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Loading...As I have mentioned before, I have started a small business on the side, Bart Ehrman Professional Services (BEPS). At this point it involves booking speaking engagements, providing consultations with authors of various kinds, and online courses. The online courses, of course, are a way of disseminating knowledge about the Bible, the historical Jesus, the history of Christianity, and so on.
BEPS is a separate commercial endeavor for me and I am diligently keeping it distinct from the blog, except to announce what I’m up to there for blog members who might be interested. You can also learn more about it on my website, www.bartehrman.com
This past month I produced a six-lecture course called “In the Beginning: Myth, Legend, and History in the Book of Genesis.” This is the first of possibly many courses in a long series called “How Scholars Read the Bible.” The entire series will be devoted to showing what critical scholars think, believe, and argue about the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, but also to show why they think what they do.
The courses are designed for laypeople who might be interested in knowing about why scholars maintain, for example, that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses but represents a combination of four (or more) sources produced at different times by different authors; that the “exodus” of the children of Israel from their slavery in Egypt did not really happen (at least as described in the book of Exodus); that the Psalms were not really written by David, that Isaiah is three books combined into one; that the Gospels are often not historically reliable; that Jesus was an apocalypticist expecting the imminent end of history as we know it; that some of the letters claiming to be written by Paul were actually written by others who were claiming to be Paul; and – and I will be covering lots of topics over lots of courses.
With that as the plan, how could I not start the series with Genesis, the beginning of the Bible that describes the beginning of all things? In this post and the next I’ll be summarizing what I cover in the Genesis course with a brief synopsis of each lecture.
Lecture One: Introduction to the Pentateuch
This first lecture explains what the Pentateuch is and why it poses such difficulties for critical scholars of the Bible. I begin by stressing that the greatest discovery of modern biblical scholarship is not archaeological but textual: once scholars took very seriously that the Bible is not a single book with One Ultimate Author, it changed everything about how it was to be read and understood.
The word “Pentateuch” literally means “the five scrolls” and refers to the first five books of the Bible – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy – sometimes also called the “Torah” (or the “Law,” that is, “the Law of Moses”). Traditionally these books were ascribed to Moses, the key figure starting in Exodus all the way to the end of Deuteronomy.
But scholars have long recognized that the books could not have been written in the time of Moses (in the 13th century BCE) and were in fact not produced by a single author at all; they are a compilation of sources written in different places and times, all of them centuries after the events they narrate.
There are significant problems for readers posed by the Pentateuch and indeed all the books of the Hebrew Bible. There are places where we cannot know what the Hebrew actually means, or how to translate it; there are clear contradictions among the accounts; the narratives contain “anachronisms” (mentioning places that did yet not exist during the time the narrative was set and events that had not yet occurred); and some of the most important narratives relate incidents that could not have happened given what we know about other facts of history.
Such problems begin at the very outset of the Pentateuch, in the creation stories of Genesis. So that is where we go in the next lecture.
Lecture Two: The Creation Stories of Genesis
This lecture addresses a number of the difficulties that arise in the critical study of Genesis. The problems begin right off the bat – not just in the first chapter but in the first verse. Although the verse was traditionally translated something like “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was formless and void…,” scholars now recognize that it is being better rendered something like “When in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth the earth was formless and void.” Why does it matter? The translation actually changes everything: the traditional rendering indicates that God created everything out of nothing; the other shows that there were things already existing before the creation (e.g., a formless earth and water). So where did they come from?
The problems go from there. Most commonly noted is that the creation stories in chapters 1 and 2 appear in fact to be different stories that actually contradict one another including the sequence in which things were created (were animals before humans, for example, or the human before the animals?).
I go on to show just why neither account can pass muster as a scientific account of what actually happened, despite valiant attempts to make them “work.” In Genesis 1, how can there be light on earth long before there is a sun, moon, and stars? Or how can plants exist without a sun (photosynthesis?!). And in Genesis 2, how could humans appear before plants or animals, and how could every living creature appear as a full-blown species (evolution?!).
It would be a serious mistake, however, to write creation accounts off and ignore them. They are terrifically intriguing stories about how the world and humans came into being. When they are understood as “myths” rather than historical or scientific accounts, their meaning comes to life. Ancient myths can be highly significant even for those of us living today, as I show at the end of the lecture.
dr bart do you know when the 1 john 5:7 was added in the bible?
It was known by church fathers in the Latin West as early as the fifth and possibly the fourth century.
If the world doesn’t come from God’s agency how does something come from nothing?
Yes, that’s the issue that astro-physicists deal with. They do not take it as a rhetorical question. They ask how it could actually happen, since it appears to have done. (Lots of science makes no sense to our minds; quantum mechanics is the obvious example. But it doesn’t mean a scientific view is not true. To know that requires science)
How do you know there was nothing? It isn’t that simple.. If someone can claim a god is eternal, you can make the same argument for the universe being eternal. Arguments otherwise are usually made by starting with some special exemption for a god. Even the Big Bang doesn’t eliminate something being before, just it can’t be defined since physics laws as we know them don’t work through the singularity. Maybe we are just in a bubble in the multiverse!
Fundamentalist I’ve talked to frequently claim scientists are wrong about so many things when they conflict with the Bible. Well if they are right, there is no reason to think scientists are right about the big bang. So much easier to just accept the universe is eternal than to claim a god is the only explanation.
In Catholic parochial school we were told early on that God made the world. And a little girl who proved later to be very bright, IQ 160, piped up and asked who made God? The nun got angry and told her God wasn’t made, that he always was and always will be. That answer seemed arbitrary to me, although I wasn’t as smart as that girl. Why not let the buck stop at matter and energy? Why not say that matter and energy have always existed in some form? And now it’s clear that “nothing” makes no sense at all. Subtract everything visible and you have a quantum field remaining. A generic quantum field makes substantially more sense than a Sky Daddy, don’t you think? Random variations in that field tunnel into universes with an arrow of time. No beginning and no end. You can actually deal with that in terms of equations for the field, and that’s a lot more than you can do with a putative “God”.
“Why does it matter? The translation actually changes everything: the traditional rendering indicates that God created everything out of nothing; the other shows that there were things already existing before the creation (e.g., a formless earth and water). So where did they come from?”
1. Since the author was not writing from a scientific standpoint, are you saying the true meaning of the passage shows that the author thought that there were things in existence before God created?
2. Are you sure the author was putting that much thought into what he wrote of was he simply writing a myth poem?
1. Yes. 2. Thought, yes. But maybe not thought about scientific or philosophical instutions. But the entire chapter is extremely well thought out; brilliant in its way.
“When they are understood as “myths” rather than historical or scientific accounts, their meaning comes to life.”
Even though the author meant what he wrote as a myth, doesn’t it seem that the people who read and hear his myth immediately took it as a historical account? Which then was passed 2,000+ years into the future for most Christians to believe as well?
I’m afraid we don’t know what his original readers would have thought — or readers for centuries! When we do hear of readers reading it, they certainly thought it happened, yes (I’m assuming that’s what you mean by “historical”)
Amazing what a person can know, but not see the implications of. I had known that some translations started “When in the beginning…” and that that was said to be the better translation of the Hebrew, but it had never occurred to me, and no one had ever suggested to me, that therefore the meaning was different. It’s fascinating what can be hidden in plain sight and totally missed.
A week or two ago you responded to my question about what all/most religions might have in common by saying something to the effect that most contemporary scholars consider the differences among religions to be very large and fundamental. I’ve read Stephen Prothero’s “God Is Not One.” That’s certainly what he argues. Are there any other books or authors on this topic that you’d recommend?
A somewhat different question is what “types” of things many/most religions have in common? For example, many might have sacred writings but the different sacred writings say or mean very different things. Other “types” of things might be rituals, festivals, a moral code, a distinction between the sacred and profane, etc. Can you recommend any books or authors on this somewhat different topic?
As it turns out it’s an extraordinarily complicated question. At most major universities that teach religion there will be an Introduction to Religion that spend a good part or even the entire semester trying to figure out how to “define” what religion even is, given all the differences. Different scholars have different views. You might try Ten Theories of Religion by Daniel Pal. (There are more than ten!)
I decided to start from the beginning of the Bible. Which may be Amos written late 8th BCE or early 7th BCE… during Neo-Assyrian Empire.
Great! The question is when the earliest sources of the Pentateuch were produced. But Amost and the other 8th century prophets (Hosea, Isaiah, Micah) are great places to start!
BDEhrman March 6, 2022 at 3:16 pm — “Great! The question is when the earliest sources of the Pentateuch were produced. But Amos and the other 8th century prophets (Hosea, Isaiah, Micah) are great places to start!”
Bart, what do you think of the “Book of J” by Harold Bloom and David Rosenberg? It claims to delineate and translate the J portion of the bible, and Bloom postulates a woman in Solomon’s court as the author. More generally, what do you think of Bloom and Rosenberg?
Bloom is a great literary critic, but not a trained biblical scholar. Rosenberg has written a lot about the Bible, but I don’t know much about him, including whether he is trained in biblical studies. The idea that J is by a woman is intriguing but there is zero actual basis for it.
What are your thoughts on the late Swiss theologian Hans Küng? I know this is a very broad question on an unrelated topic, but I’d really like to know if you are familiar with the name or if you’ve read any of his books and if so, what did you think? I’m especially interested in your opinion on the historical parts of his books. He was a catholic priest, had a falling out with pope Benedict and his views on many things are pretty controversial in conservative circles. I think the wiki sums his basic approach to religion quite nicely: “He supported the spiritual substance of religion, while questioning traditional dogmatic Christianity”
Yes, he was very famous an very learned, one of the most famous theologians of the late 20th century. His best known book is On Being A Christian.
Genesis 1 is beautiful as poetry but please, don’t try to take it literally! I had a run-in with an adult Sunday school teacher about Moses (not) being the author of the Pentateuch. Excuse me, if the Bible is inspired by God, what does it matter who wrote it?! But tradition runs deep, even in churches that claim to be above tradition.
In the synoptics as written, when or how did Jesus come to understand that his mission was to proclaim the imminence of God’s kingdom? Did he get the general idea from John and then refined it? Did the Holy Spirit give it to Jesus when he was baptized by John? Or maybe his Holy Spirit-infused baptism simply gave Jesus the idea that he was the messiah which implied that God’s kingdom was imminent?
It seems logical to suppose that Jesus figured out or clearly defined his mission during his post-baptismal 40 days in the desert. He started proclaiming the kingdom immediately after that. The temptations appear to be the mistaken paths that he might have taken. But it’s not clear to me how those temptations specifically related to proclaiming God’s kingdom. At best Jesus concluded that he was not to use his messiahship for his own purposes but only to serve God. But how did he decide to serve God specifically by proclaiming his kingdom? I don’t see how the temptations shed any light on how he came to that specific decision.
In the Gospels he is never said to have “come to understand” this; the assumption appears to be that he always knew it.
I would not assume that those temptations actually occurred. Like, was there anyone else around? Did Jesus tell others about an experience in the desert? Where’s the evidence for any of that? Again, you have a mass of stories and legends. Why should any of them be taken seriously?
Dr, Ehrman
I have question about the words
“My god my god why have you forsaken me?”
From a markan and psalmic point of view, is it probable that jesus thought that God was going to rescue jesus of the cross?
he prays to the farther to take the cup away then while on cross he asks why he is forsaken, does this mean that jesus thought the father will come to save him of the cross?
I am not asking this question from historical angle but from markan angle
If faith moves mountains then god could have taken jesus of the cross, he only had to believe, but instead forsaken and left to die
Mark appears to want to show that Jesus at the end did not fully understand why this had to happen to him; but Mark and the reader do, because right after ne dies the curtain in the temple rips in half, showing that through the death of Jesus, people now have direct access to God.
so from marks perspective, it is not jesus which is needed as an intermediary, but a direct access because of breaking the intermediary/wall created by the temple?
in other words, a death causes a jew to have direct relationship with his god, without any intermediary , including jesus?
For the Christians Jesus is the one who provides the mediation by his death, not the temple cult.
Is the course available on YouTube?
Nope.
I’m interested in getting a recording of your debate with Mike Licona next month. Really looking forward to watching it!
” In Genesis 1, how can there be light on earth long before there is a sun, moon, and stars? ”
My father’s explanation (a hard line atheist that refused to go to a church even for social events) was that those myths were so ancient that the people didn’t know that the “day” was related to the sun because first we see the dawn and after that the sun rises !! I remember the Jehovah’s Witnesses coming to my home and my father arguing with them based upon this same passage ! Things became heated when it came to discussion over evolution but I remember those days with great joy, everybody in the neighborhood avoided the JWs (they even closed their windows as if there were nobody at home !) but my father was eager to welcome them and begin arguing!
Hi Dr Ehrman, I understand that you are an early Christianity scholar. Are the methodological historical tools still applicable to studying early Judaism? Have you done some scholarship in that area? How did you compile this knowledge into the earliest books of the Bible? Did you read the original Hebrew or did you go by the work of specialists in this area? Thanks!
Yes, that’s my field. I have a PhD in New Testament studies and have been engaged in teh academic study of it since I was a college stdent in the 1970s! The NT is written in Greek, and yes, I deal wihth the original texts.
These stories may have come from the much older Sumerian creation stories that have several similarities with the Hebrew creation myth. So, the creation story in the Bible may be based on such a framework, but I still believe that the concept that is put into this framework may have a different origin. I am no stranger to the fact that they may have been influenced (or even self experienced) by views from a farther Eastern tradition. It is a fact that within the oldest religion in the first millennia BC, the Hindi Vedas, was written out of a whole lot of deep meditation and what they can call, “spiritual journeys”. An intriquing observation is that Its views, for example on “consciousness”, seem to be embraced and reinvented by modern scientists. Within these concepts we find an elaboration of the human spiritual essence through the 7 spiritual centers, what they call Chakras that correlate a lot with our endocrine system and the 7 glands in the human body. In my opinion, these ideas can also be reflected in the Book of Revelation.
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When I review the Hebrew creation myth from the above a perspective, there is for me an increasing intriquing question if the mythical 7 days of creation in the Genesis correlates with the creation of the foundation / creation of the 7 spiritual centers, or perhaps the Chacras / endocrine system (the 7 glands in ourselves). Then the creation myth might be about ourself, which if some believe in science, like “quantum physics” could find natural since, consciousness is the basis of all matter, or what we perceive as reality and we are within and bearer of this conciousness.
Perhaps the Hebrew concepts were inspired by these neigbouring views, or even self experienced through any meditative technics and written in metaphorical narratives.
In that case, the creation myth may have used a concept / framework from the Near East (Sumerian creation myth) and the concept from a longer eastern (or their own) mystical experiences.
A word for those who have, over the years, read many of Dr Erhman’s books and profoundly regret not having, along the way, taken structured notes and summaries: the on-line Lectures by Bart Erhman Professional Services (such as In The Beginning) come with fantastic slides summarizing every important point in an organized fashion. This will save me (and you) tons of time when the good old “What was that argument again?” question comes to haunt you…
What is your take on the nature of the firmament? Does the Hebrew say it’s a hard dome or something else?
The idea is that it’s a dome above and below, that can hold the waters above it and below it.
It seems the early Israelites were tribes of nomads. What happened that they were able to finance building a kingdom and the first temple?
The temple came about, what, 150 years after there was a kingdom in place. Think about how different the U.S. is from 150 years ago! In any event, once the tribe amalgamated, if there was any kind of taxing scheme, there were revenue possibilities.
1. Do you think there were really 12 tribes amalgamated? If so, how did each of the tribes know about the other tribes?
2. How was there trust between the tribes to allow them to join together as one tribe?
3. If there was ever a united kingdom, were the tribes still divided between north and south?
4. I have read that some scholars believe that David was only a chieftain of a small tribal area rather than a king over a kingdom. What are your thoughts on this?
Basically, I don’t know teh answer to any of these questions. I would incline to saying the first to are slightly likely and that there was conflict north and south. And I don’t think we know how large David’s realm was, but the stories are surely exaggerated.
Thanks for the reply. I started thinking about how could multiple scattered tribes be in communication with each other so that they could agree to form a kingdom and agree to no longer worship multiple gods like their neighbors do.
Would you say the Laws, statutes and ordinances of the Hebrews, which come from the Torah or Pentateuch, underpin our current civil laws we have today?
Somewhat, I suppose. But not as much as, say, Roman imperial law.
What is your view if any, on the Hebrew scholarship? Being the Rabbi and Sages writings of the Mishnah, Talmud and other writings.
Regarding the Genesis creation story, I read a thoughtful book you might like titled “God, Sky & Land: Genesis 1 as the Ancient Hebrews Heard It”. (https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/0967369436/)
It includes the author’s re-translation of the first creation story, which was eye-opening to me.
He calls his translation the “Original Hearer’s Version”, because he avoids words that carry baggage for us but that the original hearers would not have had. The ancients didn’t know there was a universe as we know it. But when we read Genesis we automatically have a different take on what it means because we have a different view of reality.
For example, Genesis 1:1:
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
When we read this we think it says:
“As time began, God created the entire universe and our planet.”
But, the ancients had no such ideas about universes or even planets.
When they heard it, they heard:
“To begin with Elohim brought into existence the sky and the land.”
or
“To begin with Elohim brought into existence the sky and our homeland.”
or
“To begin with Elohim brought into existence the sky and dry land.”
I’m no Christian, and I acknowledge that the creation myth in Genesis is implausible, but man! what a story beautifully and majestically told. It is a thunderingly impressive opening to a holy book.
Rather let down by the somewhat less grand second creation narrative found a bit later on.
I think fundamentalists get a little too wrapped around the axles by details. Is it important that the plants were made before the fishes or whatever? Other creation myths are equally fanciful. What is surely important is that the cosmos was created because, well, here it is. We may acknowledge a creation of some sort, whether it is Genesis, the Big Bang, or the Almighty hacking out a loogie.
I listened to/watched this course in its entirety in one day. Loved it.
Whoa….
Bart have you read any Jewish commentaries on Genesis? Have you read any Midrash, Talmud, Torah commentaries on Genesis? You’re making assumptions about what Jews have thought without the knowledge to make those assumptions. You might no longer be a believer but your idea of Genesis and the Hebrew Bible is totally Christian.
Yes, I have read modern Jewish commentaries. But I’m not sure what you mean by Midrash Talmud and Torah “commentaries”?
In any event, I’m giving an interpretation of what the author meant, not what Jews living a thousand years (or more than that, i teh case of the Talmud!) later interpreted him to mean. I don’t believe my views are in much contrast with Jewish scholarship, but if you know of some specifics, I’m completely open to hearing them!
Some random musings on the beginnings . . . . There are lots of inconsistencies in the Bible’s in the beginning. We know a little more now, but still not enough. Perhaps we should leave the beginnings to astro-physicists like the deceased, but renowned, Prof. Stephen Hawking.
There were probably big bangs before the big bang, and multiple universes before our universe. Perhaps our God is from one of those?
Maybe the beginnings were written by brains just past the Neanderthal stage.
A tablespoonful of a neutron star weighs several billion tons, compared to a tablespoonful of concrete weighing only two ounces.
What is the beginning? What came before? Nothing? What is nothing? Perhaps it is the 90% or so of dark energy and matter we have no knowledge of as the renowned Prof. Stephen Hawking described. That 90% has to be there in some form somewhere, somehow, or what we think we know won’t make any sense. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity would have to be reinvented and he’s not around.