0:08

Hi, and welcome to the Origins Podcast.

0:11

I'm your host, Lawrence Krauss. In this episode,

0:13

we all get to have some revelations about revelations.

0:16

By that I mean my guest in this episode is

0:18

the biblical scholar, Bart Ehrman,

0:21

who's written a number of bestselling books over the

0:23

years that has changed my own and many

0:25

others' understanding of what the scriptures

0:27

are all about. He's a remarkable

0:29

historian and scholar, and I've wanted to

0:32

have him on the podcast for a long

0:34

time, and I was fortunate enough to

0:36

find some time in his schedule

0:38

following the release of his most recent book, Armageddon.

0:41

One of his other favorite books that I enjoy that

0:43

we talk about is How Jesus Became

0:45

God, and it describes literally

0:47

how the biblical Jesus changed

0:50

from becoming human to divine

0:52

in the eyes of the early Christians and later

0:55

on, and it packs some surprises,

0:57

but perhaps nothing compared to the surprises

1:00

of his most recent book, Armageddon, where

1:02

we learn, which is a story about the book

1:05

of Revelations, and we learn that one of the most common

1:07

features of revelations nowadays

1:09

in popular literature and movies,

1:12

the rapture, isn't even a part of the

1:14

book of Revelations. That's just one of the many

1:16

surprises and insights that

1:18

we got in our discussion, and I talked about

1:20

not just about those two books, but also about his

1:23

own voyage of discovery from

1:25

being a fundamentalist young man to ultimately

1:27

deciding to become a scholar and historian

1:30

and follow the evidence

1:33

and interpret the scriptures in

1:35

terms of the evidence and the historical evidence. It's

1:38

a very informative

1:40

discussion. I really

1:42

enjoy discussing with Bart whenever

1:44

I've had the opportunity, and I hope you'll enjoy

1:47

it as much as I did. Now, you can watch

1:49

this episode ad-free on

1:52

our Substack site, Critical Mass,

1:54

if you're a paid subscriber, and those subscriptions

1:57

go to support the Origins Project Foundation, or

1:59

you can

3:59

And

4:01

as I say, I want to

4:03

talk about, you've written a new book, which

4:05

is fascinating for me, Armageddon, about

4:08

Revelations,

4:09

perhaps the least understood book

4:11

of the Bible, least referred to, and

4:15

for many reasons, which we'll get to. And then I want

4:17

to talk a much earlier book, which was, I

4:20

think, the first book of yours I actually read, which is How

4:22

Jesus

4:23

Became God, which is a fascinating

4:25

historical examination of

4:28

something that people don't realize. And I love history, of

4:30

the fact that people assume perceptions

4:34

were always what they are now. And

4:36

in fact, books that were

4:38

written 2000 years ago, you might expect would

4:40

have a slightly different set

4:43

of perceptions.

4:46

And your examinations

4:48

are historical, not theological. But

4:51

I want to, before we go into the history of scripture,

4:54

I want to

4:58

go into your history, because this is an Origins podcast,

5:01

and I want to go back. So you were

5:03

born, actually, we're almost the same age. You were born a year after

5:05

me. In Lawrence, Kansas, which I've

5:07

been to,

5:08

I did a tour of Kansas once trying to defend

5:10

evolution against... How'd that

5:13

go? Well, I think actually,

5:15

I think we won that particular problem.

5:17

This is when they were

5:23

trying to introduce in high schools,

5:27

creationism or ID into the science

5:29

curriculum.

5:30

And I think

5:34

we won that one. But

5:37

it was fascinating to go around in various campuses

5:39

and speak. And, but you were,

5:41

Lawrence, Kansas is a, I

5:44

assume is a religious community. I'm

5:46

assuming, I mean, your

5:49

religiosity began early, but I

5:51

wondered, did it begin at home?

5:54

It began at home. My parents were Christian,

5:58

and we went to church when I was a kid. is

6:01

an Episcopal Church. I think when

6:03

I was a kid, my parents were maybe more

6:05

kind of social, socially minded Christians

6:07

rather than particularly like

6:10

theological or anything. But

6:13

nonetheless, we went to church. And yeah,

6:16

so and your Lawrence, Kansas,

6:18

Lawrence is kind of like Chapel Hill is where I teach

6:20

now in North Carolina. It

6:23

tends to be kind of one of those liberal

6:25

spots in Kansas, at least

6:27

the because of the university, because the universities,

6:30

you know, to find university and there

6:32

are a lot of and so the kids, you know, the

6:34

kids I ran around with a lot of them were university,

6:36

you know, faculty, kids, that kind of

6:38

thing.

6:39

Where your parents were talking about your parents

6:41

where they did work at the university, did they work at

6:43

the university or were they there for another reason?

6:46

So they met they met at the university

6:48

after the Second War, World War,

6:51

my dad was there on the GI Bill.

6:53

And my mom just got a scholarship there.

6:55

So they're both from small towns in Kansas. Neither

6:59

one of them was particularly academic. My

7:02

dad was in business and he ended up being

7:04

a salesman for a for a box company

7:07

paper box company and made a

7:09

good living doing that. My mom was a secretary.

7:12

And the interesting thing is both my brother and I,

7:15

my brother is three years older than me. And he teaches

7:17

classics at Kent State. And so

7:20

we both do Greek and Latin. Oh, really?

7:22

Oh, my gosh. From from a salesman

7:24

and a secretary. Yeah. Well, that

7:26

that I'm often wondered

7:27

about this. So so the question is in the

7:30

in the household, obviously, you're looking

7:33

behind you and I'm a fan of books myself. But

7:35

but I mean, I've read voraciously and I always have

7:38

but but

7:39

did they

7:40

did they encourage your

7:42

love of scholarship reading, for example? I mean,

7:45

you both became,

7:46

as I say, academics, interestingly, my brother

7:48

and I both did neither my parents actually

7:50

went to university or finished high school. But

7:55

was it early on a lot of reading in your in your house?

7:58

So they what they

7:59

emphasized was getting a good education. And

8:03

because they recognize that that's that was

8:05

the key to success, they both had come from very

8:08

small and, you know, not very kind

8:10

of lower middle class families, and

8:13

knew that based on their, their

8:15

having gone to college, that they had really,

8:17

you know, were far above most of the their

8:20

friends from high school, and they just realized that would happen.

8:22

And so my brother and I just independently,

8:24

we were very different from each

8:27

other. But we went, we went our separate ways. And we

8:29

both just ended up

8:29

loving education. So they

8:32

didn't, they didn't push us very hard that way.

8:34

They just wanted us to get grades. They just

8:36

wanted to be educated. But having gone to university,

8:38

they did maybe that was the difference was my parents

8:40

didn't they wanted us to be educated, but they want

8:42

us to be professionals. I mean, if you think about

8:45

a living,

8:46

being either religious scholar or a classist,

8:49

that's not exactly what you tell your kids, say, Hey,

8:51

go out and become a classist. That's a

8:53

good way to have a living. No,

8:55

no, my parents were not happy with my brother going

8:58

into classics, because they didn't think there'd be any way

9:00

you'd ever get a job. And in

9:02

my case, it was because they thought that they

9:04

considered the ministry and noble,

9:07

noble profession. And they just assumed

9:09

I was going to be in

9:12

ministry. And so that's why they

9:14

went along with it in my case.

9:16

Okay, in terms of reading

9:18

early on, I mean,

9:24

you I assume, well, you say

9:26

your family was kind of a traditional Christian family, maybe you

9:28

went to church, but it wasn't a lot of theology involved

9:31

at home. I assume. So

9:33

no, the Bible when you were younger? No,

9:36

not really. Not until when I was

9:38

in high school, I had a born again experience. And that's

9:40

when I really got into it. But yeah,

9:42

I think they revered the Bible, but nobody, you know, we

9:44

didn't bother reading it much. Like, like most

9:46

crazy, we'll get to that, like most like the Bible

9:49

and think it's absolutely true, but I've never read

9:51

it. And I think

9:53

that's,

9:54

I well, I think in my opinion, that's an essential

9:57

part of the reason Christianity has been successful. People

9:59

actually read the Bible.

9:59

far fewer people religious in my opinion.

10:02

But in any case, and

10:05

same as a Jew, I was brought up Jewish and

10:07

I was, I went to the high holidays and all

10:09

the rest, but I don't think I was ever

10:11

schooled on the atrocities. I

10:14

only learned about them much, much later.

10:17

It was always defending or being

10:19

oppressed rather than oppressing.

10:22

Well, ignorance cuts both ways. Cause I mean, in

10:25

your field, people who are opposed

10:27

to evolution or

10:30

we were thinking the year you created 6,000 years ago, they

10:33

know nothing about it cause they haven't read anything about it, but they

10:35

believe in Christianity, even though they know nothing about

10:37

it and haven't read about it. Yeah, it goes both

10:39

ways. Yeah, it is fascinating

10:41

that sense.

10:43

Well, yeah, well, in fact, I wanna get to the

10:46

people literalists who in some ways, I've

10:49

debated a lot of people, including, and

10:51

among the various people I've debated, one

10:53

of the people I wouldn't say respect,

10:56

but I remarkably

10:59

as Ken Ham, who at

11:01

least it seems to me said,

11:03

we've debated a few

11:05

times at once on TV and

11:07

said more or less the truth, which is, well,

11:09

if any part of this isn't true, then it's all suspect.

11:12

And so therefore, and I agree with him

11:14

completely. Yeah, except for

11:16

the therefore. Yeah,

11:19

in any case, so

11:23

you're reading, did you read,

11:25

if you didn't read the Bible, did

11:27

you read, you never, I thought, did

11:30

you ever get interested in science, for example, or was you always

11:32

more interested in history and fiction

11:35

or nonfiction? Mainly

11:38

fictions, fiction, science fiction. So

11:40

I had terrible science teachers

11:42

from all the way up. I

11:45

just had completely really awful. And

11:47

so I just never developed an interest in science.

11:49

And I wish I had because now I'm really interested.

11:52

And I read

11:55

stuff for a lot of science stuff. But

11:59

once it gets to that point,

11:59

past the lay level. My brain just doesn't go

12:02

there. Well, it just wasn't trained. But reading, being

12:04

interested, I mean, that's why I write books for

12:06

that. Yeah, well, that's right. I mean, that's the kind of thing, you

12:09

know, I mean, I like reading cosmology and physics

12:11

and, you know, I've been reading,

12:13

you know, evolutionary psychology is just, you know,

12:15

various kinds of stuff that's unrelated

12:18

to my thing. But yeah, growing up,

12:20

it was all fiction. I loved science fiction.

12:22

I liked fiction. That's basically it. So, you know, it's interesting

12:24

that you say you like science fiction, because it's,

12:27

you know, it shows how bad schools are. Because

12:29

if you

12:29

like science fiction, it should have been a perfect

12:32

jumping off place to get like science because,

12:35

you know, one is, you know, science fiction

12:37

inspires you like science does.

12:39

And in fact, I think that's what more or less

12:41

what,

12:42

what Stephen Hawking said in my book, The Physics of Star

12:44

Trek. And it's, it's a shame because that's,

12:47

you know, those same questions

12:48

are what are what excite and all kids are excited

12:51

by that stuff, you know, they are, but you've got to have somebody

12:53

shows you why it's exciting instead of like, and

12:56

if the teaching is just absolutely boring,

12:58

and doesn't, I mean, oh my god,

13:01

you know, just get me out of here. Yeah,

13:03

well, actually, I've explained

13:05

my brother wanted me to be a doctor, my brother,

13:07

a lawyer, because that's what

13:10

good educated Jewish boys are supposed to be, especially

13:12

for parents who hadn't gone to college. And

13:14

my brother did become a lawyer, which is but,

13:16

but

13:18

one of the reasons I didn't become a doctor

13:20

is that very, that's very same reason when I was going to

13:22

school around the same time you work or your part,

13:24

biology

13:25

was just like memorizing the parts of frog, there

13:27

could be nothing more boring and tedious. And

13:30

and I felt I feel sad now that I missed out.

13:33

I mean, I've obviously educated myself since then.

13:35

But, but,

13:37

you know, that was around the time when

13:39

when all sorts of exciting things were being learned, including

13:42

genetics and the structure

13:44

of DNA. But no, it was all these ridiculous,

13:46

you know, so

13:47

in schools, we unfortunately

13:50

teach science as if it's a bunch of facts, rather

13:53

than a process. Interestingly enough, you know, whereas as far

13:55

as I can tell in Bible studies,

17:59

a charismatic group that met like on Thursday

18:02

nights with high school and college kids

18:04

and we engaged in all those kinds

18:06

of things. Yes.

18:08

Okay now this, okay wow okay

18:11

and

18:14

and but your friends okay so what

18:16

made the decision for you went to them Moody but

18:18

you chose to go to Moody Bible College

18:20

which is where?

18:22

It's in Chicago, it's downtown Chicago. That's right

18:24

okay so that was that's

18:28

and that was that trains people to be

18:31

preachers I assume to be yeah

18:33

it's a fundamentalist

18:36

yeah because they still they didn't know you know they

18:38

just thought look you know he's going to ministry that's great

18:40

and by this time they also were had become

18:42

much more kind of committed

18:44

as Christians and and

18:47

so they thought it was a

18:50

they thought it was great and Moody

18:52

is a it's a fundamentalist Bible college

18:54

and it doesn't at

18:56

the time they didn't give a degree and and

18:59

so it was in terms of education

19:01

about the Bible it was great I mean I learned a lot

19:04

about the Bible but in terms of in education

19:06

it was terrible I mean there's no you know

19:08

you don't take history classes you take church history

19:11

classes and you don't take philosophy

19:14

you take apologetics which means

19:16

you know defending the faith you know and

19:18

so you know Christian version of a madrasa

19:21

I guess yeah well that's right and it

19:23

and strict rules

19:24

ethical rules and strict you

19:27

know and it's um so it's kind of a boot

19:29

camp for for

19:31

fundamentalist Christians

19:34

what made you choose I loved it by the way I loved

19:36

it while I'm there how long were you there two

19:38

years three years three it's it was a three-year degree

19:40

and so I majored in Bible theology

19:43

and then but you know I had this thing

19:45

I was you know I was a pretty good student I was

19:47

an okay student in high school I mean I

19:50

was fine I got good grades but I wasn't really

19:52

academically interested that much but

19:54

at Moody because I was so passionate about the Bible

19:56

because of my religious commitments I

19:59

became kind of

19:59

a crazily in industries

20:02

as a student. I mean I'd pull an all-nighter

20:04

once a week just to study. And

20:07

study would be reading the scriptures? Or

20:10

we would be studying for my classes.

20:12

Were you reading third-party sources? Did you learn

20:14

Greek then or no? I

20:17

didn't then. I did after that. But

20:20

at Moody I decided I just wanted

20:22

to spend all the time I could learning

20:25

the

20:26

Bible, learning theology, learning

20:28

you know the kind of church history learning

20:31

kind of these Christian topics. And

20:33

I didn't actually at the time I thought I didn't want to learn

20:35

Greek yet because I thought it would take time away from learning

20:37

the content.

20:38

I'd like to learn the Greek later. Okay, so but besides the Bible,

20:40

when you say learning theology you'd read you'd read theological

20:43

books about the Bible or interpretation?

20:47

Well they'd be so

20:49

in evangelical Christianity there's a

20:52

you know you there there are books that are

20:54

just they're theological books. They're so

20:56

they'll be divided into topics like theology

20:59

of God. And it'll all be based on the Bible

21:01

but you know it'd be Genesis says this you

21:03

know and Mark says this and Roman

21:06

says and you kind of put together the systematic

21:08

package from all over the place. And

21:10

it's a little bit

21:11

it's a little bit kind of strange because you when you're

21:14

dealing with the Bible you're actually dealing with different

21:16

authors living at different times and and

21:19

living in different places. But you're treating it

21:21

as a as a unit. Almost

21:23

like you know if you're it'd be almost like trying

21:25

to study I don't know chemistry by bringing

21:28

a quotation from somebody living in the 18th century

21:30

and somebody living in the 20th century and then you're

21:32

putting them all together into that one systematic

21:35

thing. And but that's what that's what they

21:37

do for theology. Yeah, in fact you can make a point

21:39

of

21:40

people not treating the Bible like a book. It'd be

21:42

like taking literature and saying well I'm going to take a

21:44

quote from James Joyce and then you

21:46

know another one from T.S. Eliot and another

21:48

one from Joseph Heller or whoever and

21:51

putting them together instead of reading one book. It's an

21:54

interesting way

21:55

of thinking. You

21:58

know it's obvious.

21:59

I'm obviously quite skeptical of many, many

22:02

aspects. And

22:04

one of the things I want to get to is why things have been

22:06

so successful. And I think,

22:10

I suspect that kind of learning is a really

22:12

good way to indoctrinate someone

22:14

without

22:15

having them think through the details. Anyway, that's

22:17

my impression, but.

22:19

Well, that's kind of right, because you,

22:21

you know, if you're not focusing

22:23

on a particular author or a particular

22:26

piece of literature, but you're assuming

22:28

that it's like every other piece of literature

22:30

that it's in connection with, then they all sound the same.

22:33

And so it reinforces

22:35

the idea that you've got this set of, these

22:38

set of writings that are

22:41

completely consistent with one another. And

22:44

you don't have a way of breaking out of that mold. So

22:46

in a way, it's a kind of closed system that

22:49

it's very hard to penetrate because people

22:51

have this mindset based on how they're reading

22:53

these texts. Yeah, exactly. And I think

22:55

that's that, you know, all of these things work effectively

22:58

to

22:59

get,

23:02

you know, I mean, the point of evangelical things is to get

23:04

people believing and stay believing.

23:07

And I've always been fascinated by how effective

23:10

religion is. I kind of wish, I mean,

23:12

we saw in other areas

23:15

of human intellectual activity, we could get people

23:17

to become so, well,

23:20

actually, I don't want people to become dogmatic, but become

23:22

so involved. Let me put it that way. Involved,

23:26

yeah. But after Moody, that didn't

23:28

give you a degree. So you went to Wheaton

23:30

College, which is also a Christian college or?

23:33

Yeah, it's a very, it's a evangelical college.

23:36

It's Christian evangelical.

23:38

It's where Billy Graham graduated. Yeah.

23:41

And for me, that was a step towards

23:43

liberalism. Yeah,

23:45

okay. But it was also a step towards, if

23:47

you forgive the, towards education because

23:50

it taught things other than the Bible,

23:52

right? I mean, and- No, in fact, it was a very,

23:55

it actually is a very fine school. I mean, it

23:57

is an evangelical school. When

23:59

I was there-

24:00

They advertise and I think they were right about this that

24:02

if you take if you look at Institutions

24:06

of higher learning and look at the percentage of graduates

24:08

who get PhDs. Yeah, they were number four

24:10

in the country

24:11

Yeah, no, I know actually a

24:14

wonderful physics teacher from Illinois He went to wheat

24:16

wheat and he's now on the atheist,

24:18

but he certainly went to the time and got

24:20

a good it So they have you know, education

24:23

all areas. Did you know so I

24:25

did have some Go

24:27

on

24:29

Just gonna say I took geology there It's

24:32

like it's the first interesting science class I ever had

24:34

like I who is an evangelical Christian, but he's kind of

24:37

rolling his eyes half the time About

24:40

you know, you know creationists

24:42

and and what

24:44

did they call these?

24:46

What did they call it uniformalism? No, what

24:48

is it? What's it called? We're Everything

24:52

happens the same as it always has happened.

24:54

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah where it will all happens

24:56

at the same time You mean yeah, yeah, anyway

24:59

at the word, but you're right. Yeah, he

25:01

wasn't he wasn't a big fan of the devil

25:03

putting fossils in the rocks to

25:05

see of us all So if

25:08

you have your by the way speaking of that

25:10

have you ever been

25:11

to the Creation Museum? Have you is it? I

25:13

have I can't bring myself to

25:15

do it. I probably should

25:17

well, you know the as I say

25:19

the interesting thing is

25:22

It's a fact it's fascinatingly honest at the

25:24

beginning and then they pull a switch on you

25:27

I said yeah, I I

25:28

I was out there that day the date opened and

25:31

then I flew to New York to do a TV show

25:33

I can't ham but They were

25:35

gonna let me in but eventually they did it at

25:37

the date open and because I had a film crew

25:39

with me And I said do you mind them filming me not being

25:41

allowed in and and it was a

25:43

BBC or something and they said oh

25:46

Come on

25:48

But it's great right at the entrance They say, you

25:50

know, they have two doors and it's sort of reason or

25:52

faith and you choose more or less it's really kind of

25:55

and whoa and and then you know and

25:57

they sneak you through that and then and then they after

26:00

After all of that biblical history,

26:02

they take you out and then they show you

26:04

how science has basically made the world

26:06

a miserable place.

26:08

And then they take you and pretend to be a natural

26:10

history museum. It's

26:12

really kind of a very, it's

26:15

well done in that way. But...

26:18

It's generous of you. Well,

26:21

you know, it's, well, they spent a lot of money

26:23

on it. But it is, I

26:26

was amazed at the honesty at the very beginning. Because if

26:28

you come in there, you say reason or faith. Okay, well, I'll

26:30

take reason. But anyway. Yeah,

26:33

right. Yeah, well, okay. So

26:35

Wheaton

26:36

was your path towards liberalization.

26:39

But your degree, was your degree

26:41

in theology or what was your...

26:43

No. What was it in? No, I didn't take any Bible or

26:45

theology there at all because I felt like I'd done

26:47

that at the place that really knew about those things.

26:50

And so why would I do it here? And, but I

26:52

also, I wanted to major in English literature.

26:55

I continued my interest in

26:57

novels and fiction. And,

27:00

you know, so I took a number of things that were really eye-opening.

27:03

I mean, I took courses in, you know,

27:05

intellectual history, for example.

27:07

And,

27:09

you know, just the regular kinds of things you

27:11

take, philosophy and history and, and

27:14

in the times of humanities, guys. Sure. In

27:17

general humanities, given your interest in history, you

27:19

know, and as something I share, I think

27:21

I've been talking about that in many ways, but not obviously professionally

27:24

as you. You must have that

27:26

intellectual history, that, that, that, learning how to do critical analysis

27:31

and historical thinking. You got out of that, I assume.

27:34

Yeah, that was a big deal. And,

27:36

you know, it helped that I had done all this debate stuff when I

27:38

was younger, because

27:41

I always had to, like a two sides of an argument

27:43

and figure out ways to make arguments and

27:45

to take apart arguments. I think it helped me a

27:47

lot, even though the professors were

27:50

conservative Christians, most of

27:52

them, but they, but they, you know, they were, they were smart people

27:54

who had, who had good training for

27:56

the most part. Now, do, did you only

27:58

have to go to a year or two?

27:59

because you'd gotten some credits from Moody,

28:01

is that the way it was? So

28:04

you just, and is that the reason you went, you wanted to

28:06

get your undergraduate degree? Did you plan then to

28:08

go to graduate school or was it as a result of

28:10

being in, at

28:12

Wheaton?

28:13

No, already at Moody, I realized

28:16

that I was, that I could probably

28:19

go on and do graduate work. And at

28:21

Moody, my idea developed, my last year at Moody,

28:23

that I knew, you know, I knew that there were

28:25

a lot of really smart,

28:28

smart people who had PhDs who were teaching in

28:31

Christian contexts, but

28:33

I thought I would get a PhD and be a Christian

28:35

teaching in a secular context. And

28:37

I thought I would be, this would be kind of a mission

28:39

field for me.

28:40

So, I

28:43

had planned that, you know, I wasn't

28:45

sure what it was gonna be.

28:47

And I wasn't sure if it'd be in English or

28:49

in biblical studies, but

28:52

I took Greek at Wheaton and it turned

28:55

out that was something I was pretty good at. And so I

28:57

decided to, that

29:00

maybe that was the way to go is to study

29:02

the Greek New Testament.

29:03

Okay, and then you chose

29:05

to go to Princeton Theological Seminary,

29:09

which you wanna, and

29:11

again, you know, I taught at Yale for a while and I know there's

29:13

this school of divinity, which I visited

29:17

every now and then.

29:20

But does the Theological

29:22

Seminary have any, any connection to the university

29:24

or is it completely separate?

29:26

It's separate. And the way you distinguish them

29:29

is if it's a divinity school, that

29:31

means it's a professional school within the university.

29:34

And a seminary is a separate institution.

29:38

Yale divinity school actually is a very good school. I mean,

29:40

it's not, you

29:41

know. Oh, no, no, I spent,

29:43

yeah, no, no, I'll buy that.

29:46

And a lot of

29:48

places, most divinity schools,

29:50

you know, they're academic places. They're training

29:52

ministers, but they're academic as opposed

29:55

to a lot of seminaries, which are not

29:57

academic. You know, they're really minister-

29:59

factories and Princeton though was both.

30:03

So Princeton University started out

30:05

as a minister training place.

30:07

They all did. And then

30:09

it split into the university

30:12

and the seven, so they're right across the street and

30:14

you could take classes of both places. I was

30:16

wondering if there's that class turnaround when I was again in

30:18

Boston at MIT, I could

30:20

take classes at Harvard. And in fact, one of my good

30:23

friends, by the way, did a master's in infinity and

30:25

he was an atheist, but it was kind of like the equivalent

30:27

doing an undergraduate liberal arts

30:29

degree. He

30:29

just wanted to continue and he was able to do

30:32

it in the divinity school, which is a good place to be able

30:34

to do those kinds of things. So they're right across

30:36

the street. Did you take classes at Princeton as well

30:38

as the seminary? Or did you?

30:40

Not much. They're a bunch of secularists.

30:42

What do they know? Okay, you're still, that

30:45

was still your feeling, okay. Well,

30:48

no, it wasn't quite my feeling. My feeling was that I

30:50

was really interested in, at

30:53

that point in my life, I was really interested in biblical

30:55

interpretation. And

30:57

in the analysis of ancient Greek manuscripts.

31:01

And those are two things that happened at the seminary.

31:04

At the university, they definitely

31:07

had a religious studies program and they had people who

31:09

worked in a new Testament and early Christianity,

31:12

but they had more of a kind of a social historical

31:15

approach rather than a interpretive

31:18

approach. And nobody over there worked

31:20

in the specialized field of

31:23

the analysis of Greek manuscripts. And

31:25

so basically once again, I made

31:27

bad decisions and decided just to take classes

31:30

at the seminary.

31:31

Well, it didn't,

31:34

you came out okay. But

31:38

nevertheless, actually it was a bad decision as

31:41

far as you as a

31:43

fundamentalist Christian is concerned because it

31:46

was there that you began, I think

31:48

to see the contradict, correct

31:50

me if I'm wrong, but as far as I understand, because

31:53

you're interested in interpretation, and

31:56

I think actually, and this is,

31:58

I think even this is from your Wikipedia.

31:59

the media page,

32:00

realized the time there were 5,000 manuscripts

32:03

of the New Testament, and they weren't the same.

32:05

And beginning to see discrepancies is

32:08

what began to maybe convince you they weren't

32:10

divine. Is that, do you want to elaborate?

32:12

Yeah,

32:13

that's kind of yes and no. And so the

32:15

deal with the manuscripts is that I

32:18

had actually known all about this before, even

32:20

when I was a fundamentalist at Moody, I wrote papers

32:22

on it, that you have,

32:24

we have, today we have about 5,600

32:26

Greek manuscripts of

32:29

the New Testament, and we don't have

32:30

the originals. And so we have

32:32

to figure out what the authors wrote,

32:35

since we don't have that writing, but we have these later copies.

32:38

And one of the reasons I went into the analysis

32:40

of Greek manuscripts was because when

32:42

I was a fundamentalist, I thought that God

32:45

had inspired every word, but

32:46

I realized there were places where we didn't know what

32:48

the words were.

32:50

And so I wanted to find the words.

32:53

And that in itself didn't

32:55

lead me away from the faith. What

32:57

led me away from the faith was the place from

33:00

being a fundamentalist Christian. What led me away

33:02

from that was places where

33:04

we were pretty sure we knew what the words were. And

33:07

when you compare this passage with that

33:09

passage in their origin, what seemed

33:11

to be their original words, they just contradicted each

33:13

other. And I finally got to a

33:15

point where I had to admit it, that

33:18

these two passages, they really do

33:20

contradict each other. And I might as well give up

33:22

the attempt to show

33:25

that you can reconcile them. I've

33:27

been trained to reconcile everything. And at some

33:29

point, if you're just being intellectually honest, say,

33:31

you know, I don't think so. This is a contradiction.

33:34

That's what made me think. Yeah. Yeah.

33:37

That's the, that's the, what I admire. It's the intellectual honesty.

33:40

I

33:41

have, actually years later I was invited

33:43

back to a event at Yale for the hundredth anniversary

33:45

of some lectureship on religion. And

33:48

it was me and five theologians.

33:50

I was the token atheist, but

33:52

I was amazed at how

33:54

they were able to

33:56

like do epicircles with an epicircle. They

33:59

were very...

33:59

intellectually facile, or

34:03

not facile is not the word, intellectually capable

34:07

of taking things that appear to be contradictions

34:09

and finding some ways to make them not. And

34:13

I guess I find your intellectual honesty refreshing,

34:15

but you probably spring forward on that.

34:17

This is at Yale. Yeah. I mean, at

34:19

the Divinity School- These were not all theologians, though. These

34:21

were people who came back to lecture

34:24

about God. One was from

34:26

Notre Dame, a very famous theologian from Notre

34:28

Dame, for example, and

34:29

you probably know. Because most famous

34:32

theologians and serious biblical scholars,

34:35

there's nobody at Yale who thinks that the

34:37

New Testament is without contradiction. That

34:39

is, nobody likes it. Yeah, these were people coming

34:41

to talk about,

34:43

basically, well, about

34:45

God. And but

34:49

I was surprised when I, you know, when confronted

34:51

with the, as inevitably,

34:54

I think anyone is, the apparent,

34:57

not just internal contradictions

34:59

between the Scriptures as different writers

35:02

write as you talk about it, lengthen both books

35:04

and in general, but the contradictions

35:06

with science. But

35:09

that's what I found amazing, is that they could take these contradictions

35:11

and turn them around and do this immense

35:15

set of logical

35:17

steps from one to the other until they came back

35:19

and it was all, you know, apparently

35:22

made it seem consistent when it wasn't at all. I was

35:25

impressed by their

35:26

fluidity of that regard, but

35:28

I'm more impressed by people who look at contradictions

35:30

and say their contradictions, I think. Right, right.

35:33

Well, that's a tricky, one reason it's a tricky business

35:35

is because I think a lot of people who are sophisticated,

35:38

who are theologians, think of theological

35:41

reasoning

35:42

as in a different sphere from

35:45

scientific reasoning. And they see that as

35:47

different from mathematical

35:50

reasoning, and they see that as different from sociological

35:53

reasoning. And they think that these different spheres

35:55

have different ways of justifying knowledge

35:58

and grounding knowledge. And so

35:59

they don't think some not

36:02

all there's not there's not like a

36:04

view about this or millions of views about it

36:07

but one view is that it means that you

36:09

can't really use

36:10

science to discredit claims

36:12

that are susceptible to science and so

36:14

when somebody like you know like when

36:17

someone like Sam Harris or somebody says

36:19

that you know that it just it's

36:21

a contradiction of science

36:24

that you know that to be religious you have to

36:26

disbelieve science they just these people just

36:28

roll their eyes and say no actually it doesn't work that way

36:30

because they you know scientific

36:33

knowledge it's not that they really believe there's an Adam

36:35

and Eve or anything like that but they

36:37

think that they're the god

36:39

talk somehow

36:40

isn't kind of confined within the

36:43

you know the ways of science

36:45

you know that's interesting I wasn't you

36:48

just remind me something I wasn't gonna bring up but it I've

36:51

as I say I've had

36:53

chances over the years including at the Vatican

36:55

but to speak to many thought theologians because I

36:58

used to get invited to the lots of different places and

37:01

and I always ask the theologian one

37:04

question because in my opinion the

37:06

theology is not theology

37:09

itself

37:10

is not an area of scholarship of what

37:12

I would call academic scholarship in the sense and

37:14

I and I confronted them by asking the phone question

37:16

I'd say give me one example in the last 500 years

37:19

of a contribution to knowledge that

37:22

theology is provided now I'm not talking about

37:24

a history or philosophy but

37:26

and and I always got

37:29

the same answer which which I

37:31

guess what the way you talk about it makes it clear

37:34

every single time the answer was what do you

37:36

mean by knowledge

37:38

and I thought that was fascinating

37:40

I didn't quite you know it really shocked me at the time but

37:42

in the context of what you're saying it makes

37:44

it clear like what what and and and

37:47

I would always say well you know if I asked a chemist

37:49

or a biologist or a historian they did they'd

37:51

tell me right off they wouldn't ask a question

37:54

what do you mean by knowledge and I think in

37:56

some sense they have to write because you have to assume

37:58

somehow

37:59

In order to account for all this, you have to assume that

38:02

there's some distinction

38:03

between knowledge

38:05

and the rest of the world and knowledge of God.

38:07

Well,

38:10

theologians do think that they've made progress

38:13

on certain issues, but since nothing

38:16

is testable,

38:17

it's not knowledge in the same sense. I mean,

38:19

you can't, how do you show that,

38:23

particular theological view is right or

38:25

wrong? It doesn't work in the same way

38:27

that you can, where you can do some,

38:30

have an experiment or something. Well, you can philosophy,

38:33

you can. But I guess that's what I'm saying. I mean, it seems

38:35

to me what I used to argue,

38:36

I don't wanna be too

38:38

controversial here or contradictory here, but

38:42

I used to say, we could take theology and you could take

38:44

the parts for the useful, there's history, there's literary

38:46

criticism, there's philosophy, there's logic,

38:49

put them in their relative departments and then there's nothing

38:51

left. And

38:54

I- Yeah, no, look,

38:56

I'm on your side on this, but they would

38:58

say that

39:00

it's different because it has a different subject

39:02

and it has a different grounding. And

39:06

I know people who are not in that world just

39:08

think, man, that's, I don't know, they

39:11

just stuck their head in the ground. As

39:13

you've experienced, there's some very smart people doing this. Remarkably

39:17

smart and remarkably literate. And it's

39:19

really

39:20

fascinating to me. And I

39:23

wanna, yeah, well, we'll get to that in the context

39:25

of your writing later, because

39:28

I'm, no, anyway, we'll get to it. I wanna go in

39:30

a circle. I wanted to start with you and I wanna end with you. But

39:32

if we, in six or eight hours from now, no,

39:34

hopefully not. It's all about me.

39:36

Yeah, that's right. Well, and

39:39

you're the interesting person that I wanted to talk to. And

39:42

I've learned a lot just

39:44

both listening to you and reading you and I appreciate

39:46

it. But,

39:52

just as you talked about the road to belief that

39:54

while it was pretty quick there, it was a burn again moment. You

39:57

wanna talk about the road to disbelief? I

39:59

mean, you started...

39:59

get liberal. But when did and the contradictions,

40:02

was it just the fact that there were contradictions that

40:05

that were inherently there that led

40:07

you to disbelief or was it or was it more?

40:10

Actually, it wasn't that at all, as it turns out that

40:14

the contradictions opened

40:16

my eyes to the Bible being a very

40:18

human book.

40:21

And

40:22

so this was probably my third

40:24

year, my master's program, I started

40:27

realizing that I just couldn't hold on to

40:29

a strong evangelical understanding

40:31

of the Bible anymore. But

40:33

I remained a Christian for a long time. I

40:37

did my PhD, I was a Christian whole time as a PhD,

40:39

I actually during my PhD, I was a minister

40:41

of a Baptist church, reached

40:43

on the radio every Sunday morning and

40:46

did funerals and weddings

40:48

and things. Yeah,

40:50

Baptist Church. So, so I stayed a Christian.

40:52

And then I became increasingly liberal,

40:54

I'd say, I got to a point where I was a

40:57

very, very liberal Christian, where I believed, now

40:59

I thought there was some kind of divine being in the universe,

41:01

and that Jesus was the way that this

41:04

divine being could be better understood

41:06

the stories about Jesus, I didn't think that they

41:08

were, we literally knew everything Jesus

41:10

said, or did or anything like that. But I

41:12

thought that

41:13

the kind of the biblical story

41:16

embraced in some sense, the kind of the ultimate

41:18

meaning of the universe that's backed by some

41:20

kind of divine being out there is a very liberal view. But

41:23

at some point,

41:25

probably about 30 years ago, I just gave it all up.

41:27

And it wasn't because of my scholar, any of my

41:29

scholarship per se, my biblical

41:32

scholarship, it really was because of

41:34

trying to wrestle with the problem of suffering.

41:37

And,

41:38

you know, whatever, whatever one thinks

41:41

as a Christian, I mean, the basic

41:43

line is that there's a divine being in the world

41:45

who intervenes and

41:48

helps people when they are in need and saves

41:50

people. And I

41:53

thought about it for a long time read about it for a long time,

41:55

in various fields, philosophy, theology,

41:59

biblical study, you know, know, I just I

42:01

got to a point where I just didn't believe there's

42:03

a God who's active in the world.

42:05

You just look around. Just look around. It's

42:07

so clear to me and so obvious but

42:10

it's just I mean there's so much pain

42:12

and suffering among people who have no there's

42:14

no nothing redemptive about it sometimes

42:16

there's nothing salvific about it there's nothing good

42:19

about and you know saying that it's all gonna be made

42:21

right later didn't do much for

42:23

me and somebody has to be tortured now so

42:25

they can have a nice afterlife it just didn't make any

42:27

sense to me. So I finally gave

42:29

it up. It was after I came to Chapel

42:32

Hill I had been teaching here for a few years.

42:34

Yeah

42:36

I went to the local Episcopal Church and

42:38

was active at the adult Sunday school

42:41

for some years. So while you were Rutgers before

42:43

then you were still. Yeah at Rutgers

42:46

I was still active as a Christian and in

42:48

a church and so

42:51

my

42:52

you know moving to North Carolina

42:54

to become away from New Jersey

42:56

to North Carolina to become to lose your faith

42:58

it's kind of the opposite of most people. Yeah

43:01

right yeah I know who would have thought but yeah

43:03

I know but I just I just got to a

43:06

point where I couldn't accept it anymore and

43:08

so you know

43:09

left it.

43:10

Now okay now you call

43:12

yourself agnostic or at least written your

43:15

agnostic but you know

43:17

I wrote up I actually got I wrote the

43:19

forward for a book called The Case for Atheism

43:22

and I had to read the book as an old book and so

43:24

you may know the book but but but

43:27

I figured if I was gonna write the forward I should read the book and

43:29

and

43:30

and it was the first time he said something that

43:33

is obvious to me in retrospect and yet most

43:35

people it didn't hit me then

43:37

and it and most people don't buy it which is

43:39

agnostics are atheists in

43:42

the sense that atheists don't have

43:44

to be atheists aren't people there's some

43:46

atheists who say everything is wrong there's no God

43:48

I know what I'm certain blah blah blah but

43:51

all that

43:52

atheism is in principle thing is the stories

43:54

don't convince me I'm not I'm not convinced

43:57

by anything I've read and

43:59

and that's a whole spectrum, including agnostics,

44:01

you say, well, I'm not convinced by anything I've read. But

44:03

that doesn't mean you know, there's something I don't know

44:05

about. And, and,

44:07

and I'm do you do you buy that? Do you agree with that?

44:09

Or no?

44:10

So I have a different view of what

44:12

atheism and agnosticism are than most

44:15

people have. Okay. When

44:17

I when I left the faith, I,

44:20

I had the kind of view you're talking about, which

44:22

is that atheism and agnosticism

44:25

are kind of on a spectrum. And

44:27

that agnostics are ones who say, well, I don't

44:29

really know an atheist, like a

44:31

hardcore atheist, there is no God.

44:34

And, and with that, when

44:36

I when I became an agnostic, I had no idea going

44:38

into it, that these that if you do polarize

44:40

these two groups and have a binary of agnostics

44:43

and atheists, they really are, they

44:46

really are antagonistic toward one another. Yeah,

44:49

I just thought they'd all be kind of, you know, the same. But

44:51

the way it worked out is that atheists

44:54

all in this binary, the

44:56

atheists all thought that the agnostics were simply

44:58

wimpy atheists. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They didn't believe in God,

45:01

but they're too like they're afraid to say, yeah. And

45:03

the agnostics, on the other hand, thought that the

45:05

atheists were just arrogant agnostic agnostics,

45:08

like, they don't know how the hell would they know?

45:10

But they're saying dogmatic agnostics and

45:12

dogmatic. But now I actually, I actually,

45:15

I call myself both an agnostic and

45:18

an atheist, because I think that they're talking about

45:20

two different things. agnosticism

45:23

literally means don't know, Greek,

45:26

I don't know. So if somebody asks me, you know,

45:29

is there a is there a superior divine being

45:32

in the universe? I don't know.

45:34

How would I know? But

45:37

if somebody asked me, you know, do you do you believe there

45:39

is?

45:40

I'd say no, I don't think so.

45:43

And so I think agnosticism

45:46

has to do with knowledge and atheism has to do with

45:48

belief. But it ends up

45:50

kind of where you are, too. It means that really,

45:52

I think both are both. Yeah,

45:54

yeah, both are both. If

45:57

we just said atheism instead of atheism.

45:59

be a little bit better because it's sort of basically

46:02

saying, you know, I don't, it's not I

46:04

don't think it's belief but rather a lack of belief,

46:06

or, or, or, yeah, I try

46:08

to actually as a scientist, I

46:10

make it quite clear because I'm asked all the time do you believe in this

46:12

and that. And I try, although I don't,

46:15

I'm not

46:16

perfect in this regard, in any regard.

46:20

I try never use the word belief because I

46:22

say things are either likely or they're not likely. But,

46:25

but from this, if I if I'm got my

46:27

scientific

46:28

my scientists that on the belief there's no

46:31

room for belief in science it's it's.

46:34

Yeah, well I mean that you probably know you wouldn't

46:37

know better than me that goes back to ancient philosophical Greek

46:39

philosophical traditions, belief is kind

46:41

of a second category of

46:44

knowledge, and so

46:46

that, yeah, I would agree with that but that's why

46:48

I think they're I think they're two different belief,

46:50

and I would put, I wouldn't say it's actually just

46:52

a weaker form of knowledge I'd say in fact it's a different

46:55

category belief and knowledge.

46:57

And yeah well I mean, I guess,

46:59

yeah. Well we're going

47:01

play sad and plan to but this is good. We'll try,

47:03

I'll try and get to your books as well in detail but

47:05

I hope you don't mind having a general conversation as well. I'm

47:09

really fascinated by it to talk to someone who's thought about

47:11

these things in such detail. But,

47:13

see for me, I'm an old fashioned

47:16

kind of scientists and for me,

47:18

there is no knowledge but empirical knowledge that

47:21

that

47:22

there's no nothing that there may be wisdom

47:24

from reflection but not no knowledge has ever been

47:26

gained by revelation.

47:28

Do you agree with that. Absolutely. Okay.

47:32

No, I'm a complete empiricist too I mean it's, and

47:35

I'm a complete materialist. Well, and you're,

47:37

I mean you can see the empiricism in your

47:39

analysis, you know you, if you want to say,

47:41

you can say well what, what, what

47:43

could this

47:45

person gospel person have thought, let's

47:47

look and you know, it did this come

47:49

from their writing let's see what evidence we have and I,

47:52

and I did find it fascinating I have to say,

47:54

I

47:56

found it overwhelming in some ways, your,

47:58

your energy to be able to explain it to you. explore

48:02

the details of the scriptures is

48:05

something I again, I

48:08

it's by nature, I can't I

48:10

would I would never be able to devote that kind of energy to

48:12

it. It's just because to me it all it just all

48:14

seems clearly

48:17

I don't want to say nonsense, but it seems clearly

48:20

myth and

48:21

myth and and belief and and I guess

48:23

therefore I tend to just sort of automatically

48:25

by

48:26

by disposition sort of discounted.

48:28

I get that. I

48:30

mean, it's like spending your life trying to, you know,

48:33

analyze the truth behind a grim fairy tale or

48:35

something. Well, what's the point? I mean, it's like, it's

48:37

a fairy tale. But but in my case, you

48:39

know, I got I got so interested in it as

48:41

a as a Christian that

48:44

interest continued because I realized there's a lot

48:46

of historical and cultural

48:49

importance to this material.

48:52

And

48:53

I'm just I'm endlessly fascinated

48:56

by in part because so many people completely

48:58

misunderstand it. But,

49:00

you know, there, there are over 2 billion Christians

49:02

in the world who believe in the Bible, it seems

49:05

useful to try and figure out what

49:07

it's really all about. And and and and

49:09

it's great. And as my

49:10

as my friend, my late friend, the physicist

49:13

Steven Weinberg, also an atheist would say

49:15

that in trying to explain that you're doing God's

49:18

work. And I would.

49:21

But, you know, I think it's really important

49:23

for someone to be able to say, honestly, here, let's

49:26

let's talk about what's actually here. And

49:28

someone with, you know, someone who isn't already

49:30

typecast like me. Someone

49:33

who's willing to think about it carefully and who has

49:35

the appropriate credentials as well, for

49:37

whatever that's worth. And that's why it's so fascinating

49:40

to go through this and see in detail

49:42

why most of what is conventionally

49:45

believed is wrong. I mean, when

49:47

I think about everything from how Jesus is

49:50

was always thought to be God and accepted be God,

49:52

something you clearly demonstrate

49:55

in how Jesus became God was not true, to

49:57

the notion of a rapture and

51:56

Your

52:00

books made me think even more about how

52:02

effectively religion, which I

52:05

tend to think of as a con job, has gone through that con

52:07

job. But before

52:09

that, I mean, I understand,

52:11

I

52:12

guess I was going to ask, how can

52:14

you spend so much time in the detail

52:17

analyzing each of these things? But

52:19

I got some perception. I think it's the

52:21

Armageddon

52:22

book.

52:28

But

52:32

I think you say the New Testament is the most

52:34

important collection of books in the history of

52:36

civilization. And that

52:38

just, whoa, that just

52:41

shocked me. I think I kind of understand perhaps

52:44

the context of that.

52:46

But you

52:50

want to explain that? Why

52:52

you say that? I don't. Yeah, no, I don't think it's even

52:54

debatable. I mean, I mean,

52:56

how does one measure importance? Well, you

52:58

measure importance. And when you talk about cultural,

53:01

social, not

53:03

just religious, economic, political, I mean, throughout

53:05

the history of the West, by far, the

53:08

most powerful institution has been the Christian

53:10

church. There's nothing compares with it

53:12

for the long dure. I

53:14

mean, you just look at the last two thousand

53:17

years,

53:17

which which controlled

53:20

not just like knowledge about religion, it

53:22

controlled knowledge of science for most of the central

53:24

world. It was the only it was the only game in town if you

53:26

wanted to get in town. And and

53:29

it's and it's all rooted in the New Testament.

53:32

So what what book what book

53:34

would compare with that? Well, I don't know. I

53:36

was assuming you came from impact. Culturally,

53:39

it has had a huge impact. But if you think about

53:41

let me just let me try and be the I'm

53:43

willing to buy that. But let me try and be the devil's advocate,

53:45

which is my natural state.

53:49

In terms of impact on the modern world, one

53:52

could say Newton's Principio or

53:54

Galileo's D'Algene science in terms

53:56

of changing the world in a

53:58

way that allows you and I to talk.

53:59

across a continent without having to be beside

54:02

each other. So in

54:04

terms of changing the way we

54:06

live nowadays, I could make the

54:08

argument that

54:11

those books, and you say collection of books, so

54:14

I'm going to say Brim Kippia, The Dialogue,

54:17

and a few others, works

54:21

of Einstein and others

54:22

have changed the world at least as much,

54:25

at least the modern world as much, not

54:27

integrated over history because it's only 450

54:30

or 500 years old. What

54:32

do you think? I completely

54:34

agree. Completely agree. I mean,

54:36

Brim Kippia, in

54:40

terms of modern world,

54:42

more people probably believe in

54:44

the book of Genesis than Brim

54:46

Kippia, but there's no doubt we wouldn't.

54:49

Our world would not be here.

54:52

So

54:55

that's why when you said it's the most important question. But I say

54:57

in the history of civilization. What

54:59

about compared to the Qur'an then, given

55:02

what's happening in the modern world?

55:05

How would you compare those? Well,

55:08

you wouldn't have Islam without Christianity,

55:10

I don't think. And the Hebrew

55:12

Bible, of course, is massively important, but

55:15

if without a New Testament, it would have been a set

55:19

of scriptures used by a few

55:22

million people today. Something

55:25

used by two billion people today.

55:27

Well, okay. And I

55:29

think what I was saying when you're froze is

55:32

that I guess it's in that context

55:34

that I can understand why you have the

55:36

energy to

55:37

be able to go into such incredible

55:41

depth into each of the words

55:43

and the statements of people. When you

55:45

know those statements in some sense are

55:48

often invented.

55:51

Yeah, but you know,

55:53

look, my wife is a expert

55:55

on Shakespeare. Okay.

55:57

And she goes really into depth.

55:59

She's a...

58:00

Not that I want to bring people say I always bring

58:02

things back to me But that's why I write you know trying

58:04

to connect science and culture because I think this idea

58:07

is important But I try and reach people in area

58:09

in ways that they're intrinsically interested in

58:11

because they may not be They might not

58:13

perceive they're intrinsically interested in science, but they

58:15

are and so if I can reach them by Star

58:17

Trek or some other

58:19

No, well, no, thank

58:21

God for people like you because I mean people like me

58:23

wouldn't have any interest in science If it

58:25

was taught the way I mean, you know You have to have

58:28

somebody who can actually show why it really

58:30

is interesting and what's interesting about

58:32

it And as you know, most scholars

58:34

can't do that

58:35

Yeah, well that it's true by

58:38

most scholars can't but I think I was gonna say thank God

58:40

I would only use those words, but thank God for

58:42

people like you because and I should say

58:44

but remarkably Christopher Hitchens

58:47

Because I would know much less about

58:49

the scriptures if I hadn't read both of

58:51

you

58:52

And and because

58:54

I wouldn't I mean I did read the Bible when I was younger

58:56

in fact, I read it and I read the grant to but not

58:59

with the kind of

59:00

critical eye and and And

59:03

so it's I've learned a tremendous amount

59:05

and and and my first my view I

59:08

wrote these notes to myself

59:10

By the way, I learned something wonderful Which

59:13

was that religion is what comes

59:15

can be in some sense be derived from that from I guess

59:17

it's the the Latin word cultus Latin

59:20

phrase cultus cultus decorum,

59:23

which

59:23

I just love the idea as it and

59:26

and and it doesn't translate to what

59:28

you think it's not a cult so much as

59:30

Cultus

59:32

dorm is just the way you worship the worship

59:34

the God you take care of the gods Yeah taking

59:37

care of the gods, but I think and that's shooting

59:39

but what what came out to me

59:42

the the key I First

59:45

thought maybe not the first thought but when

59:47

I try to put it in perspective

59:49

both from how Jesus became God and from Armageddon

59:53

is that As you

59:55

point out serious religious scholars Know

59:58

about the discrepancies. They also

59:59

also, as far as I can tell, know,

1:00:02

as far as I can tell from reading, then they know

1:00:04

that the key stories that are so central

1:00:08

to the

1:00:09

religion that people go to

1:00:11

church for every week

1:00:14

and celebrate Christians for, that those stories,

1:00:16

like the Three Wise Men and the Virgin Birth, are

1:00:19

not, were not even central to the scriptures.

1:00:22

And so, explain

1:00:25

to me how that's not a con job, in a sense. If the people

1:00:27

who are doing it know it, is it just simply

1:00:29

because they think the ends, they're evangelical

1:00:32

at heart, and the ends justify the means.

1:00:34

And if these stories will bring, because they

1:00:37

believe Jesus is God, and

1:00:40

therefore anything that will get people interested

1:00:43

is good, even if it's just, even if it's

1:00:45

not true, even if it's not true, even in the biblical

1:00:47

context.

1:00:48

Why does, why does all,

1:00:50

why do the central pieces of both the rapture,

1:00:53

but even coming back to the

1:00:55

Three Wise Men and all the things that I have seen

1:00:58

TV shows on since I was a little kid, why,

1:01:00

why

1:01:01

do serious people who know that's

1:01:04

not true allow that to continue as being

1:01:06

the central part of most

1:01:08

people, you know, they go to high, to

1:01:11

midnight mass and that's their religious experience.

1:01:15

Yeah, so it's a complicated

1:01:17

question, because

1:01:19

they're within, within,

1:01:23

within scholarship, of course, the people

1:01:26

who teach universities and colleges who teach

1:01:28

biblical studies are,

1:01:31

they won't agree with everything that I say, obviously

1:01:33

there were disagreements, just like there are in the sciences

1:01:36

about this, then the other thing, but the basic framework

1:01:39

that I operate under is the standard

1:01:42

operating framework within institutions

1:01:44

of higher learning.

1:01:47

Religious universities, but also high level

1:01:50

divinity schools and seminaries.

1:01:53

The problem is that most

1:01:55

people who are thought

1:01:57

to be religious experts are not those

1:01:59

people. Those people who

1:02:02

are scholars, by and large, they teach their

1:02:04

undergraduate classes or even their graduate classes,

1:02:07

but they're not out there, you

1:02:08

know, in a mega church talking. And

1:02:12

so you whereas you've got pastors

1:02:15

and evangelists and such

1:02:18

who really are the ones who have the attention to the audiences.

1:02:21

And most of those people really do believe this stuff.

1:02:23

They believe in the rapture. They're

1:02:25

not conning people. They really think they really believe

1:02:28

it. Well,

1:02:30

they're wrong, but they,

1:02:32

you know, and they don't, they're not interested in reading

1:02:34

scholarship to find out that they're wrong. Because they know

1:02:36

the truth. Particularly inquisitive. They know the answers

1:02:39

before you ask the question. So, but yeah,

1:02:41

that's it. But

1:02:43

let's, but there are a lot of Catholics, let's

1:02:45

say, and you know, and I'm, I'm,

1:02:47

I was never a fan. I'm not a fan of the Pope in general,

1:02:49

any of the popes. And I know that Francis

1:02:52

is like a kinder, gentler version of Benedict.

1:02:55

I don't see any real difference. But anyway, but

1:02:57

Benedict, you know, I was at the Vatican, and I went, I was

1:02:59

at a meeting that sponsored there on the far future of

1:03:02

the universe, and

1:03:03

which was an experience for me. But, but,

1:03:06

but

1:03:07

Benedict was no fool. He was a he was

1:03:09

a theological scholar.

1:03:11

Yet he ran. And so therefore he knew

1:03:13

the contradictions. But he ran what

1:03:15

I guess is the biggest Christian

1:03:17

church in the world, right? I mean, most Christians

1:03:20

are Catholics, I assume I don't know the

1:03:22

numbers, but I bet. Yeah.

1:03:25

So I think in cases like that, the

1:03:29

analogy that works better for

1:03:31

not analogy, but the example that works

1:03:33

better for me is that my

1:03:35

classmates, when I went through seminary at

1:03:38

Princeton Theological Seminary, most

1:03:40

of them are training for ministry.

1:03:42

And most of them,

1:03:43

most of them agree, you know, the

1:03:45

gospels have contradictions, there are things you don't

1:03:47

know what Jesus really said and did, there's no rapture

1:03:50

coming. Most of them will not be preaching

1:03:52

about a rapture, because they're in fairly liberal

1:03:54

Presbyterian churches, but they simply

1:03:56

won't tell their people

1:03:57

that they don't think there really was a virgin birth.

1:03:59

or that, you know, Matthew and

1:04:02

Mark are contradicting each other all over the

1:04:04

place. And I assume that the reason

1:04:07

that the Pope doesn't go out

1:04:09

with that kind of thing, why these friends

1:04:11

of mine don't go out when they're in churches, they'll

1:04:14

go out this kind of thing, is because ultimately

1:04:16

they think the religion is not about that anyway.

1:04:19

That the religion is not about the

1:04:22

absolute accuracy of the Bible.

1:04:24

The religion is about a relationship

1:04:28

with God through Christ that isn't mediated

1:04:30

necessarily through the Bible.

1:04:32

The idea that it has to be

1:04:34

mediated through the Bible, that if the Bible

1:04:36

has mistakes,

1:04:38

religion can't be true. That

1:04:41

is, that's a modern concoction. That is not

1:04:43

how Christianity is typically done. It's more fundamental

1:04:45

than that. I'm not saying, yeah, sure, I understand they

1:04:47

don't take it literally, and they view it as an

1:04:50

allegory for at least taking, you know, because

1:04:52

they believe in Christ as God. But

1:04:55

if they recognize even that even

1:04:57

the details of Christ as God are

1:04:59

questionable, then

1:05:03

is it, you know, I, you know, what

1:05:05

came to mind when I was thinking about this is, well,

1:05:08

as I say, I think it's, I assume

1:05:10

it's from a fundamental belief that they're doing

1:05:12

good work, that the best thing to do is get people

1:05:15

to accept Christ in their hearts. And even if

1:05:17

they have to finesse it and lie

1:05:20

or seduce them, it's still for their own good.

1:05:23

And therefore it's okay

1:05:24

to, and you know

1:05:26

what came to me was, remember The Few Good

1:05:28

Men, the movie, did you ever see that with Tom? Just

1:05:31

reminded me of Jack Nicholson. They

1:05:32

reminded me of the kinder, gentler version

1:05:34

of Jack Nicholson saying, you can't handle

1:05:37

the truth. You can't handle the truth.

1:05:39

You need me here. Yeah, I

1:05:42

got it. Yeah, great movie, but I thought.

1:05:45

But that came to mind. Do you think that's it, that

1:05:47

they thinking that people, if most

1:05:49

people saw the contradictions, they would give up their faith? Yeah,

1:05:51

no, that is right.

1:05:53

They give up their faith and the person and the pastor

1:05:55

loses job. It's a job security issue as well. Yeah.

1:06:00

It's a, it is a very big problem. Yeah.

1:06:02

No, I, I, I do agree with that. And

1:06:05

it's frustrating to me because

1:06:07

I, you know, back when I used to, I sometimes still

1:06:09

talk in churches and there'll be a church

1:06:11

there and I'll, I'll go and give some, uh,

1:06:14

talk and there'll be people listening to my lecture and somebody

1:06:16

would come up, this elderly lady will come

1:06:18

up to me, been in the church for like 70

1:06:20

years of her life. And she'd come up to me and she says, well,

1:06:22

I haven't never heard this before. And I'll look

1:06:25

across and I'll see the pastor. I said, you know, that guy

1:06:27

actually was in the same class as I was in.

1:06:29

The reason you haven't heard it is because he's

1:06:32

afraid to tell you. That's why. Yeah.

1:06:34

No, that part's not good. And the,

1:06:36

and the thing is you can, it's

1:06:38

very hard because you're trying to, and it's

1:06:41

the clergy project, as you know, I'm sure.

1:06:43

Yeah. And I met a lot of people who,

1:06:46

yeah, that's their livelihood and not only just

1:06:48

their livelihood, that's their place in the community

1:06:51

and their wife and their or husband

1:06:53

and children, um,

1:06:54

uh, you know, they would

1:06:56

be ostracized if they, if, if there's

1:06:58

all sorts of pressure to,

1:07:00

to not speak about even

1:07:02

one's own doubts.

1:07:04

Well, I think, I think before somebody gets

1:07:06

to that point, they probably are on the point that you were

1:07:08

talking about that they, you know, they think that they can

1:07:10

do a world of good for these people. And so they're,

1:07:13

you know, in some ways, um, not

1:07:15

wonder, I don't know enough about your, your world,

1:07:17

but I mean, I imagine there are probably people

1:07:20

who don't

1:07:21

subscribe to scientific orthodoxies,

1:07:23

like a big bang or something, but they still teach it

1:07:25

in their classes.

1:07:27

I hope not. Really? Um,

1:07:29

uh, uh, uh, uh, I mean, I

1:07:31

don't, you know, they're, the only thing

1:07:33

I know of are people who, and again,

1:07:35

it's only,

1:07:36

it's only because of

1:07:38

religious belief. There are people, because

1:07:40

I firmly believe people can hold two completely

1:07:42

contradictory ideas in their head at the same time. Not

1:07:44

only do I believe that I know it, uh, I

1:07:47

can see it.

1:07:48

Um, you know, Richard Dawkins talks

1:07:50

about geologists, friend, people

1:07:52

he knows who,

1:07:53

who literally believe the earth is 6,000

1:07:55

years old and then go in the laboratory and work on these,

1:07:58

you know,

1:07:58

a hundred million year old rocks. Yeah,

1:08:00

and so I didn't mean it like that. I didn't mean like the same

1:08:02

time.

1:08:03

Yeah, no, I didn't mean it like that. I didn't mean that somebody

1:08:05

like as a fundamentalist who believes he got created the

1:08:08

world, but teaches the big bang. I mean, that they

1:08:10

subscribe to some more complicated theory. Yeah.

1:08:13

Yeah, well, I mean, I like

1:08:15

to think they would talk about it. I think, you

1:08:17

know, it's not, it's, I

1:08:20

guess the difference and to some extent

1:08:22

I noticed this in the kind of scholarship.

1:08:25

It's not subscribing

1:08:27

to theories and it, I

1:08:29

think it's, I've seen it in

1:08:31

theologians and philosophers,

1:08:34

not end historians to some extent,

1:08:37

referring often

1:08:40

saying this person thinks this and this person thinks

1:08:42

that and you know,

1:08:44

taking, you know, in their scholarly work,

1:08:46

referring to individuals and

1:08:48

what they say.

1:08:50

But of course in science, that's just not

1:08:53

the way it is. So I don't think of subscribing to a

1:08:55

theory. I think

1:08:56

it's, it's,

1:08:58

the people aren't important. And moreover,

1:09:01

it's, it's, you

1:09:04

know, you can, if you,

1:09:08

there are areas of science, in fact, my new book is all about that.

1:09:12

It's the edge of knowledge. There's areas of science where we're

1:09:14

at the limits of what we can say we know

1:09:17

and we know things we know what we don't know.

1:09:19

The book in England is called the known unknowns.

1:09:23

And that's where there can be vigorous, vigorous

1:09:25

debate, but no one, I think, you

1:09:27

know, will actually,

1:09:30

there are debates about things like even whether quantum mechanics

1:09:32

is fundamental but I think, I

1:09:35

guess the point is that people

1:09:37

who view it as not being fundamental are open about it. There's

1:09:40

no, there's no need to sort of teach in

1:09:42

class.

1:09:43

I mean, you know, I was just had

1:09:46

a dialogue with a with a wonderful physicist

1:09:48

Tim Palmer who's a meteorologist and climate

1:09:50

science, but he actually thinks that quantum mechanics

1:09:52

is not fundamental, but he would teach quantum mechanics

1:09:55

in a, in a,

1:09:56

in a class. But what he would say is, and

1:09:58

this makes it appear

1:09:59

that a classical world is impossible. And then I think he'd

1:10:02

explain why he doesn't think that's the case. But

1:10:04

anyway, it's it's a it's a slightly different kind

1:10:06

of know it's not yeah, I don't think you subscribe

1:10:09

to schools of thought.

1:10:10

I mean, there are fads and science, absolutely.

1:10:13

And the sciences of

1:10:15

scientists are human, although most people don't realize

1:10:17

it. And, and you know, so people are driven

1:10:20

by fads and preferences and peer

1:10:22

pressure and all sorts of the rest of the same sort of things.

1:10:24

So so the the analogy I was having in mind

1:10:26

is that sometimes when you teach something, you teach something

1:10:28

that actually isn't literally right. But

1:10:31

the person has to know this so that you can build

1:10:33

on it. And you don't tell them this isn't

1:10:35

literally right. You

1:10:38

just teach the thing. And then at a later

1:10:40

stage, they learn. And I think a lot

1:10:42

of pastors are kind of like that.

1:10:44

You know, they they're

1:10:46

they're saying, you know,

1:10:47

in their head, they're saying this isn't this really

1:10:49

isn't but you've got to know this before I can go

1:10:52

beyond it. I'm not sure a lot of pastor

1:10:54

but I think there are pastors

1:10:56

like that who are well trained and smart and,

1:10:59

and just don't want to kind of blow

1:11:02

somebody's mind before kind of getting them ready for it.

1:11:05

I sound like an apologist here. Yeah,

1:11:07

well, no, I mean, you're you're just more generous than me,

1:11:09

I think, but it's nice. I think

1:11:12

I think it's nice to assume the best in people.

1:11:14

And until proven otherwise. And

1:11:17

I think that I have to say, I mean, I can't

1:11:19

when I read you, I can't help but think that

1:11:24

your your Christian background, you know,

1:11:26

affects the way the way

1:11:29

the way you're willing to view others and in

1:11:31

a good way in a good way.

1:11:33

And, and, and,

1:11:35

and, as I do think that that

1:11:37

that, you know,

1:11:40

religion can can do good things for people, I

1:11:42

just think it does more harm, in my opinion, and

1:11:44

that's my problem. But but but

1:11:47

I don't agree with that. But it's, yeah,

1:11:49

it's not because I

1:11:51

don't because I don't think it I don't think

1:11:53

I think that the harm that religion I think I

1:11:56

think religion does horrible, horrible things.

1:11:58

I think it does a huge amount of

1:11:59

I think that same amount of harm

1:12:02

would be done if people didn't have religion

1:12:04

as an excuse, they would use something else as an excuse.

1:12:08

You know that's interesting because yeah, the

1:12:10

point of my, Weinberg's quote,

1:12:12

which is I've always resonated with, which I never get

1:12:15

exactly correctly said, they're good people and bad

1:12:17

people. And I know you talk about that, you really

1:12:19

at the end of one of your books, you talk about you

1:12:21

really believe in good and evil and that's

1:12:23

fundamental. And it's an

1:12:25

interesting idea, because I'm not, I even there

1:12:28

I have, I'm not 100% certain

1:12:30

agree, but. Well, I don't believe in metaphysical good

1:12:32

and evil. I mean, it's not that I think it's a metaphysical

1:12:35

category, but I think that, you know,

1:12:38

I think somebody rapes and tortures somebody is evil.

1:12:40

Yeah, absolutely. But I think

1:12:43

what Weinberg was said, that there are good people and there are

1:12:45

bad people, good people do good things, bad people do bad things.

1:12:47

When good people do bad things, it's religion. That's

1:12:50

what he. Okay, well,

1:12:52

it's a good line, it's a good line. You know, I mean, when,

1:12:55

you know, religion right now, I mean, white nationalists

1:12:57

are using religion like crazy. And,

1:13:01

but you know, my view is that what

1:13:03

it does is it gives them leverage, but they would have found

1:13:05

leverage somewhere else if they didn't have the religion.

1:13:08

Yeah, yeah, you know, I think for a

1:13:10

lot of people, I think that's true. Now I want to

1:13:12

actually get to the heart, a little bit more than meat of

1:13:14

each of those books. We've been, John, no, but I

1:13:16

think this is, I hope you agree.

1:13:18

I think this kind of discussion is useful for people to

1:13:20

hear too, but I do want to give you, I

1:13:23

want to get to the meat of this because,

1:13:25

I think there are, you know, I think some

1:13:28

of the general issues we've been talking about

1:13:31

will, you

1:13:33

know, will come up. And I

1:13:35

want to start with how Jesus became God. I

1:13:38

want to go through each maybe, you know, my hope

1:13:40

is that

1:13:42

just for your sake, that we'll go, you know, about

1:13:44

two hours if that's okay with you. Yeah. And

1:13:47

so there's, you know, half an hour, a next

1:13:49

half hour of that or 40 minutes of that.

1:13:51

And then I want to come back to you again at the end if

1:13:53

it's okay. So the central

1:13:55

premise of that

1:13:58

book is that, The Jesus

1:14:01

that

1:14:02

most people think of as the Jesus

1:14:04

that has always been, as the

1:14:06

God and the Trinity,

1:14:11

the complex existence of the Father,

1:14:13

the Son and the Holy Ghost all together and always

1:14:15

having been in existence is

1:14:18

not the historical

1:14:20

Jesus or

1:14:22

the Jesus that's arisen from the Bible.

1:14:26

And

1:14:26

at the same time,

1:14:28

what I loved about

1:14:31

the beginning of how Jesus became God,

1:14:36

not quite the beginning, but in chapter one. And

1:14:39

you talk

1:14:40

about, you

1:14:42

give it, you

1:14:45

talk about a story and you give this

1:14:47

story

1:14:49

which I just had

1:14:51

here and of course I've lost it but I'll

1:14:53

get it again here. And right

1:14:55

at the beginning of chapter one,

1:14:59

and okay, here we go.

1:15:01

And you say, well, there was

1:15:03

a guy, let me, here we go. Before

1:15:06

he was born, his mother had a visitor

1:15:08

from heaven who told her that her son would not be

1:15:10

mere mortal

1:15:12

but in fact would be divine.

1:15:14

His birth was accompanied by unusual divine

1:15:17

signs in the heavens. As an adult, he left his home

1:15:19

to engage in an itinerant preaching ministry.

1:15:22

He went from village to town telling all

1:15:24

who would listen that they should not be concerned about their

1:15:26

earthly lives and their material goods.

1:15:29

They should live for what was spiritual

1:15:31

and eternal.

1:15:33

He gathered a number of followers around him and became

1:15:35

convinced he was no ordinary human but he was the son

1:15:37

of God. And he did miracles

1:15:39

to confirm them and their beliefs. He could heal the sick,

1:15:41

cast off demons and raise the dead. At the end of

1:15:44

his life, he announced, he aroused opposition among

1:15:46

the ruling authorities in Rome and was put on trial.

1:15:49

But they could not kill his soul. He ascended to heaven and

1:15:51

continues to live there till this day to prove

1:15:53

that he lived on after leaving this earthly orb. He

1:15:55

appeared again to at least one of his doubting followers

1:15:58

became convinced in fact he remained.

1:15:59

with us even now.

1:16:01

Later, some of his followers wrote books about

1:16:03

him, and we can still read about him today.

1:16:06

But very few of you will have ever seen these books.

1:16:08

And I'm like, what? And of course, you're talking about

1:16:10

Apollonius,

1:16:13

right?

1:16:14

And Apollonius of Tiana. Yeah.

1:16:16

And so the fact that, you

1:16:18

know, I've talked to people who say that not

1:16:21

only are the Kims, Jesus is God, but the story

1:16:23

history is so unique,

1:16:25

that that's one of the reasons they believe that.

1:16:28

And in the historical context,

1:16:31

it wasn't that unique a story at all. I mean,

1:16:34

and so let me turn it to you.

1:16:36

Well, that's right. I mean, people today, you

1:16:39

know, if you talk about a miracle working Son of God, there's

1:16:41

only one option in mind. But

1:16:44

yeah, that's part of the point of the book is that in

1:16:46

the Greek and Roman worlds, there were a number

1:16:48

of people talked about like this, who

1:16:50

had miraculous births,

1:16:53

who had unusual powers, who were brilliant

1:16:55

teachers, and, you know,

1:16:57

who ascended to live with the gods

1:16:59

at death. And so

1:17:02

there, we have stories of others like that.

1:17:05

So nobody exactly like Jesus,

1:17:07

of course, I mean, and nobody's like

1:17:09

anyone else. I mean, they're all

1:17:11

different stories, but they have these, they have

1:17:13

these things in common. And so the idea

1:17:16

that, that Jesus was the Son

1:17:18

of God for ancient Christians,

1:17:21

didn't mean that he was,

1:17:22

you know, that nobody had ever heard of such a thing,

1:17:25

that he was superior Son of God. There

1:17:28

were actually people who wrote books about trying to argue which

1:17:31

one of these was better Jesus or Apollonius.

1:17:34

And on both sides, when do you think

1:17:36

it was just an accident of history that Jesus

1:17:38

won? Or is there something more fundamental?

1:17:41

Well, there are a number of things. So

1:17:44

I actually have a book on this, that's called

1:17:46

The Triumph of Christianity that tries to

1:17:48

explain why Jesus and not something else. And

1:17:51

the deal with Jesus is that there

1:17:52

are two things. One is that the

1:17:55

followers of Jesus said that

1:17:58

if you accepted him and believed

1:17:59

the Son of God, you couldn't follow

1:18:02

any of the other religions.

1:18:03

And everybody else, you know, 95%

1:18:06

of the world was pagan, worshiping many

1:18:08

gods. And in those cases, if you

1:18:10

decided to start worshiping Apollonius, you

1:18:12

didn't stop worshiping Zeus

1:18:15

or Apollo or anyone else, you just, you

1:18:17

accepted somebody else. But if you start worshiping Jesus, you got

1:18:19

to get rid of everyone else. And so Christians

1:18:21

maintained you had to do that. And if you didn't,

1:18:24

you, you would be damned forever. And so

1:18:27

what happens is Christians become missionary,

1:18:29

whereas these other religions have no reason to go out and

1:18:31

convert anybody because, you know,

1:18:33

it's all good. And they were

1:18:36

exclusive.

1:18:38

They believe that you had, there's

1:18:40

only one way. And since you the

1:18:42

combination of those two

1:18:44

ended up leading to whenever Christianity

1:18:47

would convert people, those people would

1:18:49

be lost to paganism. And you

1:18:51

do that for a few hundred years. And

1:18:53

pretty soon Christianity just takes over. You

1:18:55

just reminded me of a book that I read by a

1:18:58

biblical scholar,

1:19:01

I guess, well by a woman who, who basically

1:19:03

talks about how more than any other religion,

1:19:06

Christianity effectively,

1:19:08

in a very short time did away methyl

1:19:14

methodically did away with every other religion,

1:19:16

you know, made a point of tearing down the temples,

1:19:18

you I forget her name is a Maxwell. You

1:19:21

probably know her work, Catherine. Yeah,

1:19:23

by the time you get to the fourth century, when

1:19:25

Constantine, when Constantine converted,

1:19:28

he didn't make Christianity the official religion

1:19:30

of Rome. Yeah, but he made it a acceptable

1:19:32

religion. And by the end of the fourth century,

1:19:35

Christians are about half of the empire. And

1:19:37

since they think God has rejected the other gods,

1:19:39

they, they go after temples and idols

1:19:41

and

1:19:42

priests. Yeah, they very quickly.

1:19:45

I mean, more well, maybe

1:19:47

not more rapidly. But I but what

1:19:50

is surprising is they go, they, they

1:19:52

flip

1:19:53

very quickly from being oppressed to

1:19:55

the oppressors.

1:19:56

And when they

1:19:59

do that, they get up there. When they were being

1:20:01

oppressed, they argued for a separation of church

1:20:03

and state. State should have anything to do.

1:20:06

Once they become the majority, they gave up

1:20:08

on that idea. You don't get it again until

1:20:10

the enlightenment of separation of church and

1:20:12

state.

1:20:13

Well, to jump around again

1:20:15

in Armageddon, to

1:20:18

some extent,

1:20:19

one makes the case. And although you don't say

1:20:21

you completely subscribe to it,

1:20:24

that part of all of this

1:20:27

was jealousy or desire for wealth

1:20:29

and power,

1:20:31

that revelations

1:20:33

and the judgment

1:20:35

was basically saying,

1:20:38

and Rome being the Whore

1:20:40

of Babylon,

1:20:43

was basically saying, we don't have a piece of

1:20:45

the pie, but just wait. We're

1:20:47

going to get it all eventually.

1:20:50

Yeah, I

1:20:52

think that's pretty clear in Revelation. It's driven by the

1:20:55

desire to have what Rome has. They're

1:20:58

unbelievably wealthy. They're unbelievably

1:21:00

powerful. They're oppressing everyone

1:21:02

else. And we're the good guys. We're the ones who

1:21:04

should have all that. And so in Revelation,

1:21:06

the Christians end up with a city

1:21:09

of gold that's half the size of the United States.

1:21:12

And they rule

1:21:14

the rest of the world with a rod of iron,

1:21:16

and now they've got it. And so the whole point

1:21:19

of the book is,

1:21:20

it's awful for you now, but man, you're

1:21:23

going to be on top pretty soon.

1:21:25

Yeah, well, and that's kind of interesting

1:21:27

because that, as you point out, and

1:21:31

I was kind of intrigued because you took it

1:21:33

to a certain point,

1:21:34

and then it got me thinking, I'm just

1:21:36

amazed that the book of Revelation is in Scripture,

1:21:39

because it certainly seems to depart

1:21:41

from the Jesus that you hear about, who talked about exactly,

1:21:44

at

1:21:44

least

1:21:46

who is purported to have talked about

1:21:48

exactly the opposite, that you want

1:21:50

to give up all the early possessions. And even in

1:21:53

heaven,

1:21:54

it wouldn't be a matter of cities of gold. It

1:21:57

would be sort of eternal service

1:21:59

to each other.

1:21:59

And and you'd be rich because you'd have

1:22:02

the love of you know,

1:22:04

I don't put it as well as you did But but you'd

1:22:06

have the love of an infinite number of

1:22:08

members of your new family

1:22:11

Yeah, no, I think people you know

1:22:13

Jesus says things like you know, sell everything you have

1:22:16

so that you will have treasures in heaven And

1:22:19

so people think well that means yeah, well, you know, I've

1:22:21

got this two hundred thousand dollar house here,

1:22:23

man I saw that thing i'm gonna have a two hundred million

1:22:25

dollar mansion up there. Okay And

1:22:27

so but they're completely misunderstanding.

1:22:29

Jesus Jesus point is that

1:22:32

the material things are not what you're supposed to be

1:22:34

striving for but in the book of revelation

1:22:37

Oh, man, it's all about getting those material things.

1:22:39

So why but that's

1:22:41

that's my point It is so contradictory

1:22:43

to the rest of

1:22:44

well, not completely to the rest of the scripture

1:22:47

and I think well I want to get there because I

1:22:49

Still shocked that you find jesus to be such a

1:22:51

good guy um, but uh,

1:22:54

um Uh, anyway, it's

1:22:56

a good Jewish boy It's a good

1:22:58

Jewish boy, but I mean anyway, we'll

1:23:00

get there but I think he taught you you know, he

1:23:03

talked about you know of judgment

1:23:05

and anyway, we'll get there but

1:23:07

um uh, um

1:23:10

but but revelations is so Apparently

1:23:13

different than the rest

1:23:15

I don't understand why how it how

1:23:17

why the story of why it was eventually

1:23:19

included

1:23:20

into the into the new testament

1:23:24

Well,

1:23:24

the first thing to say is that it had difficulty getting

1:23:26

in For two reasons

1:23:28

one was church fathers who were making

1:23:30

decisions about these things Uh,

1:23:33

we're not sure that it was written by the same

1:23:35

author as the gospel of john They

1:23:38

assumed that had been written by john the disciple

1:23:41

of jesus john the son of zebedee But

1:23:43

there were they had reasons for thinking that

1:23:45

revelation was not written by that same guy

1:23:48

One thing is the some of these people were very good

1:23:50

linguists and they looked at it And they said this is

1:23:53

not written by the same author. It's not very good

1:23:55

mark twain james joys terrible

1:23:58

writing and then

1:24:01

Yeah, that was very low level. I mean,

1:24:03

the dramatic. I'm sorry to

1:24:05

drop back. Last time I

1:24:07

taught a class, a classics

1:24:09

class for undergraduates, and I had my Greek students

1:24:12

read Revelation just Chapter One and list

1:24:14

all the grammatical mistakes. And

1:24:17

so, you know, just like, you know, the Greek students could

1:24:19

do it. And so it's not very good.

1:24:22

Whereas John, the Gospel of John is, you know,

1:24:24

isn't like that. It's not, you know,

1:24:26

super high level Greek, but it's it's good.

1:24:28

It's good. And so, but Revelation.

1:24:31

So

1:24:32

they thought, well, it doesn't look like

1:24:34

it was written by an apostle. But the biggest

1:24:36

problem they had in the ancient world, the ancient Christians,

1:24:39

the biggest problem they had was not that it

1:24:41

contradicted the Gospels in terms

1:24:43

of like domination

1:24:46

theories and stuff. And the reason they didn't

1:24:48

like it is because

1:24:50

when it talked about

1:24:51

what the Christians were going to get after

1:24:53

the Judgment Day, they're going to get this enormous

1:24:56

city made completely of gold. And it sounds

1:24:58

like they're going to be having banquets every

1:25:00

night and just kind of reveling in

1:25:02

all the wealth they've got. And by the fourth

1:25:05

Christian century, most Christian leaders

1:25:07

were urging an ascetic life

1:25:10

where you deprived yourself of pleasure.

1:25:14

Whether

1:25:17

a good drink or sex, or you deprive

1:25:19

yourself because those aren't

1:25:21

the things that matter. And they thought Revelation is teaching

1:25:23

just the opposite.

1:25:25

And so so they that's why they

1:25:27

didn't they almost didn't get it in. But

1:25:29

you ask why it did get in for a weird reason

1:25:31

you wouldn't you would never expect. And

1:25:35

the one of the reasons it got in is because

1:25:37

in the fourth century, they were having these debates

1:25:40

about whether Jesus is really

1:25:42

God or not. And if he's God,

1:25:45

most everybody thought he was God. But is he is

1:25:47

he really equal with God the Father? I mean, or

1:25:50

is he he must be a subordinate divinity,

1:25:52

right? I mean, he's got to be like a second rate divinity.

1:25:54

He can't be as

1:25:55

great as God. But some

1:25:57

Christians were saying, yes, he is as great as God.

1:25:59

could use Revelation to prove

1:26:02

it because in the book Revelation on

1:26:04

several occasions God says I

1:26:06

am the Alpha and the Omega the first and

1:26:09

the last so like he's before and

1:26:11

after all things

1:26:12

and at one point Jesus says the same thing.

1:26:14

I am the Alpha and

1:26:16

the Omega the beginning and the end and

1:26:19

so theologians said

1:26:21

they're claiming

1:26:23

equality

1:26:24

so they are actually equal and

1:26:27

so weirdly the book Revelation was

1:26:29

useful in theological

1:26:31

controversies of the fourth century so

1:26:34

they put it in.

1:26:35

You know that's why by the way it was an accident

1:26:38

that I read both those books together but I found it

1:26:40

interesting juxtaposition because one book

1:26:43

is exactly about that contest

1:26:45

to try and decide

1:26:46

what level of God Jesus was and all books

1:26:49

about it

1:26:52

and the other is in some sense Revelations

1:26:55

is in one of the

1:26:57

one of its purposes is to

1:27:00

ultimate one of its utilities. I'm not sure it was the

1:27:02

purpose of why it was written but one

1:27:04

of its utilities is to reinforce that notion

1:27:06

that Jesus is God is

1:27:08

not just a

1:27:10

subordinate or something else.

1:27:14

By the way you hit something there when you

1:27:16

talked about the Greek too which

1:27:18

relates to go back to this how Jesus became

1:27:20

God. The Greek of

1:27:23

the John who wrote

1:27:24

Revelations is poor Greek. The

1:27:26

other Greek is good Greek but

1:27:28

as you point out

1:27:31

that demonstrates that it can have been written

1:27:33

by the people who were involved who were largely illiterate

1:27:35

at the time so the people who are writing

1:27:37

are obviously a whole different

1:27:40

level of education and disconnected

1:27:42

from the actual events of the time right.

1:27:46

Yeah so the Gospels are normally

1:27:48

dated by historical scholars too.

1:27:51

Well Mark is usually thought to be the first gospel written

1:27:54

around the year 70 of the common era.

1:27:57

Matthew and Luke have around 80 or 85.

1:27:59

and John on toward the end of the

1:28:02

first century, 90, 95. But

1:28:04

Jesus died in the year 30. So there's about

1:28:06

a 40 to 60, 65 year gap

1:28:09

between the accounts

1:28:12

and the events that they narrate.

1:28:15

And they're written by people who were highly fluent

1:28:18

in Greek. Jesus followers

1:28:20

were low class

1:28:23

peasants from Galilee

1:28:25

who spoke Aramaic and almost certainly

1:28:27

did not have an education of any kind. Let

1:28:30

alone the ability to compose

1:28:32

writings, let alone to be able to compose

1:28:34

writings in a foreign language like this. And this

1:28:37

is, they're clearly not written by the followers

1:28:39

of Jesus, but by people who decades

1:28:42

later

1:28:42

had heard stories about Jesus.

1:28:45

And so this is the big task of

1:28:47

scholars of historical

1:28:50

Jesus, given that kind

1:28:52

of source, how do you know what

1:28:54

in these sources is historical and

1:28:57

what in them is

1:28:58

things made up or exaggerated by storytellers

1:29:01

in the intervening years?

1:29:03

Well, this is my question though. Wouldn't

1:29:05

automatically when you hear that, especially

1:29:08

when you know the sources are oral,

1:29:12

uneducated people who

1:29:15

firmly believe what they believe,

1:29:18

doesn't that automatically, shouldn't there be

1:29:20

a radar that comes up and

1:29:22

say automatically it's suspect? I

1:29:24

mean, if you were to look at almost any

1:29:27

oral history beyond later, 30

1:29:30

years, five years later, much

1:29:32

less 30 years later or a century later,

1:29:35

if it's not written down and

1:29:38

the original stories are true believers,

1:29:40

it should all be suspect. And I don't quite understand

1:29:42

why that isn't

1:29:43

the prevailing assumption.

1:29:47

It is, it is among scholars. So,

1:29:49

I mean, historical scholars, this

1:29:52

has been an issue since the 1770s. I

1:29:55

mean, when the enlightenment hit, it didn't just hit

1:29:58

science, it hit,

1:29:59

history as well. And in

1:30:02

the 1770s,

1:30:04

you have people starting to write about

1:30:06

what to do with these sources, because they're clearly

1:30:09

documents of faith. And as time

1:30:11

develops, people realize more about the oral traditions

1:30:14

and things. And that so historical

1:30:17

scholars have to use fairly rigorous

1:30:19

criteria to to work through

1:30:21

the Gospels to decide what

1:30:23

we can say with some assurance relates

1:30:26

to the historical Jesus. And you can

1:30:28

do it. I mean, because it's not different from

1:30:30

what you have for for most

1:30:33

ancient, ancient figures,

1:30:36

you've got sources written

1:30:39

decades later by people who didn't know them, but

1:30:41

they've heard that heard about them. And

1:30:43

there there actually are criteria

1:30:45

you can use that make pretty good sense

1:30:48

to figure it out. QML

1:30:50

looking for looking for independent

1:30:52

stories, independent textual

1:30:56

statements, writing styles, etc. that

1:30:59

might suggest that the story is independently

1:31:01

coming. It's hard.

1:31:03

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But

1:31:06

but hard work. And it isn't the same as

1:31:08

but even if I guess I'm going back

1:31:11

so I can I can see the detective work

1:31:13

and I admire the detective work of people

1:31:15

who are willing to look at the text so carefully analyze

1:31:17

them and decide which sources

1:31:19

are are

1:31:20

pre scriptural and

1:31:23

and and but even when you've

1:31:25

done that

1:31:27

the question I have is

1:31:29

wouldn't you I mean so you can say yes these

1:31:31

these are as close to the things the apostles

1:31:34

might have been saying

1:31:36

as as anything

1:31:38

at the apostles at the time but but

1:31:42

because there oral statements

1:31:44

of people who truly believed even

1:31:47

you know even if you can focus

1:31:51

in and say they're as close to the time as possible

1:31:53

they themselves are automatically suspect

1:31:56

I mean in some sense why

1:31:59

I guess the question

1:31:59

Well, it's really the question

1:32:02

of why we have religion. Why are

1:32:04

people so willing to believe stories

1:32:07

that

1:32:07

are handed down?

1:32:10

I think more recently, the Mormon

1:32:13

story, which is so obviously ridiculous,

1:32:16

but it's growing by leaps and bounds.

1:32:18

And why do you think

1:32:20

it is that people grasp on and are willing

1:32:23

to believe these stories without substantiation?

1:32:29

Well, I mean, how many people have actually

1:32:31

gone

1:32:35

through the equations for general relativity? There's

1:32:37

a difference though. I agree

1:32:39

with you. You have to believe the difference is that they... No,

1:32:42

no, but the difference is it works. I

1:32:45

mean, the difference is... No, no, no, no, I'm not. I'm

1:32:47

not. No, no, I'm saying, I mean, so people believe

1:32:50

it because my cell phone is a GPS and

1:32:53

the GPS wouldn't be able to believe it.

1:32:56

Wouldn't work if I didn't incorporate general

1:32:58

relativity. Oh, but they don't know that. No, but they don't know.

1:33:01

If you say E equals MC squared, people say, yeah, that's

1:33:03

right. And you explain what

1:33:05

it means and they say, oh, okay, yeah, that's what the C stands

1:33:07

for. Oh, it's a... Okay, I agree with you

1:33:09

there. But they... So

1:33:12

you're asking why do people believe this?

1:33:14

It's because people believe what they're told.

1:33:17

And so I'm not saying historians

1:33:20

believe it because somebody told them. Historians

1:33:22

have to dig down just like scientists have

1:33:24

to dig into the equations or mathematicians,

1:33:27

or I mean, people have to dig into the stuff. And

1:33:30

with the difference is that you

1:33:32

do have an iPhone. And as you pointed out

1:33:34

earlier,

1:33:36

theology hasn't

1:33:38

come up with new knowledge. It doesn't come

1:33:40

up with new knowledge. So that's a big

1:33:42

difference. But historians,

1:33:44

historians... What

1:33:47

historians do is different from what scientists

1:33:49

do. Historians have to establish

1:33:51

what probably happened. Yeah,

1:33:54

yeah.

1:33:56

And there are some things that are more probable

1:33:58

than others.

1:33:59

And so historians establish levels

1:34:02

of probability. In that way, it's

1:34:04

kind of more like a court case than it

1:34:06

is, than it is like a scientific

1:34:08

experiment. Well, no, I would say actually, I would, I'd

1:34:10

say it's almost exactly the same. It's just different qualitative

1:34:13

levels, but I mean, or quantitative

1:34:15

levels move that way. And when we do a scientific

1:34:17

science experiment,

1:34:19

we do, we

1:34:21

arrive at certain levels of likelihood. And

1:34:23

now our likelihood is

1:34:25

much greater because we can test it, but

1:34:28

it's still levels of probability. This

1:34:30

is most likely true. This is extremely likely

1:34:32

true. This may be true. But you also,

1:34:34

you can also base it on predictions that you make.

1:34:36

And history

1:34:39

doesn't make those predictions. I mean, No, but hold

1:34:41

on, but you do do it. I've argued with people

1:34:43

because I admire you so much. You

1:34:46

do make predictions. And I think you're describing the book. You

1:34:48

predict

1:34:50

that you predict, you

1:34:52

say this part of

1:34:54

the gospel, I think is pre-scriptural. And

1:34:57

I can predict that if it's the case, I'm going

1:34:59

to see something similar in,

1:35:01

from the same kind

1:35:03

of linguistic

1:35:04

or the same poetry in

1:35:07

another gospel.

1:35:08

So it's likely that that

1:35:10

poetry preceded both

1:35:12

of the goth of those written things.

1:35:14

So you're making predictions about

1:35:16

things that you're going to say, I think this

1:35:18

particular

1:35:19

phrase or this particular

1:35:22

stanza is significant

1:35:24

and probably is more real likely

1:35:27

to be

1:35:28

original. I don't think it's the same. I don't think it's the

1:35:30

same because I'm looking at, I don't make a

1:35:32

prediction that'll be there. I notice that it's

1:35:34

there and I draw the conclusion. I

1:35:36

don't make a prediction about what that something's

1:35:39

going to be discovered later in terms of that it's confirmed.

1:35:41

Have that never happened to you?

1:35:43

I'm just wondering. Oh,

1:35:44

no, I mean, yeah, no, of course. I mean,

1:35:46

but there it's kind of, it's more, it's

1:35:49

not a prediction.

1:35:53

Yes. But it's

1:35:56

different because all we have are the, all

1:35:58

we have are past events. That's all we have.

1:35:59

have. We can't look forward to what

1:36:02

is going to happen in the future if that past event

1:36:04

had happened.

1:36:05

Yeah, yeah, no, I and in fact, you can't

1:36:08

be a prediction of the reason I'm harping on

1:36:10

this is because is partly

1:36:12

because I want you on my side here because

1:36:15

you know, when I've debated about evolution there, we say,

1:36:17

well, that's historical science, historical science is

1:36:19

different than chemistry.

1:36:21

You know, talking about,

1:36:23

you know, the early history of the earth, that's historical

1:36:25

science. But my point is, they're exactly the same.

1:36:27

Whenever I'm doing experiment, I'm talking generally about

1:36:29

past results.

1:36:31

I'm interpreting the results by experiment. You're

1:36:33

the scientist that you would know, but I don't think it's the same.

1:36:35

I don't think that using something like

1:36:38

Bayes' theorem for evolution

1:36:40

or something is the same as doing a chemical experiment.

1:36:42

No, I guess what I'm saying, when I even make, in historical

1:36:44

science, I make predictions.

1:36:46

In historical science, you do, yes. That's right. Yeah,

1:36:48

yeah. You know, I make predictions that, you know, there's be a fossil

1:36:51

that's a, you know, a missing link and you find

1:36:53

one, you know, and that's... Well, that sometimes

1:36:55

happens in history, of course. I mean, it happens. Yeah,

1:36:57

yeah, of course.

1:36:59

But it doesn't happen very much with

1:37:01

the kinds of things we're talking about. It happens

1:37:04

in other things. I mean, it happens

1:37:06

in what was my field of expertise, Creek manuscripts.

1:37:09

You can predict that probably there's

1:37:11

a manuscript that words things this

1:37:13

way. We just don't have it yet. And then lo and

1:37:15

behold, it'll turn out. I got that sense in reading your

1:37:17

book when you talk about looking

1:37:20

in the detailed Greek book. Probably

1:37:22

I expect this is there and

1:37:26

I found that fascinating. As I say, I was amazed

1:37:28

by the amount of energy required

1:37:29

to do it. But

1:37:32

nevertheless, just take, you

1:37:34

know, maybe spend three or four or five minutes talking

1:37:36

about

1:37:37

how Jesus became God in the sense that

1:37:40

there's a difference between

1:37:42

John and the John

1:37:44

of the Gospels and not the John of

1:37:46

the revelations and the

1:37:49

earlier Gospels. And take

1:37:51

us through how you think that evolved. So,

1:37:55

the deal is that we have the four Gospels and that some of them

1:37:57

are written in a detailed

1:37:59

different times. And the the earlier

1:38:02

Gospels appear to be based to

1:38:04

some extent on yet earlier written

1:38:06

sources. And so in some ways, you can

1:38:08

line these

1:38:10

things up chronologically. And when

1:38:13

you do that, and

1:38:15

you look at the very earliest materials we have in the

1:38:17

New Testament, when

1:38:20

you do that, and you see how they talk about

1:38:23

Christ,

1:38:24

they don't talk about him as somebody

1:38:26

who pre existed, somebody who called

1:38:29

himself God, somebody who was born of

1:38:31

a virgin, the

1:38:32

earliest materials, if you if

1:38:34

you line them up chronologically, and you

1:38:37

don't base your chronology on this,

1:38:39

on these views, you have other grounds

1:38:41

for establishing the chronology, once you establish

1:38:43

the chronology, you'll notice that

1:38:45

the earliest forms of the Christian tradition

1:38:48

indicate that Jesus became

1:38:50

a divine being at his resurrection.

1:38:53

And the idea there is that he's a human.

1:38:56

And God, God was

1:38:58

very pleased with him. And so he took him up to

1:39:00

dwell with him up in heaven. That's

1:39:03

a view that you get in these Greek and Roman myths

1:39:05

about other people, that when a person

1:39:08

is taken up to heaven, they're made, they're

1:39:10

made immortal. In Greek and Roman,

1:39:14

a synonym for God is immortal.

1:39:16

And so it's somebody who can't die anymore. So

1:39:19

the earliest Christians thought that's what

1:39:21

had happened to Jesus, you get it in Jewish traditions,

1:39:23

too, by the way, you, you wouldn't

1:39:25

have learned this probably in synagogue

1:39:28

or anywhere, but in the ancient world, you also have Jews were

1:39:30

taken up to God to be made divine beings.

1:39:32

Interesting. Yeah. But so

1:39:34

so these, these Christians, that's the original

1:39:37

idea, Jesus was exalted

1:39:39

because of this service to

1:39:41

God as righteousness, he was taken up

1:39:43

and made a divine being that over

1:39:46

time, people

1:39:46

started trying to figure out, well, you

1:39:49

know, surely he wasn't just made divine after his death,

1:39:52

he must have been like, divine down here sometime.

1:39:55

And, and so, you know, did all those miracles,

1:39:57

what's that all about? And people started

1:39:59

thinking

1:39:59

Well, he was made a divine being at

1:40:02

his baptism when he started his ministry.

1:40:05

When a voice came from heaven and said, you're my son,

1:40:07

today I have begotten you. And

1:40:09

then, and you find that in the gospel of Mark.

1:40:12

And then you get further and

1:40:14

you get people saying, well, he must have been divine,

1:40:17

he must have been divine his whole life, right? And

1:40:19

then you get stories of the virgin birth

1:40:21

where he's divine because God has made Mary

1:40:23

pregnant. And so he really is divine.

1:40:26

And he's like, you know, God, he's

1:40:28

immortal by his blood or something. But

1:40:31

then you have people think, well, he must have been divine

1:40:33

before he was born, he must have existed

1:40:35

before that. And then you get the gospel of John

1:40:38

where Jesus exists from eternity past and

1:40:40

creates the universe and then becomes

1:40:42

a human.

1:40:43

So there it's not that a

1:40:45

human is exalted to be divine, but

1:40:48

that the divine being has come down to be

1:40:50

human.

1:40:51

And so those are two kind

1:40:53

of basic ways of understanding who

1:40:55

Christ is. One is that he's a human

1:40:57

that gets exalted. And the other is that

1:40:59

he's a divine being who becomes human. And

1:41:03

all of that's happening within the first 70, 80 years

1:41:05

of Christianity. And in my book,

1:41:07

I try to talk about how it even goes farther

1:41:10

than that then. Yeah, yeah. And

1:41:12

to God in Christ being equal with God

1:41:14

and always existing and yeah.

1:41:17

And the other thing you point out, which I think is important is

1:41:19

that those different views of divinity

1:41:22

all existed in the pre-Christ

1:41:24

world. It all exists in the ancient world. Different ways

1:41:27

there were, as you say, humans

1:41:29

who had been taken up and become divine. There were gods,

1:41:32

especially the Greek gods who used to like to have sex

1:41:34

with, and Roman gods used to like to have sex with mortals.

1:41:37

And there were ones who'd be, so there were all

1:41:39

of those different kinds of Christ were

1:41:42

prevalent in the other myths at the time.

1:41:45

And so you have different Christians saying these

1:41:47

things about Jesus that they were saying about various other

1:41:49

people at the time.

1:41:53

And it's a development in time because

1:41:55

as time goes on, Christ becomes more and more divine,

1:41:58

but it's not a completely linear.

1:41:59

development because you have people saying,

1:42:02

having older views at later times and

1:42:05

views that became prominent later they were making earlier.

1:42:08

And just like you know, you can't say

1:42:10

that if somebody believes in a 6000 year

1:42:12

old world that they must be living 2000 years

1:42:15

ago, you got people like that now. And

1:42:17

so you have more advanced views

1:42:19

early and

1:42:20

less advanced views later.

1:42:22

Okay, there's three, three other things I would

1:42:24

be, I'll be remiss if I didn't

1:42:26

cover one related Jesus and then

1:42:29

two other related to the revelations.

1:42:32

One is a central part of all of these

1:42:35

aspects of Christ being divine regardless

1:42:38

of whether it was

1:42:39

all the time or

1:42:41

back or birth or baptism the one the

1:42:43

one thing that seems to make

1:42:45

and I and theologians several theologians have argued

1:42:47

this for me that the one thing that makes Christ different

1:42:49

is the resurrection is the resurrection

1:42:51

is the real proof

1:42:53

that he is divine at whatever

1:42:55

level the Vinny want to call it. And,

1:42:57

and, and you make the important point

1:43:00

that that

1:43:02

the that the resurrection itself is from

1:43:05

a historical perspective,

1:43:07

quite dubious.

1:43:09

You can't do this you can't prove there's a resolution

1:43:11

not just previous but you argue that

1:43:14

there are inconsistencies that if

1:43:16

you look at it it's again on this likelihood scale.

1:43:19

It's not likely that a that someone who's

1:43:21

crucified would even be buried in general,

1:43:23

much less, it's likely that that

1:43:25

Pontius Pilate who, if you look at him

1:43:28

as a stroke figure whatever let have let

1:43:30

the Jewish priests have his

1:43:32

body for that. I mean you

1:43:34

go through what's reasonable

1:43:36

at that time to say, you know,

1:43:39

aside from what

1:43:39

people have visions of you can never I mean, Jonathan

1:43:43

Sacks I guess or know Oliver Sacks once

1:43:45

said, not Jonathan Sacks the Rabbi but Oliver Sacks,

1:43:48

the psychologist, neurologist,

1:43:52

and he said that, you know,

1:43:53

when people have hallucinations they're real

1:43:55

so don't you know they're just as real as reality

1:43:57

so when people have visions yeah I'm willing to do that.

1:43:59

to I don't want to debate that

1:44:02

but the other historical aspects of the tomb

1:44:04

all of that are historically debatable.

1:44:07

They are the first

1:44:10

the starting point of course you start with your sources

1:44:12

and see what the sources say about an event

1:44:15

and when it comes to the resurrection stories

1:44:18

all you have to do is read what Matthew

1:44:20

says what Mark says what Luke's and read

1:44:23

like in detail they're contradicting each

1:44:25

other all over the map in ways that cannot be reconciled

1:44:28

and so the sources

1:44:30

they all agree that Jesus was buried on a

1:44:32

Friday and raised on a Saturday but but

1:44:34

then when you start looking at historical evidence

1:44:37

for those things it really

1:44:39

gets tricky because the Romans

1:44:42

didn't didn't allow crucified victims to

1:44:44

be buried this is part of the punishment

1:44:46

they left them to to to rot

1:44:48

on the cross and to be eaten by scavengers as

1:44:50

part of the punishment so people will see

1:44:53

you know

1:44:53

if you want to you you wanted to

1:44:55

fly around okay well this is what you can expect

1:44:58

and so so the very idea of him

1:45:00

being buried that afternoon and then is

1:45:04

is problematic the stories of his appearances

1:45:06

are problematic so everything everything is hugely

1:45:09

problematic

1:45:11

and the interesting thing is that when you actually dig

1:45:13

through the materials again

1:45:16

if you line them up chronologically and

1:45:18

figure what comes first it does look

1:45:20

like very the earliest things

1:45:22

people were saying it was not that there was an

1:45:24

empty tomb the earliest thing they were saying

1:45:27

is that we saw Jesus

1:45:29

and so that's where you get to your visions and

1:45:32

I think people did have visions I mean I think you know

1:45:34

Oliver Sacks you're right he wrote a really interesting book on this

1:45:37

yeah yeah

1:45:40

and but but people have these things and they

1:45:42

always think that they're true but the thing is

1:45:44

this is the key point that even theologians

1:45:46

don't quite get which is

1:45:49

that if a if a follower

1:45:51

of Jesus

1:45:52

who was a Jew who

1:45:54

believed that the end was coming soon

1:45:57

and that the end would involve a judgment

1:45:59

day in which

1:45:59

which everybody who had ever lived will

1:46:02

be raised from the dead for judgment.

1:46:04

This is what Jesus taught. It's what his disciples

1:46:07

firmly believed that the end of

1:46:09

time was coming soon with a resurrection.

1:46:12

They didn't believe that when you died, your soul

1:46:15

would go to heaven or hell. They didn't think your body

1:46:17

and soul could exist separately.

1:46:20

If those people came to think Jesus came back

1:46:22

to life,

1:46:23

their category was that

1:46:25

his soul has come back into his body and

1:46:28

he's been raised from the dead.

1:46:30

They couldn't interpret it that he's

1:46:32

gone to heaven and his spirit has come down. And

1:46:35

so they naturally interpret it as a resurrection.

1:46:38

So it all does go back to these visions. And

1:46:40

you're right, you can't debate them. People see what they see,

1:46:42

but there's nothing historical that can suggest.

1:46:45

Well, visions, yeah, so we'll accept that people have visions

1:46:47

but people have visions today, so you can be suspect. But

1:46:50

what I found interesting was the

1:46:52

rather

1:46:53

interesting and clever history looking

1:46:56

at the context as

1:46:58

you point out, it's context, context, context. And

1:47:02

the context of the time is that the tomb being

1:47:04

empty and the fact even being a tomb is

1:47:07

suspect. And the other thing you point out, which I found

1:47:09

to mention, because I keep thinking how do

1:47:11

these

1:47:12

people who are evangelical people try and convince

1:47:14

people or I would say con people into

1:47:17

believing this stuff.

1:47:18

And I was intrigued that, okay, why do

1:47:20

they have women discover him?

1:47:22

And because there aren't many women in the Bible, you

1:47:25

point out, well, from many points of view,

1:47:27

that's a really good psychological

1:47:29

tool to say that the women discover him.

1:47:31

You wanna mention that? Well, evangelicals

1:47:34

often say, look, those

1:47:36

stories must be historically right because

1:47:38

nobody would invent a story of women

1:47:41

discovering a tomb.

1:47:42

Because if you wanted to

1:47:45

really show that you'd have the men do it, and

1:47:47

man, is that ever wrong? I mean, for one

1:47:49

thing,

1:47:52

a lot of Christians are attacked

1:47:54

early on for being largely a

1:47:56

group of women. They're like more women than men. And

1:47:58

you ask who would make up a story of women?

1:47:59

discovering a tomb, well, you know,

1:48:02

maybe women, for example. And

1:48:06

the other thing is our earliest version of the story

1:48:08

is all about

1:48:09

our earliest version of the stories in the Gospel

1:48:11

of Mark.

1:48:12

And Mark's gospel, the entire

1:48:15

gospel is trying to show that the men

1:48:17

disciples of Jesus never could figure

1:48:19

him out.

1:48:20

They just couldn't understand who he was. And

1:48:23

so it would make perfect sense for the

1:48:25