(17 votes, average: 4.82 out of 5)
Loading...Yesterday I started explaining what it was I believed when I left fundamentalism but remained a committed Christian – one who realized that the Bible was not at all an infallible book but was still a person of faith. I’ve never talked about any of this before in print, either on the blog or in any of my books. One reason for wanting to do so now is that I think I must have given some people the false impression that I went from being a fundy to being an agnostic in one step, that once I came to see that my fundamentalist views were just wrong, I immediately became a non-believer, having no other options to fall back on. In fact it didn’t happen that way, at all. I was a committed Christian for many years after giving up on conservative evangelicalism. Here is more of what I believed at the time.
- The ultimate teaching of the Gospel was love. Love of God. Love of neighbor. Jesus not only taught this ethic and lived it in his interactions with others: he died for it. Jesus’ death for me at the time (and still, of course) was a very real historical event. He really did get crucified by Pontius Pilate. I thought there were probably very clear and certain historical reasons for this. But the Christian *interpretation* of that event (the “myth” behind it, as I would have expressed it to myself at the time) was that this was an act of supreme self-sacrifice of one person for another. That’s what it means really to love others. It means to be willing to give up your life if need be.
- And that’s how much God loves his people. He is willing to give up his own son for the sake of others. At the time I certainly had problems with the various “atonement” theologies on offer. If pushed I would have probably said that on one level it was very disturbing indeed to think that God needed someone to be tortured to death for the sake of others. Why not just forgive them? But that wasn’t the point for me at the time. The point was that both God and Jesus gave the ultimate sacrifice for others (God his son; his son his life), and I too should be willing to sacrifice my life for others (hopefully in some rather less extreme way!), instead of being completely self-centered and self-aggrandizing.
- At that time I probably still thought that God had literally…To read the rest of this post you need to belong to the blog. If you don’t belong yet, JOIN already!!! It’ won’t cost much (less than 50 cents/week) and every bit of your membership fee goes to help those in need.
Hello Dr Ehrman,
I finally signed up for the blog mainly to discuss the atonement with you. I just finished your book “God’s Problem” and was planning on sending you an email to discuss the theory of atonement you put forward there. Since you mention it here however, I thought it would be good to discuss here.
Were you aware that the specific theory of atonement that you mention is only predominant in Protestant churches? I am an Orthodox Christian myself and I too find the “penal substitution” theory of atonement to be repugnant.
I’ve never found any explanations of atonement satisfying, but I’d be happy to hear of one that you think is unproblematic.
Even when you were a biblical inerrantist Dr. Ehrman, you didn’t think any atonement explanation was satisfying?
At that point I was satisfied with all sorts of explanations!
Just quoting from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonement_in_Christianity#Eastern_Christianity (things in square brackets are my words):
Eastern Orthodoxy and Eastern Catholicism have a substantively different soteriology. Salvation is not seen as the acceptance of a legal exchange[as in the penal substitution model where Jesus dies to “pay” for the sins of man], but as participation in the renewal of human nature itself by way of the eternal Word of God assuming the human nature in its fullness [incarnation]. In contrast to Western branches of theology, Orthodox Christians tend to use the word “expiation” with regard to what is accomplished in the sacrificial act. In Orthodox theology, expiation is an act of offering that seeks to change the one making the offering. The Biblical Greek word which is translated both as “propitiation” and as “expiation” is hilasmos, which means “to make acceptable and enable one to draw close to God”. Thus the Orthodox emphasis would be that Christ died, not to appease an angry and vindictive Father or to avert the wrath of God upon sinners [for how does it even make sense for a petty human being to offend God?], but to defeat and secure the destruction of sin and death, so that those who are fallen and in spiritual bondage may become divinely transfigured, and therefore fully human, as their Creator intended [and so Christ dies only for his love for man. Could God have forgiven man? Of course he could. But that wouldn’t have done man any good. The problem wasn’t that man needed forgiveness, it was that man needed to be healed, restored, and transfigured]; that is to say, human creatures become God in his energies or operations but not in his essence or identity, conforming to the image of Christ and reacquiring the divine likeness (see theosis) [theosis in Orthodox theology is considered the goal of human life].
I’m not sure if you’ve come across this before, but the above in a nutshell is how Orthodoxy sees the atonement, I’d be very happy to hear your thoughts on this.
Yes, I have come across it, but it was not in my repertoire when I was either an evangelical or non-evangelical Christian.
hmm and I assume you also find this unsatisfactory since you said “I’ve never found any explanations of atonement satisfying”. What would be your objections to it?
I don’t have any objections to it; I never found it appealing because it never seemed to correspond with what the authors of the NT have to say about the significance of Jesus’ death.
I can accept this understanding of Christianity on a personal level. I do have serious issues with what Christianity has become as an organization, especially right wing fundamentalism and, at this time, is choose not to be affiliated with any religious organization.
I am interested in what led you to agnosticism since I am at that point in my life at this time.
My interest with this topic is personal and not academic. I hope you will continue with the agnostic element in you life in a future post. Thank you for sharing this.
(One practical off topic question…I can not find how to add a picture to my profile. Any info on how to do that?)
Thanks.
Better send Steven a note: he’ll tell you how to do it.
Who is Steven and what’s his contact address? If you have time to reply…no big deal.
Just send an email to the admin address for the site, here: https://ehrmanblog.org/contact-bart/
What if your god as you saw him in the bible would remove all pain and suffering in the world? (even birthing pain?)
Maybe it was allowed to be this way out of design and desire not to interfere, to see what we could do with the tools we have been given. Just a question or opinion.
I just don’t see why we need a world where seven innocent children starve to death every minute to test us to see how well we do with it….
And I do not see why people cannot be more responsible! Bringing children into the world when it’s impossible for whatever reason to take care of them is criminal. And if they cannot afford protection, they certainly cannot afford to have babies.
I didn’t say it was a test. But what would we have if absolutely no pain or suffering were allowed? Who would be the almighty judge of what is pain and what is suffering? My suffering may not be suffering at all to you. I don’t see any alternative except some utopia garden of eden. Just maybe, that’s not the plan! I believe the position you’re taking is one of all or nothing. I just don’t believe it’s so black and white.
Sure, we could have hang-nails and problems paying the mortgage and fender-benders, and that would not be an argument against the existence of God. It is suffering in extremis that is the problem.
Hi Bart, How did your prayer practices change between the fundamentalist and non-fundamentalist stages of your life’s journey? Thanks!
I became far less convinced that God actually answers prayers….
Bart,
During this period of your life, what was your attitude about the efficacy of prayer? For example, did you pray for the sick, and did you ever think you saw evidence of miraculous healing?
I prayed, but I realized that there would be no magical effects.
Do you remember the moment you realized that Moses didn’t actually write the Pentateuch?
No, I don’t think I do remember the moment!
You say your views were once “liberal.” I’m confused by the labels used by and for biblical scholars. Can you recommend a book, article or website that discusses the terms I see thrown around with no definition – liberal, conservative, traditional, critical? How do you now describe yourself?
Seems to me that one must have some believe in God to be a “liberal” scholar. You may be a “critical” scholar, but evangelicals also claim that – when used properly – biblical criticism supports their interpretation of Scripture. Understand you are agnostic, but that does not seem to be a good label for biblical scholarship, as opposed to religious belief.
I don’t know of such a book; I’m sure there are articles that explain it all, but I don’t recall ever seeing one. Most truly critical scholars maintain that if your scholarship leads you to the views you had before you engaged in teh scholarship, you’re not being critical. You’re simply arguing for your conclusion. That’s the opposite of being critical
At the time did you consider ‘being lead by the Spirit’ to be a myth? Or did you, for instance, believe that you could ‘hear’ from God directly (apart from the bible)? In whatever form or way that may be.
I thought God could make his presence and will known, but it wasn’t audible. You had to figure it out.
Your discussion about evolving beliefs reminds me of something. I’ve noticed you mention that Paul’s ideas may have been in flux at times. If that is true, to what extent might that weaken arguments that he didn’t write the pseudo Pauline epistles? Maybe Paul changed his mind about some things after 10 years. Or, if other new testament authors may have changed their views over time, the conclusion that the 4th gospel is written by a different person than the Book of Revelation? Maybe his grammar improved and he abandoned the apocalyptic belief, shifting to a vertical dualism, after many years. I’m not saying I believe this occurred with those specific examples, just that time might account for differences in theology in writings by the same person. If 2000 years from now someone digs up your college papers and recent books, might they conclude they were written by different people? Or that some were forged?
I realize there are other factors that come into play when deciding on authorship and, in the absence of evidence to believe an author changed their views, it is more likely that different authors wrote books with differing theology. But if New Testament authors, like New Testament scholars, sometimes changed their views over time, how does that factor into your work?
Yes, any view about the deutero-paulines has to take into account the fact that people change their minds about things. Absolutely! But if in one place a Pauline letters argues precisely for against a view that Paul had argued against elsewhere, that should raise suspicions, at least. Then other factors have to be brought into consideration. The easiest way to see how the arguments can be mounted would be by considering an example in practice. You might want to look at what I say, for example, in my book Forgery and Counterforgery about a book like 2 THessalonians.
“If 2000 years from now someone digs up your college papers and recent books, might they conclude they were written by different people? Or that some were forged?”
Haha! I’m tickled by the thought that in 2000 years someone will write a book entitled “FORGED! – Bart Ehrman maintained his Christian faith – late 21st-century proto-atheists borrowed his name and invented his critical works”
Probably followed several years later by an Ehrman mysticist claiming Bart never existed! 😀
Today, understanding suffering and good/evil on our planet should be dilemma for all religious people.
Dr Ehrman, I think any christian should appreciate your honesty in sharing your understanding of Christ and God. Your recognition that God’s focus is on those living on earth, and especially those suffering on earth, is heartfelt.
We can rightly ask,
“If God exists what was the origin of suffering? and Why doesn’t He do something to stop it?”
For men and women living today the questions of good and evil are NOT adequately answered in the Bible, the closest intimations maybe are expressed by the prophet Hosea. Whether 2000 year old answers provided were adequate for people of their day, I don’t know
But if the bible doesn’t provide the adequate answers, it isn’t likely philosophy or theology will either. Then the answer if it exists and if God exists, must come from God Himself. How? A part of a recent revelation, that can be considered or not, is the following:
God the Parent’s suffering is many, many times greater than anyone else’s in the entire human history, but He is powerless to relieve His or His children’s suffering without human beings’ cooperation.
1. Wow! Wow! And Wow!
2. As you know, I have been reading your work for over a decade now, and this series of posts is, by far (it’s not even close), the best thing that you have written. Thanks
3. I, and I suspect many others, have traveled the same path from Fundamentalism to liberal Christianity to honestly just not knowing agnosticism as we painfully try to fit together what we were taught in church with what scholars teach us. It just doesn’t match. The main difference is that you have read and studied more than us. Otherwise, the journey is essentially the same. It’s so nice to know that I am not completely crazy or that I don’t just lack faith or the “will to believe.” Your writing has convinced me about that which is no small gift.
4. For me, and I suspect for many others, the main purpose of all this work and study is trying to put it all together the best we can so these posts are very, very helpful.
5. I still think you have the foundation here for a very good autobiography describing an intellectual and faith journey that would resonate with many readers. How about “An Intellectual Faith Journey: The Making of a Bible Scholar” for a working title?
6. Thanks for your honesty and courage.
7. Keep going.
Hello Dr. Erhman,
Would you have still considered yourself a Trinitarian Christian at this time, or would you have had more of an Adoptionist belief? Possibly neither?
Side note: I attend Kent State University and am planning on taking Mythology with your brother this fall. Very excited!
I suppose I was more of an adoptionist at this point.
I was in Kent over the weekend! I hope you enjoy the class.
Did you ever have a phase in your life where you pretend that you believed for the sake of somebody else? Philosopher Slavoj Zizek has an allegory where parents and children both pretend to believe in Santa Claus to please each others event tough none of them actually believe in it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO0iFLkmhdw
Have you ever experienced anything like that in your life?
No, I didn’t have that experience.
You didn’t say that you believed in Hell during these years. How did you reason that it was necessary for Jesus to be sacrificed for all the believers? It would be interesting if you could also list the doctrines you had stopped believing.
I wasn’t sure about hell at that point in my life. But I came to see Jesus’ death as an act of love more than an act of atonement, a demonstration of how we too ought to live (and die).
I’m confused about where you are now. I know that the terms agnostic and atheist are often/usually used interchangeably but I’ve always distinguished them for myself as agnostics questioning the existence of a god while atheists firmly believe there is no god. I think the new breed of atheist fundamentalist (ie. Dawkins, Hitchens etc.) may be adding to my confusion and my own struggle to identify myself. I think I’m a little to the right of agnosticism, I believe that human consciousness may exist in some form beyond death and that there is something to us beyond the physical but I’ve pretty much shed they rest of my Catholic school and seminary indoctrination. Do you definitively believe that there is no god or afterlife or do you view it as an unsolvable question?
I discussed this issue on May 30, 2013, here: https://ehrmanblog.org/agnostic-or-atheist-for-members/
Interesting post, much appreciated!
It brought to mind an old confusion for me, concerning Jesus and love. As a non-Christian who had no religious instruction in youth and who first read the Bible in early middle-age, I have felt I came to the NT as a relatively blank slate, i.e. most of my first impressions of Christianity came from a raw, uneducated reading of the texts.
So it often confuses me to hear Christians claim that so much of Jesus’s message was about Love. Today I’m convinced this belief comes more from what they are told (in church, or by family) than what they read. Recently I performed an “Ehrman-esque” exercise: scour the gospels to find Jesus’s explicit teachings on Love.
As you note in your lectures on Paul, one may list all of Paul’s references to the life of Jesus on a 3×5 card. I’m going to claim the same for Jesus’s Love teachings.
We basically have love your neighbor as yourself, and love your enemy (turn the other cheek). For the former teaching, Jesus receives the praise of “One of the scribes” (Mark 12:28), which makes me think this was not a radical view in 1st century Judaism. For the latter, Matthew explains how loving your enemies is a way of acting like God, who “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good” (Matthew 5:45). “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?”
In John’s gospel, most of the love teachings are about loving God; and about loving Jesus himself.
And for someone who was not raised amid a chorus of songs extolling Jesus’s love, hearing him say “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37), just sounds like narcissism.
I mean no disrespect to your faith, previous or current, nor to anyone else’s. This is my experience of reading the gospels without the indoctrination of religious education.
There is actually a lot about love in the Gospels. Have you tried a concordance? Also “love” cannot be restricted to the word alone — for example, consider the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25.
I think it’s hard, for me, to see the verdict “depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” as loving. Especially from someone who has asked me to love my enemies. In this parable, it appears the sheep, those who “just as you did it [showed compassion] to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me,” show more compassion than Jesus himself.
Once again, these are perhaps naive interpretations. I read the Bible as others read The Iliad. Or at least as non-Greeks do. 😉
Yes, that part is not loving! My point is that entrance into the kingdom come to those who spend their lives in loving others, especially those in need.
That was an extremely interesting take from, sadly, a very unusual point of view. Rarely does a person read a holy text without (much) in the way of pre-conceived baggage.
Thank you for sharing!
Many Christians tell me Jesus is God who paid the price of sin for me. My Question is always how can God die they tell me He didn’t die but his flesh died. How does the flesh dying equal to God dying? If the flesh died is that God dying?
I think the idea would be that the Son of God died (not God the Father), and he (the Son) was a fleshly being. When *your* flesh dies, you’re dead!
Juannifer’s point, though, is a critically salient one: truely omnipotent and omniscient “gods” can’t die in any real sense and the idea that either the father or the son truly suffered is nonsense. I came to that realization in grade school and continue to be amazed at how otherwise seemingly rational adults can make such a logical error.
This is where the later theological construct of the Trinity is Self-defeating. Not only does the doctrine itself make zero sense, it completely eliminates any sacrifice and suffering from the story. The ‘story’ only makes any sense at all if Jesus really wasn’t god. It is all summed up nicely by the sarcastic statement that “god sacrificed himself to himself so that he could save us from himself”.
Dr Ehrman
Re: “At that time I probably still thought that God had literally raised Jesus, bodily, from the dead. But it wasn’t a doctrine that I was wedded to or that I thought was ultimately the most important (or that could be proven one way or the other). ”
I’ve found that, underneath everything else, this is the single biggest reason people decide not to “be Christian” anymore. Christianity is entirely worthless except and unless Jesus was indeed bodily raised from the dead. Take that out of the equation, and a person might as well just go for being a well-read atheist with an appreciation for the humanities – or, better still, just go have a beer and blow off everything, and settle in honest intellectuality for something more like “nothing in the universe makes sense, so, I’m not gonna try to make sense of it’.
Re: “But I was more focused on life in the here and now. I had especially come to think that faith was to have clear and definite social consequences. ”
As a believer in the bodily resurrected Jesus Christ, I couldn’t possibly agree with you more on this one. In fact, it’s *because* I believe in the resurrection that I think *anything* – *any idea* – that I might have might actually have any validity to it at all. Take the resurrected Christ out of the picture, and my ideas are just part-and-parcel of the random-but-deterministic thoughts that bounce around in my head due to various molecules bouncing into each other – just exactly like everyone else’s (if Christ was not risen).
Tell you the truth, if I wasn’t “stuck” with this “resurrection-as-a-fact” thing, I’d be the happiest atheist on the planet. I personally got no use for religion at all. So, I can totally relate. Unfortunate thing, though, is that throughout my many years, I’ve never been able to deny the reality of the risen Christ – something I had experienced at a time when I had *zero* expectations of ever having had such an experience. (I wasn’t raised in church, wasn’t raised in a Christian home, thank God). There have been a number of times in my life when I was “this close” to just blowing off all the “religion crap”, and happily head directly to atheist (which has far more appeal to me than any other “belief system”, as it were, except for Christianity), but in the end, I couldn’t get past the reality of what I myself had experienced.
My Big Question for You: If you weren’t “wedded” to the belief that Jesus was bodily raised from the dead, why did you ever bother claiming to be a Christian in the first place? Did you just grow up with someone telling you that you were?
My biography is a very long story, and you can read it in my books and on the Blog. But short story: for virtually all of my life until my late 20s I was convinced that Jesus was bodily raised from the dead, adn throughout college I thought I could “prove” it!
Well, I guess there’s a difference between “being convinced” of something, and “knowing” something.
I *know* that 1 = 1. I’m not “convinced” of it, because to say so would imply that someday I might be *convinced* that it were not true. But, I *know* that 1 = 1 because Reason says it *must* be so: 1 = 1, “a thing is equal to itself”. There is no “convincing” necessary; I simply *see* that it is true.
It’s the same way for me, in regards to “Christ resurrected”. If it were not so, then perhaps you could “convince” me. But, alas…..
If belief in the bodily resurrection of a literal god-man is the only thing that can make your religion worthwhile, how do you account for the buddhists who seek to become like the Compassionate Buddha, who was neither god, nor dead and resurrected? I suggest we can choose a religious view of life because it pleases us and for no other reason.
oh, I got no problem at all with anyone else’s religious views. Or, for that matter, if they’re atheist. And certainly, one can choose a religious view simply because it pleases them. No problem.
I’m just saying that for me, if it were not for the actual, historic event of the resurrection of Jesus, I myself wouldn’t bother with any of it, and would just go the atheist route, and probably never look back. That would never mean, though, that I thought that a follower of Buddha, for example, was “foolish”, or any such thing.
To me, the only thing that proves there is a God at all is the resurrection of Jesus. Now, if that didn’t occur, then I’m truly the biggest fool of all.
I’ve probably said a million times in my life: If somebody ever found some 1st-century document in which one of Jesus’ “inner-circle” of followers wrote that the whole “resurrection thing” was just a hoax, and if that document could be proven authentic, I’d drop the whole “Christianity thing” in a heartbeat, and wouldn’t have a moments hesitation in turning atheist. Or, heck, for that matter, if someone came up with any type of verified, authentic document that somehow proved that Jesus was never even crucified, why, I’d drop the whole Christianity thing (and, “God thing”) in a heartbeat.
You see, for me, I don’t “need” to believe in a “God” in order to be happy, or have a good life, or any such thing. I’d be just fine without any of it. But, I got stuck with having this most unexpected experience – one that was so real, I’ve often said it was like experiencing Reality Itself – and, it was Jesus Christ. I got “saddled” with that experience, whether I can explain it or not (and, I assure you, I cannot), and it has remained my basis of reality ever since. (I know, I know – my “basis of reality” is a bizarre and unexplicable event. But, such is the nature of knowing a resurrected Being. Go figure, right?).
Trying not to read myself into your description, but it seems like the experience is more important than the history. The historical facts of anything that happened more than 19 centuries ago will always be in doubt. If you had not had the personal experience that you take to be an encounter with Jesus, wouid you even give the historical claims a second thought?
I can readily identify with your beliefs and outlook as a liberal Christian. They seem very reasonable and believable but still ethical and hopeful. But I’ve concluded that they (yours and mine as they were) seem that way to the degree that the superstitious, magical, divine, transcendent elements have been removed, to the extent that a purposeful and actively intervening all-powerful being has been removed. I could probably get past the problem of evil based on the belief that God would make things right in an afterlife. But why maintain that belief if all the other divine, transcendent beliefs have been removed? So I can understand why more conservative Christians are critical of liberals for removing almost all the vestiges of supernaturalism. There’s practically nothing left except science and humanism. I’m inclined to say that ultimately the only remaining choices for a Christian are between some kind of conservatism and either agnosticism or atheism. Liberal Christianity is only a temporary rest stop on the way to agnosticism or atheism–or back to conservatism.
1. At this point in your life, did you believe in the resurrection based in the historical claims, or just faith on what the apostles proclaimed. That they had seen Jesus, and you beloved that to be true?
2. do you know any Christian’s who agree with your scholarship, but continue to believe in the resurrection? Your work doesn’t say the resurrection is impossible, you just say it’s the least likely thing to happen so it cannot be deemed “historical”.
3. Is this the same argument you made with Mike Licona in April? That the resurrection isn’t impossible (since it’s a belief) but the evidence isn’t amazing, and it’s the least likely thing to occur so it cannot be deemed historical.
1. I thought it was a faith clalim that could not be demonstrated historically 2. Tons of biblical scholars 3. Yup. Watch the debate! You may enjoy it.
Thank you, I’ll check out the debate. On the resurrection, do you currently maintain that it’s a faith claim that cannot be demonstrated historically? More specifically, that it’s *possible* it happened, but using the historical process, it’s the least likely thing to have happened?
I don’t see why conservative Christian’s would disagree. You’re not saying it’s impossible or incorrect.
It’s not possible according to the laws of physics, but if it happened it would be the first and only such thing to happen to any living creature since life began on earth — however many living creatures that would be. So it would be so remotely improbable that you would have to have some incredible evidence for it. Some people saying they saw Jesus alive after his death is not incredible evidence of the kind that would be required.
Instead of improbable, why don’t you make the case for it being *impossible* due to the laws of physics?
Yes, if our laws of physics are always applicable, as I believe they are, it is impossible. Quantum mechanics, of course, continues to throw “possible” for a loop.
1. Also, one can argue that since miracles are not bound by the laws of physics, natural law/physics isn’t an argument against the possibility of miracles. It now comes to the evidence of the miracle actually happening, am I correct?
That’s one way to put it. If you want to say that an event happened that violated teh laws of physics that so far as we no are *never* violated, then you would have to have some pretty darn amazing evidence of it. It’s hard to know what that evidence could be. I once saw the magician David Copperfield make teh STatue of LIberty disappear — as did millions of other people. But I don’t think it actually disintegrated for a minute….