(5 votes, average: 4.20 out of 5)
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Many of you will know Michael Shermer, from his publications and podcast. He writes about the history of science from the perspective of religious skepticism, and is the editor-in-chief of Skeptic Magazine. Like me, he converted to evangelical Christianity as a teenager, went to a conservative Christian college, and ended up leaving the faith.
Michael and I had an unusually interesting discussion about my book Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says about the End for his podcast, and he has agreed to allow me to share it with y’all here. Enjoy!
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I wrote for Michael’s magazine the Skeptic on the Roswell incident. He’s a good and insightful guy. I enjoyed Bart’s previous interview with Michael about a year or two ago. Looking forward to this one. Interestingly, Michael has said that if you accept Bart’s analysis on the New Testament, you cannot still be a believer. Interesting because that’s not Bart’s position.
Michael Shermer! From wikipedia:
“After years of practicing acupuncture, chiropractic, massage therapy, negative ions, rolfing, pyramid power, and fundamentalist Christianity to improve his life and training, Shermer stopped rationalizing the failure of these practices.”
What a long strange ride it’s been.
From my perspective, Shermer epitomizes the fundamentalist mindset, which does not really change after leaving fundamentalist christianity. That he has gone from feeling assured he was right in so many absurd ways to feeling he is right now, with the same evangelical-esque desire to tell everyone about his thinking and his revelations, speaks to the fundamentalist mentality. “Former fundamentalists” don’t change, they just change what they know they are right about, and continue to want to tell everyone about it.
Meandering but a great interview. Perhaps we are too focused single issue interviews that ones that drift to interesting side bars have been nixed by social media. This was informative and delightful. What else should an interview provide?
G’day Bart
New member (been a fan for a year though) so apology if off-topic comments are frowned upon but wanted to alert you to the sad death down here in Australia of a great Catholic Priest
Father Bob took the teachings of Jesus seriously, the strictures of the Conservative church hierarchy less so and this made him beloved by the ppl, Christian and atheists alike as he truly dedicated himself to helping the poor and supporting the marginalised and outcast
If interested, here’s his obit
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/19/father-bob-maguire-melbourne-priest-loved-by-the-poor-but-not-by-the-catholic-hierarchy-obituary
Thanks for this. Off topics are absolutely fine, so long as they relate to the interests of the blog!
Thankyou so much for this interview between two great minds – and with plenty of honesty, good will & good humour!
I’d like to see more explored re Cognitive Dissonance, as mentioned in discussion, and just what its influence & consequences can be. Those of us who have made the Great Break & walked away from life as a Believer (similar to Prof Ehrman & Michael Shermer) have stared this down – taken the destabilising hit to allow ourselves to be honestly remade rather than doubling down to defend what we have realised is indefensible. From the existential threat we chose to run with it towards a new life in discovered truth rather than fight to support a double life.
Bart,
At the 47:35-48:10 point in your interview with Shermer you emphasize that Jesus’ corpse would have been left to rot on the cross until just a skeleton remained. Given this, do you think it’s possible/likely that the initial resurrection up to heaven belief was that Jesus was resurrected up to heaven right off the cross?
I don’t think so. the earliest traditions all indicate he was buried. The disciples are recorded as fleeing the scene. They wouldn’t have known what happened ot the body.
If the very initial belief in Jesus’ resurrection up to heaven was that he was resurrected from a burial site and not right of the cross, then I assume the first vision of Jesus had to be *after* Jesus’ followers thought the Romans removed his bones from the cross and buried them?
the earliest followers of Jesus didn’t know how his body had been disposed of. They probalby went straight back to Galilee after he was arrested.
Are you saying that Jesus’ followers who had the first visions of Jesus in Galilee, leading them to conclude that Jesus was resurrected up to heaven, just *assumed* that Jesus had been buried by someone before being resurrected up to heaven (instead of concluding that Jesus had been resurrected up to heaven right off the cross)?
Yes, that seems likely to me. They fled home. Some of them said they saw Jesus alive. They drew the conclusions.
Do you think the first followers of Jesus to have a vision of Jesus leading them to conclude Jesus was resurrected up to heaven assumed Jesus and was buried by the Romans or Jews?
I don’t know.
Even allowing for Jesus’ followers being clueless about Roman crucifixion practices, why would Jesus’ followers assume he was buried by the Romans or Jews instead of just proclaiming Jesus was resurrected up to heaven and leave it at that? Asked another way, when Jesus’ followers had the first visions of Jesus, they couldn’t have known if Jesus was resurrected up to heaven right off the cross or from a grave, so why pick the latter?
After they came to believe he had been taken up, stories startd circulating that there was “proof.” The tomb was found empty!
*Before* the empty tomb story came about, 1] do you think Jesus’ followers thought Jesus was buried and, if your answer is yes, 2] why would Jesus’ followers bother to assume this when, as far as they knew, Jesus was resurrected up to heaven right off the cross?
1. Yes, Paul mentions a burial but not an empty tomb; 2. I don’t think anyone thought Jesus was raised directly from the cross, at least among the proto-orthodox.
1] Just to be clear that we’re talking about the same very early time period in Christian origins, when Peter had his vision of Jesus and concluded that Jesus was resurrected up to heaven, are you saying that at the same time or within a few days or very short time Peter assumed Jesus was resurrected from a grave instead of from the cross (with no impetus from a discovered empty tomb story)?
2] If the above is your position, why would Peter assume Jesus was buried instead of just leaving the final earthly location of Jesus’ body unknown/undeclared (since Jesus could just as easily have been resurrected up to heaven right off the cross)?
Yes I’m talking about the very first Christians and what they thought about jesus being raised. None of them says anything about Jesus being raised from the cross. Maybe they thought that, but if they did, we have no record of it. When the Bible talks about people being raised (e.g., in the OT), it’s is raised from their “graves” and so that’s likely what htey thought. It doesn’t mean that they thought Jesus was given a decent burial (say, by Joseph of Arimathea). They simply assume his body was in some sense disposed of but then God raisd it from the dead.
Previously you suggested that some Christians invented the idea that Jesus was buried so they could have a discovered empty tomb story. But now you’re suggesting some Christians assumed Jesus was buried (before a discovered empty tomb story ever came about) because in the OT people were always resurrected from graves. These are two different explanations for the earliest tradition that Jesus was buried. Which position do you hold, or do you hold both positions, or in your view is it a toss-up which is correct so you provide both?
I feel like I keep explaining this but I’m not making myself clear. I’m arguing that the story of Jesus being buried in a known tomb on the day that he was crucified is highly implausible. I’m also arguing that his followers thought that his body was somehow disposed of. Both of those are burials. They are not the same thing. So far as we know, the followers at first didn’t even think about where the body ended up. they just knew that it had come back to life.
Crystal clear — you think on the same day the belief was born that Jesus was resurrected up to heaven (due to a bereavement vision of Jesus), Jesus followers thought Jesus’ corpse or bones had already been removed from the cross and disposed of in some way. So wouldn’t it follow that the first bereavement vision of Jesus had to be a good number of days after Jesus was crucified since Jesus’ followers had to know that the Romans left crucifixion victims on the cross until only their bones were left, or at least left them on the cross for a good number of days (if not indefinitely until their bones fell off the cross on their own)?
Hi Dabizi, I just wanted to say that I politely disagree with your comment on fundamentalists not changing and looking for certainty in other views they may develop that have replaced their faith. As a former fundie myself I now question everything and am slow to accept new views without full research given and even then I hold on to any new views I have lightly. To use food as a poor example of what I mean….our grandparents told us eating a certain food was good/bad for us, we believed this for many years and followed their advice and ate lots of a food we thought was good and healthy. Then, more modern research tells us that the food our grandparents thought was healthy contains unhealthy things and we are told to avoid it. Then more research pulls the latest research back to a more balanced position and then people develop views that sit on either side of the findings of the latest research and all we can do is take a view we feel makes the most sense to us. I don’t feel certain in my view I may just feel it’s right for me.
Right! My mom was into liver and onions. It was the one food I couldn’t (literally) eat. Later liver was bad for you. Then it was good for you. Hey, what’s a person to do? (Eat veggies!)
I enjoyed this enough to watch it twice!
Bart, so Michael asked you how one rationalizes the animosity toward Jews for “killing God,” insofar the crucifixion of Jesus was deemed necessary for the world’s salvation. You responded jokingly that people should “hate Italians.” But what is a serious answer? As Dawkins and Shermer say, why was the middleman necessary? How does one answer these questions: 1. Why was the whole thing necessary if God could just forgive? 2. Why not be grateful to Jews (and Romans) for facilitating that which was necessary for opening the gates of heaven? P.S. Great interview.
Well, it was kind of a serious answer. People blame Jews for killing Jesus because people hate Jews; they don’t hate Jews becaues they blame them for killing Jesus. The hate comes first; the blame is the excuse.
Yes, thanks. But my question was more on the need for atonement. Why did Jesus have to die for sins? Why couldn’t God just forgive? Michael’s point was we should be grateful to Jews for making it happen. I’d like to hear a scholar’s answer to the issue of the need for atonement. It is very perplexing. P.S. I’m Italian; it’s true no one’s ever blamed me!
I don’t have a good answer for teh theological answer, if you’re asking why it was *actually* necessary. Christians came to believe Jesus was a sacrifice. A sacrifice is for atonement. Jesus death is an atonement. Jesus must have planned that. So atonement must be necessary. Why didn’t God just forgiven everyone? Right. Good question. It would have been much easier. But it’s only a question if it’s *true* that Jesus is a god-planned atonement. Most Christians never ask the question.