(11 votes, average: 4.91 out of 5)
Loading...One of my all-time favorite interviewers is Terry Gross, the host and co-executive producer of Fresh Air on NPR. I have done her show six times over the years for various books I’ve written, and it has been a terrific experience each time. She is an amazing interviewer. She asks really perceptive questions and knows how to get to what is especially interesting about a guest’s work.
If you’ve listened to her show, you’ll know that it always sounds like she is in the same radio studio with the person she is interviewing, talking to them face to face. That’s not how it is. The person being interviewed is physically somewhere else, in a radio studio in their own location, and the interview is happening over headphones and cable hookups. It certainly never seems that way! But I’ve never met her face to face.
Here is an interview I did with her on March 4th, 2009 about my book “Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know About Them).” The book tries to present information that scholars have long known about the Bible but have not successfully communicated to a wider public. One of the themes of the book is that this material is presented to (non-fundamentalist) seminary students during their training — so that pastors of churches do know about it. But they normally do not tell their congregations!
One of the points I make in the book involves some of the familiar stories of the Gospels, such as: What do the Gospels say about Jesus’ birth? How did Judas die? What did Jesus say when he was crucified? As I point out in the book, and in the interview, the answers to these questions vary from one Gospel to another, and it is probably a mistake to “smash the four Gospels into one big Gospel and think you get the true understanding.”
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Great interview!
Interviews like this are always interesting!
I believe you’ve changed certain views, slightly, since 2009 – right? I think you said in this interview that the Synoptic Gospels don’t portray Jesus as “divine”; and you now think they *do* portray him as “divine,” but not on the same level as the Gospel of John (equal to the “Father”). And I think you said in the interview that the term “Son of God,” as used by believers in the “God” of the Jews in that era, always referred to a *non*-“divine” person…and now you’ve concluded it sometimes did imply “divinity.”
That’s right, I changed my mind based on more intense research. After thinking about it for over 30 years! It’s good sometimes to realize you were probably wrong….
Dr Ehrman,
Here is some suggested content for your next interview. Definitely a refreshing new viewpoint!
1) In the early first century a minor Jewish cult develops a belief, based on visions and scripture, about the imminent arrival of an apocalyptic celestial angel called Jesus Christ. The cult is initially persecuted by a Pharisee named Paul.
2) Having also “received” visions and interpreting scripture, Paul adopts the apocalyptic beliefs of the cult and expands the cult by preaching to Pagans about the imminent arrival of Jesus Christ. Paul writes letters to the Pagan communities – some of which are kept and circulated.
3) After the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70, and the virtual disappearance of the original Jesus cult, somebody writes a story about an earthly Jesus based on Paul’s letters. This fictional Jesus story is placed between the dates of John the Baptist and Pontius Pilate. In addition to Paul’s letters, inputs to the Gospel story include, O.T. prophesy fulfillment and texts, some real historical data, Pagan mythologies, the creative mind of the author, and contemporary agenda items from the author’s religious community.
I look forward to that interview….
You do a lot more “repenting” (changing your mind) than virtually every Christian I know! Demonstrates you go where the evidence leads… that’s why I as a Christian respect your biblical views and think Christians should listen to you (even though they generally won’t)… they don’t listen to Christians like me either… I “undermine the authority of Scripture” too much for them…
Anyway, we don’t know what Paul’s referring to in 2 Cor 12, but is there any reason to assume this wasn’t typical of all his visions… including the one he mentions in 1 Cor 15? It would explain the traditions of Acts being “a bright light” and “a loud voice” that Paul saw/heard (these accounts don’t sound like he saw Jesus in a *normal* physical body)… But I have rattled thoughts on this one… In what kind of body do the dead rise Pauls asks… I think it’s safe to assume he didn’t understand particle physics… is what we’re hearing from Paul about spiritual encounters being explained in anthropomorphic terms?—that the visions were so real to him he couldn’t tell if he was in his own body or not (if we can think 2 Cor 12 is similar in nature to 1 Cor 15)… if we can… that seems to imply Paul couldn’t tell if Jesus was in a physical body either… but he believed what he experienced was so real that they may as well have both been in bodies… whatever those “bodies of energy” really are… Whatever was going on must have been intense (it almost sounds like they were getting high without drugs)… I think we’ll never know for sure… But I’m asking for your terse view on what Paul himself thought about the “spiritual body” when he wrote it. I know you’re going to post on this so I’ll just wait unless you feel like answering me a bit early here… thanks!
Yes, Paul appears to have an ecstatic out of the body experience, but he definitely thinks the future life will be lived in the body.
Thanks. But I’m still not clear on one thing… is it your view that the appearance of Jesus to Paul mentioned in 1 Cor 15:7 is something similar to the ecstatic vision in 2 Cor 12:1-10? Based also on Paul’s conversion accounts in Acts, it seems likely to me… or at least I don’t see evidence that would suggest otherwise (is there any?)… Also Steven in Acts 7:56 (I understand the historicity of Steven’s words here could be challenged… but it seems to reflect an ancient view on how these appearances worked from the early church’s perspective… In other words… these people didn’t see Jesus just walking around town… they saw him in a vision that they were convinced was as real as anything else.. but a vision nonetheless… is that right in you view?
No, my view is that these were two separate episodes.
Yes, I know those two are seen as different events… I think I’m not asking the question well (sorry)… I’m wondering if your view is that the vision in 1 Cor 15 was *similar* in nature to the one in 2 Cor 12… or was it *different* in nature? In other words, do we know if Paul’s vision of Jesus in 1 Cor 15 was something like an ecstatic vision, or was it (in Paul’s mind at least) that Jesus was actually walking around on earth in a real body just like anyone else would be? The accounts in Acts seem to point to the former (that Paul’s 1 Cor 15 vision was more like an ecstatic vision)… Jesus was brighter than the sun which blinded Paul and all of that… even knowing those details might not pass historical muster… but don’t they indicate Paul might have described his vision of Jesus in terms of an “other worldly vision” instead of “I saw Jesus walking around in the same way I would see anyone else walking around”… I guess what I’m asking is, in what sense did Paul believe Jesus appeared to him?
Some scholars think they are the same event, and that’s what I thought you meant. But in my view, they are both different events and different kinds of event. One was a vision of Jesus and one was a visit to the heavenly realm (as experience both by other mystics and by those with a Near Death Experience!)
The alternative is to be wrong and not realize it!
Fresh Air is how I first learned about Dr. Ehrman and his work, and it has made my life all the richer for the discovery.
Enjoyed your talk at Clemson last night. Do you know if it was recorded and will be available online?
I’m afraid it was not.
This is good! I just called to get Terry Gross’s direct email address: [email protected] with the hope that many of us will ask her to please have you back soon for Jesus Before the Gospels. Maybe if lots of us do this, it will happen!
My sense is that they do interviews only for books that have just now appeared. But many thanks! I have a new book coming out in September.
Ha! I asked, too, Judith. I really hope she interviews him for T of C.
Great, Patty! There are thousands of us on this blog. We should be able to get Dr. Ehrman on any program we want!
I don’t think anyone actually listens to me, Judith. lol But I try.
I don’t understand why–at least at times–you draw such a sharp distinction between Jesus’s ethical teachings as mainly focused on eligibility for the imminent kingdom of God and those ethical teachings as ways to make a better world. You point out that that people are said to get a foretaste of the kingdom by living in this way before the end.. And you point out that, in the future kingdom, this is in fact how all people (at least all who are not condemned to eternal suffering) will live. It seems like Jesus’s ethical teachings are not just means to an end (kingdom eligibility) but also constitute the end itself (a world where people love their neighbors as themselves). And I don’t see why a little self-interest can’t be mixed in with more altruistic ethical teachings.
The best reason I can think of to make some kind of sharp distinction is that Jesus didn’t think that human beings would actually bring about the kingdom by living in this way–even though they would get a foretaste of the kingdom. Human beings simply aren’t powerful enough. Instead it would be God who brought about the kingdom by a cosmic act of power and justice.
Yes, that’s why. God would bring in the kingdom in a cataclysmic event of the (near) future. In the meantime, Jesus’ followers can begin implementing the ideals of the kingdom.
I can’t help thinking it makes more sense if he was encouraging them to believe that *if* they lived in that way – showing God how committed they were, and convincing more and more people to participate – it would induce God to *hasten* the coming of the “Kingdom.”
I can’t recall if you said that Luke’s view of atonement through the crucifixion was different than Mark’s or you said that Luke had a view of the crucifixion different from Mark’s and that Luke’s view was not one of atonement. But your explanation of the difference was very clear. Previously I understood that Luke’s and Mark’s views were different but didn’t clearly understand the specific differences. Thanks
I would say that technically Luke did not subscribe to the idea of an atonement.
I think you make excellent arguments about why we shouldn’t conflate the four gospels. But I think maybe you’re a little too absolute about it. I think of the story of the blind persons who all described an elephant differently depending on which part of the elephant they felt with their hands. Doesn’t it seem likely on its face that the four different gospel accounts, to some significant extent, could together give us a fuller picture of the historical Jesus and not just different interpretations of him? In other words couldn’t a little bit of judicious conflation be a good thing?
What I’m trying to say is that the person describing what the trunk is like should not be interpreted in light of what another person says about what the left rear leg feels like. They are describing different things. And sometimes two people describe the trunk and do so in very different and contradictory ways.
Ok but what about, after interpreting each one independently, putting together the results into a fuller picture? It seems like the point of the elephant story is that combining all the individual impressions could result in a picture of an elephant.
It would if in fact each person was describing a different part. But alas, they are all describing the *same* parts.
Well, let me ask this another way. Does the fact that we have multiple gospels give us any “additional” information about the historical Jesus that we would not have if we didn’t have a particular gospel? Or do multiple gospels (almost?) only give us a basis for confirming that what one gospel says is likely to have happened because another gospel says roughly the same thing. In other words, is the opportunity for multiple independent attestation the only or main value of having multiple gospels — as far as establishing the historical Jesus?
Are there, for example, things that are multiply attested by, say, only Q and John, and other things attested by only Mark and L–so that we have a fuller picture of the historical Jesus than if we only had say Q and John?
Yes, the more the Gospels, the more the information (and the better grounds for deciding what is historical in any one of them)
I love her interviews and her interviews with you. Your “Jesus, Interrupted” is one of my favorite books and I highly recommend it to readers of this blog. For those of you new to the blog, “Misquoting Jesus” and “Jesus, Interrupted” are the first two books you need to read. Over, the years, I, like you, have also been very, very puzzled by why seminary trained preachers don’t discuss these issues more. I have been surprised to learn how many of the preachers I have met don’t really seem to know about these contradictions and other Bible 101 issues. It makes me wonder about the seminary training they are receiving. Doing Christian theology without Bible 101 is like doing surgery without Anatomy 101.
Do you think all the miracles attested to Jesus were created after he died? How does that happen, does one person, one follower, one day go ‘you know what, I think he turned water into wine’, and others just start believing that?
I discuss this at some length in my book Jesus Before the Gospels. I waffle on whether miracle stories were circulating about Jesus during his lifetime, but I tend now to think the answer is no. Those who believed he did miracles heard the accounts and simply thought they were true (as people today think once they are told about them)
Have you read Porphyry’s Against the Christians? If so, what do you think?
Of course! It was one of the most learned attacks against the Christians. If you’re interested in learning more about it, see Robert Wilckens book, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them.
Do you meditate? If so, which techniques do you use? Do you find it helpful?
Yes, every day. I’ll add your query to my Mailbag!
I’ve made the mailbag twice! Take that.
You’re on a roll…
Do you have any recommended approaches about how Christian churches could teach their congregations about the conclusions of NT scholars concerning the historical Jesus — and the various problems and discrepancies in the Bible, ie, how it could be done without being deeply damaging to people’s Christian faith even though it may change their faith in some ways?
I’m thinking not so much of teaching individual congregations but a “strategy” for an entire denomination, eg, the Catholic Church.
Important question! Short answer: the person doing the teaching is presumably a Christian (say a pastor) who has this knowledge, but who has kept their faith. So the place to start is how they have done so and how knowledge has enriched rather than destroyed their faith.
That makes sense. And for many that might help their faith at first because then their faith will seem more reasonable. They won’t be expected to believe so many outlandish and inconsistent things. So there will be fewer doubts. That’s how it was for me. But, at least for me, that can lead to elimination of all divine/transcendent/supernatural elements. All that’s left is a good humanism — which is actually quite a bit. But, for example, it doesn’t do anything about death.
This is what I do in my new and small denomination, Way Followers Christian Institution, Inc. I have just begun its website. Most people who are a pat of it have become disillusioned with the church but have a personal belief in God. They see me as being like them. I just put out there what I believe, what I do and how I interpret communion (table grace) and the way I do it. I also present a different understanding of the clerical orders and do not make anything but teaching reserved for clerics. All else can be done by the laity.
When Jesus called out from the cross, why was it thought that he was calling for Elijah? (Indeed, why not Eli?) Would not the bystanders also have spoken Aramaic?
If it was the Roman soldiery who made the mistake, would they have been sufficiently knowledgeable about Jewish history to identify Elijah?
Is anything known of interrogation procedures by Romans? When Jesus was questioned by Pilate would they have gone to the trouble of providing an interpreter? Presumably Pilate would not have spoken Aramaic.
It’s a complicated passage. In Mark, he cries out in Hebrew. They either misunderstood or didn’t hear clearly. But it must be Jewish folk, not the Romans, who think he is calling for Elijah. The background to the story that the reader is supposed to assume is the jewish expectation that Elijah was to come prior to the cataclysmic end of time. And Jesus, they thought, was calling for him.
Whatever language used, Matthew and Mark both used Psalms 22:1 as Jesus last words. Other scenes are mined from Psalm 22 verses as well, with Psalm 22:18 copied for the dividing of Jesus clothes.
Luke looked a few chapters further in Psalms and decided that Psalm 31:5 suited him better as Jesus’ final words.
bystanders, at the Passover, could have been from *anywhere*.
There were hundreds of thousands of people that camped outside the walls of Jerusalem at the Passover. Those bystanders could have been Greek-speaking Jews from who-knows-where, and that had only a slight, if any, knowledge of Hebrew at all.
I really do wish that people understood that 1st century Jerusalem was less than a square mile in size. It’s longest wall – the one running along the Kidron valley – wasn’t much more than 4000 feet at lenght.
You put 200,000 people around that area, and, it’s something like 10 people for every linear foot of wall space. So, yeh, the bystanders – and there could have been plenty of them – could have been from anywhere. Hence, the language confusion.
Prof Ehrman
I think your pointing out the differences in the views of the writers of the New Testament is perhaps the most vital contribution you’ve made to the public discussion of these texts. Like many people I was raised with the idea that all the writers were basically saying the same thing and of course had all the narratives smushed up together in my head.
You mentioned that Paul and Mark both have similar views of the significance of Jesus’ death. I assume this is at least partly why some scholars detect a Pauline influence on Mark’s gospel. What is your opinion?
thanks
Yes, I tend to think that, mainly because of a convincing (scholarly) article written on the topic by my friend and Duke colleague Joel Marcus.
Any chance Marcus would do a guest post on this topic?
I can ask!
Isn’t the threat of everlasting fire for unbelievers the same in all the gospels?
No, not really. What passages are you thinking of?
Matthew 13:42: Luke 3:17 ; mark 9:42
John 15:6
All seem to be threatening about being cast into the fire for either not repenting or not believing. lots of scary images about being cast into hell. I see your point that each one is different if you read them closely. Not consistent between or within the gospels.
Does your current book address these differences?
The references are to Gehenna — the valley outside Jerusalem where trash was burned and the first were perpetual (not the place underground where people are tormented). Yes, I’ll be dealing with that in my book.
The purpose of the references is to threaten
Also, what was in the Ark of the Covenant? Cherubim? The voice of God? Where is it now?
The ark was the box that contained the ten commandments and on which rested to angelic figures (cherubim) between which God was enthroned. It was taken and destroyed during the Babylonian capture and destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE.
I agree with your current view that the gospel of Mark, for example, does indeed portray Jesus as a divine figure and not necessarily equal to the God of the Jewish Scriptures. However, I don’t see much indication that the author of this gospel ever would have explicitly considered this question and consciously intended to present a clearly defined view of levels or degrees of divinity. It seems to me to be more of an implicit implication of his views of Jesus. Do you agree?
Yup. That’s why I missed it for so many years.
If there was no empty tomb wouldn’t the people who had visions of Jesus would of just gone back to where he was buried and seen the body
That would be true if there was an actual tomb. Virtually all poor people, especially those who died away from home, were simply tossed into a common grave. No tomb.
She asks really perceptive and interesting questions, and then lets you speak. What an excellent interview! So different to the Drew Marshall one.
I decided to listen to a couple more of Gross’s podcasts with other people since she’s so immensely popular. I did like the interview for How Jesus Became God a bit more. I got the impression that she had taken the time to read the book based on the questions she asked, and they were questions that popped into my own mind when I read it. Still, I think her interviews have more of an informational tone to them. Your books have controversial subject matter, so my expectation for an interview is that tough questions are going to be asked–Barbara Walters style. 🙂
Looking forward to your upcoming book. I saw that some information about it was recently posted at https://catalog.simonandschuster.com/TitleDetails/TitleDetails.aspx?cid=12456&pn=1&isbn=9781501136702&FilterBy=21&FilterVal=Religion&FilterByName=Category&ob=0&ed=&showcart=N&camefrom=&find=&a=
Thanks! Yup, and I absolutely love the cover.
Love the subtitle!
Who thought of the subtitle? It’s genius
My editor. She’s great.
Yeah, that subtitle is awesome. Everyone loves a David and Goliath story.
I am going through a period, decades really, of frustration. I find your work extremely interesting and one would think that it would be very, very important to Christians to study historical questions about the Bible such as canonization, textual criticism, and historical criticism. Yet, what I have found is that almost no one is interested in such subjects despite their claiming that Christianity is the most import thing in their lives. I guess I just don’t get it. Has this been frustrating to you as well and, if so, how have you understood this issue and adjusted to it so well? Shouldn’t the critical examination of the Bible be crucial to Christians? This lack of critical examination has really made it impossible for me to attend churches, but I miss the social connections which you can only get if you share the correct beliefs.
I have to say, I rarely have that problem, since I talk mainly to self-selecting audiences who have come hear me speak, not to regular ole folk who don’t really care. But yes, I can imagine that being massively frustrating!
Have you asked people why they’re not interested the history of the bible? I’d be interested in their responses.
In the interview, you say that because there is no afterlife, or so you think, people should grab onto the life that we have and make the most of it. This gives you a greater appreciation of your life. However, the fact is that due to politics, poverty, and the bad actors that there are in this life, among other factors, a great many people will never be able to make the most of their lives and your view cannot and will not give them any significant comfort. Through your foundation, you try to make life better for some, but it is a drop in the bucket and no amount of well-meant charity will be able to reach a great many who, for various reasons, will never receive that charity. These people need the hope of a better afterlife, a hope that cannot yet be proven true or false, but currently exists only as a matter of faith.
Agnosticism is the view that the truth values of certain claims – especially metaphysical and religious claims such as whether God, the divine or the supernatural exist – are unknown and perhaps unknowable. This neither affirms, nor denies that these things could be true. It only states that they are unknowable. But unknowable in what way? Many things were unknown and seemingly unknowable to us for very ling periods of time throughout human existence until they were discovered and found to be knowable and known. Furthermore, logic states that just because something has never happened doesn’t mean that it can’t or won’t happen.
I am gratified that in this interview you allowed yourself to be called an agnostic and did not introduce the word atheist in reference to yourself, which to me carries a hostility that being an agnostic does not. Certainly, you are not hostile prone.
Yup, it’s a drop in a bucket. But if enough people put in drops, it helps, at least. Better to do good than to do harm.
Yes, much better. And I highly respect you for doing what you do. However, I do so want there to be more for these people than just to live in constant suffering and then to become non-existent with all their thoughts, dreams, hopes and all that makes them human disintegrated. That is ultimately why so many need to believe in an afterlife that is better than this life.
I don’t want to cease to be; and I don’t want you to cease to be. You have accomplished so much, learned so much, think so many good thoughts and enrich so many lives. Certainly, you are loved and love. That great mind of yours is filled with so much. And there are and have been others – in fact, everyone – who, in their own way, also have full minds that should not disappear.
Here, I think of the old song, “What’s it all about, Alfie. Is it just for the moment we live?” What a waste, what a shame, if it all just ceases.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
I know Dylan Thomas wrote that in response to his father going blind, but it is the way I feel about a death that is an end without a new beginning.
Wishful thinking doesn’t make it so either. Based on your logic we should hold out hope that leprechauns and fairies exist because no one has actually proven they don’t exist.
Thing is, you cannot prove a negative. So a god’s existence will never be disproven. The real question is whether there is any evidence to suggest a god does exist. Bart and many others like him think not. At best there might be some sort of “god of the philosophers”, but none of the gods that currently rule in any of the organized religions. And if none of those gods then no god has yet revealed itself. And if not then faith is paramount to delusion.
Your own consciousness and awareness does not prove or justify belief in an eternal soul. It could be argued better that on an evolutionary level you are simply expressing a desire billions of years old: survival. No living organism wants to die, but we humans with our evolved inquisitive brains have confused ourselves with fictions and fantasies we have never experienced and have no way of testing.
The soul cannot yet be proven to exist based on evidence. That may change someday. There has been some recent scientific interest in looking into it. It may one day be proven. It has taken mankind thousands of years to discover some things. So, who knows? We are both gamblers. You are gambling that you will die and cease to exist, and I am gambling that I have an eternal soul and will continue to exist in some form after death. Neither one of us may ever know who wins, or we may both know that I win.
Hi Bart, just for your information, I come out of a Christian cult where the leaders claim to have performed many miracles in Jesus name, including the healing of ten blind men. These stories are even recounted in their books and are generally believed by all and sundry in our modern world. Nobody checks to find out if these incidents actually took place, especially the members and adherents of the sect as this would be considered a serious lack of faith and punishable by God. Somebody did try and locate the ten blind people who were healed of blindness, but not one could be found. The excuses ranged from, “they have moved and we don’t know where they live anymore” to “oh. they have passed away.” Even though I was part of this group I never experienced any of these miracles and always simply put it down to just being unlucky, ie. not being at the right place at the right time.
There were no miracles performed here.
I think it would be a great idea if you could record your blog posts. On video for YouTube, and on audio for SoundCloud and Spotify would be great. The ad revenue on YouTube (if set up) would help your charity even more and every play on Spotify would earn a little bit. Not sure if there is a monetary element to SoundCloud but I get it totally for free.
I’m so busy these days with work and family, that I very rarely get to read a post, but listening to a short podcast in the car would be way more doable on a regular basis.
Sir, thank you for being born. I’m a recently born (not necessarily born-again) agnostic and a recovering roman catholic. this conversation with Ms. Gross and your debate with Michael Brown on Suffering are both quite powerful and provided me great comfort since i am uncomfortable with life in a country that seems overwhelmingly theist — despite skepticism for my compatriots’ presumed theistic belief — and I’m hopeful that you’ll share a transcript of your closing statement with Mr. Brown since your invocation of ecclesiastes is worthy of daily review by agnostics who feel like outcasts.
cheers.