Ep 4: Ehrmageddon! With Bart Ehrman

00:00There are many beasts spoken of in Revelation and blah, blah, blah, but what I was shocked

00:07by is how terrifying the angels were in, you know, just sort of to your point, like

00:14the good guys are horrifying in Revelation.

00:20Hey, everybody, this is Dan McClellan.

00:24And I'm Dan Beecher.

00:25And welcome to the Data Over Dogma podcast where we try to combat the spread of misinformation

00:30about the study of the Bible and religion.

00:34And we have a very special show for you today.

00:36Our guest today is Bart Erman.

00:38I will introduce Bart briefly.

00:40And then we'll get into things.

00:43Bart Erman earned his PhD from Princeton Theological Seminary.

00:47I think in 1985, was that the year, 1980.

00:52Now we're dating the guy.

00:53We're just, that's how we're launching.

00:55I don't know.

00:56Okay.

00:57I was only seven when I got it though.

01:03You're only a couple years older than me then.

01:06And he studied textual criticism, the biblical canon, the Apocrypha, under the inimitable

01:11Bruce Metzger.

01:12And now is the James A. Gray, distinguished professor of religious studies at University

01:18of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who will hopefully have better luck next year in the NCAA tournament.

01:25And correct me if I'm wrong, UNC Chapel Hill, the first public university in the United

01:29States.

01:31The first to graduate a student.

01:33Yes, that's right.

01:34The first to graduate a student.

01:35All right.

01:36That's right.

01:37So, imagine you're enjoying things very well there.

01:41We appreciate your time very much.

01:43And welcome to the show.

01:45Now, for those who don't know, Bart, he has published a number of books, including six

01:50that are on the New York Times bestseller list.

01:52And I didn't look it up, but my personal favorite is how Jesus became God.

01:57Is that among the six?

02:00That's one of the six.

02:01One of the chosen ones.

02:02That's one of the six.

02:03All right.

02:04Congratulations.

02:05And the, I believe the first was misquoting Jesus.

02:09Is that correct?

02:10Yeah.

02:11Okay.

02:12And that's the name of the podcast that you now have, that you are hosting with Meghan

02:15Lewis, who is also known as digital Hammurabi.

02:20And you also have a blog, a subscription based blog, where all of the proceeds are donated

02:25to charity@ermanblog.org.

02:28And you also let us know you're going to be teaching a remote class as April 15th on

02:34the Rapture.

02:35And that can be found at barterman.com, correct?

02:38That's correct.

02:39Yeah.

02:40Tell us a little bit about the, both the blog and the, the, the courses that you teach.

02:44Yeah.

02:45I'm happy to.

02:46The blog, you know, the blog I've been doing for almost 11 years now.

02:50I post five times a week, 12 or 1400 words a day.

02:54I've done it for every week, for 11 years.

02:58And it's on anything having to do with scholarship connected with the New Testament, historical

03:03Jesus, early Christianity, going, you know, anything related to it, Roman religion or

03:08Old Testament.

03:10People pay a small subscription fee for it.

03:13And there are different levels, the more somebody pays, the more they get, but anybody pays

03:18the fee gets, gets my post anyway.

03:21People can make comments.

03:22I answer every question I've ever gotten on this thing every day.

03:26And so it's a lot people can get for a small fee.

03:29And we give the fee to charities dealing with hunger and homelessness this last year.

03:33We raised over $500,000 on this blog.

03:36Wow.

03:37So that's impressive.

03:38That's amazing.

03:39Yeah.

03:40So I, I urge people to take a look as it goes, all goes to a good cause and you get, you

03:43know, they can get tons of, tons of information.

03:47The other thing I've got going is I've got a, I have a, I have a business I run called

03:52the Barnarm and Professional Services, where I do remote courses, lectures and sometimes

03:57eight lecture courses.

03:59And that's available at my website, Barnarm and dot com.

04:02And I am doing this one on April 15th.

04:04Let's connect with this book I just did on the book revelation and this, the lecture

04:09is going to be where the raptor came from.

04:13That's awesome.

04:14Uh, well, you know, since, since you brought it up, let's talk about this book.

04:20This is the, this is the new book, uh, Armageddon.

04:24And, uh, the, I guess the subtitle is what the Bible really says about the end.

04:30And it opens with you, uh, talking about, uh, receiving a, a call from a reporter about

04:39the end of the world.

04:41Talk about that a little bit.

04:42Yeah.

04:43It was a little surprising to me.

04:44Before I came to North Carolina, to UNC Chapel Hill, I was teaching at Rutgers University

04:50in New Jersey.

04:51And so I, I got this position at Chapel Hill in, in 1988 and I moved here in August and

04:59I knew it was going to be different in the south because I had been teaching New Jersey

05:03students, you know, they, not, not to make Bible thumpers up there.

05:07And I think, you know, okay, here we go to the south.

05:10And I knew that North Carolina, UNC Chapel Hill is not known as a bastion of conservative

05:14thought at all, it's a, but, you know, it is in the Bible belt.

05:18So I get here in August, a couple of weeks after I finished unpacking my office, I'm

05:22in there doing some work and the phone rings is local reporter.

05:26And the local reporters heard that I'm a New Testament scholar has moved to, to teach

05:30at Chapel Hill and he, and he's got an urgent question for me.

05:33He wants to know if it's true that Jesus is coming back next month.

05:41That's amazing.

05:42Oh boy.

05:43Here I am.

05:44Welcome.

05:45I want to know if that's true too.

05:46I, that sounds, that sounds like an important thing to know.

05:47It would be important to know.

05:48And it turns out there was a booklet in circulation that not too many people in New Jersey had

05:52heard about, but it was a big thing in the south.

05:55Two million copies of this book were in print.

05:58It was called 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Occur in 1988.

06:03This fellow, a guy named Edgar Weissenant, had, had written this booklet.

06:08He was a, he was a smart guy.

06:09He started out as a Nassau rocket engineer, like he, he ended up writing books like this

06:15where he had 88 reasons for thinking that Jesus was going to return to earth sometime

06:20between September 21st and 23rd, the festival of Rosh Hashanah that year and take his followers

06:28out of the world before the seven year tribulation hit.

06:31And so, so this, this guy wanted to know if it was true.

06:34I said, yeah, no, it's not going to happen.

06:38He's kind of turns out the Bible isn't rocket science.

06:40Well, well, exactly right.

06:42But the problem is it's not even in the Bible.

06:44This guy's just making stuff up.

06:46Although he had, he had, he had biblical arguments for it.

06:50And you know, it had 88 arguments for this.

06:53And it had convinced a lot of people.

06:57And I had a student that semester, actually at Chapel Hill, I had a student whose parents

07:01had literally, literally sold the farm because they were convinced that just in anticipation

07:07of, of, of the rapture.

07:09Yeah.

07:10Yeah.

07:11So this always happened.

07:12Not always happens, but it often happens when somebody sets a date, then the firm believers,

07:16you know, put their, put their house in order.

07:18And if they've got like family or something that's going to not make, not going to be

07:22taken out of the world, they provide them with funds.

07:25And so they give them, you know, sell the farm, give them the money, and then then they'll

07:28take off to heaven.

07:30Wow.

07:31So my book starts with that because I'm trying to explain how important this, this, this thing

07:36is that this idea that we know what's going to happen at the end has driven the interpretation

07:42of the book of Revelation for about 200 years.

07:45And my book tries to explain one of the things it tries to explain is why that interpretation

07:49is wrong.

07:50You know, it's, it's not just wrong that it's going to be September 21st to 23rd.

07:56The, the, and whatever date you pick is just, it's, it's not wrong because you got a little

07:59detail wrong here or there or you picked the wrong verses.

08:02It's not wrong because of that.

08:04It's because it's the wrong way to interpret the book of Revelation.

08:07And so that's why I tried to show in my book and I, and I know that on, on my social media

08:12channels, every time something happens, whether it is an earthquake in Turkey or the Euphrates

08:19River water level dropping significantly or Russia and China forming an alliance to potentially

08:25create a 200 million man army.

08:28Everyone sees these things as indications that the end is imminent and that everybody

08:32needs to get their house in order.

08:35And I think it's interesting you mentioned that a student's family sold their farm later

08:39on in the book, you bring up the great disappointment, which took place in the early 19th century

08:43and mentioned a bunch of people did very similar things.

08:46People the farm gave money to the poor or to family members who are not believers who

08:51they did not expect to be joining them in the heavens as soon as Jesus returned.

09:00I think it's, it's interesting that you, you make an interesting point about the Bible

09:06as a puzzle for some folks where the pieces get put together to create this idea.

09:13You have the futurist interpretation and then some people think the only other option is

09:17a predatorist interpretation that you I think it's being fulfilled in the future or it was

09:23fulfilled in the past.

09:26But I don't know if you've ever had this shared with you frequently when people talk about

09:31the Bible as a puzzle, something that comes up is well, you've got to look at the picture

09:34on the box.

09:36Have you heard people say that to you and the correct way to interpret the Bible, but

09:40there is no box, there is no picture on the box.

09:43And I think one of the things that you, you don't say it explicitly, but throughout the

09:47book, give this impression that a lot of times the picture that we think is on the box is

09:53really whatever is going to make the text most meaningful or most useful to us in whichever

09:58circumstances in which we find ourselves.

10:01Could you talk a little bit about the difference between the picture on the box that people

10:07in the first, second century saw versus the picture on the box that people saw in the

10:1219th and 20th centuries?

10:14Yeah, well, the first thing I'll say is that, I mean, you're right, that is how people treat

10:18the book revelation and the Bible as a whole.

10:20Most people of course don't read the Bible at all, most people.

10:24People who do read it pick and choose what parts they read.

10:30The strange way that people read the Bible to know what's going to happen in the future

10:34is that they don't read it like they'd read any other book.

10:38They'll take a verse from Zechariah, a verse from Ezekiel, then a verse from Matthew, and

10:42a verse from Revelation, a book from Daniel, and they take these scattered verses and they

10:48put them all together and they end up saying something coherent, but they've bought the

10:56picture that they've assembled is the one that's in their head.

10:59It's not in the text.

11:01It's a weird way to read a book because, you know, you wouldn't read great expectations

11:07that way or, you know, or Harry Potter now, you wouldn't like just take a line here and

11:13a line there and put it together and say, that's what the author meant.

11:16And even when I'm talking to a Christian, I say, look, you know, if you think that God

11:21inspired the book of Revelation, or even if he inspired the entire Bible, it means he

11:25inspired a book.

11:27He didn't inspire a jigsaw puzzle.

11:29He could have, he could have set down the box, but he didn't do that.

11:34And so, and the problem, of course, is that then everybody who does this has a prediction

11:39about when it's going to come.

11:41And these days, most people avoid picking a date because it's just gotten too embarrassing

11:47because every time somebody picks a date, you know, they're wrong.

11:50And so they end up saying, well, it's just going to be soon.

11:54But your question about the first and second, third centuries is really important because

11:58John was writing John Apatmas, the author of this book, was writing it in the first century,

12:04near the end of the first century.

12:06And he explicitly tells us that he's writing it to Christians of Asia Minor.

12:11There are seven churches in Asia Minor that he's addressing and he names these churches.

12:16These are people who know him and he's writing them a message.

12:20And that almost certainly means he thought that this book would be meaningful for them.

12:27He's not, he's not warning them about something that's going to happen 2000 years later.

12:31They're going to be dead.

12:33He's talking to them about something in their own day.

12:36And if you actually read Revelation by putting it in its historical context, it's completely

12:40clear.

12:41This is not predicting what's going to happen in 2000 years.

12:45John's talking about stuff in his own time.

12:47And that can be, yeah, it has always felt, it has always felt a little weird that people

12:51keep talking about like, you know, there are lots of people who believe that the Armageddon

12:56will happen literally any day now.

12:58But the problem with that is that it seems like some of the people who thought it was

13:03going to happen any day now were like Paul and Matthew and John the Revelator, like any

13:09day now was, was then not now, right?

13:12Yeah.

13:13So what, you know, people come up with ways of explaining it, of course, they go all the

13:16way back to the Bible.

13:17The book of second Peter explains why it hasn't happened yet.

13:20And second Peter's explanation is that with the Lord and days as 1000 years and 1000 years

13:25as a day.

13:26And so you can't just measure soon by human standards.

13:30And when somebody tells me that, I say, no, I, you know, that might be right.

13:34So if you're saying Jesus is coming back in three days, then you can start looking for

13:38him in the year 5,023 and even the author of, the author of second Peter there is riffing

13:46on, I believe it's in the Proverbs talks about 1000 years as a day.

13:51And then it says, or like a watch in the night or a three or four hour period.

13:55So we got a handful of different ways, but that, that makes the Bible more dynamic.

13:59You can find these different pieces to be able to put it together in whatever way you

14:04like.

14:06Something that I appreciate you talking about was in the book, the idea of power and domination.

14:14And one of the things when I look at the authors of, for instance, Daniel, which is being written

14:19under pretty heavy persecution, and this is another piece of apocalyptic literature that

14:25even in its own day around the time when revelation is, is being written, we have people rereading

14:30Daniel to try to make it relevant to their own day.

14:34And when we have revelation going, you've got, it's not the solusids who are oppressing

14:37them.

14:38It's, it's the Romans at this point, the, these texts are being written under periods of heavy

14:42oppression and persecution, at least in their minds, if not in reality.

14:47Do you think that there's something we're missing when we try to say this is about us

14:54when we are in the positions of power and domination, Christianity, particularly in the

15:00United States and the 19th and 20th century, looking at these people who are under the

15:05boot of empire saying, well, well, this is about us.

15:09This is for us to interpret.

15:11Is there, is there something that, that some folks are missing in not taking note of that

15:16power differential?

15:17Yeah, it's one of the points I try to make at the end of my book is that revelation really

15:23is about turning the tide and, and, and making the people who are the enemy and the ones

15:31who are subjecting you, making them subject to you.

15:35And so it's a, it's a book about dominating the enemy and overthrowing the enemy, destroying

15:39the enemy, taking all the wealth from the enemy, taking all the power from the enemy.

15:44And that is a natural response for people who are being, being persecuted.

15:49I'll say that scholars are pretty well convinced these days that revelation was probably written

15:56in the 90s under, when Emperor, the, when the Emperor Domitian was the, was the ruler.

16:03And there's actually no evidence that he was sponsoring any kinds of persecutions.

16:07Revelation imagines that there are millions and millions of Christians being persecuted

16:11for one thing, there aren't millions and millions of Christians, but there's not much evidence

16:15of there being widespread persecution at all.

16:18One of the interesting phenomena of Christianity broadly is that because of the way it began,

16:26Christians have always felt persecuted, even when they're not.

16:30I have students at Chapel Hill, Christian students who insist that they're being persecuted.

16:36And they're, they're, you know, in, in North Carolina, Christianity rules the day in terms

16:42of the state legislature and the, I mean, you know, it's, it, it is massively run by,

16:49by Christian standards of things.

16:51And so I don't see much persecution going on.

16:53There are places in the world where Christians are being persecuted.

16:56So I don't want to deny that.

16:56I mean, there, there really are places that are seriously persecuted.

17:00But when you have a people who are dominant and powerful complaining about being persecuted

17:05and thinking you've got to take over the power, there's something wrong with that.

17:10It does feel as, you know, I, I'm an atheist and as someone who sort of observes Christian,

17:17American Christianity, man, it feels pretty backwards when the massive majority of our

17:23country is complaining about being persecuted, not, you know, being not having control,

17:31all of that sort of thing.

17:32It's, it can be a little nuts.

17:34And I think that's probably one of the, one of the side effects of wanting to identify

17:42with the folks in the biblical texts is we're on the other end of that, of that power differential,

17:47but we still need to identify with the people who are being persecuted.

17:51And so we've, there's a sense in which in order for that identification to hold, we need

17:56to find a way that we are being persecuted.

17:58We need to find a way that we are the powerless, that there are forces of evil that are wielding

18:05more power than us, which unfortunately usually means we are looking for folks who are less

18:11powerful than us and finding ways to persecute or oppress them, which Christian nationalism

18:16is pretty notorious for doing that.

18:20The huge irony is that that is precisely contrary to the teachings of Jesus himself.

18:27Jesus, Jesus said to turn the other cheek, Jesus said to love your enemies, Jesus said

18:33blessed are you when you're persecuted?

18:36He wasn't saying blessed are you when you're persecuted because you know, next year you're

18:40going to be able to whack them, be able to whack them over the head of the rod of iron.

18:43You know, it's not that you're suffering now and you're blessed because you're going to,

18:47you're going to wipe them out eventually, Jesus actually was in favor of nonviolence

18:52in the face of persecution.

18:54And the author of the Revelation of John, John and John of Patmos, that that author had just

18:59the ops of view.

19:00His view was that God, you know, Christ, yes, Christ suffered as the innocent victim.

19:06He was the lamb who was slain, but he's coming back and he's coming back for blood and he

19:12does.

19:13And so John, John, the book, the book Revelation is filled with wrath and vengeance, violence.

19:20And it's just, you don't find that in the teachings of Jesus.

19:23Yeah.

19:24It's interesting that you say that because I do see a lot of association in modern America

19:33with specifically with the rhetoric of Revelation, the book itself.

19:38Yeah.

19:39I got to admit, every time I look at Revelation, I am baffled, like either there was some mushrooms

19:48growing on that aisle of Patmos that I didn't like it.

19:53It completely goes over my head every time, which is why I'm so grateful for your book

19:58because none of it makes any sense to me.

20:01But I look at sort of, you know, like things, things like in the 2016 election, I remember

20:08hearing Trump supporting pastors referring to Hillary Clinton as Jezebel.

20:13And I remember, you know, people talking using the word Babylon a lot and people, and you

20:19know, any time a new technology comes up, people talk about the mark of the beast, whether

20:24it's, you know, barcodes or RFID or the, you know, the COVID vaccine or whatever.

20:30Do you think that there's something about the association with specifically with revelation

20:38that is informing American Christianity right now, sort of almost superseding other books

20:44of the Bible?

20:45Yeah.

20:46It's an irony because the book revelation is not read much by people.

20:52Most people who read it either do the jigsaw puzzle thing because somebody's told them

20:56how to assemble the pieces.

20:57And so they just live for a piece here or there instead of actually sitting down and reading

21:01it.

21:02Those who do try to read it tend to be befuddled like you're saying you are Dan.

21:07But let me say that my book is meant to show why it doesn't have to be that puzzling that

21:12if you look at it as a historian does, you have a historian explain it to you.

21:16It actually, you know, it really does make sense.

21:18And it's not, it ends up not being that complicated once you see what the symbolism is really

21:23all about.

21:24But the real irony is that these people who don't read the book, many Christians in our

21:30country today take the ideology of the book and run with it, that it's all about dominating

21:36those who are weaker than you.

21:38And it's about asserting power, American power, Christian power.

21:43It's all about power.

21:44And that is true in the book of revelation.

21:46It's all about power.

21:48And it's not true at all of Jesus.

21:50And so in my book, I ask, you know, whether Jesus would have recognized John of Patmos as

21:55one of his followers.

21:56I mean, John certainly thought he was an avid, he was an avid Christian, but I'm not sure

22:01Jesus would have recognized him because he's preaching just the opposite of what Jesus said.

22:07I wonder if you might talk for a moment about the canonicity of revelation, because when

22:12we look at the early discussions, revelation is frequently, if not outside the boundaries,

22:18it's at least kind of straddling the boundaries.

22:22Do you know better than most what were the concerns with revelation?

22:26Was it about this power struggle or were there other aspects of the book of revelation that

22:31contributed to a number of people saying, now we're not interested in this?

22:36Yeah, it's, you know, I get asked this question a lot.

22:39Why is revelation in there anyway, mainly by mainly by either more liberal Christians

22:45or moderate Christians or non-Christians like, why'd they let that one in?

22:49And for the strange thing is that what strikes us as completely bizarre and weird and like

22:54unacceptable isn't what what the problem was in the ancient world.

23:01For us, we read this thing.

23:02We read about all this blood and gore that that God is inflicting Christ.

23:07Christ is allowing is having people tortured, not just like killed, but tortured for months

23:14and all sorts of horrible catastrophes on earth Christ is causing.

23:19And for us, we say, wow, I don't know, that just doesn't seem to fit.

23:24But in the ancient world, that wasn't the problem at all.

23:26There were two problems in the ancient world.

23:29One was that a lot of scholars in the ancient world knew that this was not written by the

23:34same person who wrote the Gospel of John.

23:37His name is John.

23:38The irony is that book of revelation claims to be written by somebody named John, but

23:43we don't call it John.

23:44We call it the book of revelation.

23:46The Gospel of John does not claim to be written by somebody named John, but we call it John.

23:53But already in the year, in about the year two, I guess is about two 80, no, two 60.

24:02In the year two 60, there is a scholar named Dionysius from the city of Alexandria who

24:07wrote a treatise that we still have that demonstrates on linguistic grounds, on basis of the language

24:13that whoever wrote John did not write the book of revelation, they're different authors.

24:17And he's absolutely right about that.

24:19He uses arguments that today Greek scholars completely would agree with, do agree with,

24:25but so they didn't think John, they didn't think is written by John the disciple of Jesus.

24:30So that was a problem.

24:31But the bigger problem was that at the end of revelation, after everybody who is not

24:37a strict follower of Jesus is goes through horrendous suffering and is tortured and eventually

24:46killed and then thrown while still alive into a lake of burning sulfur after all that happens.

24:52Then the followers of Jesus are awarded this huge city of gold, the New Jerusalem, 1500

25:00miles cube, completely gold, gates of pearl, foundations of jewel, et cetera.

25:06And it sounds like, you know, they just bank with the whole time and they're living a

25:09life of luxury now.

25:11The early church fathers did not like that.

25:14They didn't like the idea that eternal life was a big banquet because they thought that

25:19spiritual life was more important than physical pleasure.

25:23And they thought that this is advocating ultimate physical pleasure for all eternity.

25:27And so that's why they didn't like it and they wanted to exclude it.

25:32But it turns out, and the reason it's in is another reason that nobody would expect.

25:37So in the fourth century, when they're really kind of cranking down to decide which books

25:43are scripture in the fourth century, the big theological debate was who is Christ in relationship

25:50to God?

25:52Everybody agree that Christ was God.

25:54But in what sense is he God?

25:56Is he like a second level divinity that God created Christ at some point in the past?

26:02And so he's a second level divinity who then himself created the world and came to die

26:05for the sins of the world.

26:07He's subordinate to God the Father.

26:09I mean, nobody could be equal to God the Father.

26:10He's God the Father.

26:12Therefore our Christ and God completely equal the same level.

26:17They're not identical.

26:18They are not identical.

26:19But are they equal in power and authority and knowledge and everything else?

26:23And that's the side that won.

26:25So that's that's the side that won the argument.

26:27And the book revelation was useful because in one point got several points in revelation.

26:32God identifies himself as the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.

26:38So he's he's everything all encompassing.

26:41And Christ identifies himself as the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.

26:47That was used to show that they're equal.

26:50And so the winning side on that argument about Christ is God valued revelation because it

26:55helped them in their help them make their point.

26:58Okay, interesting.

26:59So that is a is a valuable instrument in the trinitarian debates.

27:05So areas is basically representing second and third century Christology, but becomes the

27:10scapegoat for all of this when when it gets decided that's no, we we need them to be

27:16absolutely equal.

27:17Yeah, I wouldn't wouldn't have thought about the rhetorical utility of revelation for

27:22the Christological debates once we get because by this point we're beyond Nicaea.

27:28I think Athanasius is one of the one of the the kind of tent poles of the inclusion of

27:34revelation in the in the canon right and what three sixty seven three C so yeah.

27:41So Athanasius, you know, as a young man, he wasn't the council Nicaea.

27:45The problem is that when Eric when Arias was defeated at the council Nicaea, the defeat

27:49wasn't permanent.

27:51The debates went on throughout the fourth century and in the middle of the fourth century, most

27:55people were arrogant.

27:57So they continued to be these debates and so but yeah, Athanasius is the first one to

28:03list our twenty seven books, including revelation and just our twenty seven books.

28:09That didn't solve the problem.

28:10There are still people who objected to revelation after that Athanasius didn't decide the canon.

28:16He gave his judgment on it, but his judgment eventually prevailed.

28:20So if I'm understanding you're saying that because to some extent, because the argument

28:27that was that sort of prevailed in in the discussion of the divinity of Jesus, because

28:34it came out of revelation, of course, it had to then be included in the final canon.

28:40Well, what I would say is they didn't get it only from revelation, but you've it's

28:45hard to find other books in the New Testament that are in our New Testament that say something

28:49that is like that is fairly explicit about it.

28:52So revelation wasn't the major argument in their the major weapon in their arsenal,

28:58but it was something that was useful to that end.

29:01And so that's why they they ended up approving of it.

29:04Fascinating.

29:05I wanted to go back to something that Dan made reference to before, but I you have a whole

29:13chapter, I think in your book about the history of apocalyptic predictions, one of I have a

29:20personal connection to apocalyptic predictions, because thank God I'm atheist, my other podcast

29:27started when my friend Frank and I did a a rapture watch after Harold Camping made his

29:36prediction for the day of for the day of the rapture.

29:39And we did a live radio show about just sort of waiting for it to happen, checking in,

29:45making sure, seeing what happened and that that's kind of what launched our show.

29:50So again, I have a deep love of people making like dated predictions about when it's going

29:58to happen because it's such a it's such a bold move, man.

30:03It's like, damn, you you you're going hard on this thing.

30:07And it's not new.

30:08It's not a new phenomenon.

30:10So take us through some of that history, some of some of the history of people making these

30:16projections.

30:17Yeah, for, you know, for a long time, there have been people who've done that.

30:23And for most of history, this, this comes as a surprise to most people and especially

30:29evangelical Christians, I'd say this idea that it's predicting our future at all was

30:35not the the main way of reading revelation for the vast majority of its history.

30:40For 1800 years, it was very much a slim margin on just marginal view.

30:44Almost everybody agreed it's not talking about our future.

30:47But those who did think it was talking about our future sometimes picked picked a date.

30:52One of the most famous was not famous and people wouldn't know about it today, but in

30:57the 13th century, there were a there were a group of Christians, Franciscan monks who

31:03insisted that it was going to happen in the year 1260.

31:07They had a really interesting argument.

31:10They're basing their, they're basing their views on, there was a, there was a monk called

31:14Yokemafiori who had decided that the world was created by God and God is a trinity.

31:21And so the world, the nature of God is built into the world.

31:25And so the, the world consists of father, son and spirit.

31:28And those are three periods of earth.

31:31And the first period is from the, the period of the father from the Abraham, the father

31:35of the Jews up to Jesus.

31:37That's the period of the father.

31:38Then Jesus comes in, you know, the period of the son and then the, at the second coming

31:42of the period of the spirit.

31:43Well, the period of the father you can date because in the gospel of Matthew, you have

31:48a genealogy of Jesus from Abraham down to Jesus and it's 42 generations.

31:54And Yokem said, okay, a generation in the Bible, he said was 30 years.

31:58So 42 times 30, okay, that's 1,260 years.

32:02And so after Jesus birth, his follower, Yokem father said, well, that's going to be 1,260

32:08years too.

32:09So it's going to be in the year 1260.

32:12And so, you know, they were, you can't argue with math.

32:15You cannot argue with math.

32:16And so it's been great since the 19th century when, when Evangelicals generally think that

32:21it's predicting our end because then you get a lot of very interesting predictions.

32:26And camping is probably, he's one of the few recent ones who actually picks a date, but

32:32what a lot of people don't know is that Harold Camping predicted a lot of dates in 1994.

32:39He wrote a very large book that showed exactly when it was going to happen in 1994, I think

32:46what the date was and like in March or something, March 21st or something.

32:49And then it didn't happen.

32:50So he chose it then for September and then he chose it for October.

32:53And finally, he just gave up.

32:55And then years later, he started this thing with 2001.

32:58And you know, and again, he kept changing the dates until finally, when it didn't happen,

33:04he finally just gave it up.

33:05And he admitted that he'd been wrong and that he had sinned against God and he died a disappointed

33:11man two years later.

33:13So he, but he's one, almost nobody gives it up, you know, they reset the date.

33:20Well, and that's, that's a weird thing about, you know, you hear about a lot of these and

33:25you know, the believers go all in with them.

33:29You know what I mean?

33:30You let's all go climb up the hill and, and watch it happen.

33:36And then when it doesn't happen, they're not dissuaded.

33:40Oh, right.

33:41The opposite.

33:42They, they pivot to something else.

33:44So talk about that a little bit.

33:45So this is a very interesting phenomenon that, that social psychologists have studied.

33:51There's a book that your listeners really, if they can get hold of this book, they can

33:55get a hold of it.

33:56It's called When Prophecy Fails and it's, it started out by, I think, Dan, you mentioned

34:03the great disappointment in the 1840s in 1844.

34:07They thought they knew the date and it's going to happen and it didn't happen.

34:11And people had sold the farms and things.

34:14These social psychology were interested in the fact that when it didn't happen in 1844,

34:21the group that is said it was going to happen generated other groups.

34:24They were like 30 different religious movements that started from that, including the Jehovah's

34:29Witnesses and the Seventh Day Adventists, who still think the end's coming soon.

34:34And the, the social psychologists were not Christians.

34:36They were just interested.

34:38Why don't they just give up?

34:40And so the, the head of this group was a guy named Leon Festinger and they decided to

34:44figure out what happens when something like that happens.

34:47And they decided not to follow a religious group, but to follow a UFO cult, a group that

34:53thought that the Martians were going to come by, on December 21st, or whatever the date

34:58was, 1950 something, the, the, you know, the, the spaceships were coming to take us off

35:03the planet.

35:04They had a specific date when it was going to happen.

35:09And what Leon Festinger was interested in is, suppose you've got a group that has this

35:13expectation that is really quite clear and definite and actionable by which he meant,

35:21like people give up their jobs because they know it's going to happen.

35:24And so they really take, they invest everything in it.

35:27What happens when they've got the, you got a group that does that and then it doesn't

35:31happen?

35:32What happens to the group?

35:34And they had workers infiltrate this UFO cult to see what was going to happen when it didn't

35:40happen.

35:41And what happened was, well, what happened was, what Leon Festinger invented the term

35:47cognitive dissonance.

35:49Cognitive dissonance is when you've got a cognition, you've got an idea in your head

35:53that is dissonant with reality.

35:55It's contrary to reality.

35:57And in this case, you can prove that the idea is wrong because it didn't happen.

36:02And one, what he showed happens is in this group and other groups like it, when you're

36:07proved wrong, you double down on it and you reset the date, but you become more missionary

36:14and more fervent.

36:16And the psychological logic is, if you had a lot more people to agree with you, then it

36:22resolves the dissonance you're experiencing from knowing you're wrong because it doesn't

36:26seem like you're wrong because so many people agree with you.

36:29And so it's the psychological phenomenon.

36:31And it happens with these fundamentalist groups as well.

36:35And so that's what happened.

36:37You get more committed, more evangelistic about it once it doesn't happen.

36:42Now in my PhD dissertation, I did a lot of work with the cognitive science of religion.

36:46And this is something that I've looked into quite a bit.

36:49It's a fascinating phenomenon.

36:51A lot of people think of religious belief as about kind of binary facts, true or false.

36:56And that's, I would say, largely a product of the way the Reformation has become embedded

37:02within our intellectual history.

37:04But religion tends to be about so much more than that, about community, about belonging,

37:08about all kinds of different things.

37:11And we have these kind of evolutionarily installed preferences for these things.

37:19A lot of the itches that religion and other social identities can scratch.

37:24And I talk a lot on my channel about how apologists approach contradictions because a lot of that

37:30is about not showing that a contradiction is not there, but just trying to gin up the

37:36tiniest little sliver of it's not impossible.

37:39If I can imagine scenarios that make it so these two things can be true at the same time,

37:46no matter how implausible, as long as they're not physically impossible, then I'm protected.

37:51I'm okay.

37:52I don't have to acknowledge that contradiction, which I argue is a way for our minds to kind

37:58of wrap that belief in an erancy or univocality or whatever in this little security blanket.

38:04So it does not have to confront the reality of a belief that is not in agreement with

38:10the data out there in the world.

38:12Yeah.

38:13Well, a lot of us who are fundamentalists understand how that works quite well.

38:16And it's a strange thing when I tell, when I tell people that, I tell people that fundamentalist

38:23Christians are actually more children of the enlightenment than almost anybody because

38:27they actually believe in objectivity and they think they can objectively demonstrate things.

38:32And sometimes you just need that little thing to make it possible and then that's okay then.

38:37Yeah.

38:38And I think that a lot of that is based on the fact that Protestant Christianity has had

38:46to respond to the rationalism of the enlightenment.

38:50And they've had to adopt the tools of the enlightenment to show the enlightenment that

38:54we can hang.

38:55We can teach you on your own terms and then they took it over because in universities

39:01today, this idea of objectivity is people just kind of roll their eyes, but fundamentalists

39:07are still there, man.

39:08They're with the enlightenment.

39:09We're going to prove things.

39:10We've got objects.

39:11Let's go back to when rational religion and revealed religion were polar opposites.

39:19That's right.

39:20Which side are you going to come down on?

39:21That's right.

39:22Yeah, I wanted to raise a question.

39:26It's something you discuss briefly in the book.

39:29Another thing that I find myself combating a lot on social media is antisemitism.

39:36And one of the things that I have kind of dug my heels into is pushing back against

39:44this bad God of the Old Testament, good God of the New Testament.

39:49Theology, which is rooted in antisemitism and can be very, very harmful to folks today.

39:55I've got a lot of friends.

39:56I'm sure you know folks in the Academy as well who are affected by this kind of stuff.

40:01And you talk a bit in the book about there is a violent God in the Old Testament.

40:06There's a loving God too.

40:08There's also a violent God, but to suggest that there's not also perhaps even more violent

40:12God in the New Testament is to misread the New Testament.

40:17And I would argue that there is no God of the Bible, there's no God of the Old Testament,

40:21there's no God of the New Testament because there are numerous different profiles, numerous

40:25different representations of deity, some of them loving, some of them hateful, some of

40:29them violent.

40:32Would you mind sharing your thoughts on how your discussion in the book resonates with

40:37what's going on in the world with that kind of antisemitic framework?

40:42Yeah, I think it's the common line, right?

40:49The God of the Old Testaments, the God of Wrath and the God of the New Testaments, the

40:52God of Love.

40:53When everybody tells me that, I just asked them, have you read Revelation lately?

40:58I don't love what you know, the term love of God never occurs in the book of Revelation.

41:06God is never said to love anybody in Revelation.

41:10The words that are used frequently are wrath and vengeance and revenge and blood and violence.

41:19And these are the terms that are used.

41:22Revelation says it's about the wrath of God and the wrath of his lamb, that's Jesus.

41:28So it's a very wrathful book.

41:30And so I do think that it's really far too simplistic to talk about the Old Testament

41:35God and the New Testament God.

41:38And you're absolutely right.

41:39It's not as if every author of every book in the Old Testament has the same view of God.

41:46Quite the contrary, in English, it's 39 books written by a number of different authors from

41:52a number of different sources.

41:53And there are various depictions of the ultimate divinity in the Hebrew Bible.

42:00And in the New Testament, there's not a consistent view either.

42:04But this is rooted, this idea that the New Testament is the God of love is that, you know,

42:09the God of the Old Testament is this harsh God who wants to hurt you.

42:12That's the Jewish God.

42:14And the God of the New Testament is God of love and mercy.

42:16He wants to save you.

42:18Then you say, well, okay, what about Revelation?

42:20Well, people are doing it to themselves, they say, you know, they just got to reject God.

42:25And so it's not God's fault.

42:26It's their fault because they rejected it.

42:29Well, okay.

42:30You know, if you reject God, and suppose God wants to destroy everything that's opposed

42:35to Him, okay, just to suppose there is a God like that, why doesn't He just zap them with

42:39a cosmic ray or something, you know, or give everybody a sudden coronary?

42:44You know, in the book of Revelation, there's one of the many, many catastrophes that hits

42:49the earth is that heaven releases these locusts out of this bottomless pit that they have

43:00the sting of scorpions, and they're flying locust.

43:04And they sting everybody who's not a strict follower of Jesus, and this sting torments

43:09people for five months in excruciating pain, and they're not allowed to die.

43:16They can only suffer for five months.

43:19They can't even kill themselves to put an end to the pain.

43:22This is brought by Christ, and why do you need the torture?

43:28Why can't you just?

43:29Why can't you just kill everybody?

43:31It's funny.

43:33When I first delved into Revelation, you know, I'd heard terms like, you know, the beasts

43:38and all the stuff.

43:39And yes, there are, there are many beasts spoken of in Revelation and blah, blah, blah.

43:43But what I've was shocked by is how terrifying the angels were in, you know, just sort of

43:50to your point, like the good guys are horrifying in Revelation.

43:56Well, in chapter 14, Christ comes out of a, comes out of heaven with a sith in his hand,

44:02and another angel comes out with a sith, and they're told to harvest the earth.

44:07And so this angel harvests the earth, you know, okay, he's, he's chopping down some

44:11grape vines because he talks about the vineyard being harvested.

44:15And but then the grapes are thrown into the vat of God, the wine press of God's wrath.

44:23And it turns out it's blood.

44:25These are humans and the blood flows for 200 miles as high as a bridle of a horse.

44:32That's, that's, that's the violence brought about by Christ and his angel.

44:36And so it's not the beast doing this.

44:38This is Christ doing it.

44:39And his angel is a, oh man, that's, that's bloody 200 miles up to, I mean, whoa, that's

44:45a lot of blood.

44:46Well, and that's, and that's throwing everybody in a, in a big stone pit and then stomping

44:51on them.

44:52Uh, if, if we're using the same idea of the antiquity of the wine press, you know, people

44:58are the, people are the grapes.

45:01So what's, what's the takeaway?

45:03Well, what should we be taking away both from revelation as a book and sort of the, the,

45:10the, the, the biblical idea of Armageddon?

45:13What should we be taking away from that?

45:15And then, uh, how, how should we as a modern, uh, reader, uh, you know, we're not, you're,

45:25I hear the, you know, this isn't a Ouija board.

45:29It isn't a puzzle, a jigsaw puzzle.

45:33What is it?

45:34What is our takeaway from that?

45:35Okay.

45:36So most of my book is trying to explain what revelation really is at most of my book, you

45:40know, I'm not trying to trash revelation in my book.

45:44I'm trying to show what it really is.

45:46And the reason people get mystified by it is because they don't understand, uh, that

45:51this, this kind of book was a common form of writing in, among Jews and Christians in

45:56the ancient world.

45:58Today, when somebody reads the book of revelation, they read it so bizarre, so weird.

46:02So you just can't understand all this metaphor and the symbolism, what in the world's going

46:06on here and just blows your mind.

46:08And so evangelicals read it or fundamentalist read and say, this is so weird.

46:12No human could have come up with this.

46:13This must be inspired by God.

46:14That's why.

46:15So, but, but those people have never been to burning men.

46:20Yeah.

46:21Well, that's right.

46:22They have.

46:23Yeah.

46:24Well, the funny thing.

46:25Yeah.

46:26Okay.

46:27So, so the, the thing is that books like this work were written in the ancient world.

46:29And so what historians do is they, they put revelation within its genre.

46:34And so if you, you know, somebody reads a science fiction novel, they pretty much know

46:37how it works.

46:39If you'd given a science fiction novel to somebody living 500 years ago, they wouldn't

46:43be able to make heads or tails of it.

46:45But for modern readers, it's not a problem.

46:47You're just used to that kind of literature.

46:49And you know, it's not like a short story and it's not like a biography and it's not

46:52like a limerick poem.

46:53Every one of these are genres of literature and authors who write in a genre know what's

46:58expected within the genre and the readers know what the authors doing within the genre.

47:03So the book of Revelation is a shot, a part of a genre, it's the genre is called apocalypse.

47:08We have a number of apocalypsis Jewish and Christian apocalypsis.

47:12And so we can tell how they work.

47:14And if you see how they work, it's not that hard to interpret the book of Revelation.

47:18They always work to explain that there's a lot of evil in the world.

47:24There are powers of evil in the world, but God is going to intervene and destroy the

47:28evil and reward the righteous.

47:31And so there'll be a good outcome for this thing.

47:33And so these books are generally meant to be books of hope for people who are on the

47:38side of the author.

47:40And they are that.

47:42And so Revelation is not a jigsaw puzzle, but the other part of my book, as I try to

47:47argue, it's also not really a book of hope for the vast majority of the human race.

47:53Because the vast majority of the human race will be brought back from the dead if they've

47:57died and or they'll come alive to the judgment seat.

48:03And most of them will be thrown alive into a lake of burning sulfur.

48:07Or by the way, they'll be destroyed, they're not going to be tortured forever.

48:12They're killed in this lake of fire.

48:14That's how they die.

48:16So the only people escape are the very devoted followers of Christ who are called the slaves

48:24of God.

48:25God doesn't love them.

48:26They're his minions.

48:27They're his slaves.

48:28And the thing is, it's not even all Christians.

48:31Every pagan and every non-believing, non-Christian Jew gets thrown in the lake and a lot of Christians

48:36do too.

48:39So what do we make of this?

48:41Well, I think if you give John, if you want to kind of cut him some slack, you say he's

48:46just trying to show that in the end God will triumph.

48:50And that can be a source of hope for people who are suffering.

48:54And so that part can be good.

48:56But the imagery he uses to get there is not good.

49:00And it's a book I think that runs contrary to the actual message of Jesus himself.

49:08And so I think people have to choose whether they're going to accept this ideology of

49:12violence or not, because Jesus is against it and John of Patmos has for it.

49:19Well, I think that is a wonderful place to end our discussion.

49:24Bart Ehrman, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

49:27We really appreciate having you here.

49:29It's been my pleasure.

49:30Thanks for having me.

49:32Thank you for your time.

49:33I appreciate it.

49:34Thank you, everybody, for listening.

49:36I hope you've enjoyed this episode of the Data Over Dogma Podcast.

49:41As usual, if you'd like to get in touch with us, you can reach us at contact@dataoverdogmapod.com

49:49and we will see you all around.

49:59(chiming)