The Sunday Interview: Did Jesus Invent Western Morality with Dr. Bart Ehrman

Brad Onishi: You all ever had a chance to meet your heroes? Sometimes it goes terribly, as they say, but for me, it was a great conversation, because we welcome to the show Dr. Bart Ehrman, who is a New Testament scholar, but somebody that many of you probably know as a writer, a blogger, somebody who is a podcaster, one of the most, to me, influential public scholars in religion over the last two decades. He's written New York Times bestsellers, including Misquoting Jesus, How Jesus Became God, and The Triumph of Christianity. He's also just created popular audio and video courses and so many things. He's reached millions and millions of people. We are here to talk about his new book, Love Thy Stranger, which, to me, is actually a really, really big book. We go through the argument of the book, but then we kind of discuss the philosophical aspects about it. And there's one question I want you to keep in mind before we go right to the interview, and that's this: Did Jesus implant in Western culture—whatever that means, whether that's ancient Rome, Western Europe, the United States, whatever the West means, and that's a whole other discussion—did he implant in some of these cultures the phenomenon of altruism, of caring for somebody who is not your own, not your family member, not somebody who's part of your group, somebody who's simply another human being who needs help? That's what we argue and debate about at the end of this episode. I don't think we actually agree, Dr. Ehrman and I, but I think we did have a good discussion that generated a lot of new thoughts for me. I'll give you a few more of my thoughts at the end for subscribers, and kind of give you some reflections on this interview. But without further ado, here is Bart Ehrman speaking with me about his new book, Love Thy Stranger.

Welcome to Straight White American Jesus. I'm Brad Onishi, author of American Caesar, How Theocrats and Tech Lords Are Turning America Into a Monarchy, co-host of this show, and welcoming for the first time somebody that many of you are going to be very familiar with, and that is Dr. Bart Ehrman, who's the author of the new book, Love Thy Stranger. As I just said, just told you about Dr. Ehrman's just extensive corpus, fantastic published scholarship. And surely many of you have listened to him on podcasts, seen him on YouTube, public talks and so on. So thank you for joining me. Really appreciate it, Dr. Ehrman.

Bart Ehrman: Well, thanks for having me.

Brad: Love Thy Stranger. I'm not gonna lie. This is an ambitious book, and your thesis is a big one. I'm gonna summarize it. Page two: "My argument in this book is that the impulse to help strangers in need is embedded in our Western moral conscience because of the teachings of Jesus." And so there's a lot to defend in that thesis. And I want to at the end, I want to come back and see if I can ask you a few questions about that, but I'd rather start with the mechanics of your thesis and how you get there. And I think the first sort of building block is the idea that in the Mediterranean world, the larger Mediterranean world in which Jesus appears as a Jewish person, the idea of loving thy neighbor, loving thy stranger, was not built into Greek or Roman religions. Rather, those religious frameworks in general were based on the idea of dominance. Is that right? And how can we sort of set the stage here by understanding this theme of dominance rather than love?

Bart: The first thing I'd say is that Greek and Roman religions themselves were actually not particularly interested in ethics at all. The religions—and so religions were cultic practices of prayer and sacrifice, and the gods were not overly concerned about how you behaved. That's different in Judaism, of course, and within Christianity. But that's not to say that in the Greek and Roman worlds, people were not interested in ethics. It's just that ethics was not part of religion. It's really about common sense, it's about community, it's about philosophy, but religion didn't have much to do with it. But the idea, the point you're making is the right one, is that throughout this culture, domination was simply an accepted ideology. It's the basic sense that if you have power, you have the moral right to assert the power, and that there's no moral objection to the powerful subjecting the weak. And so it doesn't matter whether you're talking about a city state, or any kind of your local village, or individuals. Men are stronger than women, so they can dominate women. They should. One is stronger than another one, so you dominate that one. Masters are more powerful than slaves. So the idea—these issues are not debated in the Greek and Roman world. It's just assumed that if you have power, you can assert it.

Brad: So it wasn't a moral question. It was just a matter of fact. And so then Jesus appears on the scene with a different teaching, a different way. And it seems like the core of your argument is that Jesus was a Jewish apocalyptic prophet who believed the end of the world was near, and that love was the key ethic for the coming kingdom. Is that right?

Bart: Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, Jesus was Jewish, and so he believed in the God of Israel who was the creator of the world, who had given his law to Moses, and the law of Moses was all about how you treat other people. And the ethical emphasis of the Hebrew Bible is on how you treat others, especially the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized. And Jesus took that and said this is what really matters. And he emphasized love—love of God and love of neighbor—as the sum of the law. And for Jesus, the neighbor included everybody, not just fellow Jews, but also Gentiles, also your enemies. You're supposed to love your enemies. And this was a radical teaching that Jesus gave that really did go against what was commonly accepted in his world.

Brad: And so when Jesus says things like "turn the other cheek" or "love your enemies," this is not the kind of advice that a military power like Rome would appreciate, right?

Bart: No, exactly. I mean, the idea of turning the other cheek is not about being a doormat. It's about asserting your dignity in the face of oppression. But the idea that you would love your enemy, that you would do good to those who hate you, that you would pray for those who persecute you—this was completely countercultural. This was not the way people thought. The normal way of thinking was you help your friends and you hate your enemies. And so Jesus is saying no, you love your enemies. This is a radical teaching.

Brad: So Jesus has this ethic, and then the question becomes: how does this ethic spread? How does it become embedded in Western culture? And I think you make the argument that it's through the early Christian movement, particularly through Paul and the early church, that this ethic begins to take root. Can you walk us through that process?

Bart: Yeah, so Jesus himself had this teaching, but Jesus himself didn't spread it very far. Jesus had a very limited ministry. He was teaching in the backwaters of Palestine for maybe a year, maybe two years, maybe three years—we don't know exactly. And then he was executed by the Romans. And so Jesus himself didn't spread this teaching. But his followers did. And the followers of Jesus, after his death, believed that he had been raised from the dead, and they started proclaiming his message. And the person who was most effective at proclaiming the message was the apostle Paul, who had never met Jesus but who had a vision of Jesus after Jesus' death. And Paul spread this message throughout the Roman Empire. He established churches in major urban areas—places like Corinth and Ephesus and Rome itself. And these churches were communities that practiced this ethic of love. They took care of each other. They took care of the poor. They took care of the sick. And this was unusual in the ancient world.

Brad: And so the early Christian communities became known for this kind of care, this kind of charity. And you argue that this eventually leads to Christians actually creating institutions that embody this ethic—hospitals, orphanages, that kind of thing.

Bart: Yeah, exactly. So in the early centuries of Christianity, Christians became known for taking care of people in need. And this was noticed by outsiders. We have pagan authors who comment on this. The Roman Emperor Julian, who was not a Christian—he was actually opposed to Christianity—he wrote a letter in which he complained that the Christians were making pagans look bad because Christians were taking care not only of their own poor but also of the pagan poor. And he said we pagans need to start doing this too. But Christians were the ones who pioneered this. And eventually, Christians did create institutions. The first hospital in the West was created by a Christian bishop named Basil of Caesarea in the fourth century. Christians created orphanages. Christians created homes for the elderly. Christians created disaster relief. All of these things were Christian innovations.

Brad: So your argument is that these institutions, these practices of care, they become embedded in Western culture, and even as the West becomes more secular, even as people become less religious, this ethic of caring for strangers, this ethic of universal human dignity, it persists because it's been so deeply embedded in the culture through Christianity.

Bart: Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, the argument is that even people who are not Christian, even people who don't believe in God, if they're part of Western culture, they have inherited this ethic. And they may not know where it came from, they may not care where it came from, but historically speaking, it came from Christianity. It came from the teachings of Jesus. And so when we talk about things like human rights, when we talk about caring for the poor, when we talk about universal human dignity—these are ideas that have Christian origins in the West.

Brad: Okay, so I want to push on this a little bit, because I think this is where it gets philosophically interesting and maybe a little bit contentious. You're making a historical claim, which is that these institutions, these practices, they originated with Christianity in the West. But I think there's a philosophical question lurking here, which is: are you also making a stronger claim that these values are somehow essentially Christian? That if you believe in universal human dignity, if you believe in caring for strangers, you're in some sense being Christian, even if you don't identify as Christian?

Bart: No, I'm not making that stronger claim. I'm making a historical claim. I'm saying that historically, in the West, these values came from Christianity. But that doesn't mean they're essentially Christian in some philosophical sense. Other cultures have developed similar values through different means. You can find altruism in other religious traditions. You can find ethics of care in other philosophical traditions. So I'm not saying that Christianity has a monopoly on these values. I'm just saying that in the West, historically, this is where they came from.

Brad: Okay, but here's where I want to push a little bit. Because it seems like there's a tension in your argument. On the one hand, you're saying this is just a historical claim—these values originated with Christianity in the West. On the other hand, you're saying that these values are now embedded in Western culture, that even secular people have inherited them. But if that's true, if these values are now just part of Western culture independent of Christianity, then in what sense are they still Christian? In what sense do we need to attribute them to Christianity?

Bart: Well, I think you need to attribute them to Christianity historically. I mean, if you want to understand how these values came to be part of Western culture, you need to understand their Christian origins. Now, once they're embedded in the culture, they may take on a life of their own. They may be justified in secular terms. People may have secular reasons for believing in human rights or caring for the poor. But historically speaking, these values have Christian origins. And I think it's important to recognize that, not because I'm trying to make a theological argument, but because it's historically accurate.

Brad: Okay, so let me try this another way. Let's say I'm a secular humanist. I believe in universal human rights. I believe in caring for strangers. I believe in the dignity of all human beings. And I have secular philosophical reasons for believing these things. I might appeal to reason, I might appeal to the social contract, I might appeal to the Golden Rule understood in non-religious terms. Do I, as a secular humanist, need to acknowledge that my values have Christian origins? Or can I legitimately say: these are just rational values that any reflective person would arrive at?

Bart: I think you can say that these are rational values that any reflective person might arrive at. But if you're talking about the historical question of how these values came to be widespread in Western culture, then you do need to acknowledge the Christian origins. I mean, the historical fact is that these values were not widespread in the ancient Greek and Roman world. They became widespread through Christianity. And so even if you can provide secular justifications for these values, historically speaking, they have Christian origins in the West.

Brad: Okay, but I guess what I'm wondering is: does the historical origin matter for how we think about these values today? I mean, let's take an analogy. Modern science has Christian origins in some sense—many early scientists were Christians, many universities where science was developed were Christian institutions. But we don't say that science is Christian. We don't say that if you're doing science, you're somehow being Christian. Science has become a secular enterprise with its own methods and its own justifications. So why can't we say the same thing about these ethical values? Why can't we say that even though they originated with Christianity, they've now become secular values with their own justifications?

Bart: I think you can say that. I think that's a fair point. I mean, my argument is a historical argument. I'm saying that historically, these values originated with Christianity in the West. I'm not saying that these values are somehow essentially Christian in a way that means secular people can't hold them or justify them on secular grounds. So I think your analogy to science is a good one. Science has Christian origins in some sense, but it's become a secular enterprise. Similarly, these ethical values have Christian origins, but they can be held and justified on secular grounds. My point is just that we should recognize the historical origins.

Brad: Okay, fair enough. So it's a historical claim, not a philosophical claim about the essential nature of these values. But let me ask you about one more thing, because I think this is where it gets really interesting. You talk about altruism, caring for strangers, universal human dignity. But I wonder if we can find examples of this kind of ethics in the ancient world outside of Christianity. I mean, you mentioned that Judaism has an ethic of caring for the poor and the stranger. The Hebrew Bible talks about caring for the widow, the orphan, the stranger. So Jesus is drawing on that Jewish tradition. But what about other ancient traditions? Were there no examples of altruism or caring for strangers outside of the Judeo-Christian tradition?

Bart: There were some examples, but they were not widespread. I mean, you can find some philosophers in the ancient world who talked about the importance of treating others well. You can find some examples of people helping others outside their immediate group. But this was not the dominant ethos. The dominant ethos was one of reciprocity—you help those who help you. Or it was an ethos of patronage—the wealthy would help those beneath them, but it was in a hierarchical system where the expectation was that those who received help would be loyal and subservient. What you don't find widely in the ancient world is this idea of helping strangers simply because they're human beings in need, with no expectation of return. That's what's distinctive about the Christian ethic.

Brad: Okay, so you're saying it's not that there was no altruism at all in the ancient world, but that the specific form of altruism that Christianity promoted—helping strangers in need with no expectation of return, based on their inherent dignity as human beings—that was distinctive.

Bart: Yeah, that's exactly right. And it became widespread because of Christianity. I mean, before Christianity, if you helped people outside your immediate group, it was usually because you expected something in return, or because they were under your patronage, or because there was some reciprocal relationship. What Christianity said was: you help people simply because they're human beings made in the image of God, simply because they have inherent dignity and worth. And that was a radical idea that transformed Western culture.

Brad: Alright, so let me ask you about the contemporary implications of this. Because I think there are people who might hear your argument and think: okay, so Christianity gave us these values of altruism and universal human dignity. Does that mean we should be grateful to Christianity? Does that mean Christianity deserves some special status in Western culture? Does that mean that secular people are somehow parasitic on Christian values?

Bart: I don't think it means any of those things necessarily. I mean, I'm not making an argument about what we should do today based on this historical fact. I'm just saying this is what happened historically. Whether that means we should be grateful to Christianity, whether that means Christianity should have some special status—those are separate questions that I'm not addressing in the book. I'm just trying to get the history right. And the history is that these values came from Christianity in the West. But what we do with that information, how we think about it today, those are open questions that people can answer in different ways depending on their own commitments and values.

Brad: Fair enough. But I do think there's a contemporary political dimension to this that's worth thinking about. Because there are some people who argue that Western civilization is essentially Christian, and that if we want to preserve Western values, we need to preserve Christianity. And I wonder if your book might be read as supporting that kind of argument, even if that's not your intention.

Bart: I can see how someone might try to use the book that way, but that's not my intention at all. I mean, my argument is a historical argument about origins. It's not an argument about what we should do today or what role Christianity should play in contemporary society. And I think the history is clear that even as Christianity has declined in parts of the West, these values have persisted. So you can have these values without Christianity. The values have become embedded in the culture in ways that don't require Christian belief or Christian institutions to sustain them. So I don't think the book supports the argument that we need Christianity to preserve these values.

Brad: Okay, so you're saying the values have become autonomous from their Christian origins. They can be sustained on secular grounds.

Bart: Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, the values were introduced by Christianity, but once they're embedded in a culture, they can be sustained for all sorts of reasons—philosophical reasons, political reasons, economic reasons, whatever. So I'm not saying you need Christianity to sustain these values. I'm just saying Christianity is where they came from historically in the West.

Brad: Alright, let me ask you one more question, because I think this gets at something interesting philosophically. You talk about altruism and caring for strangers as values that Christianity introduced. But I wonder if we can think about this differently. Maybe what Christianity did was not so much introduce a completely new value, but rather extend an existing value to a wider circle. So humans have always cared for their kin, their family members. That's not something Christianity invented. But maybe what Christianity did was extend that circle of care beyond kin to include strangers. So it's not introducing a new value from scratch, but extending an existing value.

Bart: Yeah, I think that's a really good way to think about it. I mean, you're right that caring for kin is not something Christianity invented. That's probably hardwired into human nature to some extent. What Christianity did was extend that circle of care. And the question is: why did Christianity do that? And I think the answer is theological. Christianity said that all humans are made in the image of God, that God loves all humans, and therefore we should love all humans too. So it was a theological justification for extending the circle of care. But you're right that the basic impulse to care for others, that's probably something humans have always had in some form.

Brad: And so maybe what we can say is that Christianity took a natural human impulse—caring for those close to us—and gave it a theological framework that allowed it to be extended to a much wider circle, eventually to all of humanity.

Bart: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And I think that's what made Christianity so powerful and so transformative. It took something that was natural and extended it in a way that transformed culture. And that's what I'm trying to argue in the book.

Brad: Alright, well, I think that's a really fascinating argument. And I appreciate you taking the time to walk through it with me and to engage with some of these philosophical questions. I know we didn't necessarily agree on everything, but I think it was a really productive conversation.

Bart: Yeah, I enjoyed it too. Thank you for having me.

Brad: I'm no, I understand what you're saying. First of all, I understand the historical case. And it's something I've been pondering over the last week or so as I've been reading the book, and it's brought up questions for me about, well, on a number of fronts. I used to be one of the leaders of the secularism unit at the American Academy of Religion. And one of the debates you get when you enter into the study of the secular in the United States, in a global perspective, is that the very category "the secular" is often a parasite on the category of "the religious," which in many cases is really the category of "the Christian." And so every time one is trying to be secular, they are working against a category they're emerging from. And as I read your book, honestly, that's what was on my mind, and I'm happy for you to push back and say, well, it's a bad reading, or it's not what I intended. But there was a sense here, almost, that if I believe in universal human rights, if I have a belief that every human regardless of who they are, if they're Ukrainian, if they're Gazan, if they are somebody who's been hit by a hurricane in North Carolina, even though I live in Seattle, there's a sense that the human rights discourse and the human care discourse really is a Christian inheritance. And I think that's the case you're making. I'm happy for you to push back on me here.

Bart: You could find it in other cultures too, by the way. You can find it. But I'm saying in the West, yes. Okay, if we came from the Roman world, yes. But again, I'm not talking about like your gut feeling about it, or kind of your sense, oh no, I know. I'm talking about history, like what happened historically to make this happen. Because you could show it wasn't back there in the Greek and Roman worlds. You can show it came to be into the world, and how did it get there historically?

Brad: Yeah, no, I know. I know it's a historical argument. I guess what I'm just trying to—I know, here's what I'm doing, is I'm thinking through like people who are listening, right? And I'm thinking through like, there's a Hindu person in Atlanta who grew up in the United States, and I'm trying to figure out if that person is thinking to themselves, well, I'm Hindu, even though I'm somebody who grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and I have this impulse also to care for others. And do I need to wrestle with the fact that institutionally and historically, according to your argument, the source of that care may come from participating in a culture that inherited the kernel of Jesus' ethics, or it came from my Hindu teaching and understanding, or it's a mix of both, and it's probably impossible to disentangle them. I guess I'm trying to work through the mindframe of someone like that, you know, if, as you say, well, maybe this comes from other cultures too. And so maybe there are folks listening who are like, well, I do have that kind of ethic, but it didn't come from Jesus, it came from someone else. And I guess you're making the argument that that's entirely possible.

Bart: Yeah, well, there are good people in other parts of the world, yes, who don't have a Christian background. So I'm asking, how is it that people in the Western tradition have this impulse? And I don't see any reason for anybody to wrestle over it, about within themselves. If they have the impulse, I just hope they act on it. But I'm just saying, historically, you can't explain its emergence in, basically, we're talking about Europe and European-influenced areas, and in parts, of course, in the Middle East and Africa, coming to America at some point. And when it comes to America, it's already in the ground. I mean, this is what it means. And so I don't think there's any reason to kind of worry about it or wrestle with it. It's just an interesting historical phenomenon that we ought to recognize that Christianity did this bit of good in the world. It's not just a small bit. I mean, I'm arguing in my book, as you know, that Christians in the West invented public hospitals, and they invented orphanages and old people's homes and disaster relief, and private charities and governmental assistance. You can document these are Christian inventions in the West. And so it sounds like I'm an apologist. I'm not. I'm just saying—

Brad: No, no, no, I'm not. I'm not. I No, no, please, please, please, don't misunderstand me. I know you're not an apologist, and I'm not trying to force you into that corner. I'm more thinking through—I'm more thinking. I know there's good people in other parts of the world. But what I think about is the specific claim you're making, which is a universal ethic for the needy. And so I'm not trying to make you out to be an apologist. It's more for me thinking through, again, you know, I know that you're saying, hey, who cares where it came from? As long as you have that impulse to care for others, that's good. But I do think there's going to be somebody who's like, well, I'm an atheist. I was never Christian. Both parents were atheists, and we always cared for others. Are you saying I need to attribute that to Christianity? And that's the wrestle I think I'm sort of trying to walk through.

Bart: So I'm not saying you need to do it. I'm saying that if you look at it historically, it is the case. And even if your grandparents are atheists, if you lived in the West, your ancestors from 200 years ago were not atheists. Well before the Enlightenment, before the Enlightenment, they were not atheist. So how does it—morality gets handed down through social connections, and your social connections, going back, are Christian for century after century after century. Most—not everyone, but most of us.

Brad: Alright, thank you for answering those questions. I mean, I have more, but I'm not going to take up your whole day. I'm pretty famous for being able to do this for three hours, and I don't think you have that kind of time. So the book is Love Thy Stranger. Can you tell us places people might link up with you, or the best place, if you're doing things online, seminars, webinars, if you're going to be at bookstores, what's the best way to make sure people know how to access all that?

Bart: The thing is just to Google me. And the thing I would like people to know about is a blog that I do. I don't know if you knew about it, but this is actually today the 14th anniversary of my blog. For 14 years now, I post five times a week on all issues dealing with the history of early Christianity, the New Testament, historical Jesus, from a scholarly point of view. People have to pay a small membership fee to belong to the blog, but I give every dime of it to charities that deal with hunger and homelessness, mainly. And so we've raised over $3 million from this blog. Amazing. And I don't get a dime out of it. But if people just look up Bart Ehrman and blog, they can look at it, because I do this stuff every day, five times a week, talking about all this kind of material.

Brad: It's amazing. And I will say, as somebody who does public scholarship, your prodigious output is inspiring. And sometimes I get tired and I think, well, you're doing five days a week, and you've written all these books, so I can get up and do it too. So thank you for that inspiration. Alright, y'all, thanks for listening. Thanks for being here as always. We'll be back later this week with It's in the Code and the weekly roundup and everything we do here. You can go to straightwhiteamericanjesus.com and get all the info about all of our programming and events and everything else. You can also go to axismundi.us to see all the things we're putting out. But for now, we'll say thanks for being here. We'll catch you next time.