How concerned was Jesus about the social, economic, cultural, and political issues that are so vitally important to us and occupy so much of our mental space? The answer is surprising.
First some (probably unexpected) background.
As a Jewish peasant in early first-century rural Aramaic-speaking Galilee, Jesus would not have known about Greek Stoics or their philosophical views. He nonetheless appears to have shared a perspective with them, one that is a bit unexpected. Like them, he was completely indifferent to a number of issues most people find deeply relevant and important, including fundamental questions connected with governmental policies and religious practices.
Stoics insisted that
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Hello Bart/Dr Ehrman
I just finished watching your free Hell course. I enjoyed it, Thanks for that.
In it you said the Rich Man and Lazarus parable does not go back to Jesus.
But on Jan 26, 2026 on the topic of the Rich man and Lazarus, you replied directly to me on your blog and wrote:
“I think the story goes back to Jesus himself.”
I’m not implying your contradicting yourself I’m just trying to understand your view. Could you please clarify. Thanks
Was I saying that about the Rich Man and Lazarus? How odd. I haven’t thought that for 30 years. Maybe I meant part of it? Or was referring to some other story? Or maybe I was half-asleep?
Hello Bart/Dr Ehrman,
Just to refresh you—your Jan 26th comment was a direct reply to me asking you about the theory that the Rich Man is Caiaphas. You wrote:
“I think it’s implausible. I think the story goes back to Jesus himself; it would have been told during his ministry in Galilee.”
You then said in your reply yesterday that you might have meant “part of it” goes back to Jesus.
I’m just trying to follow the logic here. If you only meant “part of it” goes back to Jesus, then your January rebuttal to my Caiaphas theory—which relied entirely on the whole story being told to a Galilean audience—wouldn’t hold up. A later editor or storyteller in Jerusalem would have known Caiaphas and his family perfectly well.
So my question is: do you still reject the Caiaphas theory for other reasons, or does this change how you see it? Also, do you think the specific details (five brothers, purple robe, the gate) were added later, or could they be part of what goes back to Jesus?
Thanks.
I’d have to see the post, your comment, and my reply, but I can’t imagine I was saying that the passage in Luke 16 wsa told while Jesus was ministering in Galilee.
But no, there is nothing in the passage that links the rich man to Caiaphas or to a priest of any kind. If it were about a priest or the high priest, it’s hard to imagine the author of the parable not saying or at least hinting at it to attack the Jewish instution itself.
This post raised the following questions in my mind:
1. How does time horizon shape individual and social responsibility and ethics?
2. How does time horizon affect one’s concern for the freedom and well-being of all people, society, and the environment?
1. Significantly. Time, place, culture, upbringing, world view, etc.
2. Same!
Hey Bart,
The more I read, the more I realize how much mystery is still in the text. There are so many fascinating passages:
* Genesis 18:1–3
* Genesis 32:24–30
* Joshua 5:13–15
* Judges 13:3–22
* Daniel 10:5–6
* Mark 14:51–52
* Mark 16:5
* Matthew 28:2–3
* Luke 24:4
* John 20:12
* Acts 1:10–11
* Revelation 1:13–16
* Revelation 10:1
Sometimes these figures are called men, sometimes young men, sometimes angels, and sometimes they aren’t identified at all. It makes me wonder how much we still don’t fully understand.
Or… maybe you scholars already know and just aren’t telling us. 😝 Maybe the Vatican has a few footnotes they’re keeping to themselves. 🤔😂
Just kidding, of course! Thanks for always encouraging people to ask questions and dig deeper. You definitely inspired me to keep studying. 🫡
Dear Professor Ehrman, Would your position require that Mark 10:28–30 be regarded as secondary? Eugene E. Lemcio (Лемцьо), PhD.
No, I think that is pretty close to something Jesus probably said. It’s part of his indifference. You shouldn’t care about the cares of this world. God will give you what you need.
“God’s Monsters is a hilarious treatment of a horrifying topic. With deep intelligence, literary flair, and wicked wit, Esther Hamori pulls no punches in exposing the terrors of the Bible and the multitudinous divine creatures that inhabit it–including the Almighty himself. For those of us who believe in brutal honesty and in fighting horror with humor, this book is a godsend.” –Bart D. Ehrman
Bart,
Since the biblical god is a monster, did this book answer your problem with suffering now that you and Mark Smith from Princeton seem to accept the resolution that the Biblical god is a monster?
Steve Campbell, author of Historical Accuracy [of the Bible]
I’m not sure what you’re asking. I don’t think I’ve ever said the God of the Bible was a monster. In fact, I’m sure I haven’t!
See the book:
God’s Monsters by Esther Hamori
Your comment is above the title of the book that 176 people have left ratings on amazon averaging 4.5 stars. Your review is the third review under Editorial Reviews.
The review quote is yours.
= = = =
For biblical scholar Bart D. Ehrman, attempting to reconcile the reality of widespread, excruciating suffering in the world with the concept of an all-powerful, loving God resulted in a profound crisis of faith. This led him to abandon evangelical Christianity and eventually become an agnostic.
What am I asking? You accept God was there during the terrors of the Bible. You accept God has been there during suffering. You say Hamori has fought horror with humor. This has not lessened your crisis of faith?
I’m not sure what you’re asking. It’s a terrific book, about howthe Bible portrays God. But I never said I agreed with the biblical portrayal.
So Jesus probably wasn’t in either the Judean People’s Front or the People’s Front of Judea.
Another BLASPHEMER!
This post reminds me some of your book Love Thy Stranger. I was thinking about you about a month ago when I read Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World by Tom Holland. I’m sure you’ve seen it, but if not you should take a look. Holland makes a very similar argument to yours in Love Thy Stranger. Rick Herrick
Yes, I talk about his book in the Preface. At first they seem very similar, but as it turns out my entire book is really related to just one of his chapters; we agree on the major point of the chapter, but the treatments are very different.
Eudaimonia would have been better explained by breaking it down. As it was explained to me when studying Plato and Aristotle, it’s a connection of eu (good) and daimon (spirit) so it was just being good spirited rather than happy.
However, a question. You claimed 4 months ago that Christianity transformed charity by giving to those you don’t know. Yet Lev 22:23 says to leave some of your harvest unreaped for the poor and foreigner. Similar in Lev 19:10 with picking up grapes. We know from early Athenian isonomia that the wealthy often didn’t know the poor or foreigner and many oligarchs got in trouble for shoving a citizen they thought was a slave. How is this a new idea rather than one that was already in Jewish scripture? Just activity rather than nonactivity?
Thanks. I wouldn’t say that it was “just” that. The term (and the concept) is actually pretty complicated, and we don’t have a good word for it in English. (There are debates, as you might imagine, among classicists!) It entails contentment, satisfactoin, being pleased with where one is and where one is going, thriving, etc. But yup, having a “good spirit” is all part of that.
Yup, that’s right. Caring for the stranger was very much part of the Iraelite tradition. “Loving your neighbor as yourself” included helping those you dind’t know within the Israelit community (whether born Israelite or immigrants into Israel). Christianty’s transformatoin involved taking it further, to ANYONE in need, whatever their religion, ethnicity, race, nationality, gender, whatever. I may have misstated it at some point, but that’s what I argue at length in my book.
As a classicist, I think it’s important to note that “eudaimonia” does not primarily refer to an *emotion* at all (which is why “happiness” in the modern sense is not an adequate translation). It refers to an overall state of being, which allows one to attain, or approach, the proper excellence (arete) of a human being. If I had to translate it into one English word, I would choose “flourishing” as the closest we can come–someone who is “flourishing” in every aspect of their life has an appropriate, useful, and honest occupation; good familial relationships with spouse, parents, children; good relationships with friends; good health; enough wealth to avoid privation; and so on.
Second, “daimon” can be translated “spirit” — but in the sense of “minor divine being.” It is emphatically NOT “spirit” meaning cheerfulness or enthusiasm (as in “high-spirited” or “low-spirited”). “Daimon” can also be translated “lot” or “fate,” and that is the etymological root of “eudaimonia” ; etymologically, “eudaimonia” = having good fortune, a good lot in life.
(Overall, the etymology of compound words does not often tell us much about their developed meaning. To “understand” something, for instance, does not mean to position oneself spatially below it!)
Apocalypticism negates stoicism because it claims Yahweh will fix all the things that people have no control over. So, instead of saying don’t worry about things you can’t change in order to have peace of mind, apocalypticism says have peace of mind because Yahweh will fix everything. In light of the Q material, I don’t think Jesus was indifferent to pain and suffering in the present. He advocated giving to the poor, being a good Samaritan, sharing of wealth, etc.
It seems his followers implemented that in the form of mandatory communal living. The Jerusalem church was a commune with strict rules that everybody shared everything they had with everybody else. This is totally in line with the idea that Jesus opposed personal wealth because it produces poverty. The book of Acts suggests that anybody not willing to do this would be either killed or denied entry into the commune.
It seems Peter ruled with an iron fist. Such communes are cultic and are always viewed suspiciously by outsiders. And that probably explains a lot of the hostility it faced. Consider Luke 14:33, Acts 2:44-45, and Acts 4:32-35. Arguably, Jesus and his followers were communists. What say you?
I’d say the book of Acts portrays the followers of Jesus owning no private property and sharing their goods and wealth. In the modern world that would be a form of communism, but since communism didn’t exist then, I’m not sure it’s the right term.
not communism as the German/French origins or last century ussr, China or Cuba. but communal living [SHARING- low gini index]. BTW, when I 1st lived in Shanghai 1997-2006, I likened that life transactions being closer to how life was in time of Jesus than I ever experienced in the USA.
discussing about the sheep & goats, ever since it was brought up here, I think about it more often.
also Shanghai & beijing had extreme work ethics & greater free markets, that are constrained in the usa by laws and societal practices. how can usa be capitalism if everything is either taxed or regulated.
I also get the impression that Jesus was largely uninterested in questions beyond the imminent arrival of God’s kingdom. Later theologians, especially systematic theologians, interpreted his teachings in extraordinarily complex ways. At times I wonder whether Jesus himself would even recognize many of the questions they address.
His own message seems much simpler: God’s kingdom was coming soon, and people needed to repent and prepare. He appears to have shown little interest in many theological issues that later became central to Christianity.
This raises a simple historical question. Jesus presumably expected a future resurrection of the dead as part of the coming kingdom. But while dying on the cross, did he expect that he himself would be raised almost immediately? Did he die with a clear belief in his own resurrection, or did the tradition that he had predicted it emerge only after his followers came to believe that God had raised him?
Good questions. And obviously there’s no way to know!
The trinity is clearly man made. Jesus said – I don’t come to do my will but the will of HIM who sent me. Jesus died because He loved people and wanted to bring them back into living a peaceful life under His Heavenly Father. He knew that if He was faithful unto death as a ransom sacrifice that HIS Father would resurrect Him from the dead and give Him the Crown of Life – Immortality and His Father did that. Jesus Christ is the first born of all creation which according to Genesis 1:3 is the Light of the World. He is now sitting on the right hand of His Father waiting for the Bride to be complete so that He can return for that Bride and bring restitution to the world. If one reads the Bible from beginning to end as a story one sees this incredibly loving story in every book of the Bible unfolding in Revelation into the healing of the nations.