Did Jesus Really Go to Hell?

Good morning everyone. Welcome back to Misquoting Jesus. One of the most appealing concepts in Christianity is the escape of eternal damnation through the power of Jesus Christ. But who gets saved, and what roles individuals play in their own salvation is something that has been the subject of discussion, debate, and controversy. Today, we're going to be talking about one of the earliest controversies and asking, why if Jesus died for our sins and conquered hell, Christian theology continues to preach hellfire and damnation? Stay tuned for all of that and so much more. Welcome to Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman, the only show where a six-time New York Times best-selling author and world-renowned Bible scholar uncovers the many fascinating, little-known facts about the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the rise of Christianity. I'm your host, Megan Lewis. Let's begin.

Early Christian texts describe the horrors of hell and Christ's descent and subsequent liberation of the damned. Why then is hell still an ever-present threat for many Christians, and how does that reflect upon the power of Jesus? If Jesus is all-powerful and vanquished hell, then why are sinners still threatened with torment? We'll be getting to that in a couple of minutes. But before we do, Bart, good morning. How are you today?

Good morning. Yeah, okay. A cheery topic for us. And so I'm, I'm really, it's something I've been writing about lately, and so I'm glad to be dealing with this. How are you doing?

Good, good. A little bit of a whirlwind, but very good. Thank you.

Yeah, whirlwind. Yeah. So, uh, normally, Megan, we start with you asking me some kind of question. And we were chatting ahead of the, uh, the episode just now, and I realized I want to ask you a question. You, you, you're telling me you have, you run this enterprise, Digital Hammurabi, with your husband, Josh Bowen, and you told me that he started teaching Hebrew to people as part of Digital Hammurabi, and that you, you all are starting to have other courses that people can take of ancient languages. Tell, I'm amazed. Tell me about this.

Well, it started because I, I have taught a few courses for community college out in Washington State, Akkadian language and Sumerian language, which have been very well received. People seem to enjoy them. And we semi-regularly have had people asking, how can I take classes with you guys? Do you teach Hebrew or anything else? Do you know where I can take, like, Hittite language classes? And it occurred to me that given we both have this training, and Josh has taught Hebrew, Sumerian, and Akkadian for several years each, and we have a very good network, I would say, of either graduate students or recently graduated students who have these specialties in ancient languages, that it would be a good idea to start offering some kind of language courses for people who are interested and want to learn more, but don't want to go through the whole university process, because that's quite long and drawn out. So, to kind of test out the theory, we decided that Josh should start out teaching Introduction to Hebrew. Which his first class was last night, and it went really, really well. He has 25 students signed up, which is the maximum that we were prepared to take for the first one. People have been really, really interested in it. And then in a couple of weeks' time, we've got our friend, Dr. Jill Waller, who's an Egyptologist. She's going to start teaching Middle Egyptian. And this summer is kind of our test case. So if the summer goes well, I think we're going to start adding, um, more languages and then extending the difficulty level. So we'll do, yes, like intro and then advanced classes as well.

Yes. Do people pay for this?

Yes. Uh, at the moment, we've started out at $150 per class. And the way we're trying to do it is give the, the tutors as much of that as we can. So we're giving them 80% of all tuition fees, um, taking a little bit to cover things like overheads. We have to obviously pay for an extended Zoom license and advertising and all that kind of thing. So at the moment, $150. And the Hebrew class is, uh, 10 weeks, hour and a half classes each week. And then Middle Egyptian, Jill's running that for six weeks, but it's two 1-hour classes every week.

We give it this me, get the class, the, the particular class is an hour and a half, but the core, are they paying for the course, $150?

Yes, the whole course.

Mhm. For how, for how many weeks?

10 or six, depending on.

$5 an hour. That's fantastic. Are you kidding me? Wow. Because, because they, we're hoping to get volume.

No, no, I get it. Remotely. And it is, this is a great idea. So, okay, so those of you out there who've been, you know, wanting to learn Middle Egyptian, this is your chance. Oh my God, really? I need to take some of the hieroglyphs and everything.

It's going to be great.

Weirdly, I used to teach Hebrew. I mean, I was, it was really a mistake to ask me to do it, but I did. And, man, that's fantastic. Wow. Okay, so, all right, well, congratulations. I'm, I, yeah, people, this would be a good one to spread the word on.

Yeah, and I'm not very good on advertising, but it's, it's something that, uh, we'll have to, I think, ramp up, I think if we decide to do it, um, more extensively. But if people are interested, you can go to the website, digitalhamurabi.com, and just sign up for the mailing list, and I'm sending all of the course information out through there.

Excellent. Okay, great. Thank you.

Thanks. Of course. That's my absolute pleasure.

So, onto our delightfully depressing, depressing is probably not the right word.

Well, it's uplifting because Jesus takes people out of hell. That's true. That is very true.

So, this, this is an uplifting episode about hell and damnation and hellfire and torment and all that kind of thing. So, my first question that you did point out is probably not the best one to start with. Is what is a catabasis? Um, and this is a Greek word. And yes, I'm going to just let you, okay, go with it. What is it and why is it interesting?

I wrote a book on catabasis that came out last year, and I was going to call it, I wanted to call it Catabasis. My publisher said, no, you're not. Absolutely not. And most scholars don't even know what the word means. So, the catabasis, it is a Greek word, uh, and it, it means literally means going down. Going down. And it's a technical word that was, I suppose, invented by classicists. Was invented. And the word was there, but, uh, classicists used the term catabasis to refer to, uh, a kind of story that was common in many cultures of the ancient world, in which somebody would go down to the underworld and see what it was like. A living person would go down, uh, and often be given some kind of guided tour of the realms of the dead to see what it was like, then come back and report on it. You get, you get visits to the dead in a wide range of cultures, as I've said. But my, the book I wrote is called Journeys to Heaven and Hell. It's an academic book, although some, you know, lay people are reading it, some. But it's, it's about the, this idea of journeys down to the, to the underworld that are in the Greek, starting with Homer, and in the Roman, including Virgil, and in the Christian, Jewish tradition, and in the Christian tradition. My main interest is these Christian stories of people being given guided tours of heaven and hell that we have in, in early Christian writings, including one that almost made it into the New Testament, The Apocalypse of Peter, that was nearly included in the New Testament instead of the Apocalypse of John. And so, it, these were, uh, they were very popular stories through the Middle Ages. Um, and so a catabasis refers to this. And so the reason I studied Greek and Roman and Jewish examples is because I wanted to put the Christian ones in context. And we have a number of examples within early Christian texts of people going down to hell, or of Christ himself, stories of Christ going down to hell and bringing people out of hell. And so that's what my book is about. And so that, so that's, that's what catabasis is. And I wanted to call the book Catabasis because I wanted people to know, yeah, this will be a hard-core book. This is a serious book.

It is an excellent book. I read it, um, in preparation for, uh, recording today. Now, if we're looking at the context in which the Christian catabasis, kabes, not sure about that, yeah, kabes eis, it turns out, um, occur, were the kind of Greek and Roman examples, are they primarily literary? Are they used for some kind of moralistic teaching? What function do they serve?

So, so part of my book is trying to explain how different, different ones of these downward journeys functioned in their literary and historical contexts. And, you know, part of them, part of these stories are sometimes they're meant to describe what it's like down there, just that, you know. And so, like in, uh, in The Odyssey of Homer, Homer in book 10 of the Odyssey, Odysseus himself is, uh, told to go down to the underworld to get some instruction about how he can get back home. He's on a 10-year journey trying to get home desperately. And there's a, there's a prophet in Hades who can tell him. And so Odysseus goes down. He, he finds the route down into Hades, and he, he meets people there, including his mother, who's recently died, and famous people who fought with him in the Trojan War, and this prophet, Tiresias. And, and so there, so part of it is, you're learning what it's like. And the, and you learn what the Greek conception, at least for Homer, what the Greek conception of Hades was like, which is, it's not pleasant. I, there were no, there were no tortures, but everybody went there, no matter who they were, and everybody was treated the same there. It didn't matter whether you were a hero or a coward. It didn't matter whether you're righteous or a sinner. It didn't matter, like, everybody is this kind of bodyless existence where they're like shadows. They're called shadows, and they have no strength, they can't speak, there's nothing going on down there. And it's just like people exist, exist down there in this realm. And part of the point of that is, you should prolong your life, you know, because this is what it's going to be for the rest of eternity, and for everyone. And so, for the, for the Odyssey, it's functioning in a literary way because it's trying to show, contrary to the other book, The Iliad, Homer's Iliad, the point of the Iliad in large part is the importance of heroic action and to be willing to die on the battlefield for glory. And the Odyssey, in some ways, kind of undoes that where it says, actually, it's, it's better not to die on the battlefield, it's better to prolong your life and to enjoy your family and your home and your, you know, and to, and so it's a different, different take on it. But the, so this catabasis in the Odyssey functions that way. And each catabasis, whether it's in Virgil, or whether it's a Jewish one, or a Christian one, has both of these things going on: to show you what it's like, in order to teach you something about life, about how you ought to be living.

So, what is the earliest example we see of this from Christianity?

So, the, the earliest actual example we have is this book I mentioned, The Apocalypse of Peter, uh, which was the reason I decided to write my book in the first place. I got really interested in this text. I, I'd known about it for many years, but I got increasingly interested in it, especially in relationship to another one called The Apocalypse of Paul. So, um, the, the apoc-, just a couple words about both of those. The Apocalypse of Peter is the first one we have. And in it, Peter is given a guided tour of heaven and hell by Jesus himself. Jesus shows him what the fates are like, both for those for the damned and for the saved. Peter wants to know when the end of the world is going to come, and Jesus shows him what the afterlife is going to be. Um, it's a pretty interesting. One kind of broad feature about this that this story is interesting is that the, uh, descriptions of hell are really quite moving and powerful and graphic and lurid. And he, he goes into great detail to describe the various punishments of various kinds of sinners in hell in graphic detail. His description of heaven is very brief and kind of to the point. People are blessed forever, and boy, it sure smells good up here, and it's nice, you know, nice weather, and you, it's like there's like not much to say. And I guess it's because if you, you know, if, if you have any imagination and you want to describe eternal torment, boy, there's lots of options available to you. But if it's eternal joy, I mean, you know, how many ways are there to describe bliss? I mean, people are blissful, they're happy, you know, blessed be, they're happy forever. Okay, great. So, so, uh, so that's interesting. The, The Apocalypse of Paul, I'm mentioning is because it's several centuries later, fifth century or so, and uses The Apocalypse of Peter. And it's historically important because it apparently was known to Dante. So, The Divine Comedy, Dante knew The Apocalypse of Paul, and that's one way of saying that this is a very long trajectory of these things. It basically goes from the 2nd century Apocalypse of Peter up to Dante. I don't cover Dante in my book, just briefly, but, but I do the early ones.

Thank you. We are going to take a very brief break, and then we'll be back with more information about, uh, early Christian catabasis, but also what exactly the harrowing of hell is. Is the title of today's episode, and I don't know, so Bart's going to tell us. Most people know many of the stories of Genesis: the creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the flood, the stories about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. But do you know what scholars say about those accounts? What archaeology, science, and history can reveal about them? What their significance could be, even if they aren't literally true? Enter Bible scholar Bart Ehrman's captivating online course, "In the Beginning: History, Legend, and Myth in Genesis." In six enlightening lessons, you'll journey through questions like: Did Genesis borrow its stories from other cultures? Are these accounts historical or legendary? And who were the real authors behind the pen? Whether you approach Genesis as a believer, a skeptic, or simply a seeker of knowledge, this course will challenge your understanding of these ancient narratives. It's a unique opportunity to navigate the complexities of the Bible's most famous book. Don't miss out on this intellectual adventure. Visit BartEhrman.com/Genesis to learn more or sign up today, and be sure to use discount code MJPodcast for a special discount.

So, as I mentioned before our break, the episode is called "The Harrowing of Hell." What is that?

Yeah, well, harrowing is not a word we use very much, except for like, you have a harrowing experience, and it isn't quite the same thing. With this, the harrowing of hell is the traditional way of referring to the idea that Jesus, uh, between the time of his death and his resurrection, went down to the underworld, to Hades. And so, so it's, uh, the, the issue that arose for early Christians, uh, was that Jesus died on a Friday afternoon, and he got raised from the dead on a Sunday morning. And where was he in the meantime? Um, was he just kind of lying, like non-existent, in the grave? Did he go to heaven for a while? And early Christians started reasoning that he was human, he was fully human, and to be fully human, he had to go to the realm of the dead, like humans do. And since, since he hadn't been raised yet, people were not in heaven yet. And so where did he go? He went to Hades. And, and so what was he doing there? And the harrowing of hell is the idea that he takes people out of hell and then can introduce them to heaven. Um, he takes them to heaven. It's a very interesting topic. I devoted an entire chapter to it in my book, as you know, because in a sense, it's a catabasis, because somebody, it's a narration of somebody going down to the realm of the dead, do something there. But there were multiple Christian traditions about what Jesus was doing and what the effect was. In, in very broad terms, the harrowing of hell can cover a range of ideas, but the, he either is going down there to preach to the, uh, to the dead, the salvation that he's just brought, or he's going down there to show the power of God over death and the devil. And so he's either going down there to manifest power by destroying hell and the devil, or he's going down there to preach. And the question is, for both the preaching and the power, whether it involves only some people down there, or everybody down there. Is Jesus going down to preach, you know, to, like, the patriarchs of Israel, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? They can't be in heaven because Jesus hasn't died yet. They're down in Hades. Does he go down there and tell them that he's come now and he can deliver them if they'll repent and, you know, be follow him? Or is it all of the righteous of Israel? Or is it all of the righteous Jews and Gentiles, uh, that he preaches to? Does he, does he preach to everybody, righteous or unrighteous, and everybody's given a chance? Everybody, everybody's given a chance. Can everybody go to heaven then? I mean, who would refuse? And, and so, so there's that. Or if it's power, is it limited power in order to intervene for the righteous? Or is it absolute power where he just destroys hell and, uh, takes everybody back to heaven? These are issues that were debated in early Christianity, and you have different, you have different cadavis, different, uh, different accounts of Jesus' journey to the underworld to map out one of those views or another.

Seems like a lot of variation possible with an awful lot of theological implications in there.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, is it, I mean, it's, it's kind of, it's a basic question that actually is found in the New Testament, although many people don't realize this. But in the New Testament, there are passages that claim that Christ's Christ's death and resurrection were so powerful that everybody will be saved. The Apostle Paul says this in a couple of places. But there are other places that obviously are the opposite, that that you have to, you know, you have to repent and believe in Christ in order to be saved, and if you don't, you're going to be in hell forever. So which, you know, which is it? And so, um, that was the debate in early Christianity. These cadavis reflect the debate. Now, we don't really have time to go into all of the different nuances and all of the different texts that kind of deal with this. So I was wondering if we could talk a little bit about the Gospel of Nicodemus, which is one of the ones that gets into this a bit.

What is this gospel and what does it describe?

Yeah, now this is a great gospel that people don't know. It used to be really kind of hard to get a translation of it in English, so people, most people haven't, don't know it, haven't read it. I included in this book that I did with my colleague, Zlato Plesa, uh, that is called The Other Gospels. So I translated it. It's in both Latin and Greek, uh, versions. I think I translated the Greek version of it, so people can see what it is. It is the most, it was the most popular account of Jesus' harrowing of hell in the throughout the Middle Ages. Hundreds of manuscripts of this in both Greek and Latin. So the, the Gospel of Nicodemus is called that because it's allegedly an account by Nicodemus, the figure who shows up in the Gospel of John, a Jewish teacher to whom Jesus says, "You must, must be born again." That that guy in chapter, chapter 3 of John. This is an account, allegedly, that he wrote down, an account given of what Jesus did between his death and his resurrection. I need, I need to say this, the Gospel of Nicodemus actually begins with the trial and the death of Jesus. That part is called the Acts of Pilate, which is very interesting on its own. But then, uh, in about the sixth century, there somebody added this gospel, this, this harrowing of hell narrative. And what it is, is Jesus dies on the cross, and he, he goes down to, uh, to hell. And it's a description of what happens. And it's a fascinating description, in part, because before he shows up, uh, Satan is down there with Hell. And Hell is personified. In other words, Hell is this being who can speak. And Hell starts telling Satan that he's really ticked off at Satan because he allowed Jesus to be crucified. "Why did you have Jesus get crucified?" And he said, "Why not? I mean, of course, you know, it's, you know, I wanted to kill the Son of God." He says, "Yes, but he's gonna come down here and he's gonna, he's gonna destroy us." "Oh, he's not gonna destroy us. No, he's a man. I heard him praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was so upset about it, you know, he's just a human. He's fine." And Hell says, "You know, just, you know, just recently, there's a guy named Lazarus who got taken out of me. Somebody up there took him out. I think that was Jesus who did. I think he's got more powerful, more powerful than we have." And Satan says, "No, he doesn't." And then all of a sudden, they hear this voice, says, "Open up the gates!" You know, Jesus comes in. And, and Hades says, "Go out there and stop him." And of course, Jesus just runs right over the devil. And he comes in. And the prophets down in Hades see that he's coming. They see a light that's coming into Hades. And Adam and the prophet Isaiah and John the Baptist say, "Okay, it's happening now, as we predicted." And Jesus comes and he, and he takes people out. The issue with this go, one of the issues with this gospel, I deal with in my book, is because there are so many Latin and Greek manuscripts of it, there are variations on what happens. In the oldest version of it, Jesus shuts down the place, he takes everyone out, and everyone is taken up to heaven. But then in later versions of it, Christian scribes couldn't handle this universalism. That everybody gets saved. No, everybody can't get saved. What about the sinners? And so they, they started changing the text so it didn't say that everybody got saved. It only the righteous got saved, or there are variations of that. So it seems like the Gospel of Nicodemus is is representing both the extreme power of Christ in that he can completely destroy hell, but also the kind of extreme of salvation in that everybody is saved. There's no one, there's no one left afterwards. In the original text, the text most people are familiar with, he only takes the righteous, because the later version became the more popular one.

So, if we think about the original version and this idea of universal forgiveness, was that a dominant theological concept when it was written?

It was a much debated concept. And so, just in terms of the history of this idea, um, of universalism, there are hints of it in the New Testament, as I've said, where things like where Paul says that Christ is like, like Adam, and just as in Adam all die, in Christ all live. He says that, well, I mean, all is all. I mean, everybody sins, and, quote, Paul, then everybody gets saved. And Christ is not less powerful than Adam, and, and God's salvation is not, is not weaker than the damnation. And so, uh, and so you get hints of that in the New Testament. And over time, people kind of wrestle with it. Most Christians, most of the time, have thought that there's going to be judgment and sinners are going to be punished forever. Um, that's what most Christians have thought. But in the early, in the third century, there was a, a very famous, uh, theologian that we've mentioned before, named Origen, who maintained that it can't be that way, because God says that he will submit everything under Christ's feet, and that all things will be submitted in submission to God. And Paul says in Philippians that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, and every knee will bow to worship him. And so Origen said, eventually everybody has to be saved. And so Origen's way of doing it was, he said that the, the, the age we live in now, the world we live in now, is one of many, many, many, many. And many people today get saved. And those who are recalcitrant come back, they have another chance. And some will get saved then. And then some won't. It goes on like that for a long time, until, and after, you know, about, you know, 100,000 ages, finally everybody gets it. Everybody gets saved. So Origen's doctrine was widespread, but it came to be condemned as a heresy that everybody will be saved. People just couldn't handle it. And that idea. And that's why then you have these different traditions of a book like the Gospel of Nicodemus.

So, why do academics think the forgiveness of everybody, this universal salvation, was so difficult for orthodox Christians to accept?

You have explicit discussions of it in some Church Fathers, including, for example, St. Augustine, who was, who was, you know, next to the Apostle Paul, the most important theological figure in, throughout the history of Christianity. And he took on Origen on this. And he said that it can't be right because Origen thought that every conscious being would be saved, including the devil. And for people like Augustine, that's like today when somebody says, well, everybody will get saved, but not Hitler. You know, people, you know, look, no, Hitler, definitely not. Well, the devil, definitely not. You know, for Augustine, applied to the devil. And if you say that there's an exception there, then you start thinking, actually, sin, you know, people who side with the devil aren't going to be saved. And, and so they found it offensive. And, um, for, for Origen, it was all about the sovereignty of God. Is God all-powerful or not? And does God get his way or not? And God's will is that people will worship him, and so he's going to get his way. And he's not going to force people, he's going to give them time, and they'll finally agree. Finally, everybody will agree, "Oh God, I was wrong." And so that, yeah. So universal salvation has always been on the margins since the third or fourth century, but it's always, but there have been people who, you know, Christians and Christian groups who thought, you know, actually, yes, uh, all will be saved.

How, for people who, who disagree with this idea, don't find it very comfortable, how have they gone about reconciling the contradiction between Christ's presumably ultimate power and ability to save every soul, but also the continued suffering of the damned?

Right, it's, um, this, this is the, this is a major tension in Christian theology and has been for, very, very, very long time, forever, basically. And it's, it's, it's related to the, the balance between the love of God and the justice of God. How can God be loving? And how can he be just? If he's loving, he wants everybody to be saved and to be happy. If he's just, he has to punish sin. And the idea developed fairly early on that people have some, some ability to choose. And of course, you know, later you get ideas of predestination and things, which create other problems for themselves. But early on, you didn't have this idea of predestination. The idea was that people have to choose. And people have to freely accept God. But if people freely reject God, he's got no choice. And since, because he's got to be just. And since God is the, the logic behind it was that since God is eternal, his justice has, has to be eternal. Uh, and so, and so you get in these cadavis, and in other kinds of literature, you get people wrestling with this. What about people who want to repent once they're in hell? Is it too late? And most people say, yeah, it's too late. You had your chance. And other people, other kinds of cadavis, including The Apocalypse of Peter, in the original version of The Apocalypse of Peter, Jesus finally listens to the prayers of Peter and the apostles and the angels and lets everybody out again. In later manuscripts, that got changed because people thought, look, you know, you rejected God, he's rejected you. He's eternal punishment's eternal.

Do we see this idea of, uh, individual choice represented at all in later versions of the Gospel of Nicodemus?

You know, the, the two versions that I mentioned where Jesus goes down and preaches versus Jesus goes down and asserts his power are very interesting because in both of them, there's a universal possibility. In some strains of each tradition, so, you know, if Jesus is down there preaching and he's saying, you know, he's preaching that he's brought death and resurrection, in some traditions, people can still reject him. They reject him and they stay down there. In other versions, he explains to them that, look, if you believe in me, you'll have bliss forever. Or you can stay down here. What do you want? You know? And then everybody, by, by the free will, decide to accept him. So that makes a lot of sense. The power version is like, people who get saved don't have a choice. This isn't about people's decision. This is about God. God is sovereign. And God, if, and God. So it's not a matter of people deciding or not. It's God manifesting his power either to save some or to save everyone. And people, you know, people have a choice in it.

Did the message of universal forgiveness get carried through at all to any areas of modern Christianity, or does it just die out?

No, it hasn't died out. And in fact, it's made a, a resurgence, uh, today that I think is a very, very hopeful sign within Christianity. Many, many people realize that the idea of God torturing people, ordering torture for people, allowing torture for people, for eternity, is a little bit obscene. I mean, very obscene. I mean, you know, that somebody, somebody dies when they're 30, and so they've been cognizant for about 20 years of what they're doing. They messed up a bunch of times. And then God, God tortures them for 30 trillion years, when that's only the beginning. I mean, that people are saying, look, it just doesn't make sense. Somebody came up with this. This isn't what this is. Can't be right. And including, interestingly, a number of Evangelical Christians, Bible-believing Evangelical Christians, are starting to question the existence of hell and, in fact, come out and say they don't believe in eternal conscious torment. I have this other book, just called Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife, where I explain that. And I devote a chapter to this idea of universal salvation and talk a little bit about the modern period, because there, even Christian apologists, Evangelical Christian apologists, are saying they don't believe in hell. And there are different ways of doing it. So there's, there's a book, there's an interesting book by, by four Evangelical Christians called Four Views of Hell, by four different Evangelical Bible-believing Christian, uh, uh, theologians. One of whom believes that there is eternal torment forever. One who believes in kind of a Purgatory, that you kind of pay for your sins for a while, then God lets you go. And, and they have various views. And so some people think that you're just annihilated at one point, rather than tortured. And others think you go to heaven eventually. So it's, it's still, it's still around. And it seems to be growing as people are getting sensible about, you know, what it means to call God a worse monster than Hitler, that he would torture people forever. I mean, and so, so yeah, so it's still around. Absolutely.

So, why do you think that this movement, this shift towards a more universal forgiveness concept, is a good thing?

Well, you know, I, I am, I'm not a Christian anymore myself. When I was a Christian, I was a very fervent, starting out as a Christian. When I was an Evangelical, I had a very fervent belief in both heaven and hell. And it, it motivated me to be evangelistic. That's why I wanted, I wanted to save my family and my friends and to, you know, and to, um, get them to convert, because I was afraid of their eternal damnation. And, and now that I'm not a Christian, I, I realize the emotional agony that that causes some people, the fear of hell. I get emails every week from people asking me how they can deal with this, because they're in agony. They're just in emotional agony, asking me what, how do I deal with this? Because I'm leaving, I feel like I'm leaving the faith. People tend to be thinking they're leaving the faith, and they're, they're afraid they're going to go to hell if they do. And, and it's so deeply rooted in them, it's an emotional struggle. And, you know, life's hard enough without worrying about like being tormented forever. And I think that this universalist strain within Christianity is really useful because it just tells people, look, God is not a monster, and God is not going to torture you forever. And if you're being, you know, even if you get it wrong, I mean, God isn't like, he's not like that. Uh, and that God is a God of love. And I just think that that's such a more healthy perspective than some kind of medieval, you know, down there with iron, you know, iron rods, red hot iron rods being thrust in your eyes for eternity. It's so much more helpful for people to live their lives in a healthy way, recognizing that, uh, if there is a God, he's loving and he's not out to, to torture you.

Definitely a much more positive message, I think, for everybody.

Yes, than the eternal torment side of things.

Thank you, Bart, very much. And we are going to take a quick ad break, and then we'll be back with some news of upcoming events.

This is Bart's weekly update, where we get to catch up on all the latest about Dr. Ehrman's book releases, speaking engagements, blog.org happenings, and online course launches. So, we have another course coming up, looking at The Parables of Jesus, taught by Dr. Amy Jill Levine. What can you tell us about that, Bart?

Yeah, you know, we, we do these online courses. They started out just being me doing things, and which has been great fun. I'm going to keep doing these things, but we thought, you know, why not get other people to do things, especially things that I either can't do or don't want to do? And for example, we had, we had Jody Magness do a thing on archaeology of Israel in the days of Jesus, which is something I just couldn't do. I could do a course on The Parables, but it's not my, it's, it's never been my long suit. Uh, and I thought, why not get Amy Jill Levine to do this? Amy Jill is a, she's, she's at my, my, she's about my age, and she's had a long teaching career. She's a very, very interesting person. If anybody came to New Insights into the New Testament conference, they know about AJ. She goes by AJ. She's Jewish, born and raised, and practicing Jewish, and a New Testament scholar. Did her PhD in New Testament at the at Duke University, and writing on the Gospel of Matthew. She's like this, she is like one of the top New Testament scholars in the world. And she's fascinating to listen to because she's got this amazing personality. She's very vibrant and witty and funny. She's a really engaging speaker. She's so engaging. And so everybody loves her. And one of her fields of expertise are The Parables of Jesus. And she's written a book on it. And she's, and so she's going to do this course for us. And I asked her, would you like to do that? She said, yeah, yeah. And so she's all excited about it. And so it's going to be this, this, this course where she gives, you know, she'll, she'll do lectures, uh, online. There'll be extended Q&A sessions connected with it. She's going to pick out some of the major, she'll talk about parables generally, like how they function and what they are, and, and try and show how witty some of them are and how clever, but what kind of lessons they actually are trying to teach, and to unpack them in ways that people probably wouldn't be aware of, because they haven't, you know, they're not experts on them the way she is. And so, yeah, so this, this is going to be a really exciting course, and I'm so, uh, yeah, so I'm glad she agreed to do it. And people are going to be really lucky to come to this one, I think. It's going to be a lot of fun. And for those who are interested, that is four lectures. The recording will be live, live on July 20th and 21st. But as ever, if you sign up, you will get lifetime access to the recordings after the event has finished. The early bird price is $34.95. That is available until June 29th. After that, the price will be $39.95. You can register at BartEhrman.com/Parables. That is spelled P-A-R-A-B-L-E-S. And you can also use the, uh, MJPodcast code to get an additional discount, which is never a bad thing. So, we'll have more information about that for you next week as well. And we are going to now go to our listeners.

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Now it's time for questions from listeners, where Bart answers real questions submitted by Misquoting Jesus fans. If you'd like to submit a question for future segments, please visit BartEhrman.com/AskBart.

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But are you ready for some listener questions? I hope so. We have some good ones. We always have some good ones. I always say that, but it's always true. So, first up, uh, is about the genealogies in Matthew and Luke. The listener says, "One of their purposes is to show that Jesus is a descendant of David. However, I don't think this is as impressive as Christians seem to think it is. In fact, after 20 or more generations, it's a mathematical certainty. And you could show that any pair of people on Earth are less than 20th cousins, in a conservative estimate. In an isolated population like the Hebrews, it would be even lower. So, is this something that scholars have ever really considered?"

Oh, well, something I've considered. I mean, I think in Jesus' day, probably everybody living in Israel was a descendant of David. Um, but this genealogy is patrilineal, uh, in other words, it's father, you're not getting the mothers in there. Once you get the mothers in there, then it goes everywhere. But it's, it's not the same as being able to trace father to son to son to son to son. And so the point of this is that he's a direct patrilineal descendant. Except that he's not. This is the other problem. Is that Joseph is, but Joseph was not his father. And so he, he's, in terms of bloodline, he's related to, uh, Mary. Jesus is, he's Mary's child, but he's not, not Joseph's child. So both genealogies, uh, go down to Joseph, but Joseph's not related to Jesus. And so that's the problem. The, the other problem, of course, is that, uh, what this person doesn't mention is that in, uh, the genealogies, Joseph has a different father and a different grandfather, different great-grandfather. So they're different genealogies too. So there are problems. But he's absolutely right. I mean, everybody was related to David, but the issue is that it's a patrilineal lineage.

Thank you. Next question. Were there any early Christian sects that considered the Virgin Mary divine and worthy of worship in place of the Holy Spirit?

No, none that I know of. Um, Mary, Mary begins to be, uh, an important figure in the early 2nd century. She, of course, she's important in the New Testament because she's the mother of Jesus, who was a virgin when she gave birth. But outside of the birth narratives, Mary is never really mentioned as an important figure. She shows up a couple of times, and, but she's never like a central figure at all in the New Testament. She's never mentioned outside the Gospels at all. And so she wasn't a major figure, so far as we can tell, in first-century Christianity. In the early 2nd century, we start getting, uh, gospels that deal with her at greater length. The, the Proto-Gospel of James is the first one that we have, which is a second, early 2nd century gospel, and that does celebrate her, but it doesn't elevate her to the position of a divinity at all. And so what happens is, over time, she becomes more and more important. The, the kind of, the simple way to look at this is that in the Christian tradition, to access God, you go the Father, you go through the Son, and to get to the Son, you go through the Mother. And so the, I, Protestants have trouble with this idea of Mary, you know, why do you need an intercessor? But, you know, they have an intercessor, they've got Jesus. Why do you need Jesus? Why can't you go to God? Well, you just can't. Well, okay, I'm just saying. So, so Mary doesn't become a divine figure until, till later, till after that. Um, and she never becomes a sub-, I don't know, there may have been some sects, but they, I don't know of any that that elevated her into the Trinity or anything. But, so she was always seen as a, as a mortal, even though she had this kind of, she was kind of super-mortal in a way.

Thank you. Uh, next up, how many worlds did the Christian God create according to the Bible? Was it two: he Earth and life, and then heaven or the afterlife? Or three: do we have Paradise or Eden, ordinary Earth, and then Heaven? Are they all the same? And who created Hell?

Okay, first, I thought this question was going to ask about worlds like, you know, how many planets or something, but it sounds like so, well, God created everything. And in, uh, in the Book of Genesis, he, you know, he creates one world. This is it. And the, the idea that, at least in most of the Hebrew authors, is that this world, uh, consists of several parts. So in the Book of Genesis, um, when people, if people would read that carefully, they'd see that kind of an interesting thing is God does not invent water. Doesn't create water. So water is there to begin with. And so what happens is God, um, takes the water and divides it and puts a firm substance between the water above and the water below. And the firm substance in that is called the firmament. So the sky that holds the water from up above, and the Earth holds the water from down below. And so one, one interesting feature of this way of conceptualizing it is that when the flood comes of Noah, what happened is that this division of the waters disappears, and the waters start coming down from above, but they also start coming up from below. And it's returning to the pre, uh, creation state, the chaotic state that God solved by putting a firmament in there. So already there in Genesis chapter 1, you've got the above world and you've got the below world. And throughout ancient mythology, uh, the gods lived up high, they lived above us, and the realm of the dead was down below us. And the, and ancient Israelites had basically that understanding of a three-storyed universe. And so it's all part of the same creation. Uh, it's not that he creates different worlds. It's that heaven is up above. That's why, for example, it looks like, that's why the Tower of Babel is a problem. Why are they building this tower? God gets nervous, you know, and so he, he confuses their languages so that they can't get up there, you know. And when, when Elijah goes to heaven, what happens? He goes up there, right? It's a, so there, there actually is an up. And so they don't have any conception of the universe or the solar system or anything like that. They're like, this is the world, and it has different parts to it.

Thank you. Final episode.

Uh, on an episode of the podcast, Bart mentioned that when Jesus said the greatest command was to love your neighbor, that he was including non-Jews, which was a new concept to Judaism. If this is the case, why then does Jesus berate and initially ignore the Gentile woman in Matthew 15:21-28? Does this show a change of heart, uh, on having been sent only for the people of Israel, or is this a story that was probably inserted later in time?

So, I wouldn't say that Jesus is the only one who said love Gentiles. I think that I do think that he thought that "love your neighbor as yourself," uh, that he interpreted that differently from Leviticus. In Leviticus 19, it is crystal clear if you read it in its context, it's talking about loving your fellow Israelite. And Jesus is saying that love extends beyond the borders of Israel and that it applies to Gentiles. But I don't think he's the only, the only one who was saying that. It's a very good question, though.

Because in Matthew 25, you have this Gentile woman come up to Jesus. Uh-huh. I, Matthew 20, it's in the Book of Matthew. It's not 25. It's in the Book of Matthew. This, this Gentile woman comes up to Jesus. She's a Syrophoenician woman, so she's from the area of Syria Phoenicia, and she's a Gentile. And she wants Jesus to heal her, uh, daughter who has a demon in her. And Jesus refuses and says that, you know, he's come for the, for the Israelites. And and she has this response. She says, and and he said, and he says, you know, we, the food is for the children at the table, not for the dogs below me, basically. She, he's said, I'm not going to help you because you're one of the dogs below. You know, I'm just here to feed the children. And she says, well, the dog, even the dogs get the crumbs off the table. And and he thinks that's a good reply. And so he says, okay, so then he heals the daughter. It actually doesn't put him in a very good light, frankly. He's calling this woman a dog and he's, um, saying he's not going to help her, and he just happens to because he thinks she has a clever witticism. You know, it's not, it doesn't put him in a very good light.

But, but the issue is, the issue in Matthew is just within the gospel of Matthew. The point of Matthew is that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah who came to save the Jewish people, but they reject him in Matthew. And because they reject him, then the message goes to the entire world. It goes to the Gentiles as well. And this story is trying to illustrate that. That he comes for the Jews, and Gentiles are going to get the byproduct, but they're, they're not the target. And so that's Matthew's point.

The question this person's asking, though, is about the historical Jesus. If Jesus thought that "love your neighbor" meant apply to the Gentile, then why does he do this with the Syrophoenician woman? And my, my sense is that this is not an episode that actually happened. I don't think that you, I don't think this did happen. And so whenever we're talking about the Gospels, it's very tricky because you have to ask, are you asking what this author of this gospel is trying to say about Jesus, or are you using the gospel to find out what Jesus himself really said and did? Those are two different questions, and it's really hard to keep them separate in people's minds. So I don't think that historical Jesus would have called this woman a dog. And I, but I think it makes sense that Matthew did because of the way he was trying to structure, uh, what Jesus' mission was all about.

Thank you very much. Thank you, audience, for all of your questions. And now, Bart, before we finish for the week, would you mind just summarizing what we spoke about today?

Uh, yeah, well, we're talking about this interesting concept of people being given tours of Heaven and Hell, which we find throughout early, early Christian literature, all the way up through Dante, of people giving tours of Heaven and Hell. And we dealt with a specific aspect of it, Jesus' own journey to Hell or to Hades, according to, uh, early traditions, including one called the Gospel of Nicodemus, a very interesting apocryphal gospel that describes Jesus going down and saving people in hell. And all the questions, is he saving some people? All people? Is he, uh, if he's, is it by preaching to them so they convert? Is it by just manifesting the power of God down there? So these are questions involved with this idea, what was Jesus doing between his death and his resurrection? But also dealing seriously with the question of who gets saved. Do you have to be a believer in Jesus in this life in order to be saved or not?

Thank you so much, Bart, for taking the time to share your knowledge with us. Audience, thank you all for listening. I hope you enjoyed the show. And if you did, please subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss future episodes. Remember that you can use the code MJ podcast for a discount on all of Bart's courses over at www.bart Ehrman.com. That includes the upcoming course on Parables, uh, by AJ LaVine. And, uh, the course code is still valid. And the website or the web address for that is www.bart Ehrman.com/parables. P-A-R-A-B-L-E-S. You can really tell when I forget to script things, can't you? Thank you. Every, you're kind. Um, this quoting Jesus will be back next week. But what are we talking about next time?

Next time, we're dealing with a fundamental issue. Uh, did Paul change Jesus' message? People tend to think of Paul and Jesus on the same page, naturally. Were they? We'll talk about it. Thank you all. And [Music] goodbye.

This has been an episode of Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman. We'll be back with a new episode next Tuesday. So please be sure to subscribe to our show for free on your favorite podcast listening app or on Bart Ehrman's YouTube channel so you don't miss out. From Bart Ehrman and myself, Megan Lewis, thank you for joining us.