Jesus's Didn't Die For You! How Christians Invented The Redemption | Dr. Bart Ehrman

[00:00:17]Well, hello everyone. Welcome to another video on history by podcast and today I'm joined by professor Bartman and today we're going to be discussing his contribution to the new test new insights into the new testament 2025.

[00:00:28]His topic is a core teaching of Jesus and why his followers abandoned it. And just to remind everybody as usual, the link to purchase the NINT 2025 will be in the description below and the pen comment. I'll remind everybody again at the end of the recording. So Barb, thank you for joining me today.

[00:00:43]>> Well, thanks for having me again.

[00:00:45]>> Thank you for joining me. So Barb, can you remind everybody what is the New Insights into the New Testament about?

[00:00:51]>> Uh well, this is our third year holding this conference. Um a we have um we're going to have eight major speakers uh who are each going to be giving a uh 50-minute lecture uh followed by Q&A dealing with this year with the historical Jesus. It's starting off with the um with a keynote address the evening before by Elaine Pagels uh on the his an aspect of the historical Jesus. And uh so yeah, and then we're going to have four other presentations that are being recorded ahead of time.

[00:01:25]And so the entire conference is on the historical Jesus. It's for lay people and these are these are some of the best scholars of the historical Jesus uh in the world. And so it's going to be it's going to be quite something.

[00:01:40]>> What do you think was central to Jesus's teaching?

[00:01:44]Uh well, I think there were a number of central things, but you know, I think I think the main uh the main thing he was teaching, I think, was that God's kingdom was soon to arrive uh and that it would come with a day of judgment and that people needed to prepare for it by uh turning back to God uh or repenting of what they their lives and and be living the lives that God wants them to lead. And his what he what he taught was that if people would do that, if people would turn back to God uh and repent of their sins, that God would forgive their sins and that would allow them then to enter into the into this kingdom that was soon to arrive rather than being destroyed with everyone else.

[00:02:29]Is there any indication of what made Jesus believe that this was coming soon?

[00:02:35]Did he did he describe? Is there any ev is there any evidence that survives in which Jesus explains okay here's why I think it's coming soon?

[00:02:43]>> Uh no he didn't he didn't explain why he thought so. It wasn't he it was a common thought at the time. Um uh the the it was a common thought among among many Jews. It's a point of view known as apocalypticism.

[00:02:59]Uh, apocalypticists believed that the world had grown increasingly evil and that there were powers that were opposed to God who were in charge of this world and God had allowed them to take over for some reason, but that God had allotted a certain amount of time to these powers of evil and he was going to intervene to wipe them out. And so this is a view that you can find among um uh the Essenes who produced the Dead Sea Scrolls. uh Pharisees had this view, John the Baptist had this view. Later Paul Paul had the view at the same time Jesus did but before he was a follower of Jesus. So it was a widespread view.

[00:03:36]John the Baptist had the view. So most of these people were not um necessarily trying to prove it. They just they could look around and see the world was very wicked and surely God was soon going to intervene and they you know they believed that that's how what what God had planned from the very beginning.

[00:03:53]>> What did Jesus think would happen during the apocalypse? what what what did he envision what that it would look like?

[00:04:00]>> Well, he gives us some descriptions um in uh in the synoptic gospels, Mark chapter 13 and especially uh Matthew chapters 24 and 25. And um in these accounts, he talks about how uh basically I mean to paraphrase all hell's going to break out on earth. Um there are going to be um horrible uh catastrophes and natural disasters.

[00:04:24]There'll be uh there will be persecutions. Uh there will be um there'll be a lot of suffering. There'll be a lot of persecution. Um the basically the world as we know it is going to fall apart uh until it looks like all will be lost like the human race will be completely destroyed and then a cosmic figure uh will be sent from God to resolve the situation. uh figure that Jesus called the son of man was a um a cosmic judge of the earth and he would um on top of all these catastrophes that are happening these natural disasters he would he would destroy the people who were opposed to God and those who were uh on God's side would then be brought into the kingdom.

[00:05:08]>> What happened after Jesus's death? What what did his followers do to his teachings?

[00:05:13]Well, they uh most of his followers, his his immediate followers, the 12 disciples were Jews um who were also apocalypticists.

[00:05:23]Um presumably they followed him because they agreed with his message. And since his message was an apocalyptic message, that would suggest that they either had long been or became apocalypticists themselves. And so they continued to believe that um that this kingdom would come. But the deal is is that um they appear to have thought that Jesus himself would be made the king of this kingdom and possibly he'd be the one who brought into the brought in this kingdom in some way. Uh but instead of that happening uh instead of Jesus, you know, starting a new king a new world uh he got arrested by his enemies and was tortured to death. He was crucified. Um, and so their original idea was that he he must be this Messiah figure, this future king who's going to rule in the future kingdom. But then they realized that he's not because he got killed. And so they had to make sense of that and um they ended up making sense of it once they believed that God that God had raised him from the dead. They they returned to their belief then, oh, he is going to be the future ruler, but it just wasn't in the way that they anticipated. um and that uh that the kingdom was coming soon. So, they continued to think that there's a day of judgment coming. It's coming soon. Um the enemy of God will be enemies of God will be destroyed. Um and there'll be a king put on the throne. But now they were thinking that Jesus himself would be the one who came back from heaven as the son of man to destroy everybody else who was opposed to God and would then establish himself as the king.

[00:07:00]What made his followers think that an atoning sacrifice was required? That God didn't just freely forgive sins. What do you think happened that caused them to conclude this? Yeah, this is a lot about what my talk is going to be uh about because it's it's striking that when Jesus preaches um he does not say uh to his followers um you need to atone for your sins um so that God will allow you into the kingdom. He doesn't say you need to go to the temple and perform sacrifices uh for your sins to satisfy God's wrath.

[00:07:38]um he doesn't think that there's anything that a person has to do uh apart from turn back to God. That if a person turns back to God, they will be forgiven. Uh and that you know you know when you when your child does something wrong and apologizes, you don't you know you don't have to make them sacrifice an animal or something. You just you forgive them. And that's what Jesus thought. Jesus was a good God, a good father who forgave his children when they turned back to him. But his followers after his death um had to figure out why he died because they had been convinced he was the chosen one of God. And surely the chosen one of God doesn't get destroyed by God's enemies.

[00:08:24]And so, but Jesus did. But once Jesus was raised from the dead, once they came to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead, they um had to figure out what why would God have his chosen one die.

[00:08:38]And they reverted to the idea that you know Jews and pagans throughout the world everywhere thought which is that to be to be right with a god or the gods you have to perform sacrifices. Um this was the standard view within Judaism.

[00:08:54]Um, Jew Jews had a sacrificial system, uh, starting back in the Torah. Um, and so, uh, they had they tried to figure out why God would have a living being die intentionally. And they thought, oh, if God had his chosen one die, it must be that it was this plan, and it must be the death had a reason. It must be that Jesus had to die. Well, why would he have to die if he was the sinless chosen one? he must have died for others. They concluded that Jesus' death must have been an atonement for the sins of others because there there wasn't another sensible explanation to them. And if Jesus has to die as atoning sacrifice and that that would mean that God requires atonement.

[00:09:42]And so they ended up teaching something quite contrary to what Jesus taught.

[00:09:46]They they they started teaching that God required an atonement. Jesus paid the atonement. And that's how you get right with God. Not that you turn back to God in repentance and God forgives you.

[00:09:59]>> Was this a viewpoint also in all the four gospels or do one or more of the gospels lack the atonement uh forgiveness through atonement?

[00:10:08]>> So the atonement I think started the idea of atonement started just as soon as the followers of Jesus came to think he got raised because as I said they had to figure out why he died in the first place. of God. He was God's favored one as he obviously was because God raised him. Um so some people think that Paul started this idea that Jesus death is what brings salvation and that's completely wrong. I mean Paul in my view I mean Paul was persecuting Christians for saying this before he became a follower of Jesus. Um so I think it was the widespread view throughout Christianity. It was the dominant view early on with the the initial followers of Jesus. certainly the dominant view that you find in Paul and the dominant view that you find throughout the New Testament and um so far as we can tell there's actually only one exception to this and that's the author of the Gospel of Luke in the book of Acts. So we don't know who he actually was but we call him Luke. Luke um looks like he well it doesn't look like you can see he doesn't subscribe to the idea of an atonement.

[00:11:13]Um, you can see that both in the in the Gospel of Luke, uh, and in the book of Acts. And, um, if you'd like, I can I can lay out how you can see this in both of those.

[00:11:24]>> Sure.

[00:11:26]>> So, uh, Luke, as as many of his listeners know, Luke had the Gospel of Mark uh, as one of his primary sources.

[00:11:34]Many of his stories replicate the stories of Mark. He'll change them in some detail, sometimes he'll change them a lot. Uh, sometimes he'll copy them word for word. And so whenever he changes something then it's you know it's probably because he thought he could say it better or maybe he had a different perspective or he had some reason for changing things. When you look at Mark there are a number of passages that quite clearly express the idea that in Mark's view Jesus was an atonement for sins. Um for example Jesus is telling his disciples in Mark chapter 10 um that they have to serve each other. Uh and he says to them, "For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." In other words, he has to give his life so that others can have salvation. It's an atonement. It's interesting Luke rewrites that entire passage and gets rid of that verse. He doesn't have a Luke 10, doesn't have Mark 10:45. when Jesus is g having the last supper uh in in the Gospel of Mark, he he takes the bread and he says, "This is the uh this is my body that's broken for you." He takes the cup and says, "This is the new covenant in my blood uh given for many." And so, he's saying that the the elements at the Passover meal actually represent his coming death for you or for many. Luke changes that.

[00:13:02]He gets rid of these statements about that being for others, uh, broken for you, given for many. Um, and so you can actually go through Luke and look at every passage that Mark has atonement language. And in every case, Luke changes it, gets rid of it. That's interesting. And he doesn't add anything else to make it an atonement. So he he basically he has a different view of why Jesus died.

[00:13:28]Do you think that Luke found out in some kind of way what the original followers of Jesus believed and was responding to Mark be and and wanting to get rid of the atonement aspect because he was trying to he partially agreed with the original teachings of Jesus to an extent.

[00:13:50]>> Yeah. It's a it's an oddity that you know I until I started deeply researching this four or five years ago.

[00:13:57]Uh you know I had taken PhD seminars on the synoptic gospels and I had studied Luke intensely. I' studied Mark intensely and for years and years and it finally just occurred to me Luke is getting rid of all of that. And when you read the speeches of Acts there's none nothing about the atonement there either when the apostles are trying to convert people in the book of Acts. chapter 2 um you know chapter 4 chapter 13 what whoever is giving the talk to convert the crowds he talks about Jesus' death but he never talks about it as an atonement for sins he talks about it as a as a horrible incident that has happened that this innocent man this prophet of God this chosen one of God has been killed by people are sinful and because people are sinful they're alienated from God if you want to be right with God. You'll realize from the death of Jesus just how guilty you are and you'll repent and God will forgive you. Nothing about his death being an atonement. So did what you know did Luke did Luke realize what the earlier disciples had done and thought that he'd go back to the teachings of Jesus or or what? Um it's not really clear. The oddity is that Luke is in other words it's not clear why he does the shift. He he definitely does the shift. He gets back to Jesus teaching forgiveness, but it's we don't have a lot of evidence for why. Um Luke, the oddity is that Luke is one of our later gospels. It's probably the third of the synoptic gospels. It's later certainly later than Mark, probably later than Matthew. Um but it has a teaching that corresponds with the teaching of Jesus rather than the teaching of Matthew, Mark, Paul, and the others. And so is it because he he knew uh maybe he'd heard stories about Jesus teachings that struck him as clearly about forgiveness rather than atonement.

[00:15:52]Um maybe as a gentile he doesn't like this idea of, you know, Jewish sacrifice. I don't know. But uh but whatever motivated him, he clearly no longer has the the doctrine of the atonement. He has the doctrine of forgiveness where everybody else is talking about atonement so far as we can tell.

[00:16:10]Did Jesus think that he was on a mission from God to spread his apocalyptic message?

[00:16:18]>> Uh yeah, he appears to have. I mean, he he seems to uh know what's going to happen in the near future. He believes that he's closely related to God. He thinks that he's he's got an intimate relationship with God. He does appear to call him Aba or a father or aba is kind of a intimate term for father like daddy or something. He appears to have called him that. He appears to uh have the sense that God has revealed to him the secrets of what's going to happen soon at the end of the world. And and his whole his whole uh public ministry is is a mission. He's trying to convert people. He spends most of his spends most of his time up in the rural areas of Galilee out in the countryside visiting villages and towns. He doesn't he never appears ever to go to a major city up there. The only time he goes to a major city is Jerusalem at the end of his life. And you know, my guess is he didn't think he was going there to end his life. He went there, he was going there because that's where he could preach to the most people. Jerusalem, uh, the capital uh, city uh, where Jews come for Passover. You know, thousands and thousands of Jews come. I think he he went there to preach this message in order to convert people to repent so that they'd be ready when the end came.

[00:17:34]And instead, his end came. they they arrested him and and crucified him.

[00:17:40]>> Was Jesus's description of the apocalypse uh revised after his death?

[00:17:46]That that did the New Testament embellish the apocalyptic uh imagery that Jesus was providing.

[00:17:52]>> Uh there are a lot of similarities between what authors like Paul and Matthew and Mark and so forth, a lot of similarities between their views and the views of Jesus. They all uh had these apocalyptic views that they were there were forces of evil in the world that these these wicked powers were um not sort of just nations and bad people but were actual kind of spiritual entities that God had allowed them to take control of the world for a time that the their time was up the end was near a day of judgment was coming the enemies would be destroyed God's people would be exalted they all agreed with that with Jesus. One ma very major difference uh is that Jesus um believed that there would be this cosmic figure that he called the son of man basing he's basing this on a passage in the book of Daniel Daniel 7 13 and 14 that that talk about a son of man who comes in judgment to destroy the wicked powers and their human representatives on earth and Jesus thinks that's going to happen soon his his followers after his death continue to think that that's going to happen.

[00:19:03]But the difference is they think Jesus is the son of man. And when Jesus talked about the son of man, he appears to have been talking about a cosmic judge rather than about himself. I I need to back that up for a second because a lot of listeners are going to be saying, "Well, but Jesus talks about himself as the son of man in the gospels." And that's absolutely right. He does. The question is, what did the historical Jesus say?

[00:19:27]Did he talk about himself as the son of man? And it's interesting when you look at the different kinds of son of man sayings in the gospels, the ones that talk about the cosmic judge of the earth coming are the ones where Jesus does not identify himself as that person. And I think those are the sayings that he actually said. After his death, his followers thought that he was the son of man. And so they started having him talk about himself as the son of man because they believed he was the son of man. If you see what I mean.

[00:19:57]what made them think that he was the son of man?

[00:20:00]>> Um, so when Jesus when Jesus dies, uh, the disciples hopes must have been completely shattered. I mean, they they thought he was the future Messiah and they thought there'd be a, you know, he's going to start a kingdom and they thought they they'd be rulers in the kingdom. Jesus had told them that you 12 will be seated on 12 thrones ruling the 12 tribes of Israel and that you know and they they knew that he he was the one who had chosen them and he was the one over them and he was their lord their master. So they just assumed he would be the king uh and he would bring in the kingdom but instead he gets crucified.

[00:20:34]So what do they you know what are they supposed to do with this? Well, they came to think that, you know, they thought he got raised from the dead. But when they thought they got that he got raised from the dead, it's not that he had had a near-death experience, you know, or not that like his corpse was revived so he could live for another 20 years and then die again like other people who were raised from the dead in the Bible. They they aren't living forever. They're just raised to have a longer life. Um, but Jesus wasn't like that. They thought that that Jesus was not raised back to earth to be here with us for some more years. He was taken up to heaven. Um, and that that's why that's why he's not here. He certainly was raised. We saw him, but he's now he's up in heaven. Well, what's he doing up in heaven? Uh, well, he must be the one coming back from heaven in judgment.

[00:21:21]And so they came, they knew that Jesus had talked about this uh son of man who's coming and they came to think that he must be that son of man because now he's in heaven and he's the Lord and he's going to come back in judgment.

[00:21:39]>> Did Jesus preach that the temple would be destroyed or was this or was the destruction of the temple linked to Jesus's preaching postmortem?

[00:21:48]you know, the um one of the papers at our New Insights into the New Testament conference will be by Paula Frederickson, who's going to be taking a position on this that's uh contrary to a position that that most people have had over the years, contrary to the position I've always had and still have. Um and you know, maybe she'll convince me.

[00:22:08]She's she's very smart. She knows a lot about the historical Jesus. Um but normally it's understood that Jesus um Jesus did proclaim that the temple was going to be destroyed when God God sends um the son of man back. Jesus repeatedly predicts the destruction of the temple in the gospels. It is multiply attested.

[00:22:33]Um, and it makes sense of his other preaching because Jesus thought that when God came back to destroy his enemies, uh, many of the Jewish leaders would be among the enemies. And so the the leaders of the people were not the ones who were going to be ruling in the kingdom. They'd be thrust out of the kingdom because they're they weren't worshiping God properly. And so the idea that Jesus predicted the destruction of the temple makes a lot of sense. Jesus didn't think we needed the temple. You don't need sacrifices in order to have a right standing before God. And so um he thought that the Jewish system had gone wrong somehow and that it would that God would start over. And so I think that he did predict the destruction of the temple. And uh I should say that doesn't make him a supernatural being who knew the future. Of course, the temple was destroyed, but there are a lot of people predicting the destruction of the temple. I mean, it's like, you know, predicting that the Nazis are going to invade Paris or something. Yeah. I mean, it's going to happen um at some point.

[00:23:41]And so, it's it's that there were other people who were saying this um but and Jesus happens to be one of them. And I I think he probably did predict it.

[00:23:50]>> After the temple was destroyed in AD70, was did this cause a further need to revise Jesus's teachings when the gospels written after 70? Did that have an effect on how Christians looked to Jesus's teachings?

[00:24:05]>> I think it's hard to say. You know, commonly people say that, scholars commonly say it. I don't see much evidence of it. Um you know the gospel of Mark was written after the uh destruction of the temple probably probably soon right after the destruction of the temple. Matthew was as well and their you know their theology of salvation is pretty much like Paul's who was writing before the destruction of the temple. They believe that Christ was a sacrifice for sins that brought atonement. And so um so that you know so that basic message I think remained the same. One big question is if the Jerusalem was destroyed, the temple was destroyed, did people then think that that was the beginning of the end and that the end would come right away? And if so, um maybe immediately it would would have taken the destruction of Jerusalem as the confirmation of what Jesus said. But you know, a few decades pass and it doesn't happen. And so they think, well, maybe uh maybe not. And then they change the message. But I I don't think that the crisis of uh 70 when Jerusalem was destroyed itself, I don't think it led to major changes in the Christian message. If anything, the immediate response was probably to think that the message has been confirmed.

[00:25:25]>> Do you think when Paul was encountering other people like you like he talks about in Galatians, he's having these arguments with them about circumcision and other stuff. Um, do you think he was also arguing arguing with probably with some followers of Jesus that weren't going along with the atonement theology?

[00:25:47]>> Um, I don't think we have much uh evidence of that. Um, we have evidence of Paul opposing various kinds of opponents as you're pointing out. I mean in the letter to the Galatians he's absolutely opposed to these uh missionaries are saying Christian missionaries are saying you have to be circumcised. Um these were Christians who are saying that and their reasoning is that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. You know Paul's the Jewish law. It's part of the Jewish law.

[00:26:14]You got to get circumcised. Um but like in the city of Corinth, Paul's not dealing with that. In Corinth, Paul's dealing with people who think that with the resurrection of Jesus, since we've participated in Christ's death and resurrection, we ourselves are already experiencing the full benefits of salvation. Um, that's a very different issue from having to be circumcised. But neither of these major opponents or I don't think any that I can think of any reason for think that Paul's opposing people who say um you know that you don't have to you don't have to have the death of Jesus. You you just need to be forgiven. Um the irony you know one of the ironies of this whole thing one of the many ironies is that Luke the author of Luke has Paul as his hero. And in the book of Acts Paul's the main figure and he even shows Paul preaching. And for Luke, Paul does not preach an atonement.

[00:27:09]That's weird. The one author that, you know, is his is his, you know, big advocate, Paul's advocate, changes his message to coincide with what he thinks was Jesus' message.

[00:27:23]>> What did Paul think about the apocalypse or Jesus Jesus' return >> and how was it different from the Gospels? Did he think Jesus Jesus would come back sometime before 70 AD?

[00:27:36]Well, he didn't know that there was going to be a 70 AD. I mean, Paul was probably uh probably executed in the mid-50s or early to mid60s, early to mid60s. Um, he certainly thought Jesus was coming back soon. And he thought he would be alive when it happened. I mean, it's it's pretty clear when you read 1 Thessalonians 4:es 13-18 or 1 Corinthians 15 that when chapter 15 51 and following where where Paul talks about it's going to happen soon. It's going to be a twinkling of an eye. It's going to happen immediately. You need to be ready for it. You don't want to be caught unawares. And so and he says so in first Thessalonians he says that when Christ returns the dead in Christ will rise first and then we who are alive will go up and also meet him in the air.

[00:28:26]And so there everybody's going to go up and kind of welcome Christ back to the world. Uh and he's going to be alive at the time. So he thinks it's going to be very soon. Um but um you know so he doesn't really I don't think Paul expects Jerusalem to be destroyed. uh if he does he only vaguely refers to it.

[00:28:45]>> In my last questions um first part of that question is do the pseudo Paulines conflict with the genuine Paul's views on the atonement and my second part to that question is do they also revise Paul's esquetology by implying a delayed second coming of Jesus. Um, I don't know that they actually um oppose Paul on the atonement idea. They they continue to think that that Christ's death is what brings salvation rather than repenting of your sins. Um, I do think they change Paul's esquetology. Um, the way they change it though is pretty interesting.

[00:29:26]It's less that there's going to be a long wait, you know, that it's okay, it's going to take a long time. It's rather that in some ways the escaton has already happened. They the like especially um the books of Ephesians and Colossians seem to argue for the position that Paul opposes in first Corinthians which is that they've already experienced the resurrection with Christ and are experiencing a heavenly salvation in the heavenly places. Now already Ephesians and Colossians both indicate that and it's the opposite what Paul said but in their view it may be that the the the nearness of the event is fading a bit and now we now they come to think well we can participate in in it already.

[00:30:14]>> Just a reminder to everybody that the link to purchase the new insights into the new testament will be in description below and it will also be in the pen comment. With that being said, thank you very much for joining me today arman.

[00:30:24]>> Okay, thanks Jacob. Hello viewers, thanks for watching this video from the History Valley YouTube channel. Please don't forget to subscribe and hit the notification bell. And if any of you wish to further support this channel, please consider checking out this channel's Patreon page and becoming a patron and or donate through PayPal or through super chat during the live stream. Thank you.