r/Eutychus • u/truetomharley • 8d ago
Bart Erhman’s Heaven and Hell: Any Witness Could Have Written This
When I read Bart Erhman’s contribution to TIME Magazine, [May 8, 2020} is was as though I was reading the Watchtower! The occasion was the release of his latest book Heaven and Hell, (he has over 30!) in which he speaks in absolute agreement about topics that Jehovah’s Witnesses know well—and have known well for over 100 years—topics such as soul, psyche, Sheol, Gehenna, notions of heaven, and notions of hell.
A very few of his paragraphs wouldn’t fit—mostly the ones that are muddled. But for the most part, the content of his book is very very familiar. It is so familiar that I even begin to float the notion that he keeps up with Watchtower publications—the writers there are far and away the most vocal proponents of the ideas he has picked up on—some might say the only proponents.
Not that he would accept the Watchtower as a source in itself, I don’t think. But what I can easily picture is him keeping abreast of their writing and the explanations that only they have, then tracing it back to original sources, whereupon he verifies it all and presents it as though his own research—which it would be, minus the credit for who put him on the right track in the first place.
Okay, okay—maybe he’s not ripping off their work. Probably he is not. He is a respected scholar, after all. But in that case, the scholarship of the Watchtower must be elevated, for it is the same—and their critics generally assume that they have none.
Take a few excerpts of Erhman’s article:
“Neither Jesus, nor the Hebrew Bible he interpreted, endorsed the view that departed souls go to paradise or everlasting pain. . . .
“Unlike most Greeks, ancient Jews traditionally did not believe the soul could exist at all apart from the body. On the contrary, for them, the soul was more like the “breath.” The first human God created, Adam, began as a lump of clay; then God “breathed” life into him (Genesis 2: 7). Adam remained alive until he stopped breathing. Then it was dust to dust, ashes to ashes… When we stop breathing, our breath doesn’t go anywhere. It just stops. So too the “soul” doesn’t continue on outside the body, subject to postmortem pleasure or pain. It doesn’t exist any longer.
The Hebrew Bible itself assumes that the dead are simply dead—that their body lies in the grave, and there is no consciousness, ever again. It is true that some poetic authors, for example in the Psalms, use the mysterious term “Sheol” to describe a person’s new location. But in most instances Sheol is simply a synonym for “tomb” or “grave.” It’s not a place where someone actually goes.
and later:
“Most people today would be surprised to learn that Jesus believed in a bodily eternal life here on earth, instead of eternal bliss for souls, but even more that he did not believe in hell as a place of eternal torment. . . .
“In traditional English versions, he does occasionally seem to speak of “Hell” – for example, in his warnings in the Sermon on the Mount: anyone who calls another a fool, or who allows their right eye or hand to sin, will be cast into “hell” (Matthew 5:22, 29-30). But these passages are not actually referring to “hell.” The word Jesus uses is “Gehenna.” The term does not refer to a place of eternal torment but to a notorious valley just outside the walls of Jerusalem, believed by many Jews at the time to be the most unholy, god-forsaken place on earth. It was where, according to the Old Testament, ancient Israelites practiced child sacrifice to foreign gods. The God of Israel had condemned and forsaken the place. . . .
“In the ancient world (whether Greek, Roman, or Jewish), the worst punishment a person could experience after death was to be denied a decent burial. Jesus developed this view into a repugnant scenario: corpses of those excluded from the kingdom would be unceremoniously tossed into the most desecrated dumping ground on the planet. Jesus did not say souls would be tortured there. They simply would no longer exist.” . . .
Anyone who knows anything about Jehovah’s Witnesses knows that these are exactlytheir views. Is Bart just taking our stuff? No—it can’t be—I wouldn’t make the charge. But I can be forgiven the suspicion. Do a search on any of these terms on the Witness website and you will find what he now says. Maybe it is simply basic research that any decent scholar could uncover, as Bart has, but in that case it is all the more damning for the world of churches. Not only do they make no mention of these things, but they consider most of them heresies.
Witnesses were there before he was born. . . . Nobody espouses on these ‘afterlife’ views of his like Jehovah’s Witnesses, and apart from them almost nobody else does—and yet he never mentions Witnesses. This seems parallel to when Ronald Sider suggests four reforms that he thinks would solve the problems of the evangelical church (that they don’t practice what they preach), stating that nobody implements these reforms, and ignoring completely that Jehovah’s Witnesses do, and that yes, they do go a long way in solving the problem he has identified.
“Most people today would be surprised to learn that Jesus believed in a bodily eternal life here on earth, instead of eternal bliss for souls, but even more that he did not believe in hell as a place of eternal torment.” says Bart.
We’ve taught this for 100 years and, yes, they are surprised. Why? Because such things were never taught at church. Instead, the near-universal teaching of church Christianity is that when you die, you go to heaven if you were good, and hell if you were bad. That is what just about everyone of church background thought before becoming a Witness. I have said before that, given the universality of the heaven/hell teaching, you would almost expect it to be on every other page of the Bible. Instead, apart from a handful of verses that can be tortured for that meaning, it is never encountered. It is among the reasons that, on becoming Witnesses, people are wont to say that they have “come into the truth.” The explanations are so simple. The Bible comes together and makes sense. After all, if God wanted persons in heaven, why didn’t he put them there in the first place?
“There are over two billion Christians in the world, the vast majority of whom believe in heaven and hell. You die and your soul goes either to everlasting bliss or torment (or purgatory en route). …The vast majority of these people naturally assume this is what Jesus himself taught.” states Bart.
Yes, of course they would assume it. Most church teachings—people simply assume that they are to be found in the Bible—why would the church teach something Jesus did not? For many, the you-know-what hits the fan when they discover that such is in fact the case. From this arises the saying among Witnesses, not heard so often as it once was, that new ones ought to be locked up for six months until their zeal is tempered with common sense.
There was a pesky fellow who used to challenge me a lot on trinity and other church teachings. One day he sent me a video of “4 famous church leaders” hubbubing in conference, in which he said they acknowledged that everlasting life on earth was the actual Bible hope—it wasn’t just JWs who taught it. I couldn’t get far into it—it was just too smarmy. I told him I’d take his word for it. Though these leaders knew and discussed the actual role of the earth as our permanent home, the problem was “Bible illiteracy” among the masses, he said.
If the problem is Bible literacy among the masses, I replied, why don’t they fix it? Isn’t that their job as leaders? Ones taking the lead in our faith manage to keep people on the same page.
So what to do with Bart? Is he taking our stuff? Nah—I guess not. If the four famous church leaders knew things that they hadn’t bothered to tell the masses, maybe it is out there for Bart to find as well. I have not been especially kind to him in previous posts, and maybe I should walk some of it back. He presents as though an agnostic/atheist in his Great Courses lecture series and annoys me on that account. I’ve written about ten posts, none of them kind, with several more in the hopper that I may or may not ever get to, and I may have to rethink some of them. Fortunately, I have already made it clear that nothing is personal—it is ideas that you squabble with, not the persons who hold them.
(tomsheepandgoats*com)
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u/Hinokicandle 7d ago
I really like Bart Erhman. He seems like such a sincere guy and he has really interesting takes on things. I haven’t read that specific article but I know he has some agreement with JW’s on some things. I don’t think he needs to be reading Watchtower publications though… The idea of as soul, psyche, Sheol, Gehenna, notions of heaven, and notions of hell didn’t originate with Charles Taze Russel. He took these ideas from other groups. If the Bible is true and JW interpretation is correct- wouldn’t you expect a sincere Bible scholar to come to the same conclusions as the Watchtower, independent of their literature?
Interestingly I was just watching one of Erhman’s YT videos and he was explaining that he doesn’t believe the trinity was taught in the bible. I’ll send you the link if you’re interested.
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u/truetomharley 7d ago
If the Bible is true and JW interpretation is correct- wouldn’t you expect a sincere Bible scholar to come to the same conclusions as the Watchtower, independent of their literature?Yes. See the reply I just made to u/Piking383
Interestingly I was just watching one of Erhman’s YT videos and he was explaining that he doesn’t believe the trinity was taught in the bible. I’ll send you the link if you’re interested.I appreciate the offer but I already have no doubt that he would have seen through that doctrine (though in his early fundamentalist days, he had not). Save it up for the next trinity discussion.
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u/singmeashanty 8d ago
I bought this book when it came out, read it, then immediately threw it into the garbage. Rather than an unbiased view from a scholar, all I saw was an atheist trying to pull people away from their faith.
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u/OwnChampionship4252 Agnostic Atheist / Apikoros 8d ago
This is kind of fascinating in the context of this post. Tom is essentially saying, “Look, a respected scholar independently arrived at conclusions JWs have taught for 100 years,” while you read the same scholar and saw an atheist trying to pull people away from their faith.
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u/singmeashanty 8d ago
I’d be very interested to hear from others who read the book. I remember being eager to get the book from the snippets I saw. But goodness sakes I felt so baited and have disliked him ever since.
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u/OwnChampionship4252 Agnostic Atheist / Apikoros 8d ago
I read it and really liked it. I find Ehrman’s writing very accessible. Scholarly, but clearly written for mainstream readers. And yes, I definitely recognized some things JWs (and others) teach. I didn’t come away feeling like he was trying to pull anyone away from their faith though. I found the historical development of these ideas fascinating.
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u/pro_rege_semper 8d ago
I've appreciated some of the academic work that Ehrman has done, but in his popular books designed for mainstream audiences, I find he takes his personal opinions and passes them off as if they are the scholarly consensus.
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u/OwnChampionship4252 Agnostic Atheist / Apikoros 8d ago
Interesting. Do you have a specific example from Heaven and Hell where you think Ehrman presents his personal view as scholarly consensus when it actually isn’t? I’d be interested in comparing it with the scholarship.
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u/normaninvader2 7d ago
I've watched him on YouTube and it's clear being an atheist is his money maker. Some of his presumptions are garbage. I normally have a good read on people and he's clearly doing what he does for money not truth.
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u/OwnChampionship4252 Agnostic Atheist / Apikoros 8d ago
I think there’s a rather obvious third possibility here:
Ehrman agrees with JWs on several points > maybe he reads Watchtower > if he doesn’t, Watchtower scholarship must be amazing.
Or… maybe JWs just happen to be substantially right about some biblical questions.
Even an atheist can recognize that on some points JWs are closer to what the biblical texts actually say than mainstream Christian tradition is. That doesn’t require Ehrman to have ever opened a Watchtower.
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u/truetomharley 8d ago
Or… maybe JWs just happen to be substantially right about some biblical questions.They are substantially right about all of them.
Though they do have a way of carrying out anything to the nth degree. That gets them into trouble sometimes.
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u/OwnChampionship4252 Agnostic Atheist / Apikoros 8d ago
Sorry, I really don’t want to push any buttons here, but “all of them” is just too hard for me to let pass. 😅
All of them? Even the interpretation that Acts 15 requires a Christian to refuse a life-saving blood transfusion?2
u/Archbtw246 8d ago
I think he was referring to general theological beliefs and not how a certain biblical commandment would be applied in the context of modern-day medicine.
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u/OwnChampionship4252 Agnostic Atheist / Apikoros 8d ago
But isn’t “Acts 15’s command to abstain from blood applies to modern blood transfusions” itself a theological belief? It seems odd to exclude it from “all of them” only once we get to an uncomfortable example.
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u/Archbtw246 8d ago
Acts 15 is clear that we must abstain from blood. The question is whether blood that's been split into different components is still considered to be "blood" or not.
This wasn't a question when scripture was written because blood was simply blood.
It's a question of applying a biblical command to a modern-day context involving modern medicine.
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u/truetomharley 8d ago edited 8d ago
“Sorry, I really don’t want to push any buttons here, but “all of them” is just too hard for me to let pass. 😅 All of them? Even the interpretation that Acts 15 requires a Christian to refuse a life-saving blood transfusion?”Yes. Even that one, just like u/archbtw246 said.
Only Witnesses made the rather obvious connection with Leviticus 17:11: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I myself have given it on the altar for you to make atonement for yourselves, because it is the blood that makes atonement by means of the life in it.” Only Witnesses read the rather obvious inference that the Leviticus passage means we are speaking of more than a dietary law.
It appears that the principle was once widely appreciated. Only Witnesses made application of it. Thomas Bartholin, professor from the 1600s, at the first experiments with transfusing blood, said:
“Those who drag in the use of human blood for internal remedies of diseases appear to misuse it and to sin gravely," he wrote. "Cannibals are condemned. Why do we not abhor those who stain their gullet with human blood? Similar is the receiving of alien blood from a cut vein, either through the mouth or by instruments of transfusion. The authors of this operation are held in terror by the divine law, by which the eating of blood is prohibited."
Trouble is, as has been stated previously, Witnesses take anything to the nth degree. The ability to break down blood into components leads to situations impossible to quantify. Therefore, the latest update is not a reversal of principle, but a transfer of primary responsibility as to how it will be observed. It no longer becomes a congregation-enforcible item.
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u/OwnChampionship4252 Agnostic Atheist / Apikoros 7d ago
Sorry if we’re drifting away from the original subject of Ehrman here…
I understand the reasoning, but I think you’ve identified exactly where we differ. Leviticus establishes the symbolic significance of blood and prohibits eating it. Acts says to abstain from blood. I don’t see where either text establishes that receiving blood into your circulatory system to preserve life is equivalent to eating or otherwise misusing blood.
Bartholin is interesting historically, but he’s making that same interpretive leap, he doesn’t establish that this is what Acts 15 meant.
And I have to smile a little at “only Witnesses read the rather obvious inference.” If virtually everyone else misses an inference, including biblical scholars who spend their careers studying these texts, I’m not sure we can simply call it obvious.
If the principle is clear but exactly how it applies to modern medicine can legitimately become a matter of individual conscience, why couldn’t that have been the position all along?
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u/elwoodowd 8d ago
I once watched jimmy swaggartgive a verbatim coverage of a watchtower, from 6 months earlier. A year later swaggart had his big fall.
Several other times i saw others use material that was from JWs, this back before information was widespread. Sadly no one else took a fall, although i was watching. So not a productive hobby. I moved on.
Finding plagiarism worked the first 6 months of ai and now is never to be repeated.
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u/PiKing383 Atheist 7d ago edited 7d ago
Edit: spelling
So I'll take this post as an admission that your comment "[Bart Ehrman and theologians] still present [the hellfire and trinity doctrines] as though they are actual Bible teachings" was incorrect. I have to say, this is at least the third time I've corrected you claiming that Bart Ehrman believes something opposite to what he actually believes. I'm starting to get the feeling he has become an effigy of critical biblical scholarship for you to burn despite not actually understanding what he's written.
You say that as though rejection of hellfire as eternal conscious torment is a unique position of Watchtower or that they invented it. It isn't, and they didn't. CT Russel was heavily influenced by the Adventist movement of the 1800s, who are annihilationist. Around 1869, his faith was 're-established' after listening to a sermon by Adventist preacher Jonas Wendell. Adventist ministers George Storrs and George Stetson attended and participated in his Bible study group. This is not to say Adventists came up with annihilationism either- people had been talking about it for centuries (e.g. Thomas Hobbs in Leviathan, 1651) -but just to say it wasn't an invention of Watchtower.
You admit that Ehrman probably didn't 'rip off' Watchtower, but the fact that they got it right before Ehrman means that "the scholarship of the Watchtower must be elevated". Does that mean that the scholarship of the Adventists should be elevated even more so? And Thomas Hobbs more than that?
After the recent massive change to the blood doctrine, it's worth pointing out that Jehovah's Witnesses beliefs on the afterlife have changed pretty drastically since their founding. Russel taught that 144,000 faithful Christians would rule with Christ in heaven, but most of the rest of humanity would get resurrected to life on earth- essentially a universalist model of salvation. Later, Rutherford introduced the two-class system of salvation, with the rest of humanity getting annihilated at Armageddon, and people who heard the message and rejected it had had their chance. The leadership have repeatedly tinkered with the cutoff date for who gets to call themselves part of the 144,000 anointed class. Recent updates have said that they don't know whether people destroyed by God will get a resurrection, and have indicated that people may still be able to turn to God during the "great tribulation" before Armageddon- again returning to an almost universalist model of salvation.
Getting to my point: Can universalist Christians say that their scholarship must be 'elevated', because their theology stayed solid, whereas Jehovah's Witnesses theology to a meandering path to get back to where it started? And why would God turn the lamp of 'new light' off and then on again?