Bart Ehrman And Journeys To Heaven And Hell 

I've been on the "Bart Train" for years now, both with his Great Courses output and the RU-vid videos both from him and others like you. As a recovering Baptist, I welcome the truth about the Bible. I will continue to pursue that truth and Bart is a great ally in that quest. Keep bringing him back as often as he will allow!

Great conversation 🙌

I always learn something from Dr. Ehrman! It's fascinating that the common Christian understanding of heaven and hell originated from the Greeks. Makes me wonder how the Greeks came up with their understanding. Maybe there were cases of Near Death Experiences, NDEs, which were remembered. In fact there is an example in Plato's Republic of a dead warrior coming back to life at his funeral, probably with a story of what he had experienced while "dead". It's also interesting that NDE's mostly are consistent with the Greek thinking, with the soul separating from the body at death, going to a Light often through a tunnel, feeling overwhelming love, seeing dead relatives, etc. Here's a link to a short news coverage of an NDE occurring during a serious surgery, what she experienced and comments from her doctor: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-gd3Vtn8WiVE.html This repeats at 9:40, so it's not long.

Good show, always interesting to listen to Ehrman, always learn something new. Btw there's a marvelous piece of RU-vid automatic speech recognition mishearing Bart at @00:20:30 "it's a valley that is uh in the in the old testament it's called a gay gnome uh and it's the um it's it's a valley that was owned by a guy named hennam" now how did Google A.I. came to be thinking about gay gnomes hmmm

I absolutely adore Ehrman. It is clear that he genuinely wants to know the truth of everything and it shows in the way he speaks and debates. I cannot, however agree when he says Jesus didn't talk about Hell. Even a cursory reading of the gospels will tell you that he did- and spoke of it a lot. This isn't an argument for the existence of Hell, just stating facts. Whether you call it Gehenna, or Hades, or Tartarus or Hell, they are all synonymous to the concept of an afterlife underworld- a place of torment and punishment that are talked about A LOT in the Bible, particularly the Gospels.

@18:10 The problem could be that people in church might only be hearing the parts about punishment (to help keep them in line in church). If most people haven't read The Bible and the parts they repeatedly hear about is he'll, they might assume that the Bible must speaks heavily about hell.

It’s not true that the ancient Jews only had the concept of a body being animated by the “breath”. In second temple Judaism, there are large numbers of texts that depict the idea of a soul surviving physical death and going into afterlife realms, whether with or without eventual resurrection. 1 Enoch is a good example of such a texts where after death, the soul goes to Sheol in different compartment. Josephus also writes about the belief of the Pharisees, where they believed after death, the soul of the individual head to beneath the earth” until the resurrection, likely alluding to Sheol. Furthermore, if the ancient Jews did not believe in an immaterial soul, why the prohibitions to necromancy? Furthermore, Saul clearly believed in the existence of a soul when he asked the witch of endor to conjure up Samuel’s spirit. OT scholar Michael Heiser has also pointed out that there are archeological evidence discovered in ancient Israel that points to the existence of a cult of the dead, where offerings were being made to those who are deceased. It seems like the Hebrew Bible holds to a view IMO that upon death, the soul of an individual heads down to Sheol in a state of slumber, signified by verses that suggest the dead are in an unconscious state. Verses such as how “the dead do not praise God” or “there is no work, thought or wisdom in Sheol” alludes to what is commonly termed as “soul sleep”. However, verses like Isaiah 14:9-11 and Ezekiel 32:21 does seem to suggest that the souls in Sheol can be aroused by some disturbance, similar to what the witch of endor did for Samuel (he remarked that he was disturbed). In the second temple period, Greek and Zoroastrian influences led Sheol to be reimagined to be a place of punishment or a place of blessings and punishments in different compartments, similar to the Greek underworld where there are compartments of bliss and torment (Elysian fields and Tartarus) or the Zoroastrian underworld (basically the common notion of hell). These ideas of immediate afterlife bliss/torment isn’t necessarily exclusive from ideas of a resurrection. These second temple Jewish concepts were influential to Christian notions of heaven and hell. I would think as such it is very possible for Jesus and his disciples, along with Jews of his day to hold to a dualistic understanding of human anthropology

1 John 5:13

I miss the way Larry King asked questions, short and direct.

3:05 3 levels? I thought it was 9.

I don't see how the belief in going to heaven solves anything. What if you go to heaven, and then you rebel against god?

Too bad that recent studies have demonnstrated rhat there is not such a thing like 'soul'.All these religious castles are built on nothing.

Buy my new book which shows the facts of how the Devil will win all just before the end .

Sad that Satan took this guy. Perhaps he will find his way back. I pray for him.

This guy is just dust in the wind… not born of the Holy Spirit and thus 1 beat from the Heat, 1 breath from death…. He needs to repent and tremble before the HOLY-HOLY-HOLY LORD GOD ALMIGHTY!!!

barth is all about money :) that's all... he's an atheist.