you dont hear it coming, but it can strangle the life right out of you! … or it will bite you… and the bite will not make you die.. but the venom put inside of you will kill you!
Great story! I play tennis and love it so much. Suddenly, I’ve forgotten everything else you’ve done. LOL
I had no confidence writing. I had bad experiences with it for my MS degree. My PhD professor forced me to write my first research article with him. It got published with no corrections. I was hooked! I just kept writing and writing and publishing and publishing. Fun times!