Drew Marshall Show - Jesus Before The Gospels

folks you listening to the drew Marshall show it's our st. Patrick's Day special and speaking of Irish nothing says Irish like the last name airman Bart Ehrman he's actually quite a fun guest we've had him on the show a couple of times and he's the author of a new book called Jesus before the Gospels how the earliest Christians remembered changed and invented their stories of the Savior many believe that the gospel stories of Jesus are based on eyewitness testimony and are therefore historically reliable now for the first time a scholar of the New Testament New York Times bestselling author Bart the airman author of misquoting Jesus and Jesus interrupted surveys research from the fields of psychology anthropology and sociology to explore how oral traditions and group memories really work and questions how reliable the Gospels can be focusing on the decades-long gap between when Jesus lived and when these documents about him began to appear Herman looks to these varied disciplines to see what they can tell us about how the New Testament developed in the book joining us all the way for actually I don't even know where he's from Bart where are you from I'm from North Carolina series welcome back it's good to have you again sir thanks nice to be here is your address public because I'm sure there's a lot of Jesus people that we'd be driving by throwing eggs at your house yeah my address is not public no but they can they can throw eggs in my school okay and what's the name of the school again sir University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill North Carolina it's James Taylor country yeah James Taylor it's on the way to Florida too is it do you drive but through that John I Weldon and two weeks John McCauley is our Belfast boy co-host today here on the show John McCauley this is Bart Ehrman hi Bart yeah yeah you don't so how much heat have you taken for this one is this the biggest the biggest heat you've taken for any of your books no no no I get heat for all my books this one just came out so so there hasn't been that much heat generated yet but it is it does deal with some controversial things yeah you think yeah so immediately you know people hear the setup for this book and they think well he's just he's just putting holes in the Gospels here man he's saying that it's not truth it's not truth there's no such thing as truth anymore how do you handle that pushback well you know I don't deal with a bigger issue what truth is that that might take a book or two yeah but what I do in this book is talk about what was happening to the stories of Jesus that were being told by word of mouth year after year after year after year before the Gospel writers got a hold of these stories and I argue that what we know about memory can radically affect how we understand these stories and being in circulation for all those decades does it matter what you believe when it comes to us reading your books should we care where you come from because I kind of think we should so I kind of want to get into the whole well what do you actually believe before we get into your book because because there are those are gonna you know read your book and they're gonna say well where's it coming from and so what do you believe well so let me just say that you know I'm not writing the book for a particular religious point of view the the only point of view that really would really be attacked by the book would be fundamentalism so if somebody doesn't have a kind of strict literalistic interpretation of the Bible where everything has to be completely accurate then they're not going to be threatened by the book because when the book does talk about inaccurate stories in the in the New Testament memories that are distorted memories about the life of Jesus but unless you think that the Bible can't have any mistakes in that of any kind and that shouldn't be threatening so the vast majority of well certainly all evangelicals would believe that the the Bible is infallible and there are no mistakes in it and right I mean that's John are you are you feeling less you need to be careful between infallibility and Aaron see there's room within the evangelical world to hold infallibility not necessarily a nerd and see part would that be right yeah that's right so I mean they're you know certainly very conservative angelical would think that there can't be any mistakes of any kind in the Bible but there are other other other Angelico's who would say that what what is infallible is what the Bible is trying to affirm that if it's trying to teach a particular doctrine for example or a certain a way of living that that would be an infallible instruction but but the details could be wrong okay so Jesus being remembered and miss remembered how do you think Jesus has been miss remembered well in lots of ways and so I mean today's miss remembered all over the math so I mean for example people today who hold to the prosperity gospel who think that that what Jesus teaching was all about is teaching us how by following his instruction we can become personally wealthy they obviously have a different view of things from those who understand that Jesus taught that you should sell all your possessions and give it to the poor I mean either Jesus was in favor of wealth or is in favor of poverty you can't be in favor of both and so somebody's misremembering and my point is that the misremembering that happens today is was almost certainly happening in the early decades after his death everybody didn't remember him the same way and sometimes the way they remembered him were at odds with each other and so there there are some distorted memories already in the Gospels okay are you saying that in the Bible there is inaccuracy some of the things that were recorded in the Bible were recorded in such a way because people didn't remember correctly so therefore they wrote down incorrectly that's right that's exactly what I'm saying and I try to demonstrate that and so that that's not a new point I mean people have argued that for many many years sure my the point I raised in this book is that if you understand how memory works and at that point makes a lot of sense because you know look the reality is we not only forget things all the time we also miss remember things all the time right and psychologists have shown that we actually invent memories in our head things that we're sure we remember in fact are invented and so the question is when you're dealing with ancient people who also had problems of memory how did that affect the way they told their stories especially when you've got stories of Jesus that somebody here's a story that was heard from someone else who it was heard from someone else that was heard from someone else for 40 years what are the likely what likelihood that story being never changed except the pushback that I've heard it's in the in the tribe for 30 plus years is sure if it was just humans involved in this whole process yeah you can totally understand it but if there is a god if there is a creator and if this God is supernaturally powerful and involved in a meme he's able to set things up and help people remember and to help the recording of things down and so if God's really behind this he's gonna make it so that it doesn't get all screwed up you're pushed back that's that's right you could say that there was a miracle to prevent the truth stories from changing yeah so then in order to test that hypothesis all you need to do is to look at the stories to see if they were changed and the reality is we have the same story told in different Gospels sometimes in radically different ways sometimes in ways that are contradictory to one another and so the stories were changing and that seems to show that in fact there wasn't some kind of supernatural miracle to make sure that stories were never altered Bart you know would you say then that when the Canon of Scripture is putting together do you think the the gatherers of that canon and the debates of it on they were aware that there was some textual problems probably even back then correct some of them were and some of them celebrated the differences I mean the church father origin for example in the 3rd century said that there are all sorts of contradictions in the Bible and that God put the contradictions there so that you would understand that you can't interpret the Bible literally because if you interpret it literally it's a contradiction and so he argued you have to interpret it figuratively so there certainly were people who did see that there were problems so then the natural question is in your book and what you've written first of all if someone reads it for a first time without any background of textual criticism they're gonna go into panic mode they're gonna end up in their pastors office and as you know most pastors I'm a minister myself would get very quickly overwhelmed but what can you offer that the Scriptures even though you hold I'd these numerous variants what can the Scriptures help serve and bring a person to an understanding of a God who's clearly himself well I don't I don't deal with that issue because I'm not a theologian that would be a question that a pastor or a theological teacher would probably want to deal with but I'm approaching this purely from the historical point of view I'm asking the the simple historical question how were these stories changed and how were some of the stories invented and and how would we know okay what's an example of an invented story an invented story in the Gospels when Jesus was put on trial before Pontius Pilate if you if you line up the Gospels chronologically so the first Gospels mark and then Matthew then Luke in the last Gospel of John you'll find by studying what what is said about Jesus crowd before Pontius Pilate that over time Pilate becomes increasingly innocent in in Mark's Gospel he condemns Jesus to death in Matthew's Gospel and only in Matthew were told that he washes his hands and says I'm innocent of this man's blood when you get to Luke's Gospel later pilot declares Jesus innocent three times when you get to the Gospel of John Pilate not only declares him innocent three times he hands him over to the Jewish chief priest to be crucified and so you wonder what's going on with this increasing exoneration of Pilate so that he's no longer guilty why are Christians saying this about Pilate and it's pretty clear why they were saying that it's because if pilots innocent in the death of Jesus who's guilty it's those Jews and so the Christians who are telling these stories are blaming Jews for the killing of Jesus which eventually of course leads to the claim that get created that Jews were christ-killers well that's affecting how they're remembering the event even though the way they're remembering this is certainly not right so then the National question would be from a historian side then what is the actual facts then have you been able to come to your own conclusion of what actually took place in those events well we don't know we don't know the precise details they're almost certainly what happened is that Jesus was put on trial for calling himself King of the Jews Pilate thought he was a troublemaker and so he ordered and crucified so the idea that the Jewish crowd Alger crying out for blood or that they're saying things like his blood be upon us and our children as you find in Matthew 27 those things are later those are twists on what actually happened and they represent distorted memories of the event so the natural question it then to that is are the Scriptures adequate to bring us to an understanding of who Jesus claims himself to be good question I think Jesus claims himself to be different things in different Gospels so that the claims of Jesus and the Gospel of John where he claims to be a Divine Being where he says things like I and the father are one or before Abraham was I am or if you've seen me you've seen the father these claims you don't find in the earlier Gospels of Matthew Mark and Luke and for that reason scholars have long argued that this portrayal of Jesus calling himself divine is is distinctive of the Gospel of John and it's not a historical memory at all it's a theologizing of history it's taking history and imposing a theology on it yeah I think I mean I'm fairly limited in my understanding on that side but they're just a limited time limited I'm from northern I'm limited but Barna it is fair to say and I think important for our listeners no standard evangelical scholars would actually concur there is a problem with that particular text but the rest of the text a rind broader clearly lead us towards a claim of divinity I would say that all of the Gospel writers do understand the Jesus is divine I would agree with that but I think that they mean different things by it I don't think that mark has John's understanding of what it even means for Jesus to be a divine being and so I don't think that there's one clear message of the Bible when it comes to that or almost any other issue so in this book you talk about memory studies and then of course there's there's anthropological studies and and then there's oral traditions and all these three things kind of stirred in a potluck we realize we we know ourselves enough to know that especially as you approach 50 John you see 52 in 52 you you know I pulling out pronouns for me these days remembering people's names it's like passing a kidney stone it's so hard from what these days and then there's the oral tradition well I heard this story and I heard they've you know for example I had Gandhi's grandson on a few weeks ago and I and we we said to him what was that big line that you know that's quoted about Gandhi I would have become a Christian it had it not been for the Christians and I asked Gandhi's grandson if that's the way it went down and no that's not actually the way it went down it was something different you know I I had one time I had the granddaughter of Yogi Berra in my New Testament class and she told me that all those one-liners from Yogi Berra in fact are made up to do all over again yeah exactly so it's a no-brainer literally to think oh you know we must remember things we miss tell things and you've gone into this book and explained to us the research behind it and and you know there's lots of really interesting stuff about that but that's I get that okay you don't have to convince me that we're morons okay I get it we've been more on since since day one but again it you kind of come back to well if there is a God and by the way do you think there's a God Bart no okay so if there is a God then this God would would intercede somehow and and make the Scriptures holy no I don't know I don't know that that's true I mean if there is a God that doesn't mean necessarily that he's going to provide Holy Scriptures that's an assumption that a lot of Christians have but I mean there's no no necessity in it there's no reason that if there's a God that he has to make scriptures holding right the early church fathers clearly held to the line that there was something sacred about these and they could bring us to a greater revelation of who God is and his intentions for mankind no that's right that is what the Church Fathers would have said but that doesn't mean that it's a logical necessity I'm not even sure Bart where you stand on Jesus it was he real yes yes I wrote another book called did Jesus exist where I argue that Jesus certainly exists there's a historical figure and I think we can say a lot of things about him but I you know I'm not a Christian and so I I don't think that Jesus was raised from the dead I don't believe in the divinity of Christ I think that he was a Jewish preacher from rural Palestine and that he was predicting that God was soon going to intervene in history to overthrow the forces of evil and bring in a good Kingdom on earth and that this is all going to happen during his disciples lifetime we are on the phone with Bart Ehrman and he of course is the author of Jesus before the Gospels that's what we're chatting about right now our engineer Tim the tool is giving me some kind of weird hand signals and I just I think you know ultimately you know calls into question any any historical documents ever you know you know word of mouth you know the ancient texts you know like they weren't written down right away so there's that part but I've also heard it maybe once again this is you know that from the Christian side the fundamental side that you know because people did write our muscle slash brain remembered things efficiently yeah better than they do now because we don't what time is it often yeah so yeah you know I I deal with that in a full chapter where I sure that anthropologists have demonstrated is that's not true that that's what I always heard too but in fact we know from studies or oral cultures that they don't have better memories and they in fact don't try to preserve their traditions accurately the way we think they should those of us who are used to written traditions where we can compare writings to see whether they're the same or not okay so the takeaway that you would like people in other words if this book gets into evangelical Christians hands first of all it's going to burn on the skin I think a little bit but do you I mean are you trying to rattle people's faith is that you no no no no no that's not that's not the point at all the point is to try to understand what these Gospels really are well people don't realize often is that if Jesus died in the year thirty which is commonly thought and the first gospel was mark which is usually dated by critical scholars around the year 70 can John at the last gospel usually dated around 90 to 95 he means there's a 40 to 65 year gap between the time Jesus lived and the the first account of his life so my question is what's going on during those 40 to 65 years as people are telling and retelling their stories year after year after year before anybody writes them down and my thesis in the book is that the stories get changed because of what typically happens in oral cultures when when traditions are passed on by word of mouth this is a really unfair and quite possibly an immature question I'm pretty good at those if you were a Christian do you think there would be room for you to come to the same conclusions that you've come to in this book yeah the views I sketch in this book were actually the views I had when I was a Christian about the oral traditions changing and there being gospel stories that are that are not historically accurate and some of them in fact didn't happen at all I I thought that when I was still a Christian so Bart Bart I mean you went to Moody you went to eat and I mean you grew up through the the bastions of fundamentalism and evangelicalism well but but yet you know an offer this as kind of as I can one of the criticisms are that you've moved away from the fundamentalism on one side and gone to a liberal fundamentalism on the other hi how do you respond to those critics yeah I think it's absolutely wrong because for probably 15 18 years I was a completely liberal Christian without any fundamentalism in my blood at all I I still went to church I still said the Creed but I didn't believe that the Bible was the infallible Word of God in any sense and so I'm not I'm not adopting a fundamentalism at all what I'm doing is opposing fundamentalism I'm saying that if your view of the Bible is that it can't have mistakes in it that that cat hold up to under scrutiny and that if you're going to be a if you're going to be a Christian or if you're going to be an agnostic or whatever you're going to be you should use your Intel and that it's better to have an informed faith than an ignorant faith and so we shouldn't pretend that there are no problems when in fact there are problems when it comes to something like the Bible so so during all that time was there any time where you could say that there was some sort of divine and kind to you had or has it always been a logic based journey for you because oh no no it wasn't a logic based journey for me at all it was very much an experiential thing I mean I I had a born-again experience in high school that had nothing to do with logic so where do you frame that those experiences not what do I I'm sorry there's a higher story he has an accent and I just want to apologize on behalf Carolina thing meaning how do you frame those experiences and I in light of the fact that you don't believe in God you don't believe Jesus claimed to be God I think I mean people have religious experiences and all sorts of religions of course I mean every every every participant in every religion whether they're in Islam or Judaism or Christianity or Buddhism or Hinduism or you name your religion people have religious experiences but I think most seven Jellicle Christians wouldn't think that these other religions are genuine religious experiences there's something else my view is that they're they they can all be explained by by typical psychological processes okay where I was in my life at the time was there there were things that religion was became very important to me and especially you know relation to a relationship with Christ made a lot of sense for me at that time both emotionally and psychologically I loved having you on the show cuz you just give me a stinking headache is what that's the first reason I love but no because it puts you know I can sit back with my doubts in whinge about them but you put meat on my doubts and other people would would lean in or listen into that part of what I'm talking about oh well you don't want more meat on your doubt drew no I do I want to process doubt I do I want to process my doubt Bart Ehrman examines in this book a few things how cultural anthropologist studied the oral of Yugoslavia Rwanda and Ghana to reveal how stories always change as they are passed along he examines how a psychologists have discovered the routine phenomena of false memories and how strongly people contend that these false memories really happened he also examines how modern legal scholars and psychologists have shown how unreliable eyewitness testimonies really are with people regularly distorting what they've experienced and of course he also examines how sociologists have shown that a groups collective memory is strongly shaped by the issues and concerns of the remembering community just as much by the events themselves Jesus before the Gospels is a compelling narrative that not only demonstrates Bart Ehrman's deep knowledge and meticulous scholarship but also challenges the historical accuracy of the Gospels and what they tell us about the historical Jesus the way we read and think about these sacred texts and how we view history the website is bart d airmen and his last name is spelled eh r ma n eh r ma n bart d airman comm where do you have many Christian radio shows have you as a guest does that happen yeah it does happen and often what happens is like I'll get on a radio show that that has kind of a fundamentalist bent and basically they just want to argue with me for the record I would like to argue with you too but respectfully you know I think you know obviously you know as I've said there are those who hold there are variants and that's the kind of term that's used I think within textual criticism but at the end of the day it brings us to a conclusion on who the person is and I obviously hold Scripture is more than adequate to bring us to a living breathing encounter and relationship with Jesus who claim to be divine so but but I think so yes Carol are you scared no you know what Bart the one question I have for you which I read you know just a criticism was you know is along the fact that what you don't do in your books as a teacher is actually bring our what the other counter arguments are you kind of tend to not do that in your books you you just create it right to the Christian apologist for example yeah well you know but but I mean it yeah I mean but even to say hey here's the three arguments now tell me what I do in my book is I try to present the view the critical scholars have and to show what the evidence for it is and the reason I don't present another view is because I don't think the view is compelling and it's not a view that evangelical that it's not view the critical scholars have plus the danger would be that you would come a crop across I think a bit trite in the whole thing like it would be so hard for you Bart I can imagine to present the other side the other point of view without going to my line yeah the problem is the other problem is there is no there's no issue that I ever talk about it in my books it has two points of view most of them have about 300 points of view ya know you should use your brilliance the other side well you know I could write a 29 volume book about you know one of these issues but I'm trying to show why critical scholars think what they do and it's people use people have counter arguments they should make the counter argument and then we can discuss it or read another book that have the counter-argument there are several oh sure sure yeah well you're someone I enjoy having on the show because I like being forced to think about the stuff that you write so thank you for doing that Bart yeah it's my pleasure thank you Bart Ehrman on the drew Marshall show take care hope you have a great weekend happy st. Patrick's Day next week Burton alright thank you sorry bye bye he's the author of Jesus before the Gospels how the earliest Christians remembered changed and invented their stories of the Savior you okay John no not at all I I just I worry for the person who will go into chapters or Barnes and Noble and pick up a book ago you know and and one writer said like Bart you know and I want to be respectful and say this but Bart is great at creating the chicken little experience like the sky is falling and the sky is not falling there's equally very good scholars who are able to argue it and bring it about and so I think still scripture can more adequately lead us I grew up in Britain so we we don't typically hold to an an errand see we holds an infallibility and I think there's more than enough people like Ravi zacchara's have argued incredibly on this so so it doesn't upset me what worries me is the person who's gonna pick that up casually and then go into panic mode there's more than enough scholarship and if someone's gonna pick up a book like bart has written there are gonna be of the mindset of there are more points of view and I mean and read the other side as well but Bart's guys the titles are so enticing I mean the tag lines are brilliant okay Bart you've you're listening your marketing team you should give them a bonus I mean they are brilliant and that's why they're selling so it's provocative but they're also written in a way where quite obviously someone coming from the more conservative I can could pick it up by mistake and then go into panic mode and I I think no but here's what I'm saying John I'm fine with panic mode I think spiritually we should all be in panic mode because that puts us in that tension that puts us in that place of in-betweens safety and spiritual growth they're polar opposite is like spiritual maturity and I think that's why in the Bible you got the Psalms they're full of diet yeah so the question and I'm okay with that but I do not think that a God who is going to reveal himself the world is going to then play hide and seek through things that don't lead us to him

Channel: Bart D. Ehrman

Views: 32,362

Rating: 4.8494625 out of 5

Keywords: Drew Marshall Show, Bart Ehrman, Jesus Before The Gospels, Agnostic, Atheist, Inerrancy, Infallibility

Id: x_DTYGEIZQg

Length: 28min 10sec (1690 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 31 2016