WEBVTT - From the Vault: Heaven and Hell with Bart Ehrman 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.200 Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:08.240 --> 0:00:11.799 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.040 going into the vault to bring you an episode from 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:18.640 last year. This one originally published on July four, and 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:21.400 this one was called Heaven and Hell with Bart Rman. 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:24.200 This was an interview that I did with a with 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:27.640 a secular biblical historian named Bart Erman, who's a really 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:31.040 interesting and passionate scholar who knows a lot and is 0:00:31.040 --> 0:00:33.320 really fun to listen to, and it's all about the 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:36.960 origins of the Christian concepts of heaven and Hell. I 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:40.280 thought this was a really really interesting discussion. I love 0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:42.839 talking to Bart and so we hope you enjoyed this 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:49.320 classic episode. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:58.480 of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:01.000 Your Mind. My name is Robert L. M and I'm 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:03.640 Joe McCormick. And this week we are going to be 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:07.000 featuring a couple of interviews that I recorded last week. 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:10.040 Because last week, Robert, you were out of quote the office. 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:12.080 You were at least you were off work for a bit, 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:16.200 and uh so, so I recorded conversations with authors of 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:18.520 some books. One book that's already out this year in 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:21.320 one book that's coming up. So on Thursday of this week, 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:23.959 we're going to be airing a conversation that I had 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:26.800 with the author of a fascinating upcoming book about the 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:30.560 evolutionary biology of cancer. But today we're going to be 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:33.760 exploring a topic in the realm of ancient history and religion. 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:36.280 And if you followed us for a while, I think 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:38.119 you probably know this about us, that one of our 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:40.959 favorite kind of trails to go down is tracing the 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:44.560 evolution of religious ideas through ancient history. I mean, I 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:47.480 think I've added myself on this podcast before as a 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:50.560 kind of non religious person who loves the Bible. Like 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:53.120 you know, I love to read ancient religious texts and 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:55.520 learn about them and see how the ideas from the 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:58.320 ancient world have sort of filtered through to us today 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:01.360 and shape to the society's live in. And so that's 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:03.960 exactly the kind of thing we're going to be diving into. 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:08.320 In this episode, I'm talking with a secular biblical historian 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:12.200 named bart Erman about his most recent book, which is 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:16.200 called Heaven and Hell, History of the Afterlife. This book 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:18.840 was released in March of this year by Simon and Schuster, 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:23.200 and it's all about the Christian ideas of life after death, 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:26.960 where they come from an ancient history, what influenced their development, 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:30.040 and how they changed over time. Uh. So there was 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:32.560 a part that cited in the intro of Bart's book 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:35.520 where he talks about a Pew Research poll that was 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:37.320 conducted a few years ago. I think maybe it was 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:42.320 in where it found that seventy two percent of Americans 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:46.000 believe in a literal heaven and fifty eight percent believe 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:50.399 in a literal hell. And yet I think most Americans 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:54.520 would be deeply surprised, even shocked, to learn what historians 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:57.080 can show about the origins of these beliefs. And the 0:02:57.120 --> 0:03:00.720 strange thing is that, like the historical conclusions that Bart's 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:03.800 going to talk about in this episode are not fringe 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:07.320 or unusual among secular scholars of the Bible and historians 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:10.840 of the ancient Near East. Uh. This is utterly mainstream 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:14.520 critical scholarship. And yet I think regular people are, especially 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:18.840 in the United States, are going to find it very surprising. Yeah. Absolutely, 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:21.120 And I want to stress something here for everybody. So 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:24.960 I I just got back uh to work this morning, 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:28.520 and I plugged into like a pre production um cut 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:31.640 of this interview, and it's really it's really excellent. So 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:34.800 if you're even slightly scared away by the idea of 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:38.960 an interview with a secular biblical scholar, uh, don't be 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:42.840 because because Bart is is tremendous. He's he's funny, uh, 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:46.440 very high energy. I think you're really going to enjoy 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:49.440 this chat that Joe had with Bart. Here. Yeah. Bart's 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:52.400 full of knowledge, good humor, passion for his subject. I 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:54.280 think you're really going to enjoy the episode. But before 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:56.160 we get to do it, I'll just give a little 0:03:56.160 --> 0:03:58.960 bit of background on Bart. So here's this biography. Bart 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:02.120 d Erman is a leading authority on the New Testament 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:05.480 and the history of early Christianity, and the author or 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:08.240 editor of more than thirty books, including the New York 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:12.560 Times bestsellers, Misquoting Jesus, How Jesus Became God, and The 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:15.200 Triumph of Christianity. And that last one is really interesting. 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:18.919 It's about how Christianity took over the Roman Empire and 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:21.960 went from a really small religion to the dominant religion 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:24.080 of the Empire and just a matter of a few 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:28.200 centuries UM. Anyway, So he is a distinguished professor of 0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:31.440 Religious Studies of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:35.120 and he has created eight popular audio and video courses 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:38.119 for the Great Courses. He has been featured in Time, 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:42.039 The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and has appeared on NBC, CNN, 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:44.440 and The Daily Show with John Stewart, as well as 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:49.000 the History Channel, National Geographic Channel, BBC, NPR all the hits. 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:52.880 His most recent book, again is Heaven and Hell. Just 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:55.080 one more thing before we get into it, I want 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:58.520 to mention, obviously we are dealing with the audio constraints 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:01.640 of remote records, being in the age of COVID nineteen. 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:05.920 So for example, around the twelve minute mark in the episode, 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:08.960 there is briefly some background noise. It sounds like a 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:11.680 fan was turned on or there was some rain. It 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:14.080 only lasts for about a minute or so, and and 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:16.560 so please just put up with a little bit of 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:20.080 background noise, and it's very brief. I promise it's not 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:23.440 the sounds of hell, right, Not no audio recordings of 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:27.200 the underworld leaking up through some sort of mining microphone. Right. 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:29.599 The well to Hell was not unleashed in bights office. 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:32.680 Uh so, yeah, I would say, without any further Ado, 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:38.080 let's jump right in barter Erman. Welcome to the podcast. 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:40.359 Thanks so much for joining us today. Yes, thanks for 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:43.680 having me so your book Heaven and Hell. Just finished 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:47.120 reading yesterday and I really really enjoyed it. Uh. And 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:48.960 I want to say that I started reading this book 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:51.039 at a very opportune time, because though I didn't plan 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:54.280 it this way, I'm also currently in the middle of 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:57.719 rereading The Divine Comedy. Actually my wife and I are 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:01.320 reading it together. And of course the Divine Comedy. Dante 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:05.800 is wonderful poetry, but it's also psychologically fascinating because when 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:08.039 you go through the theology of Dante, you get the 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:12.640 sense of somebody who is simultaneously ingenious and thoughtful and 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:15.520 in some ways very intellectually bold and open minded for 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:19.680 his historical context. But in other ways Dante is also 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:23.040 very limited and provincial and in a word, medieval, like 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:26.359 the way you see him taking so much pleasure in 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:29.839 designing horrific tortures for his enemies from these, you know, 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:34.359 petty thirteenth century political struggles in Italy working with ancient 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:37.599 religious texts. Do you find yourself encountering this kind of 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:40.920 irony embodied within the same author or tradition. A lot 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:43.120 part of my book on Having the Hell is dealing 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:48.400 with some of the earliest forerunners of Dante. Um. Many 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:50.960 people think that he was creative in coming up with 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:53.640 his idea of a guided tour of the Inferno and 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:57.479 the Paradiso and the and the Pratorian, but in fact 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:01.839 he was borrowing from the the motif of a guided 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:05.400 tour of the realms of the dead from earlier authors 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:08.640 and including in the Christian tradition. I think one thing 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:15.120 that very seriously contrasts between Dante and his early forerunners 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:17.320 that I look at and the about I look at 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:19.800 basically from the second century up to maybe the fifth 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:23.800 Christian century, so a very long time before Dante. But 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:27.080 the main contrast is, Uh, most of the authors of 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:31.720 these works were not geniuses. And the works the works 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:35.640 are they are. They can be very graphic in their descriptions, 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:40.280 especially of Hell um. Uh. There they are less uh 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:43.200 they're less attendant to what's going on in heaven. Uh. 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:45.440 And so it's not quite like Dante, where you get 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:52.080 basically equal coverage between Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell. But you know, 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:55.040 the ancient people are for some reason more interested in 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:56.960 the torments of Hell. And my guess is that it's 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:00.440 because it was easier to describe, you know, if you're 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:04.400 trying to describe eternal bliss and everybody is like equally 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:07.880 happy forever. You know what, more, what are you say? 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:09.720 You just got to talk about their bliss for a 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:11.960 little while. Then there's whereas if you want to talk 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:14.440 about the eternal torment, well, you know, you can design 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:18.000 all sorts of creative punishments and so you can let 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:22.000 your your creative juices flow, and so that's what these 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:25.480 ancient authors do. So there's nothing at the level of 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:28.560 a Dante in these sources, but they are very interesting, 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:32.200 many in many ways more interesting of course for understanding 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:35.560 how Christianity developed than Dante, who's coming after, you know, 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:39.480 centers and centuries of development. Well, to ground the discussion, 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:41.400 maybe it would help to look at a specific example. 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:42.880 Could you talk for a second about some of the 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:47.199 specifics of say, the Apocalypse of Peter. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so, um, 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:51.319 the earliest one we have with these these guided tours 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:54.559 is the one you mentioned, the Apocalypse of Peter. We 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:58.199 we had known, they had known for centuries that there 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:00.680 was an apocalypse of Peter. Because it almost made it 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:04.160 into the New Testament. Uh. There were church fathers uh 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:06.120 from the fourth century the fifth century who thought the 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:09.000 Apocalypse of Peter is part of the Bible, but he 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:11.240 eventually didn't make it in and it got lost until 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:15.200 it turns turned up in seven. When it turned up, 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:18.400 it caused a big fear uproar. I mean, because oh 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:20.720 my god, this is like, this is a guided to 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:23.800 our Peter, the apostle, Peter, jesus right hand man, is 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:26.600 given a tour of heaven and help by Jesus himself, 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:29.920 and so it's a terrific text. I mean it describes, 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:34.800 as I was saying, in fairly brief order, uh, the heaven, 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:37.200 which is a great place. I mean it's uh, you know, 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:40.600 there are lush trees and vegetation everywhere, and it smells 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:43.319 good and everybody's happy, and so you know, it's good 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:46.240 with a you know, a nice summer breeze blowing through 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:48.960 the whole time. So it's great. It's great. But then 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:52.520 he sees the torments in hell, and uh, they're nasty 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:56.480 and uh. And the interesting thing in this case is 0:09:56.800 --> 0:10:01.320 that many of the punishments matt the crimes, and so 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:06.640 if somebody is, say a habitual blast femur that they 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:10.120 blasphemed God. Well, they're they're sinning Oregon, there's their mouth, 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:13.680 and so they are. These are hanged by their tongues 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:18.720 over eternal flames. Women who have braided their hair to 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:23.000 make themselves more attractive so they can seduce men are 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:27.319 hanged by their hair over eternal flames. Uh. The men 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:30.920 they seduced are hanged by their genitals over neural flames. 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:32.480 And they cry out, we didn't know it would come 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:36.160 to this, and so so it kind of goes on. 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:40.120 And unlike Dante, which is a very sophisticated number of 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:44.120 political and religious points, the point here is pretty clear. 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:45.839 There are a bunch of things you better not do, 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:49.600 and you know if you do, you're a big trouble. 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:52.199 So like, just don't do it. So basically the basically 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:56.320 don't sin. And so it's it's fairly fairly elementary, both 0:10:56.320 --> 0:11:01.240 theologically and politically. So already by this later, did you 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:05.079 say the Apocalypse of Peter is probably a second century work? Yeah, 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:08.920 so church fathers know about it, uh, in the second century, 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:11.360 and they're good reasons for thinking that was written in 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:13.440 the early part of the second century, so maybe just 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:15.880 like twenty or thirty years after some of the books 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:19.160 of the New Testament. Wow, so already by this point 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:22.840 we have some beliefs about heaven and hell that look 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:26.360 very much like beliefs that people still have today about 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:28.840 heaven and hell. And I think maybe this should lead 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:30.960 us to what I would say is probably the biggest 0:11:31.000 --> 0:11:33.920 single gut punch of the book, which is that these 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:36.640 standard beliefs about the afterlife that you would find among 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:40.080 probably most Christians today, the belief that when you die, 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:43.400 your soul separates from your body and either travels to Heaven, 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:46.000 which is a place of eternal bliss, or to Hell, 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:49.360 which is a place of eternal torture. These teachings, you argue, 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:52.160 are not found in the Hebrew Bible, which is what 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:55.000 Christians would call the Old Testament, and they are not 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:58.160 the teachings of the historical Jesus. And in fact, unless 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:02.000 I'm wrong, you can barely find anything like them in 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:04.480 the New Testament at all, Like maybe in a parable 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:06.800 in the Gospel of Luke. Is that about right? That 0:12:06.800 --> 0:12:09.400 that is not just about right? That is right? Uh? 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:13.360 The the Old the Christian Old Testament, Uh, does not 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:18.400 talk anywhere about souls dying and going to people dying 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:21.600 and their souls going to reward in heaven or punishment 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:23.839 and hell. It's not there at all. And so part 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:26.480 of my book is explaining what you do find in 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:28.400 the Hebrew Bible. You get a range of different views 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:30.600 in the Hebrew Bible, but you don't get that view, 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:34.520 and I try to show how that developed into a 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:39.400 different view that Jesus had uh, and that Jesus himself 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:41.800 did not believe that your body died and your soul 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:44.719 went to one place or the other, and neither did 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:48.040 the apostle Paul for most of his life. Uh. The 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:51.160 book Revelation doesn't teach that. And so the question my 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:52.760 book is, I try. I try to show all that. 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:54.840 But then the questions, well, then where to come from? 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:57.680 Because everybody simply assumes, of course that this is you know, 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:00.240 they believe this because the Bible teaches it. No, actually, 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:03.760 the Bible doesn't teach that. So that's so it seems 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:05.800 like a pretty important point to me, given the fact 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:07.800 that there are two billion Christians in the world, most 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:10.120 of whom believe in this, and they just assume it's 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:12.800 in the Bible. But it's it's not. Yeah, it seems 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:14.760 so hard to believe, because I would say the belief 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:17.280 in heaven and hell basically along the lines I just 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:19.839 described as not just a very common belief. I think 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:24.320 too many people it is the defining or the characteristic 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:28.840 belief when they conceive of their own faith. Yeah. No, absolutely, 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:31.360 I mean, and I completely understand that. I mean when 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:33.560 I you know, I grew up believing in heaven and 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:35.800 Hell myself. I mean, I was raised in a Christian home, 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:38.520 and I became an evangelical Christian as a teenager, and 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:40.719 then I really believed in heaven and hell, especially Hell, 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:43.439 and uh, you know, and so I was I was 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:45.120 gunna know all about it. And that's part of what 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:47.120 really made me want to write the book, was that 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:50.280 I know there are a lot of people who are, 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:52.920 of course hopeful for heaven, and a lot of people 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:56.080 who are just terrified of hell, and uh, you know 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:59.480 a lot of people just don't know. But uh, you know, 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:03.000 it's worth knowing where these ideas came from, because people 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:05.280 shouldn't believe that because they think they're in the Bible, 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:08.680 that that is because they're not. As you said, maybe 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:11.240 like in one little passage like it sucked away in 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:13.440 the Gospel loop. But I mean, but but basically they're 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:15.960 not there. They these authors had a different view, And 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:20.000 it's worth knowing what these different views were because you 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:22.480 simply shouldn't assume this is the standard view and always 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:26.200 has been among Christians. Yeah, and it's um it's remarkable 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:30.120 how difficult these beliefs are to shake, even if you 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:33.840 rationally know otherwise. I mean, I I personally, I grew 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:37.040 up in East Tennessee, surrounded by a lot of fundamentalist Christianity, 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:39.880 And when I think about the way I conceive of Hell, 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:43.600 I don't rationally believe in in a hell anymore. But 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:45.800 I think of my mind sort of as a mansion 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:48.840 where there's a room in the back, and occasionally the 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:52.400 door opens and that belief just gets out and walks around. 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:55.000 And I don't know when that's going to happen. Do 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:57.600 you find the same thing. Does it sometimes just come 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:01.760 out without seemingly unbidden? Not as much now as it did, 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:04.200 you know when I left, When I left the faith 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:06.800 many years ago, not twenty five years ago or whatever, 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:09.640 a long time ago. When I left Christianity for a 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:11.960 long time, one of the things is holding me back 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:14.360 to begin with, before I left was the fear of hell. 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:17.160 You know, I thinking, you know, like if I like, uh, 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:19.240 you know, I really think that people are gonna be 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:21.800 punished after death by God. But now I'm doubting my faith. 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:23.600 And if I leave my faith, what if I was 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:25.840 right in the first place, and now you know it 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:28.400 took the wrong term, but I'm screwed. I mean, it's like, 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:30.680 this is not going to be good. Uh. And so 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:32.560 but then when I did leave the faith, I just 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:35.080 I became convinced that God is not going to be 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:39.200 torturing people for trillions of years because they messed up 0:15:39.240 --> 0:15:41.920 for twenty year. They didn't believe exactly the right thing. 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:45.560 I just said, just it's implausible. And so over time 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:47.680 what I did is I ended up becoming more of 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:51.400 a rationalist, and I became more of a materialist. And 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:53.840 so you know, I'm a complete materialist now a naturalist. 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:55.320 I mean, I just you know, I don't I don't 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:57.600 think there is some kind of other realm Uh, this 0:15:57.720 --> 0:15:59.640 is it. Uh. And I don't think there's some of 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:03.640 the law. This is it. And for me, um, maybe 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:06.840 because I'm such a rationalist that uh, the thought that's 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:09.320 really keeping my head too much anymore that yeah, actually, 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:11.920 you know it might happen. Uh, I just don't think 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:14.200 it is. I'm sure a lot of people are still 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:18.280 reeling from the surprise of of you saying that that, 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:20.880 in fact, the Hebrew Bible doesn't teach heaven and hell, 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:23.920 and that this was not the teaching of historical Jesus. 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:27.280 That there are probably things running through their heads to say, like, 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:29.360 wait a minute, that can't be right, can it. So 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:32.960 I think maybe we should talk specifically a bit about 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:35.600 the the evolution of beliefs about the afterlife that we 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:37.760 see in the ancient Near East of the ancient Greco 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:41.400 Roman world and then in the Bible. So, uh, can 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:44.800 we talk about beliefs about bodies, souls and what happens 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:48.120 to them at the time of death. Uh, maybe starting 0:16:48.600 --> 0:16:51.480 among in the pre Christian ancient world, maybe among the 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:53.600 ancient Jewish thought views that you would find in the 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:56.880 Hebrew Bible. Yeah, yeah, this is you know, as you know, 0:16:57.000 --> 0:16:59.200 this is really what my book does. Is it traces 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:01.760 these ideas all the way back as as early as 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:04.520 we have records. Uh, you know, we have records going, 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:07.520 we have written text going back to the epic of Gilgamesh, 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:10.359 which is it turns out, is a forerunner of Dante. 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:13.239 Gilgamesh actually has a tour to the Actual and so 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:15.040 and in the Old and So I go through the 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:17.000 Old Testament all the way, so that the ancient he 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:20.479 What one reason that the Old Testament doesn't have this 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:23.640 view that you die and your soul goes to heaven 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:26.320 or hell while your body dies is because ancient Hebrews 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:29.280 didn't have the idea that your soul and your body 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:34.160 were two entities that could be distinguished from each other. Um. 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:37.240 The idea that you've got a soul and a body 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:39.240 that you've got made up of two parts is a 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:45.000 kind of dualism right too. Too fundamental components in dualism. Um, 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:47.760 ancient Hebrews were not dualistic, and they're thinking about the 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:51.320 human The ancient Hebrews thought a human being was one thing, 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:54.720 not two separable things. And it goes all the way 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:58.359 back to Genesis where God creates the first human Adam. 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:01.840 He makes Adam out of the dirt, and so there's 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:04.320 this kind of this dirt thing on the on the ground, 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:08.119 and it's just lying, it's inert, it's not alive. God 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:13.320 breathes life into Adam, and so he brings life into 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:16.760 Adam's soul. He brings it, brings a soul in the him, 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:20.520 which is his breath. Adam now has his breath, and 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:23.440 that makes him alive. And Adam will be alive as 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:26.720 long as he has his breath. But when he stops breathing, 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:31.600 he's dead. Now we ourselves, we ourselves have a kind 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:33.840 of we have an analogous thing about breath. You know, 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:38.119 when when you stop breathing, your breath doesn't go anywhere. 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:42.159 It's just God. And that's how they understood the soul. 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:44.840 It wasn't something separable from the breath or the body. 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:47.840 When your soul, when it leaves the body, like the 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:50.960 breath leaves, it's just gone. It doesn't go anywhere. And 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:54.359 so Hebrews didn't have ancient Hebrews didn't have this idea 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:56.280 that the soul would live on, because the soul is 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:58.720 simply the thing that made you alive, and when you're 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:01.880 not alive, it doesn't exact anymore. And so that's why 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:04.760 in the Old Testament Um nobody talks about the soul 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:10.560 living on after death. There are places um where uh 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:13.320 the Hebrew Bible, offers will talk about a place. It 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:17.880 sounds like a place, uh that sometimes it's called she'll um, 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:21.480 and so people mistake that as being like this area 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:23.960 that everybody goes to when they die, they die and 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:27.040 their souls go down to shield. And uh, when I 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:29.080 try to show in my book, is it probably that's 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:32.680 not what she all means. Um. The word shield itself 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:36.520 is often part of the problem is that Bible translators 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:39.600 really sometimes mess us up. And so often when with 0:19:39.640 --> 0:19:42.280 the English Bible, translators will come across the worst shield, 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:44.480 which occurs about sixty times in the Old Testament. It's 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:48.480 not very common, but they'll translate it as hell. But 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:50.639 what are you supposed to read? He was supposed to 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:53.480 think when you read, yeah, you know, God saved me 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:56.440 from hell, or I don't want to go to hell. 0:19:56.240 --> 0:19:59.160 But what it's it actually doesn't say hell. It says 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:03.320 she'll and she all is not hell. Hell. We think 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:05.720 it was hell is where your soul goes to get punished. 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:08.679 But that's not found in Hebrew thought. And so when 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:11.800 I showed my my book is that when when shield 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:15.639 gets used in the Hebrew Bible, it is almost always 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:23.600 set um as the synonym for grave or pit or 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:27.920 the place your body is placed um when it dies. 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:31.119 And so it looks like sheola is simply where your 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:35.879 remains are. It's not a place um. And so uh 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:38.280 so there's no place in the Bible, in the Old 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:40.840 Testament where there's a place that you go either for 0:20:40.920 --> 0:20:43.800 rewards or punished when you just die. And that's why, 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:46.600 that's why the Hebrew authors, like in the Psalms, are 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:49.240 so afraid of death because they're not gonna have life anymore. 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:51.960 There's not gonna be anything. They're not going to be 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:55.080 able to enjoy anything. There'll be no physical pleasure. Um. 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:58.040 They won't even be able to worship God. They say this, 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:01.800 and God won't even room remember them. He won't remember 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:04.480 them because they won't exist, and so they won't even 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:06.960 think about them. And so that's the situation of the 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:10.040 Hebrew Bible that people are made up of body and soul. 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:13.280 When they die, their life is over and they get 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:15.280 deposited somewhere and they want to get to They want 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:17.199