WEBVTT - Heaven and Hell with Bart Ehrman 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:14.800 Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:18.040 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:20.440 this week we are going to be featuring a couple 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:24.320 of interviews that I recorded last week. Because last week, Robert, 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:26.360 you were out of quote the office. You were at 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:29.640 least you were off work for a bit, and uh so, 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:33.080 so I recorded conversations with authors of some books, one 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:35.040 book that's already out this year, in one book that's 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:37.800 coming up. So on Thursday of this week, we're going 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:40.239 to be airing a conversation that I had with the 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:43.960 author of a fascinating upcoming book about the evolutionary biology 0:00:43.960 --> 0:00:47.040 of cancer. But today we're going to be exploring a 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:49.960 topic in the realm of ancient history and religion. And 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:52.240 if you followed us for a while, I think you 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:54.440 probably know this about us, that one of our favorite 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:57.400 kind of trails to go down is tracing the evolution 0:00:57.440 --> 0:01:00.840 of religious ideas through ancient history. And I think I've 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:03.880 outed myself on this podcast before as a kind of 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:06.720 non religious person who loves the Bible. Like you know, 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:09.560 I love to read ancient religious texts and learn about 0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:12.119 them and see how the ideas from the ancient world 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:14.600 have sort of filtered through to us today and and 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:17.240 shape to the society's we live in. And so that's 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:19.880 exactly the kind of thing we're going to be diving into. 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:24.199 In this episode, I'm talking with a secular biblical historian 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:28.080 named bart Erman about his most recent book, which is 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:32.120 called Heaven and Hell, History of the Afterlife. This book 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:34.720 was released in March of this year by Simon and Schuster, 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:39.080 and it's all about the Christian ideas of life after death, 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:42.840 where they come from an ancient history, what influenced their development, 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:45.920 and how they changed over time. Uh So, there was 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:48.480 a part that cited in the intro of Bart's book 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:51.400 where he talks about a Pew Research poll that was 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:53.200 conducted a few years ago. I think maybe it was 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:57.520 in where uh it found that seventy two percent of 0:01:57.520 --> 0:02:01.480 Americans believe in a literal heaven and fifty eight percent 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:05.600 believe in a literal hell. And yet I think most 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:09.560 Americans would be deeply surprised, even shocked, to learn what 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:12.840 historians can show about the origins of these beliefs. And 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:16.240 the strange thing is that like The historical conclusions that 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:19.080 Bart's going to talk about in this episode are not 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:22.560 fringe or unusual among secular scholars of the Bible and 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:26.040 historians of the ancient Near East. Uh. This is utterly 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:29.760 mainstream critical scholarship. And yet I think regular people are, 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:32.120 especially in the United States, are going to find it 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:36.000 very surprising. Yeah. Absolutely. And I want to stress something 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:38.880 here for everybody. So I I just got back, uh 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:42.320 to work this morning, and I plugged into like a 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:46.519 pre production um cut of this interview, and it's really 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:49.840 it's really excellent. So if you're even slightly scared away 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:54.200 by the idea of an interview with a secular biblical scholar, uh, 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:58.720 don't be because because Bart is is tremendous. He's he's funny, uh, 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:02.320 very high energy. I think you're really going to enjoy 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:05.360 this chat that Joe had with Bart here. Yeah. Bart's 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:08.280 full of knowledge, good humor, passion for his subject. I 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:10.160 think you're really going to enjoy the episode. But before 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:12.040 we're get to do it, I'll just give a little 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:14.840 bit of background on Bart. So here's his biography. Bart 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:18.000 d Erman is a leading authority on the New Testament 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:21.360 and the history of early Christianity and the author or 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:24.119 editor of more than thirty books, including the New York 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:28.400 Times bestsellers, Misquoting Jesus, How Jesus Became God, and the 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:31.080 Triumph of Christianity. And that last one is really interesting. 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:34.800 It's about how Christianity took over the Roman Empire and 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:37.840 went from a really small religion to the dominant religion 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:39.960 of the empire and just a matter of a few 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:44.080 centuries um. Anyway, So, he is a Distinguished Professor of 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:47.320 Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:51.000 and he has created eight popular audio and video courses 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:54.040 for the Great Courses. He has been featured in Time, 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:57.920 The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and has appeared on NBC, CNN, 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:00.320 and The Daily Show with John Stewart, as well as 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:04.880 the History Channel, National Geographic Channel, BBC, NPR, all the hits. 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:08.760 His most recent book, again, is Heaven and Hell. Just 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:10.960 one more thing before we get into it, I want 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:14.400 to mention, obviously we are dealing with the audio constraints 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:18.240 of remote recording in the age of COVID nineteen. So, 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:21.800 for example, around the twelve minute mark in the episode, 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:24.840 there is briefly some background noise. It sounds like a 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:27.599 fan was turned on or there was some rain. It 0:04:27.680 --> 0:04:29.960 only lasts for about a minute or so, and and 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:32.440 so please just put up with a little bit of 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:35.960 background noise. And it's very brief. I promise it's not 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:39.400 the sounds of hell. Right, not audio recordings of the 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:43.080 underworld leaking up through some sort of mining microphone. Right. 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:45.520 The well to Hell was not unleashed in Bright's office. 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:48.560 Uh so, yeah, I would say, without any further ado, 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:54.000 let's jump right in barter Erman, Welcome to the podcast. 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:56.240 Thanks so much for joining us today. Yes, thanks for 0:04:56.279 --> 0:04:59.520 having me so your book Heaven and Hell. Just finished 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:02.920 reading the yesterday and I really really enjoyed it. Uh 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:04.599 And I want to say that I started reading this 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:06.720 book at a very opportune time, because though I didn't 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:09.839 plan it this way. I'm also currently in the middle 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:13.159 of rereading The Divine Comedy. Actually my wife and I 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:16.800 are reading it together. And of course The Divine Comedy 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:21.520 Dante is wonderful poetry, but it's also psychologically fascinating because 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:23.839 when you go through the theology of Dante, you get 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:28.400 the sense of somebody who is simultaneously ingenious and thoughtful 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:31.280 and in some ways very intellectually bold and open minded 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:35.280 for his historical context. But in other ways Dante is 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:38.719 also very limited and provincial and in a word, medieval, 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:42.120 like the way you see him taking so much pleasure 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:45.760 in designing horrific tortures for his enemies from these, you know, 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:50.239 petty thirteenth century political struggles in Italy. Working with ancient 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:53.479 religious texts, do you find yourself encountering this kind of 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:56.799 irony embodied within the same author or tradition. A lot 0:05:57.040 --> 0:05:59.000 part of my book on Having the Hell is dealing 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:04.320 with some of the earliest forerunners of dante. Um. Many 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:06.840 people think that he was creative in coming up with 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:09.520 this idea of a guided tour of the Inferno and 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:13.359 the Paradiso and the and the Pratorium, but in fact 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:18.039 he was borrowing from the motif of a guided tour 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:21.680 of the realms of the dead from earlier authors and 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:24.760 including in the Christian tradition. I think one thing that 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:30.440 very seriously UH contrasts between uh Dante and his early 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:32.680 for runners that I look at and the and about 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:34.839 I look at basically from the second century up to 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:38.440 maybe the fifth Christian century, so a very long time 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:42.359 before Dante. But the main contrast is, uh, most of 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:45.839 the authors of these works were not geniuses, and the 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:50.080 works the works are they are. They can be very 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:54.880 graphic in their descriptions, especially of Hell. Um uh there 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:57.680 they are less uh, they're less attendant to what's going 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:00.920 on in heaven, and so it's not like Dante, where 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:05.839 you get basically equal coverage between Heaven, purgatory, and Hell. 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:10.120 But you know, the ancient people are for some reason 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:12.400 more interested in the torments of Hell. And my guess 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:15.640 is that it's because it was easier to describe. Uh, 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:18.760 you know, if you're trying to describe eternal bliss and 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:23.000 everybody is like equally happy forever, you know what more, 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:25.080 what are you say? You just got to talk about 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:27.400 their bliss for a little while. Then there's whereas if 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:29.760 you want to talk about eternal torment, well, you know, 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:32.720 you can design all sorts of creative punishments and so 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:37.360 you can let your your creative juices flow, and so 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:40.320 that's what these ancient authors do. So there's nothing at 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:43.480 the level of a Dante in these sources, but they 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:46.720 are very interesting, many in many ways more interesting of 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:51.160 course for understanding how Christianity developed than Dante's coming after, 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:54.840 you know, centers and centuries of development. Well to ground 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:56.440 the discussion, maybe it would help to look at a 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:58.560 specific example. Could you talk for a second about some 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:03.080 of the specifics of say, the apocaly lips of Peter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um, 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:06.360 the the earliest one we have with these, uh, these 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:09.760 guided tours is the one you mentioned, the Apocalypse of Peter. 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:13.880 We we had known, they had known for centuries that 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:16.480 there was an Apocalypse of Peter, because it almost made 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:19.480 it into the New Testament. Uh. There were church fathers 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:21.920 uh from the fourth century the fifth century who thought 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:24.760 the Apocalypse of Peter is part of the Bible, but 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:26.760 he eventually didn't make it in and it got lost 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:30.920 until it turned turned up in seven. When it turned 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:34.280 up caused a big fere uproar. I mean, because oh 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:37.160 my god, this is like, this is a guided tour. Peter, 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:40.120 the apostle, Peter, jesus right hand man, is given a 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:43.839 tour of heaven help by Jesus himself. And so it's 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:46.839 a terrific text. I mean, it describes, as I was saying, 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:51.120 in in fairly brief order, uh, the heaven, which is 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:53.200 a great place. I mean, it's uh, you know, there 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:56.800 are lush trees and vegetation everywhere, and it smells good 0:08:56.840 --> 0:08:59.760 and everybody's happy, and so you know, it's with you know, 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:02.760 a nice summer breeze blowing through the whole time. So 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:05.920 it's great, it's great. But then he sees the torments 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:09.960 in hell, and uh, they are nasty and uh. And 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:14.120 the interesting thing in this case is that many of 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:17.960 the punishments match the crimes. And so if somebody is, 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:24.360 say a habitual blasphemur that they blasphemed God, well they're 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:27.160 they're sending Oregon is their mouth, and so they are. 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:32.959 These are hanged by their tongues over eternal flames. Women 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:36.920 who have braided their hair to make themselves more attractive 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:40.440 so they can seduce men are hanged by their hair 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:44.760 over eternal flames. Uh. The men they seduced are hanged 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:47.520 by their genitals over neural flames. And they cry out, 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:50.920 we didn't know it would come to this, and so 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:53.920 so it kind of goes on. And unlike Dante, which 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:58.040 is a very sophisticated number of political and religious points, 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:00.600 the point here is pretty clear. There are a bunch 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:04.360 of things you better or not do and yeah, if 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:06.520 you do, you're a big trouble. So like, just don't 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:08.840 do it. So basically the basically I don't say it. 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:14.120 And so it's it's fairly fairly elementary, both theologically and politically. 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:17.960 So already by this later, did you say the Apocalypse 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:21.120 of Peter is probably a second century work? Yeah, so 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:24.800 church fathers know about it, uh, in the second century, 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:27.280 and they're good reasons for thinking that was written in 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:29.360 the early part of the second century. So maybe just 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:31.760 like twent or thirty years after some of the books 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:35.040 of the New Testament. Wow, So already by this point 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:38.720 we have some beliefs about heaven and Hell that look 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:42.240 very much like beliefs that people still have today about 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:44.720 heaven and hell. And I think maybe this should lead 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:46.840 us to what I would say is probably the biggest 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:49.800 single gut punch of the book, which is that these 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:52.520 standard beliefs about the afterlife that you would find among 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:55.960 probably most Christians today, the belief that when you die, 0:10:56.160 --> 0:10:59.280 your soul separates from your body and either travels to Heaven, 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:01.880 which is a place of eternal bliss, or to Hell, 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:05.240 which is a place of eternal torture. These teachings, you argue, 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:08.040 are not found in the Hebrew Bible, which is what 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:10.880 Christians would call the Old Testament. And they are not 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:14.080 the teachings of the historical Jesus. And in fact, unless 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:17.880 I'm wrong, you can barely find anything like them in 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:20.360 the New Testament at all. Like maybe in a parable 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:22.680 in the Gospel of Luke. Is that about right? That 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:25.280 that is not just about right? That is right? Uh? 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:29.120 The the the Old the Christian Old Testament, Uh, does 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:34.000 not talk anywhere about souls dying and going to people 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:36.960 dying and their souls going to reward in heaven or 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:39.480 punishment and hell. It's not there at all. And so 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:41.720 part of my book is explaining what you do find 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:44.040 in the Hebrew Bible. You get a range of different 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:46.480 views in the Hebrew Bible, but you don't get that view. 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:50.439 And I try to show how that developed into a 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:55.280 different view that Jesus had uh, And that Jesus himself 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:57.680 did not believe that your body died and your soul 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:00.560 went to one place or the other, and neither did 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:03.920 the apostle Paul for most of his life. Uh. The 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:07.040 book Revelation doesn't teach that. And so the question my 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:08.760 book is. I try. I try to show that, But 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:10.760 then the question is, well, then where to come from, 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:13.560 because everybody simply assumes, of course that this is you know, 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:16.040 they believe this because the Bible teaches it. No, actually, 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:19.360 the Bible doesn't teach that. So h that's so it 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:21.480 seems like a pretty important point to me, given the 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:23.400 fact that there are two billion Christians in the world, 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:25.800 most of whom believe in this, and they just assume 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:28.320 it's in the Bible. But it's it's not. Yeah, it 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:30.320 seems so hard to believe because I would say the 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:33.040 belief in heaven and Hell basically along the lines I 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:35.480 just described as not just a very common belief. I 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:39.000 think too many people it is the defining or the 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:44.680 characteristic belief when they conceive of their own faith. Oh yeah, no, absolutely, 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:47.240 I mean, and I completely understand that. I mean when 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:49.440 I you know, I grew up believing in heaven and 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:51.679 Hell myself. I mean, I was raised in a Christian home, 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:54.400 and I became an evangelical Christian as a teenager, and 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:56.600 then I really believed in heaven and Hell, especially Hell, 0:12:57.480 --> 0:12:59.319 and uh, you know, and so I was I was 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:01.360 gunning home about it and That's part of what really 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:03.480 made me want to write the book was that I 0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:06.400 know there are a lot of people who are of 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:09.000 course hopeful for heaven, and a lot of people who 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:12.040 are just terrified of hell, and uh, you know, a 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:15.400 lot of people just don't know. But uh, you know, 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:18.880 it's worth knowing where these ideas came from, because people 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:21.160 shouldn't believe them because they think they're in the Bible. 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:24.560 That that is, because they're not, as you said, maybe 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:27.840 like in one little passage like stucked away in the Gospel. Look, 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:30.240 but I mean, but basically they're not there. They these 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:32.559 authors had a different view, and it's worth knowing what 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:37.080 these different views were because you simply shouldn't assume this 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:40.160 is the standard view and always has been among Christians. Yeah, 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:44.520 and it's um, it's remarkable how difficult these beliefs are 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:47.600 to shake, even if you rationally know otherwise. I mean, 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:51.280 I I personally, I grew up in East Tennessee surrounded 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:54.160 by a lot of fundamentalist Christianity, and when I think 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:56.920 about the way I conceive of Hell, I don't rationally 0:13:57.640 --> 0:14:00.640 believe in in a hell anymore. But I my mind 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:03.120 sort of as a mansion where there's a room in 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:06.640 the back, and occasionally the door opens and that belief 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:09.080 just gets out and walks around. And I don't know 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:12.040 when that's going to happen. Do you find the same thing, 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:16.360 Does it sometimes just come out without seemingly unbidden? Not 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:18.880 as much now as it did. You know, when I left, 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:21.600 when I left the faith many years ago now twenty 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:23.680 five years ago or whatever, a long time ago. When 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:26.840 I left Christianity for a long time, one of the 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:28.960 things that's holding me back to begin with. Before I 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:31.000 left was the fear of hell. You know, I thinking, 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:33.440 you know, like if I like, uh, you know, I 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:35.880 really think that people are gonna be punished after death 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:37.920 by God. But now I'm doubting my faith. And if 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:39.800 I leave my faith, what if I was right in 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:42.200 the first place and now you know it took took 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:44.440 the wrong term, then I'm screwed me. It's like this 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:47.040 is not gonna be good. Uh. And so but then 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:49.000 when I did leave the faith, I just I became 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:51.800 convinced that God is not going to be torturing people 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:55.600 for trillions of years because they messed up for twenty 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:58.080 or they didn't believe exactly the right thing. I just 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:02.160 said just this implausible. And so over time what I 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:04.320 did is I ended up becoming more of a rationalist 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:07.680 and I became more of a materialist. And so you know, 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:10.080 I'm a complete materialist now a naturalist. I mean, I 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:11.760 just you know, I don't I don't think there is 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:14.560 some kind of other realm Uh. This is it. Uh. 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:16.400 And I don't think there's some of the life. This 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:20.280 is it. And for me, um, maybe because I'm such 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:23.320 a rationalist that uh, the thought that's really keep in 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:25.440 my head too much anymore, that yeah, actually you know 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:28.200 it might happen. Uh, I just don't think it is. 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:31.720 I'm sure a lot of people are still reeling from 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:34.760 the surprise of of you saying that that, in fact, 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:37.360 the Hebrew Bible doesn't teach heaven and hell and that 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:40.240 this was not the teaching of historical Jesus. That there 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:43.200 are probably things running through their heads to say, like, 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:45.240 wait a minute, that can't be right, can it. So 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:48.920 I think maybe we should talk specifically a bit about 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:51.520 the the evolution of beliefs about the afterlife that we 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:53.640 see in the ancient Near East of the ancient Greco 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:57.280 Roman world and then in the Bible. So uh, can 0:15:57.320 --> 0:16:00.680 we talk about beliefs about bodies, souls and what happens 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:04.040 to them at the time of death. Uh, maybe starting 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:07.160 among in the pre Christian ancient world, maybe among the 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:09.480 ancient Jewish thought views that you would find in the 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:12.800 Hebrew Bible. Yeah, yeah, this is you know, as you know, 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:15.080 this is really what my book does. Is it traces 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:17.640 these ideas all the way back as as early as 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:20.400 we have records. Uh, you know, we have records going 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:23.400 we have written text going back to the epic of Gilgamesh, 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:26.240 which is it turns out, is a forerunner of Dante. 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:29.160 Gilgamesh actually has a tour to the Actual and so 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:30.920 and in the Old and So I go through the 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:32.920 Old Testament all the way so that the ancient he 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:36.360 What one reason that the Old Testament doesn't have this 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:39.480 view that you die and your soul goes to heaven 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:42.200 or hell while your body dies is because ancient Hebrews 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:45.160 didn't have the idea that your soul and your body 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:50.760 were two entities that could be distinguished from each other. Um. 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:53.120 The idea that you've got a soul and a body, 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:55.160 that you've got made up of two parts is a 0:16:55.240 --> 0:17:00.880 kind of dualism to to to fundamental components dualism um. 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:03.960 Ancient Hebrews were not dualistic, and they're thinking about the human. 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:07.200 The ancient Hebrews thought a human being was one thing, 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:10.600 not two separable things. And it goes all the way 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:14.240 back to Genesis where God creates the first human, Adam. 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:17.720 He makes Adam out of the dirt. And so there's 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:20.200 this kind of this dirt thing on the on the ground, 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:24.040 and it's just lying, it's inert, it's not alive. God 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:29.200 breathes life into Adam, and so he brings life into 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:32.679 Adam's soul. He brings it, brings a soul in him, 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:36.399 which is his breath. Adam now has his breath and 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:39.320 that makes him alive. And Adam will be alive as 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:42.600 long as he has his breath. But when he stops breathing, 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:47.439 he's dead. Now we ourselves, we ourselves have a kind 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:49.720 of we have an analogous thing about breath. You know, 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:54.000 when when you stop breathing, your breath doesn't go anywhere. 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:58.040 It's just God. And that's how they understood the soul. 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:00.760 It wasn't something separable from the breath out or the body. 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:03.720 When your soul, when it leaves the body, like the 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:06.879 breath leaves, it's just gone. It doesn't go anywhere. And 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:10.240 so Hebrews didn't have ancient Hebrews didn't have this idea 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:12.159 that the soul would live on, because the soul is 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:14.600 simply the thing that made you alive, and when you're 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:17.760 not alive, it doesn't exist anymore. And so that's why 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:20.680 in the Old Testament, Um, nobody talks about the soul 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:26.440 living on after death. They there are places, um where uh, 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:29.240 the Hebrew Bible offers will talk about a place. It 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:33.760 sounds like a place uh that sometimes it's called sheel um, 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:37.359 And so people mistake that as being like this area 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:39.840 that everybody goes to when they die. They die and 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:42.919 their souls go down to shield. And uh, when I 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:44.960 try to show in my book, is it probably that's 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:48.760 not what sheol means. Um. The worst shield itself is 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:52.680 often part of the problem is that Bible translators really 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:56.240 sometimes mess us up. And so often when English Bible 0:18:56.240 --> 0:18:59.080 translators will come across the worst shield, which occurs about 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:01.399 sixty times in the Old It's not very common, but 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:05.199 they'll translate it as hell. But what are you supposed 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:08.200 to read? He was supposed to think when you read, yeah, 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:10.800 you know, God saved me from Hell, or I don't 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:13.600 want to go to Hell. But what it's it actually 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:16.760 doesn't say hell. It says she all, and she all 0:19:16.840 --> 0:19:19.560 is not hell hell. What we think it was Hell 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:22.520 is where your soul goes to get punished. But that's 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:25.040 not found in Hebrew thought. And so when I showed 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:28.320 my my book is that when when shield gets used 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:33.280 in the Hebrew Bible, it is almost always set um 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:40.600 as the synonym for grave or pit or the place 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:44.879 your body is placed um when it dies. And so 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:47.600 it looks like she all is simply where your remains are. 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:52.320 It's not a place um. And so uh so there's 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:54.960 no place in the Bible, in the Old Testament where 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:57.720 there's a place that you go either for rewards or punishment. 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:01.600 You just die. And that's why that's why the Hebrew authors, 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:03.760 like in the Psalms, are so afraid of death, because 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:06.600 they're not gonna have life anymore. There's not gonna be anything, 0:20:06.920 --> 0:20:09.000 They're not going to be able to enjoy anything. There'll 0:20:09.040 --> 0:20:12.120 be no physical pleasure. Um. They won't even be able 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:15.560 to worship God. They say this, and God won't even 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:18.960 remember them. He won't remember them because they won't exist, 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:21.679 and so they won't even think about them. And so 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:24.600 that's the situation with the Hebrew Bible, that people are 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:27.640 made up of body and soul. When they die, their 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:30.159 life is over and they get deposited somewhere and they 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:31.919 want to get to They want to have a nice burial, 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:33.639 because everybody does. But I mean they are gonna be 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:36.240 around to enjoy it, they'll be dead. Yeah, I think 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:40.240 that view is extremely clear in books, say like Ecclesiastes Um. 0:20:40.440 --> 0:20:43.720 I wonder though about people might be thinking about what 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:47.680 about a passage like the Witch of Indoor story? Well, 0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:50.000 maybe can you talk for a moment about that story 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:52.439 and how you would interpret that. Yeah, No, this is 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:55.200 good because it's exactly the passage people are gonna be 0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:57.480 thinking of. And you get passages in the New Testament 0:20:57.480 --> 0:20:59.560 people are gonna be thinking of, and so obviously I 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:02.240 have to talk about all these passages in my book. 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:05.720 And I should stress that when I talk about these passages, 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:08.560