Loading...Over the past couple of weeks I have been explaining how I have reimagined my next trade book, written not for scholars but for general readers. As I’ve pointed out, my initial idea that I floated before readers of the blog was to have a book devoted to how Christianity revolutionized how people in the Roman world understood wealth and what to do with it. My argument was that as a Jew Jesus insisted that those with resources help those who were in need – a virtually unheard-of ethical principle in Greek and Roman antiquity. His followers were Jews as well, for whom this was a familiar message, but as they converted non-Jews to become Jesus’ followers, they convinced them as well. So this became the standard Christian view, leading to the invention of the public hospital, the orphanage, the use of governmental assistance for those in need, private charities, and so on.
My previous posts have explained how I have now expanded the vision of the book, to show that these new views of wealth and practices of giving are rooted in a broader ideological context, having to do with a revolutionary new understanding of how humans are to relate to one another – not in ways to promote one’s own well-being, status, reputation, or happiness and not by asserting power over those who were weaker…
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So what is new and/or important about a book like this? There are, obviously, roughly a zillion books written on Christian “love.” The vast majority are by pastors, theologians, and lay moralists. Some of these are thoughtful, but most provide nothing new except (often interesting) anecdotal gist for the mill of the old. There are also significant works of scholarship, including classics such as Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros (1953) and Victor Paul Furnish, The Love Commandment in the New Testament (1972) as well as very recent and full analyses, as Oda Wishmeyer, Love as Agape (2021). There is, however, nothing on the market like what I am proposing to my publishers, with its focus on the transformative significance of Jesus’ teachings on love for both ancient moral discourse and the understanding and use of wealth in western culture.
I am stressing to my editor that this re-envisioning of my book proposal does not mean I will abandon my original interest in charity. I am placing that interest into its wider ideological context of love. Much of what I discussed in the original prospectus (as seen in a series of blog posts: just do a word search for “charity”) will remain important in this new iteration, and the totality is a big project. It will include discussions of intriguing ethical discourses from pagan antiquity that most readers will be completely unfamiliar with (the slave-philosopher Epictetus has long been my personal hero) (I’ll probably devote some posts to him down the line), as well as of Christian discourses that are almost invariably misunderstood today (Why was adultery condemned? Did Jesus really think anger would bring damnation? Did he genuinely expect the wealthy to give it all away?). I will also include discussions of other key passages throughout the New Testament, including the “love chapter” itself, 1 Corinthians 13 – read at virtually every wedding I’ve ever attended and almost never actually understood (it is decidedly not about marital love).
I continue to plan to show how early Christian writers often softened, reinterpreted, or just flat-out ignored the actual teachings of Jesus, while others radicalized them even further (think desert monks). In particular I will stress the crystallization of Jesus’ teaching of love in the Christian rhetoric about wealth and the practices of charity that accrued as a result, showing how these led to the institutional innovations I’ve discussed both here and in the main prospectus.
Given my previous writings, I suspect readers will be a bit surprised that I am advocating one of the great contributions of Christianity to our world. But it is a historical reality that in one respect, at least, the triumph of Christianity really did revolutionize western civilization on numerous levels, both institutional and personal. The teachings of love and charity that Jesus inherited from his Jewish tradition, and in many ways radicalized, came to alter how people understood and practiced ethical behavior, and, in the end, helped make the world a better place.
What a book we have to look forward to! It’s exciting just reading about it!
Three historical questions:
1. How much of this love/charity emphasis came from the “historical” Jesus and how much was put there by subsequent storytellers, like the Gospel authors?
2. If a lot of this love/charity emphasis comes from subsequent storytellers, like the Gospel authors, where did these storytellers get their stories?
3. If Jesus had such a powerful influence on love/charity in our world, and this influence has lasted for centuries, is this evidence that Jesus had a spark of the divine in Him that came from a loving God?
Thanks
1. It’s hard to tell. It is interesting that the teaching on love, on Jesus’ lips, becomes *MORE* pronounced as you move chronologically thorugh the Gospels: Mark, our earliest, has the least; more in matthew who was next; more in Luke; and most in John. So I’d say it started with Jesus and the Christians in his wake ran with it. 2. Stories came either from what Jesus really said, or from what earlier sotryellers said, or from the writers’ own heads. 3. Nope. Lots of humans who have done lots of good and alsting things and come up with hugely helpuful ideas for teh human race were not themselves divine beings!
I’ll pretend to think like Bart Ehrman, in response to point number 3.
Assuming a 1) a benevolent and loving God, and 2) that Jesus was God incarnate, both failed to resolve the pain and suffering in the world.
An omnipotent God could simply wave his magic wand to eliminate all pain and suffering from the world.
Jesus, even as the most perfect human ever, could have used his divine knowledge to persuade religious and political leaders to simply correct the flawed and corrupt human institutions to alleviate as much pain and suffering as possible. Of course, thinking as Bart, I would say that Jesus didn’t care because he was expecting the apocalypse where God would defeat his enemies. But if God, and Jesus, were truly benevolent and loving, wouldn’t they change the hearts and mind of their enemies rather make more of them to vanquish them in the apocalypse? Although Jesus said love your enemies, is antagonizing your enemies really loving them?
I’m not at all surprised that you want to pursue this topic, given your deep concern about human suffering in a world that is capable of putting an end to most of it, but chooses not to. One does not need to identify as a Christian to want to foster the teachings of love and charity, and just because one does identify as a Christian does not in any way mean that one is dedicated to these core Judeo-Christian concepts. I look forward to the publication of your book! We desperately need a new concept of wealth and its use in these times.
Sounds terrific.
An analysis of ” Jesus’ economics” ,what he might really have meant, will disabuse many who feel Jesus was unrealistic.
It seems that one needs to understand the difference between helping the poor and proposing that the entire world be poor. As to the latter, Communism, ended up lacking and it self-destroyed, for the most part. In the exercise of the former, so much remains to be done, though,everywhere,.
During the Nazi era, many Gentiles risked their lives and their families’ lives, by sheltering Jews and/or arranging for their escape. The hiding of Ana Frank and her family was one such case. Many such saviours remained themselves diminished by the war. Today there are private charities acknowledging and helping them, giving love to the loving.
In the State of Israel, they are termed ” Righteous Gentiles”, and are featured prominently in the world’s largest Holocaust memorial, ” Yad va Shem” in Jerusalem. They are awarded honorary mentions and ceremonies constantly. In the midst of the horrors of WWII and the general apathy and/or collaboration with the Nazis, they shine as modern day ” saints” and examples of love shown by the extreme sacrifices they made to save Jews.
With all the coverage of the passing and funeral of HRH Elizabeth II, I was interested to note her Mother in Law , Phillips Mother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, was recognized as “Righteous Among the Nations” by Yad Vashem.
I don’t disagree with your premise, but still struggle with how people proclaiming themselves followers of Jesus could commit atrocities, wage war and colonize and enslave people in his name. Even today people claiming this to be a Christian nation oppose government help for the poor (like expanding Medicaid or universal health care) while defending capital punishment and unrestricted access to weapons designed for efficient killing. Just seems strange to me. We continually remake Jesus to conform to our own views.
Yup! Promote your view and then claim it’s what Jesus taught!!
I think you mean “grist” not “gist”.
Scribal corruption of the text.
I’m intrigued by your hypothesis. But what about the Cura Annonnae? Why are the first serious attempts at the social welfare state in the West post-enlightenment and secular? What about the suggestion that the Church’s festishizing of poverty as a spiritual state actually hindered the development of the welfare state?
1. These were not for poor people in general. 2. I suppose that’s because the world became enlightened… 3. Hindered it? Not sure: the concern for poverty among Christians happened some 1900 years before there was a welfare state….
My thinking is that while it’s well and good to establish a new way of thought, it’s only until you come to the point where you’re willing to actually modify your society that you’ve truly internalized it. The social welfare state is a modern secular invention.
When the idea of the social welfare state in the West began to be formulated the Church opposed it because they considered poverty to signify an advanced spiritual state. Poverty was good for you. It focused your mind on spiritual matters.
I’m not sure what you’re referring to with respect to the church opposing governmental assistance to the poor.
I was watching a Tom Holland interview on HistoryHit that seemed maybe related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=458Bz1GPto0 . On thing he mentioned was about Marx basically re-appropriating protestant ethics. I like to also cite this Bourke piece when I write about ideal observer theory, which also seems a little relevant: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40014916 . The idea is that the ideal observer that a lot of contemporary ethicists appeal to is basically a secular god. I’m doing my dissertation on economic ethics and I think there is a big overlap between charity, love, and politics (if politics is the ethical obligations of an economy and society, not just of an individual). And of course, there is a very long tradition of religious socialism, especially in monotheistic traditions.
Yes indeed. In my experience most Christains don’t see how it would even be possible to be Marxist and Christian; and also in my experience I know a number of committed CHristians who are strongly Marxist. If I tell non academics that they always say, WHAT??? (for them it’s a contradiction in terms)
Are you going to have a chapter on Jesus and Marx (or socialism in general)? That would be beautiful. And will make for some interesting interviews when the book is published!
Interesting idea. I haven’t thought about it. THe problem is that what I know I *do* want to write is already about twice as long as the book needs to be…
Marx is probably not the best starting point because he and Engels were explicitly trying to avoid ethics and make a scientific socialism (and completely failed IMHO). But looking at some of the other ethical and utopian socialists could be very helpful I think, especially Saint-Simon who coined the term, or more explicit religious socialist movements like the Gerrard Winstanley and Diggers.
Go for it. Presenting the stoic philosopher Epictetus’ views regarding love and charity should be interesting. Stoicism does not seem to lend itself to love and charity.
I would like to see comments regarding Jesus’ and Peter’s supposed dialogue, that is, Jesus to Peter: “do you agapao me?” Then Peter to Jesus: “You know I phileo you!”
This may also be a fabricated conversation because neither Jesus or Peter probably understood these finer Greek language nuances, so it was probably written by someone who did know Greek sufficiently and who wanted to emphasize selfish love versus brotherly/sisterly love.
Human nature always seems to be the sticking point. I do think that there is a definable “human nature”, as a set of characteristic behaviors, peculiar to the species. It would be easier to see that if one could take a sort of Martian point of view but I think cultural anthropologists have done fairly well at being objective. I could imagine a species that would be more cooperative, such that Marxism might actually work, but I have trouble imagining any evolutionary process that would generate such a species. As a general principle, what one person creates, another will destroy. Intra-species conflict seems to be built in, at every level. That’s the nature of the beast, so to speak.
FYI social cooperation can certainly have an evolutionary advantage (bees are the textbook example). Some people say we evolved an innate tendancy towards religious thinking, and other things like music and dancing, especially as a way to promote social cooperation. I’m not sure this is really a provable hypothesis. Of course, we do have tribal monkey brains, but in an era of global cooperation, I would not be surprised if evolutionary pressures push us to be even more social. I’m the end though, evolution isn’t the only thing that matters. Our brains are like radios: evolution has given us the dials, but we can change the settings.
I can already anticipate the “Bart is immanentizing the eschaton” accusations! It seems to me that those who still emphasize the apocalyptic side of Christianity get uncomfortable by any hint of trying to make the world a better place for people. This is just preparing for the coming of antichrist! I also used to feel this way once upon a time. The cure for me was finally understanding the biological basis for love and the “survival of the friendliest”* aspect of natural selection. I think and hope this will be an important book.
*Phrase stolen from Frank Schaeffer, although not original to him.
When I was an apocalypticist, I and my apocalyptic friends had the opposite view. In the future there would be no suffering. That was God’s will. We wanted to work for God’s will in the here and now, as well as wait for it to come in big-time. But I guess there are apocalylpticist and then there are apocalypticists.
Interesting! I likewise believed (Evangelical Christian college days) that there would be no suffering, but that was only _after_ Jesus returned (with the 1000 year kingdom that would still ultimately be rebelled against). Individual attempts at ending suffering were fine, but anything systematic and large scale — anything hinting of, say, Marxism — would ultimately fail and/or make things worse (liberation theology = bad!). A friend of mine used to predict that the antichrist would probably bring about world peace, at least initially.
Good idea! Maybe You can earmark a few thousand copies for Joel Osteen and Creflo Dollar to distribute among their congregations!
My thought exactly.
I hope your book on this topic also covers the negative stuff that Christianity has imposed on Western Civilization. For example, a good case can be made that antisemitism in Western Civilization has its roots (mostly) in John’s gospel. As you know, in John’s gospel there are basically no moral teachings from Jesus. John’s gospel claims that eternal life is only available to those who accept its Christology. Jews are blamed for the death of Jesus in that gospel. And so on. So, for moral and ethical teachings, a distinction needs to be made between what the historic Jesus taught (as best as can be reconstructed), the contradictory teachings of the New Testament, and what various forms of Christianity teach. Maybe your book shouldn’t be on `Christian love’ but `Jesus love’. How much of Jesus’ moral and ethical teachings came from John the Baptist? Please let me know what you think.
Yes, in my book proposal to my publisher I pointed out that the easier story to tell is the downside of the Xn triumph: destruction of other cultures, anti-Judaism leading to anti-semitism, crusades, inquisitions, justifications for slavery, and on and on and on!
I’m not sure that it is an easier story to tell. Christianity has given the world a mixture of good and bad things, probably in about equal measure. Same with Islam and Judaism. Islam helped to transmit the number zero and preserved important writings from antiquity among other good things it can be credited with. But we all know its downside too. I was just curious as to the scope of your upcoming book on Christian love.
I’d say these days it’s easier to tell teh downside of Islam as well — at least far more people are inclined to hear it. But yes, I will probably deal with some of the internal contradictions of Christianity proclaiing a religion of love yet violating it so extremely at times and places, often in horrible ways. But also sometimes following it, thank god.
Professor Ehrman,
Unrelated questions here. I heard an evangelical preacher give his first message in the Gospel of John on Sunday. He made claims that I’m sure you would dispute. Can you comment on these?
1. The author had to be John the disciple of Jesus by elimination. He was a Jew in Israel and an eye witness to Jesus’ ministry, and an apostle. Also, Polycarp wrote that John published a gospel. Iraneus also wrote that John had written a gospel. Many other early church fathers said the same.
2. The Ryland Papyrus (P52) is dated so early that it very well may have been a direct copy of the original writing.
3. There are so many extant manuscripts of the New Testament (24,000?) – far outnumbering any other ancient writing. This is strong evidence of the reliability of John and the rest of the New Testament.
Incidentally, he likes to refer to “papyri” rather than “papyrus” because the latter term sounds too much like an extinct animal. Last I heard, the duck-billed platypus is alive and well! 🙂
1. The author never claims to be a Jew, an eyewitness, or an apostle; And Polycarp never mentions John having written a Gospel. In fact, Polycarp quotes the other three Gospels but never John! Yes, Irenaeus is the first to indicate John wrote the book — a century after it was circulated. No one before him does. 2. Bogus. No one thinks that. 3. Crazy argument. If we have 3 million copies of Mein Kampf (I’m sure we have more) does that mean that Mein Kampf is reliable? 4. Papyri is the plural of papyrus, so it depends on the context in which he said it.
Interesting that you are doing this book now, when so much of evangelical xtianity seems to be eaten up with exactly those pre-jesus notions you listed.
that was the version my father the priest taught, and the priests at my catholic high school taught. but neither of them are/were evangelical xtians.
i would love to see something on where in the bible the justifications for this self-aggrandizing, self-enriching, stomping on those in need, behaviors came from. the overall theme seems patently obvious, but maybe that is just a conclusion i draw because that’s what i was taught?
it’s not that i want to see those things justified, it’s more that i would like to know the where it comes from, in a sort of know thine enemy sense.
What is it most people misunderstand about 1 Corinthians 13? Why does this Chapter have the word “Love” in some translations and “Charity” in others? To me, this is some of the most beautiful and powerful prose in the New Testament and I would really like to better understand the meaning that the Apostle Paul intended. Have you done any posts on this topic? I searched but couldn’t find anything specifically titled.
Ah, I’ll be blogging on that. Short story: it is about the need for members within the Christian community to use their spiritual gifts in order to help others rather than to promote themselves.
Could you write a post sometime to share your comments or criticism of Tom Holland’s 2019 book: Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind (U.S. edition subtitled ‘How the Christian Revolution Remade the World’)?
It seems to make a similar argument to your upcoming work on the Christian roots of charity, but I can’t find much debate on the subject except for his own public debate with AC Grayling available on YouTube.
He is an atheist historian and he previously touched on this argument in his 2016 New Statesman article “Why I was wrong about Christianity”.
I felt he kind of skips a lot of important detail, not zooming in to really unpick what the historical Jesus might have said vs the gospel authors, and who the historical Jesus might have inherited ideas on charity/altruism from (as opposed to mysterious claims of divine inspiration). I’m crossing all fingers and toes hoping that you might address this gap in your next book. Many thanks!
I had thought about it. He has a chapter on charity that I find pretty much acceptable. The book is much more broad ranging than that, of course. You’re right, he’s not a NT scholar and necessarily, given teh breadth of his narrative, needs to cover things quickly and somewhat generally.
In many modern churches, all you hear about god is that he is love. I find that interesting because, while jesus sure is portrayed as compassionate and love seems to have been one of his core messages it was not his only message. And maybe it is the change compared to how god is in the old testament which is never explained. Will the book discuss how the old ideas of god became the love message and where the idea of the god of love comes from?
Yup! Arguably it came from the Hebrew Bible!
You point out that “love” was not a virtue among the Greeks and Romans, and that some Christians were slow to value it. So, could that help explain why someone might have changed “compassion” to “anger” at Mark 1:41? That is to say, should we question whether “anger” is the harder reading?
Ah, “love” was a virtue among Greeks and Romans. Aristotle devoted two books of his Nichomachean Ethics to one kind of love (for friends and family) and Plato an entire dialogue (the Symposium) (along with other lengthy disucssion) to another (or lovers). I don’t think we know of any Christians who did not advocate love as a major component of their faith. In any case, “compassion” doesn’t have the same connotation as “love” to most anicent people. Distinctively Christian views of love (agape) are not connected with emotions ,and the term “compassion” in Mark 1:41 is precisely an emotion (literally, his “insides were stirred up”).