Reason and Theology - Heaven, Hell and the Afterlife 

This dialogue is most interesting because we can witness the width and depth of Dr. Erhman's knowledge of biblical scholarship. Whatever topic the others come up with he knows most of it in amazing detail.

"patience: the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, problems, or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious " Dr Ehrman you get 10/10 for patience.

I've been a member of the Bart Ehrman blog for four years & recommend folks pay the $25 to join. Bart really will answer your questions and donates all the money to charity. So he's doing good with no expectation of personal or spiritual award. God bless him! He's a better Christian than many who claim that brand today.

Heaven and Hell part fantastic. But why the tedious hour on Judith? I almost threw my iPhone into Gehenna.

The main questions people should be asking about Hell ... Q1: Is it actual suffering?, Q2: Is it eternal?, and Q3: How do you know that?. Being raised up a Catholic I had the fear of God put into me by my local priest Fr Sheehan. He told us it *was* actual suffering, and it *was* eternal. This was one of the main reasons I left Christianity, because as I got older there was no way I could envisage a loving God sending any of his creation to a place of suffering that literally had no end.. it's an abhorrent concept.

Outstanding to see Bart is not just bright, educated and informed, he's also got a steel backbone and a rocket-powered instinct to rise up and fight for what he knows in right.

As an Evangelical turned Humanist, I found this discussion to be absolutely fascinating. I am so used to the debates around the sacred cows of Evangelicals that is interesting to see how the discussion is different when conservative (I presume that based on the 'everyone should be Catholic' comment) Catholics are part of it. They didn't seem hung up on the inerrancy of the New Testament original documents, but more on defending the theological continuity of the early Christian community itself. Evangelicals are very invested in 'defending the Bible', but the interviewers seemed more like they wanted to defend the Roman Catholic Churchs self understanding of being a continuation of the early apostolic faith. It was a different conversation than I am used too but felt strangely familiar (the energy someone gives off when they are circling the wagons around their core beliefs is instantly recognizable when you have been around it your whole life). On that note, I wish William Albrecht would have framed his Judith rabbit-hole a bit more honestly, that he wanted to have a discussion about the possibility that core Roman Catholic beliefs have apostolic continuity from the 1st century Christian community to today. They were talking about heaven and hell only tangentially to what William really wanted to talk about. That being said, big props to Reason and Theology for making this respectful and fascinating discussion happen! As for Barts book, I am about half way through it on Audible, and I can't recommend it highly enough, it is excellent.

I enjoyed listening to the discussion/debate, especially the moment where Dr. Ehrman says to William Albrecht starting at 1:26:37, "you're just arguing for your theological view...you're not arguing from an historical basis, you're just saying what you believe...stating your case over and over again isn't an argument." That short exchange seems to sum up how most "believers" think and speak. It reminds me of Mark Twain's quote, "It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." When presented with new evidence, we tend to double down on our existing belief, rather than let the new evidence shift our belief - cognitive dissonance at its finest.

Bart erhman is a gem for early Christian scholarship. Much respect sir and appreciate all your research and works on the field of study.

Excellent discussion! Dr. Bart, with respect to his education and vocation provides even the most astute believer substantial reason as to why they should listen to him and question their Christian faith and convictions. Great work Dr. Bart.

I lost count to how many proverbial Mic Drops Bart does in this one. Masterful as usual.

This is great, Bart Ehrman taking on three theologians at once. I'm going to have to buy the book now.

Never knew that the Rock was so religious.

"You have to understand how metaphors in the Bible work" - if only so many more theists took heed of these words. Love your books and videos Dr Ehrman.

I never fail to be impressed by Professor Ehrman's erudition. Bravo, and much gratitude.

This is my favourite Bart interview in years.

I hope I never hear the phrase "holy writ" again.

Official transcript: My man's like "yeah but what about..." and Bart shatters that argument then he goes "yeah what about...." and then Bart shatters that argument and this cycle repeats over and over for an hour and a half.

"I know we disagree, but stating your case over and over again is not an argument!" Exactly.

Great discussion and I enjoy listening to Dr.Bart Ehrman everytime.

Why is Albrecht so fixated about Judith!? There are so many better things they could have talked about but this topic ate up what felt like half of the entire time.

I don’t give a damn about any “Canon”. I’m interested in what ideas were floating around during the First & Second Centuries as Christianity was being created within the historical & cultural background.

Love the tone Bart keeps throughout. Even when it felt like some of the host were pushing past Bart's research and what the text says with what it meant to them and their tradition.

Far, far far too much time spent on the Judith question.

A really interesting discussion; I've never seen Bart deal with specific Catholic issues. Having said that, William Albrecht and his inability to make a coherent argument is incredibly annoying. Count the amount of times Bart shows him he's wrong, only for him to say 'I completely agree, but...*insert the same argument here*'

I respect these guys for tackling hard questions. These are the discussions we need to hear today. We need more public open discussion without the “my way or the highway” of fundamentalism or dogma.

Albrecht needs to learn the difference between "disagreeing" and just being factually wrong.

Thank you so much Bart, I have lived with this same knowledge (though even I have learnt more from you) for most of my (40 yrs) Christian life and have felt so alone and outside the "Pulpit taught word of God", even in my own family, until my son, pointed me to you with his own same questions. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I absolutely love how Dr Ehrman shreds so easily these guys. I follow all his teachings and books and he is spot on!!

Based on the number of books in the background, the guy top left wins

That was one of the more interesting of the Ehrman videos. I learn more through hearing the thoughtful engagement with informed believers that in the videos with the professional apologist that Ehrman often engages with.

Man some of these gentlemen, who are, by the way, honest souls and generous debaters, are really out of their depth discussing Early Christianity with Bart

This was an excellent discussion. Bart Ehrman's depth of knowledge is impressive to say the least.

You see so often that scholars needn't use huge words to get their points across. They've learned this from having to be clear and concise in their work. Notice the three apologists are the ones using "intellectual" language thrown into their statements and questions. Bart is really just in office hours here. Love it.

I'm so glad we have a guy like Bart who can bring some clarity to the nonsensical beliefs attributed to the Bible. This video highlights the absolute confusion found in Christianity. How many hundreds of denominations are there? How many different viewpoints are there at complete opposition to each other, but they all think "THEY'RE RIGHT" LOL and they all claim to KNOW GOD? How can anyone EVERY nail down the "truth" from documents that are thousands of years old, copied like the telephone game over hundreds of years that are shown to contain errors and added texts that weren't in the original fragments of COPIES (Key word)...not original documents. We don't even know the actual names of the gospel writers, but we need to trust these men to tell us how to live who never met Jesus, but somehow knew he was the son of God, performed all these miracles and rose from the dead. It's ludicrous! It is so obvious we have all this confusion due to the fact that it's "Men's Ideas/Thoughts" written down and not some SUPERHERO in the sky. I'm so glad "GOD" is not a God of confusion and made his desires/laws so clear...sarcasm noted! I love to listen to Pastors/Scholars debate and say.."Well it's my view or opinion that....". Wake up people....that's all they can offer is an "OPINION" of what might be the case. You know the saying about opinions... everyone has one like ________s. Then we have the beloved F word. Faith is the SUPER-WORD that's thrown around justifying belief in something with no warrant, lacking real evidence. The funny thing is it's lifted up as the most incredible attribute a Christian can have. In any other area of life it would be considered ludicrous. If a person believed in Big Foot and when they were asked for proof only gave anecdotal evidence which was pointed out to them and when pressed into a corner finally said... "I just have faith that Big Foot exists" we would all consider them crazy, but not in Christianity! Religion causes people to check their brains at the door when it comes to common sense and accept things they normally wouldn't. Most people would never condone an earthly leader (Hitler) who commanded genocide but the God of the old testament does and what's the response from Christians....." We'll I don't understand it but if God commanded it, it must be right", or "God's ways are higher than our ways" or "Who are we to question God", or "Those nations God had the Jews slaughter were wicked"....so wicked they had to kill men, women (even pregnant women), children, animals.... COME ON... that's sick/unjustifiable! Why would I say religion causes people to "Check their brain at the door"? I know firsthand because I was a born again, sold out believer for over 40 years and fell for this nonsense until I woke up. I was so busy trying to convert others that I didn't realize I was in the same deceived boat as them....a boat with more holes than Swiss cheese, but I justified anything that didn't make sense (like O.T. genocide, O.T. slavery, eternal torment of people who didn't accept Jesus). The questions I had gnawed at me but I wasn't supposed to read or listen to anyone who wasn't a Christian (Scholar, Pastor) because they were considered "worldly and or tools of the devil". It's an us vs. them mentality. It's a great control technique to keep sheep in the pen. Thankfully, I did start to truly examine the evidence and listen to other viewpoints. It's a very difficult transition, one that I found most people aren't willing to go through. The majority of friends/family I talked with were unwilling to even consider that they might be believing something untrue. Most didn't even want to know the real reasons (you would think they would want to know why a Jesus loving sold out follower changed his mind) why I left the faith. Unfortunately most of them already made up their mind why. They think I'm "living in sin" or was angry at the Church or people at church, or that I've been led astray by listening to others the devil used to deceive me. It's so sad!!!!! The unfortunate thing is once you voice your concerns and don't tow the "party line", I found out how quickly I lost good friends and was viewed differently (as a black sheep) in my family. I'm the same person I was before (just minus belief in one more God than them) but I cant tell you how FREEING it is to no longer be held captive by archaic ideas and laws.

This is so enlightening and at the same time expected. These guys want to take only the doctrines, potential beliefs or peripheral writings from early Christianity that aligne with their bias and say, "see we had it right all along", while ignoring all of the other early sects and their beliefs that disagree with their theological system.

I really enjoyed this. Dr. Ehrman you have such patience.

This is priceless. The three dudes over the course of almost two hours slowly realized their belief was made up and mostly taken from Plato

these guys demonstrate perfectly the dunning kruger effect.

I'm glad you all devoted so much time to the most important question facing humanity: was the Book of Judith considered canonical in the first century? The fate of mankind depends on the answer to that question!

56:45 Ehrman: "I don't think it's reflective of Jesus views because I don't think Jesus told the parable" Erick: "Okay, fair enough, I have one more issue here..." Haha. How sad.

That was a really interesting discussion. Though, I find it funny that the three Christian guys seem to be motivated in defending the doctrine of eternal torment, as if they want it to be true. While I was a Christian (now I'm an agnostic atheist), I just tried to be honest about what the Bible says about Hell, and I came to (and as an atheist still hold) the conclusion that Jesus taught annihilationism, not eternal torment.

It's almost as if the three Christian's in this discussion wanted eternal torment in hell to be true vs annihilation. Very strange.

Who masters this discussion? Right..the one who knows what he is talking about! Bart Ehrman, I respect your work deeply!

We are currently reviewing Heaven and Hell in our book club, Secular Literary Circle, and I must thank you for having such an amazingly easy-to-read writing style in this work. My partner is an aspiring New Testament scholar (he's incredibly well-versed [pun unintended] and has a great deal of respect for your work) and reads a lot of your more scholarly works, by which I am often baffled. Heaven and Hell breaks things down in such a way that it's easy for even me to understand, and I definitely appreciate that. We're reviewing chapter 4 tonight!

I love my dog, but sometimes he disobeys me. I tell him to sit or come to me and he simply ignores my commandments. I don't want to punish him because I love him so much. In order to restore justice, I need a substitute. My neighbour has a cat, so I thought perhaps I could nail it to a piece of wood. Good idea or mad ?

It’s a good discussion. However, I get the feeling that William Albrecht actually believes that all these stories portray an actual reality. Oh dear...

Yep....that's what I was taught by a rabbi about hell. Christians have it all wrong. Now Jewish people in general live for today not the after life however they hope for an afterlife. Also we have to remember men wrote the bible from their perspective. Since the new testament is written so far after Jesus was even around I believe it was just written to start a religion......Credit of Paulinity. Purgatory doesn't exist but Swedenborg mentions a middle ground called world of spirits where spirits sort out alot of stuff but yeah no one pays for sins. We are here to learn lessons ....learn to love.....learn to forgive. I don't believe Jesus said much of any of it, I believe "man" said Jesus said this or that.....the Catholics should study Swedenborg.....alot in bible is symbolic..they think too much.....love the author of these books.

Can we re-title this video as "Hell, it doesn't exist but this this video of Judith not being Canon is the hell we fear."

Would a god write a book so ambiguos that can be interpreted in so many differnt ways? Would a god make his existence so uncertain?

Bart doesn't give his opinion without being clear about it. His field is facts, that are scholarly dealt with and...I'm jealous of his knowledge and tact when debating. A pleasure to listen to.

Wow. William Albrecht is quite the (intellectually) dishonest 'debater'. (If you can call someone without reasonable arguments and ready knowledge about the subject a 'debater'.) Ehrman did fine in schooling him, though. Ehrman tried so hard not to make it painful, but still, often the painfulness of Williams pet peeves came through. 25:48 William takes a text from the (non-canonical, except for Catholics) book of Judith about 'people suffering for ever', claims Mark (canonical) alludes to this image, and says he believes the early church fathers recognized the importance of this idea of 'suffering forever'. (Thus making the idea of a Jesus believing in heaven and hell plausible.) 27:12 Ehrman: not every ancient Jew believed the same thing about the afterlife. Ergo: the author of Judith might have believed in an afterlife, but Jesus might not have. (William agrees to the first point.) Intertexts between books from different eras are problematic. (William agrees, but claims Judith was canonical in early Christianity.) Ehrman jumps on that claim immediately, and the rest of the debate is mainly William trying to show that Judith was as canonical as Mark in the early church. (Thereby wiggling the 'suffering for ever' into Mark, which does not mention eternal suffering, by the way.) His argument that early christianity recognized Judith as canonical falls flat on its face time after time. (Mark alludes to Isaiah 66, not to Judith - No early churchfather says Mark alludes to Judith - Quoting Judith is not the same as recognizing the book of Judith as 'holy scripture' - Only in the 15th and 16th century, church councils recognized Judith as canonical, this has nothing to do with 1st century Mark - etc.) Instead of William turning to Isaiah 66 (that inspired both the Judith and the Mark passage), he keeps hammering on about Judith. With the passage in Isaiah he might have a faint point, but with Judith he definately doesn't. Why? I think i know why. He is a Catholic, and Catholics recognize Judith as canonical. It's his pet peeve, and he can't imagine Judith not being as important to the early church as he believes it to be. Isaiah was WAY more important to the early church, especially the passages in chapter 24. That's why both Mark AND Judith allude to Isaiah 66:24. (It looks like William didn't even realise this point before the debate. But still, he keeps going without any new arguments. And makes it painful.) Oh, and his constant "I agree, right, I agree", and in the meantime continuing to not agree or step down from his hobby horse is quite annoying. William, get your act together. It's shamefull that a "resident debater" debates so poorly. Your point went absolutely nowhere, and at times I felt sad for you, to be honest. Thanks for posting this interesting debate! I learned a lot from it, and I can't wait to read the book.

Great discussion, I love Dr. Ehrman. It’s great to hear long form conversations that aren’t debates between atheists and theist.

This a good Bart Ehrman video. The participants are mostly prepared and show strong conviction rather than debate tricks. A discussion with serious felt questions. Thank you.

There is no doubt in my mind that Bart D. Ehrman is not only the greatest thought provoking textural Christian scollar he is one of the most unbiased scollar in his textural subject. He is a great historian. Cette est le fait.

Awesome conversation, really appreciated the respect these men showed to each other.

One of the Four was professional and scholarly in this video. Thank you Dr. Ehrman for your works and patience.

It is always such a huge inspiration to listen to Bart Ehrman! I've recommended his books to my aunt, whom I've had several interresting debates with! She's a Theologian from the University of Copenhagen, and has been teaching religion, (primarily Christianity), on the Farao Islands where many of her students are deeply religious!

Two words come to mind: amateur and professional.

My daughter was a passenger and killed in August 6 yrs ago when she was almost 17. I have listened to multiple NDEs and they have similar accounts of unconditional love, life review, and many know they are sent back because they still have purpose here.

Just finished Dr. Ehrman's latest book; great! Very much enjoy his work! Learned a lot!

Man, I need to get some books behind me so people think I'm smart.

These guys stretch so much to attempt to validate their beliefs. Essentially, they're guessing and hoping that biblical passages mean what they hope they do. "We'd all be Catholic!" Lol You were incredibly generous with your time on this. Thank you, again, for your work.

The guy asking the questions doesn't seem to understand that the timelines of when things where writen matters ..lol .. good job Bart❤

Thank you for posting this it's wonderfully informative and I learned a lot.

I feel sorry for the big guy. He has devoted so much time and energy on something that is simply untrue. I hope he gets on the right path.

The person I'd fear debating the most: Ehrman. The person I'd fear fighting the most: Albrecht.

During the video, an objection was raised that the gospels could not have had things added which were incompatible with Jesus teaching since people who had heard him would object. I would point out that many of Trump’s policies are incompatible with classic GOP principals from even 10 years ago.... and it simply does not matter if anyone objects.

First to comment! Thanks Bart and R&T for the discussion. Very fun to listen to the engagement and the perspectives of the participants. Bart's scholarship on the history of the idea of the afterlife that developed among early Christians out of the milieu of the ancient world is impeccable. I think the R&T team would have done a little better by teasing apart the historical facts from the historical interpretations of Bart's thesis and grounded their perspective in the theological importance of the afterlife in their faith rather than quibble about very narrow passages and the possible intent of early Church fathers. I find it extremely interesting to investigate how eschatology developed over the centuries from its formulation in Roman and Eastern Catholicism, through the various protestant splinters, including Mormonism, and into modern theology. But of course, that gets beyond the remit of Bart's book and would be the topic of a different episode.

I’m not sure who won the debate, but I think Erick squeaks out the “I sit in front of the most books” award.

The discussion with Michael was the most erudite. Erick and William were overmatched academically and it was somewhat painful listening to them twist themselves into knots.

If God is LOVE, how could he punish people who sin FOREVER? Makes no sense!

34:00 William is challenging Bart with questions that in order to support his own thesis, William should know the answers to, but doesn't.

Comments deaktivatet??

The only thing I don't like about many blogs hosted by scholars of various disciplines is the fact that it can attract those interested in proving they are smarter than the host. So, much time is spent arguing usually trivial issues to the disinterest of many other members of the blog. It's a detail, but this discussion brought it to mind.

Did Jesus quote from Judith? I think the question that drives this debate to be this hot is " Bart, what makes you write the book of Heaven, Hell and the Afterlife?" Bart is consistent on this debate.

Thanks for uploading this!

William got schooled by Bart... you can see how much he’s sweating and struggling to accept Bart thoughts. Tough process to be wrong.

Bart Ehrman is a world renown expert on the New Testament, and a master debater. The panel should have been warned that they'll look silly, and decidedly foolish, trying to argue with him.

I love this stuff! Knowledge, knowledge, nom nom!

"People started imagining" that sums up all of religion.

Thanks for uploading

It's always a pleasure to hear Professor Ehrman speak. Thank you!

The guy in the lower right slept all the way !

Wow! Dr. Herman handles every objection persuasively.

The only reason for a theology including hell is that I have a list of people I think should go there. I nearly got rid of hell until November of 2016.

The idea that Moses never actually died both explains and complicates Deuteronomy, since Moses both dies in that book but is also the putative author of that book. If Moses did die, who wrote Deuteronomy, or at least the parts after Moses' death? If Moses didn't die, why did he write that he did?

Wow, this is just so great that it happened! I'm watching right now and the reason I'm so existed it's because there' an obvious big fat difference between what Dr. Ehrman's book and let's say "mainstream" Christianity (aka Catholics, Lutherans, etc.) and so having this discussion is really great! Thanks for sharing!

Excellent show really Learnt loads, thanks Bart.

Awesome format! I enjoyed it

This was informative and entertaining. Once again Bart displays his superior knowledge and William learned much during this debate while enjoying his beer.

What a treat to listen to this civil, mature debate. Very cordial.

Thanks to Albrecht for taking the conversation away from the topic...really annoying

Gotta say, I really did not enjoy any of the conversations with William Albrecht. He just seemed like he wanted to attack instead of discuss. That said I did love when Michael chimed in about the second Nicaea and said "but I also know that wasn't in the first-second century", basically disagreeing with the nonsense Albrecht had been spouting for like 10 minutes.

Unfortunately, Albrecht obviously references his misinterpretation of Judith to followers who question the doctrine of hell...who probably accept what he says. One cannot teach what one does not know. It was entertaining to watch the Catholics running away from the teachings of Christ to maintain their belief in the afterlife...written by others hundreds of years later.

I watched this entire interview and not a single person brings up Luke 23:43. Smh

Thanks. I like discussion on these things. 👍

Love it! Dr. Ehrman I’m gonna move to NC just to take a class from you

When interpreting the Bible one must interpret with a hebraic perspective and not a western perspective. Context, language, and culture are very important when interpreting Scripture. I see a lot of people of so many backgrounds that take the Bible out of context to use it for proof-texting their man made dogmas and traditions.

Stop trying to make Judith happen. It’s not going to happen.