Can Anyone Keep the Jewish Law?

If I start talking about the law, many of you are going to have certain ideas pop into your heads: a police force, trials, prison. But what if I'm talking about the law in a religious sense? Maybe you'd think of the Ten Commandments, failing women, or practices of abstinence. Today, Dr. Bart Ehrman talks about the Jewish law as presented in the New Testament, exploring whether it's possible to even keep it, and what agenda the New Testament authors had when they were writing about it.

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.

So, as I just said, today we're going to be talking about whether it's possible to keep the Jewish law and what New Testament authors tell us about it. Our bonus segment, so please stay tuned for that, is going to be "Outsmart Bart," where an audience member tries to test the limits of Bart's biblical knowledge. We're also going to have more information on Hugo Mendes' Introduction to the New Testament course. He's taught a couple of really great classes so far, including "The New Testament: History and Faith" and "From Scrolls to Scripture: How the New Testament Was Handed Down." His next lecture, for those who are interested, is tomorrow, and he's going to be looking at the Gospel of Mark as an historical document. So we'll have a bit more information about that coming up.

Before we get to all that, though, Bart, hello. How are you doing today?

Yep, I'm doing absolutely okay. We got, we got nailed with a winter storm, uh, this last weekend, but, uh, we, we got through it fine. So it's absolutely fine. So the problem in my part of the world is that we don't mind snow, but ice is a bad deal around here, and we get a lot of ice storms. And we got some with that knocks down the power lines because everything's above ground. So, but we, we, we survived it. How, how are you doing?

Uh, similarly, I think we had the same storm, actually. Uh, our power was fine. I think most of our power lines are buried. Um, and the children had a fantastic time. And our driveway is like a V-shape, so it goes steep down and then steep up. So Josh and I spent a lot of time shoveling and, uh, gritting and salting it. And then it snowed again. There it goes. So, yes, everyone had a great time. Uh, we got our, our respective workouts in, which is, uh, okay. Always exciting.

That's good. That's good. Yeah. Now, we're going to be talking about the Jewish law, whether it's possible to keep it, and, and what the New Testament authors have to say about it. I wanted to open by asking, when you first started looking at how the New Testament presented Jewish law, uh, well, you know, I suppose, as soon as I started, uh, getting interested in, uh, the New Testament when I was, uh, young and, um, became a more committed Christian, I wanted to read more about the New Testament. And I, and I, um, you know, at the time, uh, I guess I had heard from others and picked up on my own that, um, that the Jewish law was a big problem. And that, that, as I think like a lot of other Christians, at least conservative Evangelical Christians, maybe all Christians, I, I had, I had learned that the law of the Jews was given by God, um, but that it was impossible for anybody to keep. It's just way too detailed, way, way too many laws, and there's no way anybody can keep it. And that's why you need Christ, is because, um, uh, God knew nobody could keep it. And since they couldn't keep it, they couldn't gain salvation. And so the fact that everybody failed to keep the law, and had to fail to keep the law, is the reason God sent Christ into the world. And so the Christian, uh, the Christian faith was meant to resolve the problem that Jews had, that they had to earn salvation and couldn't do it.

So I, I had another question written down, but your answer has prompted a different one. Did the, the Jews of the time know that they had a problem keeping the law, or is this something that, uh, other people decided for them?

Yeah, what kind of other people decided is for them? I think because they, you know, the, the, within the Jewish tradition, uh, historically and still today, uh, the law that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai is seen as the greatest good that you could imagine, and that it's a joy to keep. Um, and I think the logic is precisely the opposite of what I learned, uh, when, when I was young. Um, the, the, the logic of the law is not that, um, God requires you to keep the law so that you can be saved. That's how I thought Jews thought about the law. They didn't, uh, the law was not given so that you could be saved. The law was given because you were saved. And the, the logic is that God chose the people of Israel, and he saved them from their slavery in Egypt, and immediately afterwards, he gave them his law so that they would know how to worship Him and how to behave toward one another. And, you know, I mean, a lot of people in the world wonder, you know, people who are religious want to know, you know, what's the best way to worship and serve God? And just about everybody wonders, you know, what, what should I do to behave? You know, what is, you know, what is the right way to live? And in the Jewish tradition, God has told you both things. I mean, the ruler of the universe has like laid it out for you. I mean, how good can it be? You, you, the things you want to know are given to you. And so this was, it was, it was seen as a source of joy, uh, to keep it. Uh, and so that, so the idea that, you know, you had to keep it is this burden and nobody could do it and it brought guilt, uh, that is a, that's a later formulation put on on the Jewish law, not, not one that emerges out of the law itself.

Now, as I, I said in my introduction, when we talk about the law in our society, it gives a certain set of ideas. We've got police officers, punitive justice, lawyers, trials, all of that kind of thing. What does it mean? Because it's a very different meaning than when we talk about Jewish law in the historical context that we're discussing.

Well, it's a very important point that we have to put in its own context, um, because, you know, in our context, you know, you break a law and you go to jail, kind of thing. And, and it's a very complicated judicial apparatus that we have today. Um, the Jewish law needs to be put in its own context, which is not 21st-century America. Um, and scholars have, scholars for a long time, uh, have recognized what the, the context is for the giving of the Jewish law because they've discovered a number of ancient texts outside of Israel, uh, but related to what's going on in Israel, that that reveal pretty clearly what this law was all about. So there these, um, in, in your part of the world, in the ancient Near East, there are a number of, um, of, um, treaties that have emerged that we've discovered, especially connected with the Hittites. Hittites were this, were this people who were around and, and they were advanced civilization, and there are a number of treaties that Hittites made with other nations. And they're called suzerain treaties because a lord and overlord is a suzerain. And the, the idea is that the Hittites would conquer another people and they'd make a treaty with them. And these, and we have a number of these treaties. And the way they work, work is the, they, they appear in several steps. The, the way the treaty is worded, it begins with, um, the Hittites naming who they are and who they, who, who the other persons are, the other nation is, uh, and indicate something about the history of their relationship to one another. The Hittites have now conquered this other nation, and then they give, uh, stipulations for, uh, for what they expect this other nation now to do that they have, that they have, uh, an overlord. They, they, uh, indicate that there will be, um, uh, really benefits if they do this to them, this will be beneficial to them. If they don't do it, they're going to, it's going to, they're going to incur curses, it's going to be bad news for them. And then there are things about where you store the covenant and disagreement and things like that.

So if you look at the, uh, the Hebrew Bible and you look at how God gives the law to Moses and Israel, it sounds just almost exactly like a suzerain treaty. God, when God starts giving the law, this is like in, in Exodus chapter 19. They've come, they've come out of Egypt, they've escaped Egypt through the Red Sea, and they, the sea, and they, and God's now giving the law. He says, you know, I, I brought you out of your slavery in Egypt and, uh, brought you to myself with eagle wings, and now this is what I'm going to, uh, stipulate you, you should do. And so it's like the sovereign telling the, the one who's now, uh, submissive, you know, submissive to the Lord, what they need to do. And then you have the list of, you right off the bat, you get the Ten Commandments, but then you get everything else. And then, and throughout, you get this thing, you know, you do this, you'll be blessed. If you don't, you'll be cursed. And so the idea is, you've already submitted to the lordship of God, and he's already saved you, and now, uh, these are the stipulations. And so that's, that's, that's that context. So it isn't like the modern judicial system in America, uh, at all. It's, it's set up in an ancient way of understanding things.

So I think that a lot of modern laws are designed to keep society functioning in a certain, certain way, protect its members, protect certain institutions. What was the purpose of the Jewish law handed down by Yahweh?

Well, that was certainly one of them. I, I think if you look at all the laws, uh, in the Old Testament, the, the law, so it, the law begins, as I said, with the Ten Commandments in, uh, Exodus chapter 20, and you have laws then to the very end of the book of Exodus. And, uh, the entire book of Leviticus is filled with laws, and Numbers, uh, going up to Numbers chapter 10. And so it goes from Exodus 20 to Numbers 10, so it's a lot of chapters of laws. But if you look at the whole thing, you look at all the laws, there really are three functions, uh, for, for these laws. One, one are laws about how to worship God. And, uh, worshiping God entails things like, you know, how you perform sacrifices to God, and, uh, what special days you observe, observing the Sabbath, for example, and observing festivals. And this is how you do it, and these are how you do the specific sacrifices and things. So you have these things about how to worship God. The second is you have how to relate to in community, to one another. And so if, um, you know, if, if, uh, you've got to have community laws. And so you shouldn't steal from your neighbor, you shouldn't, uh, commit adultery, you shouldn't murder. But also there are, there are laws that are not just kind of telling you what to do and what not to do. There are also laws like, if this happens, then this is the punishment. You know, if your ox gores your, uh, neighbor's ox and kills the neighbor's ox, then this is the penalty that you have to pay for your ox misbehaving. You know, it's like, and so you have, so have these laws about this, you know, what happens, what's conditional upon certain actions. So you get, those are all community laws. So laws about how to worship God, community laws, and then you have things that you might call purity laws about how the people of God are to remain pure, uh, before God, ritually pure. So, um, in, this is something we don't really have in our context very much at all, but it made sense in the ancient world that, that, um, in order to worship God, you've got to be pure. And there are things that make you impure, and there are things that are not sinful, they just are things that happen to you. If you touch a corpse, you are ritually impure, and there needs to be some way to purify yourself so that you're not in an impure state when you worship God. If, if a woman, uh, menstruates, that's a, that's an impurity, and she needs to have a ritual to purify her. If a man has a sexual emission, then that's a ritual impurity. And so you have things that make you ritually impure, and you need to have laws to help you know how to become pure again so you can worship God in a pure state. So that, that kind of thing we don't really have so much, um, but, uh, but those are the three kinds of things. And there's nothing particularly crazily difficult about any of them. They're just, you know, this is how this nation is going to be organized.

Thank you. And if anyone broke any of those laws, would there be consequences? Is there some kind of prison system? What, what would have happened?

Uh, there's no prison system. Um, the, uh, there, there are absolutely, uh, punishments for some of the laws, um, especially these ones that are sort of conditional things that I was saying, you know, if this happens, then that has to happen. And they range, there, there's a range of penalties. Uh, some of them have the death penalty. You know, if you murder somebody, you, you know, that's, there's capital punishment. And in places, there's capital punishment for things that would not seem like things that should be capital punishment. I mean, if you strike your, if you hit your, uh, father in the face, you know, if you strike him, that's a, there's a death penalty for that. If you, uh, commit sorcery, there's a death penalty for that. There, so there are death penalties for things. But there's also, there are a lot of fines that go on too. You know, if, if your ox does this, this is the fine that you pay. If, if two people are fighting and one of them accidentally, in the middle of the fight, wounds a pregnant woman who miscarries, this is the penalty that's paid. Uh, and so you have, you have, you know, fines, so a lot of fines and some, uh, death sentences.

Thank you. We are going to take a very brief break, but we will be back shortly to talk about how the New Testament authors portray Jewish laws and why they say what they do.

Jesus and Paul are the two most important figures in the history of Christianity. But did they even agree with one another? Join acclaimed scholar Bart Ehrman in his online course, "Paul and Jesus: The Great Divide," where you'll dive deep into the complex relationship between Paul and Jesus, explore their differing views on crucial issues, and uncover the profound impact of their teachings on the early Christian faith. In this eight-lesson course, you'll gain valuable insights into the historical context of Jesus and Paul's beliefs, their views on salvation, and their understanding of the Jewish law. Don't miss out on this unique opportunity to enrich your understanding of these influential figures. Visit BartEhrman.com to learn more or sign up today, and remember to use discount code MJPodcast for a special offer. Once again, that's BartEhrman.com with a discount code MJPodcast.

So, before the break, we talked a lot about exactly what the Jewish law is, kind of how it compares and contrasts to what we might understand as modern law. I wanted to start this segment by asking, how did the authors of the New Testament differ in their views on Jewish law, or do we see a relatively coherent depiction of it?

Um, I'd say you have different views. Um, a lot of the New Testament authors don't deal with it at all. They just, they just think that, you know, Christ is the way of salvation, and that the law, uh, was given to Jews to tell Jews how to, how to function in their world, but that since many of the followers of Jesus are no longer Jews, that it's more or less irrelevant. Um, uh, some authors see the law as, uh, I think probably all the authors in some way or another see the laws of the law of Moses as anticipating Jesus, um, not in the sense that I learned when I was young, that, you know, that you need Jesus precisely because you can't keep the law, but it predicts Jesus in many ways. But, but apart from the, apart from people not dealing with it much, um, you do get different views, and, um, and radically different views. Um, I think that the view presented in the Gospel of Matthew, for example, is very different from the view that you find in the writings of Paul. Um, so much so that I'm not sure they would have agreed. Um, I, the basic story is that in, in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus insists that his followers have to keep the law. He didn't come to abolish it, he came to fulfill it, and his followers have to keep it better than the scribes and Pharisees do, better than the really religious folk among the Jews. You've got to keep the law. Paul says explicitly, especially about Gentiles, you don't have to keep the law. In fact, you shouldn't try to keep the law, um, with regard to things like circumcision and keeping kosher, and you shouldn't try to do that because if you do that, that shows you don't understand that Christ is the way of salvation, not the law. And so, um, I think this is probably the biggest contrast. So a view represented by Matthew and a view represented by Paul.

Do any of the other gospel writers have any, uh, anything else to offer in trying to understand how Jesus viewed the Jewish law?

Well, you know, throughout, throughout all the Gospels, Jesus, of course, uh, quotes scripture, uh, in a positive way. Um, but he, um, so the, the, the opposition, let me put, yeah, this is kind of an important point that just occurred to me. Part of the opposition to the law in the Gospels generally is an opposition to a certain way of interpreting the law. When, when Jesus gets in conflicts, it's almost never about the law itself, it's about how Pharisees are interpreting the law. And so, um, many people think that Jesus goes through the Gospels and he's always breaking the law because it doesn't matter anymore, and it's not true. Uh, the most pointed case is, uh, Jesus breaking the Sabbath. People say, well, Jesus didn't care about the Sabbath, he's breaking it the whole time. And actually, it's not true. Um, if you look at what happens, Jesus will do something on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees will object to it. You can't do that on the Sabbath. And Jesus will point out that actually what he's doing is helping people, and that's okay according to the law. They have a different interpretation of what it means to keep the law, specifically what does it mean to keep the Sabbath law? And we don't see this today because we're not in the ancient Jewish context. But in the ancient Jewish context, there were all sorts of debates about what it means to keep the law. Like, what, what does it mean to keep the Sabbath? So part, the big problem, the big problem with the law for, um, most of the New, for the New Testament writers who deal with it, and for the Pharisees, and for everybody else, I guess, is that the law is often very vague in places. It doesn't spec, it doesn't go down to a great level of specificity. So if it says don't work on the Sabbath, okay, fair enough, don't work on the Sabbath. Great. But what's work? And it depends, you know, is shoveling your sidewalk, uh, because of the snow, work on the Sabbath? So you can't do that on a, well, on a Saturday? Well, some, some Jews would say, well, yes, you can't. Well, they weren't shoveling snow, but they say, but, you know, you, you can't do this on the Sabbath because that's work. And others would say, well, actually that's not work. And so they have debates about it. Jesus gets in conflicts about the Sabbath not because he's actually breaking what the law says, but because he's violating what the Pharisees think the law says, how they interpret the law. So there's no place in the, I don't think there's any place in the Gospels, in the Matthew, Mark, and Luke at least, where Jesus actually, you know, violates what the law tells you to do. Um, so the other Gospels, not, you know, not as much as Matthew. I will point out that in the Gospel of John, where Jesus is talking to Jews, he often will say, so and so is said in your law. That's a rather strange thing for a Jew to say, but it's because by the time you get to the Gospel of John, uh, Jesus is being portrayed as somebody who's over against Jews. And so, like he can talk about your law, even though himself as a Jew.

If Jesus is seemingly viewing the law as something that you should be keeping, is it possible to keep? Why, or maybe how do we get this idea that the Jewish law is amazingly hard to keep and it's just, it's not possible?

Well, I think a lot of it is that Christian readers read the Book of Leviticus and say, man, you've got to be kidding me. Really, that's a law? And so, like, you know, it's true of just like almost anything in the modern world. You read some of other nations' laws and you think, really, that's the law? What are you talking about? And there, you know, there's nothing particularly overly complicated about the Jewish law. It is nothing as complicated as American law. Um, I was, I was reading the other day that there are, uh, one million 91,000 federal regulations, just federal law, forget like the state law and your city's laws and things. You're talking over a million laws. And, you know, in the Old Testament, there are 613 of them. So 63 versus a million, take your pick. And, you know, it's not, it's not impossible to, uh, avoid murdering somebody. You know, you can, you can decide not to do that. And, you know, if you're, if you happen to own an ox and it gores your neighbor, you know, you could probably keep that from happening if you want to. So virtually, just virtually everything in there, uh, is keepable. I think what happens is that, um, I don't know that it started with Paul, but in some sense, it may have started with Paul. Paul's trying to, in Paul's letters, Paul's trying to understand why Christ came and why, especially why did Christ have to die, uh, and be raised from the dead. Paul saw that as a fulfillment of God's plan from the very beginning. And he, um, he thinks that it's necessary because because everybody sins, and, uh, everybody then needs to have an atoning sacrifice for their sins. Uh, and Christ provides that atoning sacrifice. So even though it's possible to keep the law to the letter, that, that doesn't mean you, you won't sin against God. So that gets a little complicated for many Christians. But Paul, Paul's explicit himself in, in the book of Philippians. He says that with respect to his past, before he became a believer in Jesus, he says, with respect to the righteousness that's found in the law, I was found blameless. Explicitly says that he was blameless before the law. Well, how can you be blameless before the law? Well, because you keep it. But one of the things about the law is that if you mess up, sometimes that's what the sacrifices are for. One of the things sacrifices are for. The law itself provides stipulations for people when they, when they mess up. And so, um, one of the mysteries with Paul is figuring out why Christ had to die if you already had stipulations to cover misdemeanors. Um, but he does. But since he thinks that Christ is the answer, then Judaism cannot be the answer because if Judaism was the answer, then you wouldn't need Christ. And so Paul's kind of reasoning backwards where he realizes that Christ is God's chosen one who died, he must have died for the sins of the world. And if he died for the sins of the world, God raised him from the dead, then you need Christ. If you need Christ, that's all you need. If that's all you need, you don't need to keep the law, at least, at least if you're not a Jew, for Paul.

So if, if Paul has kind of solved this problem for himself by making it impossible or unnecessary, maybe to keep the Jewish law, how do we see this rhetoric being continued by other early Christian writers, and maybe what do they gain from it?

So what ends up happening is because Paul says that salvation comes through Christ, not through the law, um, this, um, let me elaborate for a second. It's not clear that he's, he's telling Jews that they don't have to keep the law. He's telling Gentiles, don't convert to Judaism because converting to Judaism isn't what matters. What matters is accepting Christ's death and resurrection. And he himself does say that when he's with Jews, he, he's a Jew, and when he's with Gentiles, he's a Gentile, which means he broke the law when it was convenient for his mission, when it helped his mission to to convert people. And so the law is not the major thing for him. But what ends up happening is so many more people convert who are Gentiles than Jews. And they see that the Jewish law can't bring salvation. They see that Jews have rejected their own Messiah, in their opinion. There begins this kind of anti-Jewish, uh, element within Christianity. I don't think Paul himself is anti-Jewish, I really don't think that at all. But I do think that later on, then people started saying, well, look, you know, Jews got this law and, you know, it's ridiculous, they can't, and so the, the law itself becomes an object of attack by Christians. And soon you hear Christians saying that it's a real burden to keep the law and Jews hate having to do it, but they've got to do it. And, you know, if they would just see that Christ solves the problem. So it leads, in effect, this whole thing leads to a kind of anti-Judaism within Christianity, where the Jewish faith is maligned, and Jews who keep it are maligned, and it leads eventually to very nasty things in the history of anti-Judaism.

Are there any, um, texts in the Old Testament that kind of help augment our views on this at all?

Throughout the, uh, Hebrew Bible, especially in the prophets, but also in the book of Deuteronomy, there are, uh, there are a number of, um, passages that talk about how God gets angry when you violate his law and the kind of curses that come as a result of violating the law. And in the prophets, you have these kind of wholesale statements about how the people of Israel have broken the law. And, and so, um, these prophets, the prophets of the Old Testament, uh, are not predicting what's going to happen in hundreds of years when the Messiah comes. If you just read what the prophets say, Isaiah or Amos or any of them, when you read them, it's clear they're talking to their own situation and they're trying to explain why Israel is experiencing so many problems, including military defeat, if God is supposed to protect them. And their explanation is because, you know, God gave you the law and you didn't keep it. Uh, and so Christians then end up picking that up and saying, see, Israel never keeps its law, Jews don't keep the law, Jews can't keep the law. And it kind of leads to this, this point of view. But at the same time, um, even like in, in Matthew himself, um, Matthew cites the law to show that Jesus fulfills the law. And so you have this uneasy tension within Christianity that on one hand, um, you have people saying you shouldn't, you don't have to keep the law, but yet they keep the law as part of their scriptures. And, you know, so it's this kind of uneasy balance between, well, what is our relationship to the Old Testament? What's our relationship to the law? And as I was saying, I think, you know, Matthew and Paul have slight, they have different answers to that with respect to salvation itself, because Matthew thinks keeping the law is all part of following Jesus, and Paul does not.

So, one final question to kind of wrap things up a little bit. When we're looking at the New Testament authors, what is it that makes Matthew and Paul take these different views and different approaches to the Jewish law?

Well, I, you know, I think that I think that Matthew is probably, um, writing for a, a Jewish audience. And he's mainly a Jewish audience. I, I suppose community is probably mixed Jew and Gentile, but he's especially concerned about Jews who have, um, become followers of Jesus who don't think the law is important anymore, possibly because they've read Paul or heard about Paul's views. Um, because Paul thinks that following the law has no bearing on salvation. It's following Christ that has bearing on salvation. Um, so, uh, uh, Matthew thinks that it is important, uh, for Jews, apparently, to keep the law. He says that Christ, Jesus himself said, says only in Matthew, that I've not come to abolish the law, I've come to fulfill it. And he goes on to say that his followers have to keep the law better than the scribes and Pharisees. And so that's, that's in the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, chapter 5. But then later, in later in chapter 23, Jesus tells his disciples that, um, that the, um, that the scribes and Pharisees pronounce on the law, and that what they say is right, and you should do what the Pharisees say. The problem with the Pharisees is they don't do what they say, they don't practice what they preach. So that's an astounding statement in Matthew 23:2, that you should keep what the Pharisees tell you to do. And so, uh, and so it's not that Matthew thinks that's what will bring salvation. He, he agrees with Paul that the death and resurrection of Jesus are what brings salvation. But though the Jews are still bound to keep the law because it's the law God gave to the Jews. Paul, uh, Paul has a much more relaxed view and he absolutely does not say you have to keep the law, let alone the way the Pharisees had interpreted it. Um, and so, you know, it's, it's a, it's a hard question. If, if Matthew and Paul really had to work out a kind of consensus statement about the law, they'd probably get some things in common. But the idea of whether you have to keep it or not as a follower of Jesus is a, is a tricky one. And in part, it's tricky because when Matthew, when Matthew says you have to keep the law better than the scribes and Pharisees and such, he actually makes it harder to follow the law. The law says you're not supposed to murder, and Matthew doesn't contradict that by saying, yes, you should murder. Matthew makes it harder. He says, well, when it says don't murder, it actually means don't even get angry with somebody. When it says don't commit adultery, it means don't even lust after a woman in your heart. And he, and so, like, he's making it more difficult, not less difficult. And when I was a Christian, I thought that meant, well, of course, he's just showing it's impossible. How can you not get angry? How can you not commit lust? I mean, like, he's making it impossible so that you need Jesus. But that's not what Matthew says at all. Matthew assumes it's possible and that, and so, and so you have to do it. And Paul just thinks that isn't, like, that isn't what matters at all. And if you think it matters, you're misunderstanding.

So I think Paul would think that Matthew's misunderstanding is Matthew anticipating that people would take this very literally, or is it an illustration of you should follow the spirit of the law, not just the letter of it?

Yeah, well, probably both. I mean, I think that, you know, we don't know what Matthew's thinking, obviously, because we can't get into his head. And, um, but, but he doesn't say, yeah, I'm just kidding. You know, but so the thing about, like, on The Sermon on the Mount, uh, you have this passage called the antitheses, where Jesus will will quote one of the laws and then give his interpretation of it. And, and antithesis is a contrary statement. So you've heard it said, you shall not commit murder, but I say to you, and so he's giving a kind of a contrary statement. It's not a contradictory statement, but it's like, it's, it's standing over against the other thing. And so I say, do you should not even get angry. And that is getting to the heart of the law. I mean, the reason you murder somebody is because you're really ticked off about something. Well, don't get ticked off about something, and you won't murder. And so it's getting to the heart of what the, the law is. Um, so, uh, when the law says an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, Jesus says turn the other cheek. Now, people often say, well, okay, so, you know, he's reversing that law because, uh, but no, he's actually not. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth means that the punishment should, should be appropriate to the crime. So, in other words, if somebody knocks out your tooth, you don't lop off their head. And so it's a, it's a, it's a law for mercy and justice. And Jesus then just takes it farther. Not only don't lop off his head, don't even take out his tooth, you know, just. And so he, he extends it even, extends the law of mercy even further. Um, and so that's, so I think that is trying to get to the very heart of the law, because for Matthew, the very heart of the law is that you should love one another and treat them the way you want them to treat you. And if you do that, you will keep the law. And interestingly, and again, a little weirdly, Paul says something similar. Paul says that you should love your neighbor as yourself, because that fulfills the law. And you think, well, that's a weird thing for Paul to say, because he's just been saying you don't have to keep the law. But, but now he says, love your neighbor, that fulfills the law. And so they all, they all pretty much agree, Jesus, Matthew, Paul, they all pretty much agree that the core of the law is to love, and that becomes the distinctive Christian message.

Thank you so much, Bart. We are out of time for the interview portion of today, but we are going to go to talk about Hugo Mendes' New Testament course, and then following that, we have a round of "Outsmart Bart."

Welcome to our upcoming highlights and events segment, where we catch up on Bart's courses, community updates, and all the latest news from the Biblical Studies Academy and beyond.

[Music]

All right, so people who are familiar or have been here for a little while will know that we recently launched this thing called the Biblical Studies Academy, and part of that is giving people access to university-level lecture courses. We did Mark Goodacre, well, we didn't Mark Goodacre, did, uh, a lecture course on the Synoptic Gospels, uh, last year. We currently have Dr. Hugo Mendes teaching, uh, an Introduction to the New Testament, and he's done some really great lessons already. I gave some titles earlier: "The New Testament: History and Faith" and "From Scrolls to Scripture: How the New Testament Was Handed Down." Lecture four is being taught tomorrow. If you feel like signing up for a free 14-day trial of the BSA, you can do that, and then watch Hugo's lecture live, catch up with what has already been taught, and really see what's going on. And if this is something that you think will suit you, and as a bit of a teaser, I have the description for Wednesday's lecture, which is about the Gospel of Mark as an historical document. So, in the first century CE, a single writer decided to pen an engaging, fast-paced narrative of Jesus' life. This book, the Gospel that we now know as Mark, portrays a Jesus who is shockingly secretive, powerful, and even on some level divine. But who wrote this text? When did this person write it? And where did they write it? In this first lecture on a specific New Testament text, we will become acquainted with the tools scholars use to answer these and other historical questions. And I have to say, the title and the content of this lecture lines up marvelously with our podcast discussion next week. So watch Mark's, not Mark's, watch Hugo's lecture, sorry, too many names in my head. Watch Hugo's lecture, then come back next week and see how we match up. Hopefully, we agree. Um, I don't see much disagreement, honestly. You and Hugo have, uh, written an entire book on New Testament, so together.

So we, we have, but we do have some disagreements about the Synoptic Gospels, so, but I don't think we're going to disagree much on Mark, because we, yeah, we're, we're side by side on that one. Well, if that does sound interesting for you, you can sign up for the free trial at BartEhrman.com/BSA. And now, a round of "Outsmart Bart," which has audience questions designed to test the limits of Bart's biblical knowledge. So if you have questions, you can also submit them at BartEhrman.com/AskBart, and we will get to them as soon as we can. No promises, but we are, we're trying. We're getting through these as fast as possible. Dr. Ehrman has written six New York Times bestselling books and holds a PhD from Princeton Theological Seminary. It's not often you'll see him made a fool, but it doesn't hurt to try. It's time for "Outsmart Bart."

[Music]

All right, Bart, are you ready to test the limits of your biblical knowledge?

Probably not. Let's give it a go.

Okay, first up, what is the only New Testament chapter where the name of Yahweh is acknowledged in most modern English Bibles? The name Yahweh?

The name Yahweh never appears in the New Testament. Um, so I don't know if they mean acknowledged. It's not, it's not looking for the actual name, it's looking for a reference to it.

I, well, close. Philippians chapter 2. The answer the question gives is Revelation 19, where it says Hallelujah, which means praise Yah. Well, Hallelujah also occurs in one of Paul's writings. So, um, I think maybe not Hallelujah. So, yeah, okay. I mean, yeah, uh, in, in, uh, Philippians 2, Paul says that God gave Christ the name that is above every name, and, uh, that's often thought to be the name, uh, Lord, so Yahweh. So, okay, I'll accept Hallelujah, but all Hallelujah is, okay, fine. We're going with it.

Second question: In the first edition of the King James Bible in 1611, this is a trick question. Where is the first place that the name Jesus appears?

Well, I don't know the answer to this, but my guess is that it's going to be in the Book of Joshua.

It says nowhere. The letter J wasn't in common usage in the 1600s. Are they saying that in the King James Bible, they never use the word Jesus in the first edition? I'll have to look that up. I don't believe it's true, but, uh, this person probably did check it out. What, how did they spell it? With an I?

I don't know. That was not, I didn't do any research when I, uh, put these in, so I didn't check.

Well, you know, I've read the King James Bible a lot, but, you know, I'm not sure I read, read it right off the presses. I'm about that old, but, uh, okay. Well, okay, so so far, I'm doing well, right? Perfectly.

Number three: In scripture, who fasted for the longest?

Well, Jesus fasted for 40 days. Um, Elijah had a long fast. Um, I'd say God, because God never eats.

That's a great answer. It's not the answer I have, but that's a fantastic.

Well, it's okay. It's the right one.

So the answer given is Anna, who is in Luke 2:36-38. Her fasting can be measured in decades, not in days.

No, they're misreading the passage. It talks about, no, it doesn't, it doesn't mean she didn't eat for for decades. She, it talks about how she was worshiping in the temple for decades after her virginity. Uh, but I, uh, yeah, okay. Well, look, all, all, all these listeners, uh, who are seeing me get stumped on this, need to look all these things up and, and tell me, you know, am I really 0 for three? When, when it says she's fasting for decades, it doesn't mean she's like not eating for decades, okay?

[Laughter]

Whatever. Thank you, audience, for your questions. We'll have, uh, more listeners' questions appearing next week. Now, but before we finish for the week, could you just mind, could you just mind, would you just mind summarizing what we talked about?

Well, we've been talking about the law of, uh, of, of Moses in the view of early Christian authors in the New Testament. And we, you know, we, we've talked about what the law is really all about, and about how many Christians misunderstand what the Jewish law is all about. But then we wanted to see how, how do the New Testament authors deal with it? And we've, we've kind of scratched the surface because we, we've dealt mainly with Matthew and, and Paul. But the law is an issue, uh, for early Christians because they didn't think that that eventually came to be that the law was for Jews and not for Christians. And, um, that would lead to another interesting episode we could do on why they kept the law then in their Bibles if they didn't want to keep it. But it basically is about the law, understanding the law in the New Testament audience.

Thank you all so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, please subscribe to the podcast to make sure you don't miss future episodes. Remember that you can use the code MJPodcast for a discount on all of Bart's courses over at www.BartEhrman.com. Misquoting Jesus is going to be back next week. Bart, what are we talking about next time?

Well, there's this phenomenon in biblical scholarship, New Testament scholarship, called Markan priority. It's the, it's the idea that Mark was prior to all the other Gospels and was in fact used by Matthew and Luke. And so we're going to be talking about why, why would anybody think that Mark was the first Gospel?

Thank you all and 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.