- In the plague scene, right? To convince Pharaoh to let the people go, Moses does these 10 plagues. And the fifth plague is that
the Egyptians' livestock is all destroyed overnight. And so like, they've
got no more livestock. Then two plagues later there's a hailstorm that kills the livestock of the Egyptians. (both laughing)
It's like, huh? And then the death of the
firstborn, the 10th plague, the firstborn of all the
livestock are killed. (laughs) It's like, these poor livestock. Isn't it enough to be
killed once? (laughs) Why do you have be killed three times? - Hello, lovely people.
Welcome back to my channel. My name is Emma. Welcome if you are new. Today, I have a lovely treat for you, an interview with the
fabulous Dr. Bart Ehrman. If you're not familiar,
he is a fabulous scholar. I have done a few videos with him, which I will link for you down below so you can check out more
if you're interested. We've talked about Jesus before.
We've talked about Genesis. Today we are gonna talk a little bit about Moses and the
Exodus so do please enjoy. Hi, Bart. Thank you so much
for joining me once again. It's always an absolute pleasure. - Well, thank you. Thanks for having me. - So we've got a brand
new course coming up, "Finding Moses: What Scholars Know About the Exodus and the Jewish Law." So another, you can't stay away from the massive shattering topics. - Yeah, right. - So there's so much
that I wanna talk about because this course covers so many of the most frequently discussed topics that I see whenever we
look at the Old Testament. So I just wanna kind of pick out a couple of the sort of more fun hard-hitters. We love, especially
when we've talked before on this channel, we love
talking about the contradictions between the different books in the Bible. So I wanna start with the 10 Commandments. Seems like a fun place to start. Can you tell me, 'cause the 10
Commandments appear in Exodus and then they're repeated in Deuteronomy. Are there any significant
differences between those two? Or is it just sort of semantics that aren't really important? - Well, the kind of weird thing is that they're never
called the 10 Commandments in the Exodus or the Deuteronomy passage. The place that comes from is from a different
passage in Exodus. (laughs) So what happens is, so, you know, the 10 Commandments we think
of is right when Moses goes up on Mount Sinai in Exodus 20. But you know, chapters later he's given another set of
commandments and those are called, they're actually called the 10 words. And the 10 words later in chapter 32 are not what they are in chapter 20. So they're completely different, and they're the ones who
are called the 10 words. So it's actually, we call
them 10 Commandments, but they're actually just
10 words that God's... And so the big difference
is actually from the one that's actually called the 10 Commandments and the one that we think
of as the 10 Commandments. Then you have this other
one in Deuteronomy. So the deal is, is that
Moses gives these things right after the Exodus on
Mount Sinai, but then later, 40 years later, God has allowed
that generation to die out because they were disobedient and so he's gotta give 'em again. And so he gives 'em again in Deuteronomy. And there are slight differences that some people think are significant, but they're basically the
same commandments, you know they're kinda, some of them
are phrased a bit differently. - Okay, that's super interesting. Yeah, it didn't occur to
me that the 10 Commandments wouldn't be the 10 words-
- Well, I know. It's the weird thing,
the ones that are called the 10 Commandments, like they
seem like they got nothing to do with thou shalt not kill and thou shalt not commit adultery so they're a whole
different thing. (laughs) - Yeah, that's so interesting. On the 10 Commandments then,
deceptively simple question, probably actually a horrible question. Are the 10 Commandments still relevant for modern Christians? I'm especially interested in this 'cause I see modern Christians talking about the 10 Commandments
a lot, but I don't see, or, you know, the 10 words, but I don't see people still abstaining from work on the Sabbath or
things like that, you know? - Yeah, exactly. So, you know, one of the things
about the 10 Commandments is that almost everybody misunderstands what they're actually commanding. (laughs) - Right. - I mean even, you know, even things like, you know, not bearing
false witness, you know, it has nothing to do with lying per se. It's not thou shalt not lie. And so it isn't, you know, it has to do with court
testimony, for example. And adultery, you shall
not commit adultery means that you're not supposed
to steal another man's wife. And if you're a wife,
you're not supposed to sleep with someone other than your husband. And so they're very
patriarchal, for one thing. And you're right, you know,
Christians in America as well, they insist, oh, the 10 Commandments, they're the foundation, you
know, they're our morality. And so I'm gonna actually
be talking about this a bit in my course because there's
a very funny Stephen Colbert episode where a congressman wants to have the 10 Commandments
put up in the law courts around the country because they
think they're so important. And Colbert says, "Wow, I didn't realize
they're that important. Well, what are they?" (laughs) He wants them to list
them, and he doesn't know. He knows like two. (laughs) It's like, ah. But you know, I also do what you did. You know, people say to keep the 10 Commandments,
they're important. I say, "Well, you know, have you ever had a job on Saturday?" And, "Well, yeah, sure." So, well, okay, so you believe
in the Nine Commandments. (both laughing)
And so... Yeah, so are they relevant
for Christians today? The thing is that most of
those commandments are things that most of us would see as important ethical guidelines for life. The first several of them
are about how to worship God. You know, you're not supposed... God's the only God, you're not
supposed to make, you know, worship an idol and you're supposed to... And so those are religious things, but the other six are, you know, you're not supposed to go
around killing each other and you're not supposed to
take things from someone else and you're not supposed to
want to take things from... And so I think, you know, to that extent, they actually provide a
useful kind of guideline. But they don't cover most of
life, I've gotta say that. They're not, you can't live by
the 10 Commandments and like, you're not gonna answer all
your questions with those. Just a few of 'em. - Yeah, the 10 Commandments alone will not take you through life, yeah. But thank you, that was a very
good answer to what I thought was gonna be a horrible
question, so I'm relieved. - No, no, that's a great question. - Okay, well let's talk
about the Exodus itself. Moses frees the Israelites
from slavery in Egypt and then they travel to Mount Sinai and wander the wilderness for 40 years. Is there any textual or
archeological evidence that you know of for those things outside of the biblical texts? - There's not only no textual or archeological evidence that I know of, there is no textual
archeological evidence for it. You know, when I was an
Evangelical Christian as a young man, we always would hear the, "Oh, they found the chariots
at the bottom of the Red Sea." You know, it was kind of-
- Yeah. - Bogus, you know, people
saying stuff like that. And it's not, it's so completely wrong. So there's not, and the
reason it's a pretty big deal because in the Book of Exodus, we're told that there are 600,000
soldier-aged men who left Egypt, Israelite men, and so that
would be, you know, people, you know, men, people
who have reached maturity who are able to serve in the army. So it's not counting the elderly men, it's not counting the women,
it's not counting the children. And so when you add all of that up, if there's 600,000 just of those
soldier-aged men, you know, it's gotta be two and a half
or 3 million people leaving. By some estimates, that's
more than the population of Egypt at the time. But even, you know, if it's
not, you know, so you're talking about two and a half
million people leaving and there's no mention of it. And you know, people say, "Well, yeah, the Egyptians were so embarrassed they wouldn't wanna
say anything about it." But it isn't just the
Egyptians. I mean, there's no... You know, the Egyptians actually
kept pretty good records. We have pretty good records
from that time period. It's in the middle of the 13th century. And we do have, we have records
of small groups of people coming into Egypt and going out of Egypt. And so we do have records of
that kind of thing happening, but two and a half
million, 3 million people? And so there's no mention of it, and there's no archeological evidence. I mean, we have archeological evidence for all sorts of things
for small groups of people living in this place or
that place from antiquity. And there's not a stitch, there's nothing, I mean, there's not an
arrowhead. There's nothing. And so that's why scholars debate. Historical scholars all agree,
you know, except for people who are just completely
committed to the Bible having no mistakes of any kind. I mean, apart from that,
historical scholars agree that either this thing
is grossly exaggerated or it didn't happen. (laughs) And if it did happen, what did happen? That's one of the questions we'll be talking about in the course. You know, can we say there's any kind of historical kernel to this? Or is it is a complete fabrication? And you know, how would we know? That's the kind of thing I'll be talking about in my class. - That's cool, I find that so
interesting as well because, you know, if there are two
to 3 million Israelites, that's a huge population
to be what's meant to be the small, oppressed
group in Egypt compared to, it's probably quite a huge percentage of Egypt's population overall. - Yeah, well, and the
question is, you know, there are all sorts of
questions tied up with it that I'll be talking about. You know, when Pharaoh tries to stop the population
growth among the Israelites, he orders all the baby boys to be killed. And we're told that he brings
in the two Hebrew midwives to give them instructions.
- Hmm. - Two? (laughs)
- Two. (laughs) - Uh...
- That's a lot of work. - Yes, uh, yeah. They are
keeping very busy. (laughs) - Yeah, yeah, I love seeing
and reading discussions about the numbers debate
because it seems people are sort of conflicted on
whether there was something like 2 million or like 60,000
or something like that, and it's like such a huge
gulf of a difference. - Well, you know, and that's
kind of like, you know, it is kind of argument how many angels dance on the head of a pin. I mean, you know, pick a number. Oh, I think there were 40,000. Why? You know, but people
then of course, you know, Hebrew scholars sometimes get
really down into the weeds and do things like that. They're not talking about 600,000. They're saying it's 600 tribes, you know, that the word thousand actually
means clans or something. Or they'll maybe say,
"Yeah, that's a typo. What he really meant was..." (laughs) Seriously, they argue
this, and it's like, wow. - Yeah, yeah.
- You know? - Which is funny because then you know, how many other typos are
there that we get into? - Well, that's right, and it's assuming that it's gotta be right on some level, that it's gotta be historically right. And if you approach it
with that assumption, then of course you need to do something about what it actually says. And you have to say that, you know, there's a mistake here somehow. But the bigger question is, what can we establish as having happened? Because, you know, there is a reality that every historian has to explain. I mean, at one point there was no Israel. I mean, at one point in
history, there was no land of... There was, you know,
the territory was there, but there was no no group of people. There was no religion. They
didn't possess this land. And at another point in
history, there was an Israel. And so it's a very big historical issue. Where did it come from? And is there something
in the biblical story that is kind of at the, you know, kind of the heart of it that
got expanded kind of wildly? Or are there other explanations that we can verify more readily
from sources from the time? We have literary sources from both Egypt and Canaan at the time. And so we have letters
that were being written and we have descriptions of military and things that are going on at the time. And, you know, we have
archeological records of when cities were being
destroyed, as you know, which isn't a weird thing. I mean it's like, every place in the world you had cities being destroyed
throughout all of antiquity. So the question is, which cities
were being destroyed here? When does this match up with
this, that, or the other thing? And so, you know, historians
go about doing that, but what they don't do is
try to make it fit the Bible because the Bible has
to be right about it. And so those who, you know,
wanna make it fit the Bible, you know, they absolutely can do that if they work hard enough at it, but it ends up without much evidence. So part of the task is, you know, trying to figure out
what is historical here and what can be helpful for us. Not in terms of helpful of
like, giving us the sketch of what actually, but like
providing some kind of data from centuries later. You have stories like
this and so, you know, where did those stories come from? - Yeah, too true. I think that's sort of the
key of at least how you and a lot of scholars that I
like approach the Bible as, you know, one source of many
rather than the sort of, the central source that then has to have everything fit around it neatly. - I think there are two
extremes among people today. One extreme is of course
taking the Bible literally as like our source for
what happened, you know, with Adam and Eve or whatever. You know, you take, that's our source and that's what we've... So that's one extreme that
historians don't like, but the other extreme is
just as bad, which says, well, you know, since it's in the Bible, we're not gonna look at it. And that's, I think that's
crazy talk because these people who were writing these accounts didn't know they were writing the Bible. They were just writing
stories that they had heard. And those stories came from somewhere. And we need to find out, are those stories completely made up? Or do they have some kind
of historical root in them? And they at least give
us a guidepost to think, well, could something
like this have happened? You know, could you have had
a group of Semites in Egypt who had become enslaved who
somehow got out of there? You know, and that that
formed the basis of a story. I mean, there are weird
things about the Exodus story, one of which is that Moses
is not an Israelite name. It's an Egyptian name. And if you're an Israelite
making up a story about the guy who saved, you know, the
great savior of your people, why would you make him
up with an Egyptian name? You know, you want him to be an Israelite. And so, you know, there
are weird things about it that really do have to be considered. But you do it as a historian. If you want know history,
you do it as a historian. You don't do it as, you know, a Bible-thumping fundamentalist
because that doesn't help, but you also don't do it
as somebody who just says, "Yeah, it's in the Bible, forget it. It's got no value at all." You know, its not how history's done. - I believe this is gonna be
very similar in sort of answer to what I was just asking you, but I've got to ask 'cause
it's one of the big ones. But do we have any evidence then for Moses as a historical figure? - Yeah, well that's kind of
the focal point of the course is that, you know, it's one
thing to have a, you know, it'd be one thing to have a
course on the Book of Leviticus. You know, let's talk about the
laws of Leviticus, you know, and there's a lot to be done there. You could have, you know, a
course in graduate schools. You know, they do entire
semester-long things on parts of Leviticus, so
I mean, that's easy to do. And we're gonna be doing
that in the course. We're gonna be talking
about the laws, you know, not just the 10 Commandments, but you get all these other laws that people cite today for moral reasons, you know, that people use
for current legislation, and we need to look at
these and kind of see. So we will be doing that to
see whether all that works. But also, you know, the way
I've designed this course is kind of for these bigger questions. And so Moses, I mean, he
is in the Jewish tradition, I mean, in the Torah he's everything. I mean, the entire Exodus to Deuteronomy, there's four of the five
books are all about Moses. And of Israel becomes Israel
in a sense at the Exodus. And the religion of Judaism
is based on the Law of Moses. And you know, they get into the
land because of the conquest that's begun with Moses. And so like, the Jewish religion and Christianity that emerges
from it and then Islam, which emerges from them in some sense, you know, all of that
hinges on this figure. And did he exist? (laughs) And I've gotta say it's
a very different question from did Jesus exist? 'Cause now we're not talking about sources 30 or 40 years later, or less that in Jesus. We're talking about sources from hundreds and hundreds of years later. And the sources, you know, I'll be showing they're are at odds with
each other at many points and that they're not close to
the events and they say things that aren't plausible at all historically. And yet you got this figure
with an Egyptian name, and there are things about
it that look like, you know, they actually do fit
in the 13th century BC. So how do we make sense of it all? And so that really is
gonna be kind of the focus or the point of the course
is how we make sense of this figure Moses and
everything connected with it. - It's pretty like,
fundamentally important stuff to not just Judaism, but
every one of those religions. - Well, I know. It's at the heart. I mean, it's the basis of Christianity. And as you know, I mean, people
will still cherry-pick laws from the Old Testament. You know, they'll pick a law and they say, "This shows that this
is immoral, you know, because the law says this." And then you look at the
next verse in the same law and it's, you know, so that, you know, it's an abomination for a
man to lay with another man. You know, it's absolutely
stated in the Book of Leviticus. And people say, "See?" You know, and so you can't do that. And you know, then it says, you know, you're not to wear a garment made of two different
kinds of thread. (laughs) Then it's, oh God, okay,
nope, nope, no more, you know, get rid of
your sweaters. (laughs) You got polyester and cotton. Nope, nope, not allowed, sorry. No, but you know, you take one of 'em, you don't take the other one. And so that's the other kind
of thing we'll be talking about is like how, you know, in what sense did these things happen? In what sense are they teaching
important moral lessons, whether we accept the morality or not. You know, what are they trying to teach quite apart from what actually happened? And then the question, you
know, I'm not gonna tell people what's relevant for them
or not, but I'm gonna say, you know, these are some
issues you need to think about if you're claiming that
these are relevant, you know? And I'm not, you know, I'm
not taking a stand per se on relevance, but I'm saying, you know, these are the considerations
you need to bring into account. - Mm-hmm, that's so interesting. It's very similar to the, well, I suppose it's across all of the books you have the same problem
as the 10 Commandments, which is that people will
hyper focus on one or two not really knowing the rest of the rules that they would also need to be following if it was all, you know? - Right, you know, and so
some things are forbidden but I'm gonna go eat a, you
know, this is forbidden. You know, you're immoral if you do this, but do you have any more ham? (laughs) - (laughs) Yeah, exactly. - Oh, well, that doesn't apply to us. Well, how do you decide? You know, you decide like
what you like applies to you or, I mean, 'cause somebody
told you that applies to you? I mean, how do you? You know, so, yeah. - Yeah, okay, so one last
chunky, big one from me. Chunky big one. So professional. - Yeah, that's great. I love it. (laughs) - So one of the things that comes up a lot when we talk about morality
is God commanding his people to destroy the Canaanites,
every man, woman, and child. I think I've seen every possible
interpretation imaginable. So from a scholar's perspective, what does the Bible really say on this? - Yeah, so it is very
disturbing in many ways. I'll say, you know, some people say, "Look, he just said, you
know, 'thou shalt not kill' and now he's telling 'em to go
out and kill the Canaanites. And, you know, how's that work?" And there actually is
internal logic to it. So thou shout not kill. I'm gonna go through all the
10 Commandments, by the way, and explain in their historical context what they're talking about. Most people don't have an idea. And thou shalt not kill
almost certainly means don't murder a fellow Israelite. And so what most people know
about the conquest narrative of the destruction of every
man, woman, and child thing is more from the Book of Joshua, the conquest after the Pentateuch. But what many people don't
realize is that it begins in the Pentateuch itself in
the Book of Numbers is when, the way it works is after
being in the wilderness for 40 years because they've
been disobedient, Israel, then the new generation can
go up and conquer the land. And what they do is they
go up on the eastern side and they head up on the Transjordan. So on the other side, the
east side of the Jordan, and it starts with Moses. And then Moses isn't
actually allowed to go in because he was also disobedient. But the destruction starts
in the Book of Numbers. And there are some
quite disturbing stories that people don't know about. Most people know about the, you know, the Battle of Jericho
or something like that, but there are some very disturbing
stories already therein, and they set the tone for
what's gonna happen next. And the logic behind it is that, there are a couple of things, but one is that God is the God of Israel and he's the only God
that you are to worship. And you cannot be around
polluting influences because other people will convince you to worship their gods. And you know, God's a jealous God. He's a loving God and he's
chosen you and you're his people, but your part of it is, you've
gotta stick with him alone. And if you don't, he's
going to punish you. And in the Book of Numbers, there are some really harrowing stories that we'll be talking about in
the course of what God does. I mean, yeah, it's rather,
yeah, disheartening reading. - Dark, mm-hmm. - But anyway, so the whole idea is that you need the purity of the people. Purity means you don't have
other influences coming in. And to preserve purity, you
have to wipe out the other and you know, and you
can't just like, you know, send them off to Rwanda
or something or, you know, you've gotta actually destroy them. And it's, yeah, it calls
the morality of the text into question, obviously,
and it makes one wrestle with the concept of a brutally pure God. And so, but you know, again, I'm not gonna be giving
answers to any of these things, but I think people do need to
be aware of what's happening in these texts so they can
decide how to wrestle with them. You know, if they happen to, you know, if they subscribe high
value to these texts as religious objects, that's
absolutely fine with me. But you do need to understand
what's actually in these texts and understand how much of
this do you truly agree with. And, you know, it may be
everything or it may be nothing, but you know, you need to at
least know the information. - Just because we always do, I mean, I even talked to you about
contradictions already, but you know how much
I love contradictions in the different books. So, (laughs) are there any particularly, are there any favorites? Are there any particularly interesting or notable contradictions
between the books of Moses, you know, from Exodus through
Deuteronomy that just? - Yeah, there are some that
are kind of broad-based, and there are some that are
kind of just kind of funny. Not funny, but they're
interesting in the detail. You know, and I mean, one example is one that kind of shows that
you've got different authors, different sources being
put together, is when God tells Moses that he's revealed
his name to him, Yahweh. And he says, you know, "Before
now, nobody's known my name. And the others, the patriarchs,
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, they didn't know me by
my name, it's Yahweh." But when you read Genesis,
Yahweh appears to Abraham. He tells him his name is Yahweh. And Abraham works with
Yahweh. It's like, oh, hmm. I think we got a little problem here with reconciling their sources. But then you have some
that are kind of internal, and one of my favorite ones
is in the plague scene, right? To convince Pharaoh to let the people go, Moses does these 10 plagues. And you know, I've always loved this. When I was a kid, this
was my favorite part of the Old Testament 'cause there's a lot of weird gore going on. And so you get these flies and these gnats and things coming in. So one of the, the fifth plague
is that all the livestock are gonna be destroyed of the Egyptians. The Egyptians' livestock
is all destroyed overnight and so like, they got no more livestock. Then two plagues later there's a hailstorm that kills the livestock of the Egyptians. (both laughing)
It's like, huh. And then the death of the
firstborn, the 10th plague, the firstborn of all the
livestock are killed. It's like, these poor livestock. I mean, isn't it enough to
be killed once? (laughs) Why do you have to be killed three times in the space of days or whatever? (laughs) Yeah, so those are, yeah. - Every time they're
just tidying up the ones they missed in the last plague. (laughs) - Well of course, to reconcile that, people have to come up
with all sorts of... Well, so what happened is
all the livestock got killed in the fifth one, so
then the Egyptians stole all the Israelite livestock, and those are the ones
killed in the seventh. And then they had had
babies and so, I don't know. You have to come up with some weird stuff in order to make sense. - Oh, that's brilliant. And a lighter note to end on after the dark and horrible stuff. - Yeah.
- So thank you so much, Bart, again for your time. It is always so wonderful to talk to you and yeah, can't wait for the course. - Well, I'm really looking
forward to it because, you know, I do these courses
and it's kind of part of a bigger series
that's that I'm calling, "How Scholars Read the Bible." And I've done some stuff on the Gospels. I did something on Genesis, so we're gonna do this Moses thing then, and you know, it's just gonna keep going. And it's just so much fun because this is really
interesting historical information that whether people,
people who are believers, they need to have the information and understand how scholars talk about it. People who aren't believers who are just interested
in history, they need... You know, and this is important stuff. I mean, we're talking, whatever
you think about the Bible, that's the most important cultural object in our civilization, and you know, it's helpful to know something about it. And it turns out it's not boring. The problem is, people are
just used to how boring it is. But I mean, I'm telling you, there's really interesting stuff in here. And so that's what we're
gonna be dealing with in this course.
- Yeah. Well, that's the nice
thing about your course is that it's presented as interesting. It keeps people engaged. I think people are used to
hearing slow, boring sermons as their way of learning
the Bible, and it can feel a bit like, dry.
- Yeah. - That's why something like this is- - A lot of the passages
that I'll be talking about, you don't hear in Sunday school. (laughs) - (laughs) Yeah. - They skip over those parts.
- Yeah, yeah. All right, well thank you so much, Bart. It was an absolute pleasure. - Great. Me too, thanks. - You can find the link to register for "Finding Moses" down below. It's a brilliant course. It's gonna be live recorded over two days. So if you sign up before
the 12th and 13th, you can be at the live recording
sessions and the live Q&A. You're also free to sign up later. Either way you will get lifetime access to the eight-part lecture series. You get an additional reading
list, you get the Q&A. You can get audio versions so
that you can listen on the go. All the course materials, like I said, you get lifetime access. I've done a couple of these courses now, and they really are so brilliant. This is part of, like Bart mentioned, his wider series on how
scholars read the Bible. I just think it's so worth knowing. Not only is it so interesting,
but I think it's so valuable if you are going to engage in discourse on the Bible or on the Old Testament. It is so valuable to have a
proper scholar's understanding of the context and the true meaning. I think this is gonna be
one of the most interesting, probably one of the most
controversial as well. Diving into the 10 Commandments, exploring the historicity or not of Moses, looking at those other
various laws of scripture that people use to defend homophobia, poor treatment of women. It's gonna be huge. Do
please check it out. Like I said, I really
enjoy all of these courses, and if you use my
affiliate link down below, that also supports me as a creator. Thank you. Love you. That was too much. I always
regret after I say, "love you." I've done it two or three times now, and I'm always instantly
filled with regret. I could just cut it out,
but I'm committed now. So you have to sign up for the course 'cause I said, "love you." I'm sorry, those are the rules. No, but really I do really recommend it. Either way, thank you so much
for watching this interview. I love talking to Bart. I've gotten to talk to him a few times now on some really big topics. He's got a new podcast out, by the way. I'm not paid to promote that,
but you should check it out. Thank you so much for watching. Before we go, I would
like to give a big shout to my Giant Chickens over on Patreon. (cheerful music) Have a very lovely rest of your week, and I will see you really soon.
