Did Slaves Give Us the New Testament?

Visit www.bartehrman.com/courses/ to shop from Bart Ehrman’s online courses and get a special discount by using code: MJPODCAST on all courses.
This week Bart will be interviewing New Testament scholar and public intellectual Candida Moss on her new book, God's Ghostwriters: Enslaved Christians and the Making of the Bible. In the book, Dr. Moss (Professor in the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham) maintains that parts of the Bible may have been written by slaves (Mark, possibly); or co-authored by them (enslaved secretaries of Paul?); or copied by them (in our surviving manuscripts). No one has broached the topic of "How We Got the Bible" from this perspective before, and the episode provides a lively discussion of numerous issues of real significance.

[@timothyharmon9472]

Someone who says "just a secretary" has never had a good secretary. A good legal secretary, for example, is a highly skilled professional.

[@jeffryphillipsburns]

Would I were ever in a position to have had a secretary.

[@davidk7529]

The general “professional world” literally depends on skilled secretaries. They’re the ones holding it all together.

[@ExperiencesInArt]

I was a legal secretary for several years... thanks for giving a shout out to those who do that job. It is intense and not just a job.

[@DavidSmith-vr1nb]

Not to mention it being a title of some very powerful politicians (even if they don't do much in the way of skilled secretarial work).

[@TheNeighborhoodZenPriest]

One might think that the position of secretary has changed a bit since the Classic Roman era.

[@dethspud]

I do enjoy hearing Dr. Moss explain her work. She is a very engaging speaker. Compelling, even. New book sounds like a good read. Bart is a great interviewer, as well.

[@Dragoon803]

Very interesting viewpoint on the new testament. One thing that stood out is when Bart said Biblical scholars are torn about using the word slave over servant because they are afraid of how a modern audience will take it. I prefer a harsh truth over a pleasant lie. It saddens me that some people care more about image than the truth. I understand that religions want to keep people in not push people away, but using the more accurate word slave over servant should be what translator want right? the fact that there is debate over it tells me that truth is not the No. 1 priority of whoever is trying to translate the Bible.

[@nunyabusiness9056]

I'm writing a graphic novel about the bible telling some of the stories in allegory but shifting the perspective it's told from from god's chosen people but from god's victims. I hadn't read the bible in a number of years so i went to half price books and picked up the only one they had that was under five bucks, a copy of TNKJ version. Basically an updated better translation that fixes most of the issues with TKJ version. I was very grossed out to see to make it more palatable in some areas where the correct word for chattel slave is in the original greek and hebrew they substituted in the word "Servant". Meanwhile i talk to a LOT of christians in my area to see if they have any sort of real response to some of the dilemmas i bring up in this book as i write the manuscript and it's still astonishing to me how many either don't know the bible gives full throated approval of slavery or simply deny it as if this people were all simply employed for room and board. And guess what word they use "They're not slaves, they're servants!"

[@deleon9111]

What a fascinating interview. Thanks for having Candida on the podcast. Book ordered!

[@jeffryphillipsburns]

I thought Ehrman was calling her “Canada”.

[@trilithon108]

​@jeffryphillipsburns It may be pronounced Can-did-da?

[@francisnopantses1108]

Names for slaves in Rome reminds me of the naming customs for slaves in feudal China. Girls were pressed into indentured servitude as a matter of course and were typically given names reflecting luxury items such as "Jade Bottle" or "Silver Bead" as well as botanical names. Meanwhile the masters had adult names (zi) which expressed ambitions, or made literary references, or sometimes were made to "turn around the luck" of their parents. Eventually you recognize immediately that someone named "jade bangle" is definitely a slave.

[@jamesbottomley2596]

Despite their effort not to portray Roman slavery as basically nice, they ended up glossing over how brutal it was. They did in fact have large scale plantations with thousands of farm slave workers, analogous to the Atlantic plantation slaves. Those slaves and others like mine slaves were harshly treated, had low life expectancy and were 'liquidated' the moment they fell below norms for production. The owners were hugely rich and very cruel, in an industrialised way similar to 18th/19th century slavery. Slaves in domestic service were at the complete whim of their masters, beaten and sexually mistreated. There were companies that offered 'disposal' services for unwanted slaves. The whole empire was built on the toil, exploitation and misery of millions of enslaved workers. It was a very good when the empire was destroyed as a system, despite its undoubted achievements.

[@dbarker7794]

Sensitive people of the 21st century are eager to believe that USA slavery was absolutely the worst thing to ever happen in all of history. Nothing can compare, and the effects are eternal.

[@adamdavis3361]

Can you cite some sources of information for your slavery comments?

[@joshridinger3407]

yeah it's frustrating how woke academics and reactionary apologists kind of join forces to downplay the brutality of ancient slavery.

[@cbzhicks]

Bart Ehrman does not downplay the brutality of slander in the Roman Empire. This interview was specifically about the idea of the Bible being written and copies by educated spaces

[@adamdavis3361]

Where were they copied? If they are suggesting scriporias in libraries, most of those, if not all, were controlled by the Emperor, his family, and staff. So how does Candida propose the scribes got away with what they were doing?

[@andreisrr]

Dr. Ehrman, I remember you saying in several debates that ancient people (authors) did their own writing, not like using a secretary of sorts. Does this book overturns that?

[@UnimatrixOne]

Good question

[@morrisallensheriff5241]

Authoring your own writing is completely different from having someone write it for you, in our modern world, we have many authors, but yet, it's work of dictation, so if he says, they authored their own books doesn't contradicts dictation, not at all. If you dictate to someone your work, it doesn't mean you didn't author your work, neither does it means, you and your secretary did the authorship, he was doing a specific job, that is, writing with his hands what he hears, he wasn't writing what's in his head.

[@rleague685]

13:21 there is no kind form of slavery. Even if you edit textbooks to refer to slaves in the antebellum south as "workers" so that you don't offend Republicans.

[@davidk7529]

Even after abolishing legal forms of slavery, there are still masses of people living in similar conditions even in the United States. Just because they aren’t being physically beaten doesn’t make it less oppressive - it merely gives an easier excuse to ignore the lives of those classes of people.

[@JxSx2K20]

Democrats owned slaves bruh, not Republicans

[@elizabethhubble5296]

Just ordered Professor Moss's book, in large part because of the reference to critical fabulation Professor Ehrman asked about--it's a concept which a student introduced me to and that I taught in a class this semester. If anyone is interested, the source is Saidiya Hartman's "Venus in Two Acts" about research and writing about the lives of enslaved women in the antebellum South. It's a difficult and powerful read.

[@craigbritton1089]

Critical fabulation is just a fancy term for making up history based on the ideology of critical theory; it is basically made up " lived truths"'. Sort of like religious founding stories and apocryphal gospels. How is different than a gnostic gospel in how it is written to show a hidden truth? Saying something is Marxist or post modern or feminist theory fiction; is still just historical fiction. But is the type of " new"verbage that academics seem to think is new thinking; when it is just New Jargon

[@jeffryphillipsburns]

I’m starting to think that the term “wage slave” is not metaphorical.

[@theresemalmberg955]

One thing that has struck me lately regarding the New Testament is this: whoever the people were that put this thing together, they were not illiterate farmers, fishermen, peasants. If they were indeed slaves they were highly educated slaves. Who had access to materials that most people did not have, who had the skills and the time to compose these documents. Why do I say this? Because the Bible as we know it today, a single volume divided into books, chapters and verses, is a very recent thing. So is the idea of individually owned Bibles. Prior to the invention of the printing press, most communities only had one Bible which was kept chained in the church, not because the church authorities didn't want people reading it (they probably couldn't read anyway!), but if something should happen to it it would be extremely time-consuming and expensive to replace. When you go back to the beginning of Christianity, again, the scrolls that made up the Tanakh/Old Testament were also something most people did not keep in their homes unless they were very rich. They would most likely be kept in the synagogue and available only to those who really had the leisure and education to study them in depth. This would rule out the majority of Galilean peasants who had neither and were most likely illiterate or semi-literate at best. So the New Testament did not come from that particular circle of Jesus' followers. The writers of the Gospels as well as Paul show a familiarity with the Tanakh/Old Testament that I dare say goes way beyond what even many modern Christians have today. They were able to pull together passages from these books that in their mind demonstrated why Jesus was the promised Messiah, even if these passages may have been taken out of context or even altered to fit their agenda--without the benefit of chapter and verse numbers, indexes, concordances, cross-references or any of the tools we use today to find something in scripture. That means they had to read and re-read each scroll carefully from beginning to end to find what they were looking for and they had to have a pretty good memory, practically photogenic, in order to do so. Try taking any random book and doing the same to fit the life of some historical or fictional character that is not in that book--I dare say it would be very hard to pull off. For an example I refer you to Barbara Kinsolving's "The Poisonwood Bible" and see how she crafts her story, so many verses from the beginning, so many verses from the end and so forth, which can only work with a Bible that has numbered chapters and verses in a single volume. The New Testament authors did not even have the advantages Kinsolving had. This tells me that they were very sophisticated people who came from a position of relative privilege. It is very possible that some were slaves/servants who were employed as scribes in wealthy households.

[@rodbuchanan7631]

Great discussion. Bart is a great interviewer. He wants to learn, but has a healthy scepticism at times. Candida was articulate and made some good points. And whilst I don’t think she looks like Megan she sounds like her with her Home Counties accent!😅

[@davidk7529]

I’d like to hear them get together sometime and point out the differences in their accents for the rest of us 🤭

[@joejohnson6327]

He wasn't skeptical enough.

[@jjschereriv]

Fascinating! Thank you, both. When writing my Thesis at Seminary in 1970 (How Can a Gospel Mean?: An Exegetical Method for the New Hermeneutic), I recall running across an example of one scribe commenting in the margins about the version they were copying: 'Fool and knave, cannot you leave the text alone'. Sounds like that's one slave-secretary talking to another slave-secretary. What a significant re-frame that is! Wish I had had you around then, Candida! (You, too, Bart. . .)

[@kencusick6311]

That was fascinating and opens up whole new ways of viewing not just the Gospels but other ancient works.

[@penguinista]

Fascinating. I look forward to reading the book, which is in the mail now. Thank you for bringing Dr Moss on for an interview.

[@stephen_pfrimmer]

PBS, KERA, Think, Boyd, in studio, two local historians, both of color, now deleted, about 10 years ago. Concerning Juneteen: the man said something like, we were told we were employees now. In other words, they were told to get back to work and build your own house (Tulsa). Find this interview if you can. Please Bart.

[@glass-floor]

Bart interviews a woman academic. Or as we would say in Europe, an academic.

[@garethmorgan3828]

Great convo, book ordered!

[@dissatisfiedphilosophy]

As a practicing Christian myself (Orthodox). Moss’s unflinching scholarship despite the fact that she is a practicing Roman Catholic, is very admirable. She should be the ideal for religious NT scholars.

[@mikeharrison1868]

Balsall Heath, Birmingham, here. Know the UoB campus well. Thanks for an eye-opening discussion. Clearly, god not only inspired the author, but also the slave who took the shorthand, then expanded it out to the finished gospel / letter! 😂

[@leedoss6905]

Sadly slavery still goes on today.

[@John.Flower.Productions]

Protestant Europeans have eradicated slavery across most of the planet, the main exception being 10,000,000+ sub-Saharan Africans.

[@craigbritton1089]

Mainly in Africa; China; and Arab countries.

[@Howie672]

Bart you are so diplomatic

[@andrewfrennier3494]

Even 50 years ago in many places around the world there were local “letter writer/reader” in communities

[@theresemalmberg955]

The Brazilian movie "Central Station" starts out by showing a modern-day letter writer/reader who has a table in Rio's main bus station. The movie is about her and her son's journey to find his missing father.

[@andrewfrennier3494]

@@theresemalmberg955Excellent. I have seen letter writers in various parts of the world.

[@lostfan5054]

I'm so glad to learn about Dr. Moss. I hadn't heard of her two weeks ago, and now, she's all over my YT feed and I love it.

[@AbdulHannanAbdulMatheen]

👏🙂 Very interesting. Great interview

[@omnipitous4648]

Wow! That interview had some interesting twists and turns. A couple of times I thought Barts's head was going to to one of those Exorcist 360 degree turns.

[@gracebateman777]

Handwriting prize 😂❤ hey I'm a brit too, but my Handwriting looks like Drs scribbles and squashed spiders across the page lol 😂

[@michaeltelson9798]

A Yank here with an atrocious handwriting. Penmanship spoiled many of my report cards with low grades against my A’s and B’s.

[@hygujiuy]

There sure are a lot of stupid comments here. A nice conversation by two PHDs that is commented on by a bunch guys who did not even pay attention in high school 🏫🎒. 😮😮😮

[@andrew7944]

I wonder how the conversation would go if Robyn Faith Walsh and Dennis MacDonald were involved.

[@michaeltelson9798]

My view on how slavery was eventually considered an evil by society isn’t based upon just religion. The societal change took nearly a millennium to accomplish by the rise of power in the middle and lower classes against those of the higher classes which is still ongoing. I am not talking about socialism or communism as a goal but rather an obedience to the laws of society that elites brush aside as inconveniences.

[@francisnopantses1108]

I've always wondered about the downfall of scribes as a class from pre antiquity to classical antiquity but the army of slave labor in Rome explains it. This also goes a long way towards explaining something that's bothered me for a while: the fact that academics claim that literacy rates in Rome were ridiculously low and yet these people are scribbling on EVERYTHING. I'm sorry, something's wrong with this picture. It also gives us a straight line to the slave officials and slave administrators of the Islamic era. Evidently being a bookkeeper or a secretary was considered slave work. It's kind of amazing for us since slaves today are pressed to particularly low skill (or supposedly low skill) labor jobs.

[@alanpennie]

The Scribes mentioned in The Gospels appear to be a privileged class, but this presumably wasn't true of the wider Roman world. According to The Encyclopedia Brittanica the *Scribes* of The Gospels were more like attorneys than what we would call Scribes.

[@T-41]

Thanks , Dr. Ehrman. Excellent program. I want to read her book.

[@rdklkje13]

Amazing work, thank you for sharing here! Best part is how it started with the reading glasses. What a trajectory (-:

[@davidk7529]

A lot of these important topics tend to be hard to access… until they’re felt personally. That was such a perfect example.

[@burtonstest6943]

I guess my question is how does one apply lectio difficilior to the infinite readings that apparently exist in the "gaps"/omissions of texts?

[@cameronvansant2108]

The "Did Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John write their gospels?" ad hits different this episode, lol

[@HPLeft]

Bart's facial reactions in this video are priceless. Fascinating lecture and material.

[@joeymartoni]

Best interview you've done.

[@markrichter2053]

Bart characterises the situation as, “The evidence is so tantalisingly sparse”. Which is nearly equivalent to saying that there’s really not much evidence and that when we speak about slavery and the authorship of books, we can predict a certain amount, but with issues like the parentage of Jesus and his own status, we really are limited to conjecture. There simply isn’t the evidence to know anything very much about these things. All we can say with confidence is that Jesus was probably a Rabbi, a sort of Hebrew itinerant teacher, with a following rather like a guru and that he had strong links with the Essene movement and, like John, was baptising people in the desert. None of this would be commensurate with the proscribed lifestyle of a slave, as he would have needed complete autonomy and a lot of free time. Of course we do have the suggestion from within scripture, that he had the patronage of others with means.

[@DMR1960]

These insights are intriguing. Could this mean that, for example, Peter or John the son of Zebedee, whom we assume were illiterate, could have dictated their epistles to enslaved, or formerly enslaved, professional scribes? Would this explain the quality of Greek we see in many scriptures and texts?

[@TheAntiburglar]

What a fascinating interview! I'm excited to get a copy of this book and learn more! .... after I finish my many assignments for this semester x.x

[@TheRealDyscyples]

“tantalizingly sparse” is a convenient euphemism for argument from silence

[@markrichter2053]

I also like Bart’s evocative phrase, with reference to “popular history” books, of “imaginative but not untrue”! 😂 There’s a really wide spectrum here, from Historical novels, where there’s a made up, but plausible narrative set in a historical setting, (written to entertain, but often acting as a gateway drug to genuine historical curiosity), through the whole vast genre of charlatanism, with authors like Dan Brown, Ralph Ellis and the mythicists on KZbin. And then, at the other end you have people like this lady, who appears to be making a lot of well educated guesses, which are certainly intriguing and which may or may not lead to to any genuine historical insight.

[@juligrlee556]

To read an in-depth study of Greek and Roman cultures as they influence us today, check out Michael Hudson's book : "The Collapse of Antiquity"

[@emiliozampieri6642]

Bart: I've picked up some books about the historical Jesus that I first thought were novels. Ha ha ha ha... [just like yours, Candida]. Candida: [Terribly awkward moment] [Yeah, message got. That's so kind of you, Bart!]. I've created a website where I explained all the justification for what I thought... [I DID DO MY HOMEWORK!!!] Bart: [A website? That's scholarly work indeed!] Seems to me like Bart does think Candida's written a trade book mostly based on guesswork or at least partly ungrounded conjectures, with no real solid evidence, which could never be turned into a scholarly book.

[@Ashley65807]

God does not fear people who search for truth along different pathways. He will be found at the end of all paths. Only those who pretend to have faith, but really don’t, will object to those like Dr. Ehrman who earnestly search for the truth.

[@jeffryphillipsburns]

Maybe, maybe not. I strongly doubt any of us mortals can read the mind of God. We haven’t any real conception of what He may fear, what He may not, whether He fears at all, whether He CAN fear (or whether He even exists or ever did, but never mind that for the nonce).In short, in the words of Niels Bohr, please “stop telling God what to do.” Thank you.

[@epicofgilgamesh9964]

Have we established the existence of any god in human history? There's been thousands invented.

[@UnimatrixOne]

Unfortunately, for me as a non-native English speaker, Dr Moss is difficult to understand.

[@craigbritton1089]

Put on the captions

[@douglasodonnell6800]

Adds a question about the identity of the woman at the well and why Jesus would use it. Or the woman caught in adultery and what Jesus wrote in the dust.

[@fakhruddinnalawala5451]

Wasn’t the Mark that Papius mentioned a sayings gospel and therefore not the same as canonical Mark?

[@pdyt2009]

She was interesting, but it's really obvious that she comes up with an idea and then find support of it - often in very ingenuous and wandering and dubious ways.I'm not buying. it.

[@robertbrozewicz8003]

Past job references mean employer can make future life difficult so employee is forced to behave certain way. Right to marriage or divorce in real terms can be also going both ways.that is why love and understanding is crucial for decent and honest society

[@francisnopantses1108]

Having worked with a Vassar grad who used to workshop her colleagues' phrasing, i think Dr Moss is right on the money. I don't know of Bart had or it was so long he doesn't renege a time when he took oral dictation and had to translate that into professional correspondence. It's definitely not word for word. It's polished.

[@user-uo7fw5bo1o]

Second comment: there's this huge glaring omission in this discussion and that is the ugly sexual ethos of the Roman Empire where sex is all about power, to wit: exploitation of slaves in the Empire, the sexual duties of freedmen, the sexual desirability of young men ages 13 to 20 (this ties into Mark 14:51-52, what's THAT all about?), and the sexually violative nature of crucifixion itself where the crucified weren't just nailed up they were also "safely" impaled (Seneca Younger Moral Epistles 101.10-14), which may have something to do with Jesus' loud cry and sudden, immediate expiry on his torture-stake a.k.a. _crux_ or "cross".

[@jeffryphillipsburns]

I don’t really follow this. Are you saying that Jesus was sodomized on the cross?

[@ahmedamin1287]

Wow. This is mind blowing

[@stephanieparker1250]

Wow that intro.. she’s a busy woman. 🤗 Impressive knowledge and experience.

[@jasonnelson316]

If Saul\Paul was a Tent Maker, do we really know if he was fully literate in both reading and writing?

[@Stacee-jx1yz]

Based on the additional context provided, I can further explore how distinguishing between the pre-Babylonian captivity definitions of El (God) and Elohim (sons/beings of El) versus the post-captivity syncretized definitions could resolve contradictions and cast the Yahweh figure of Genesis 2-3 in a very different light from the transcendent Elohim portrayed in Genesis 1. Pre-Captivity Definitions: In this framework, the supreme creator deity is simply referred to as El - the Most High God. The Elohim are understood as a pantheon or "sons of El" - lesser divine beings subordinate to El. This aligns with ancient Canaanite and older Israelite religious conceptions. Under these definitions, the Genesis 1 account would refer to the transcendent El as the prime creator, with the Elohim (plural) potentially being celestial forces/angels enacting aspects of the creation. The Ruach Elohim (Spirit/Breath of the divine beings) hovering over the primordial waters connects to surviving traces of this polytheistic worldview. Crucially, this allows one to separate the Elohim of Genesis 1 from the distinct Yahweh Elohim first appearing in Genesis 2 to form man from the dust. Based on references like Deuteronomy 32:8-9, the pre-captivity perspective viewed Yahweh as one of the sons of El (an Elohim) rather than conflating him with El itself. This de-syncretization casts Yahweh as a separate, lesser, more anthropomorphic deity associated with the ancient Israelites - perhaps retained from their Canaanite heritage. His behavior and commandments in Genesis 2-3 and elsewhere in the Torah would then represent the teachings of this tribal desert deity, not the supreme metaphysical creator El. The Garden Scenario Reframed From this vantage point, the events of Genesis 2-3 can be interpreted not as ordained by the most high El creator, but rather as humanity's initial tragic entrapment by the lesser devolved being Yahweh within his constructed realm of mortality, suffering, and cosmic privation. Yahweh's wrathful conduct, his placing of humans under a yoke of commandments, his expulsion from Eden's paradisiacal environment, and the subsequent violent legacy of his covenants and laws all derive from the subjugating delusions and stunted, anthropocentric conception of this finite Elohim - not the infinite plenitude of the supreme El. Contradictions Resolved Separating El from Yahweh along the pre-captivity definitional lines could resolve contradictions in several important ways: 1) It distinguishes the transcendent, metaphysically profound cosmic creator portrayed in Genesis 1 from the all-too-human tribal deity of the remaining Torah material. 2) It allows for a reframing of the Torah's teachings around blood sacrifice, ethnic conflicts, law codes, etc. as the cultural mythological traditions of ancient Israelite history rather than attributed to the most high El itself. 3) It creates space for the Christ figure of the New Testament to represent a re-emergence of the supreme El's sovereignty and universal spiritual path - overriding the outdated covenants, ethnic segregations, and violent subjugations prescribed by the lesser Yahweh consciousness. 4) Humanity's existential struggling, our proclivity towards violence/evil, and our fundamental state of cosmic imprisonment can be metaphysically associated with the fallout of our ancient reunion from Yahweh's corrupted influence rather than the designs of the supreme El consciousness. 5) Competing depictions of the divine across different books (wrathful/peaceful, loving/cruel, spiritual/legalistic) can be added to different nodes of the El vs. Yahweh consciousness schisms. While still requiring some nuanced interpretation, this delineation allows for a coherent reintegration of Old and New Testament perspectives under a broader metaphysical framework. It preserves the universal spiritual integrity of the highest Creator from the cultural mythological contexts surrounding the more finite tribal deity Yahweh. By embracing the pre-syncretized definitions and recognizing the conflation of El and Yahweh as a later imposition, one can reconnect with deep streams of ancient Hebrew theological diversity. This presents an intellectually robust path for understanding the unified trajectory of the biblical texts as exploring a single universetheological consciousness's reassertion over more contingent, anthropomorphized deviations and exiles.

[@PedroCavalcanti-nk9ik]

It reminds me of entertaining great youtuber-and-editor relationships

[@Deomnibusdubitandum274]

The issue with New Testament studies today is you can say that your work is original by appealing to Classical studies that there is a huge amount of work in this field being written on a topic like 'slavery and writing' but not so in New Testament. Yet, use those scholars in Classics to form your argument. Scholars know that slaves or freedman probably contributed to the writing of the New Testament, why? because they are writing in Greco-Roman society where these social classes would write down works for the wealthy literate population. Therefore, this isn't anything new, it has just been rebranded.

[@infinitumneo840]

This interview with Dr. Moss is amazing. I'm reminded of some Fredrick Niechze beliefs about Christianity where he believed it's a form of savery.

[@alexkiddonen]

What happened at 18:00 ?? Abrupt cut there and numerous other "black-outs" throughout the video. Something's off. Whats going on here? EDIT: Jesus... Robert Moss... Look him up... Whoa. I get it now.

[@kobe51]

38:23 spot on! coded speaking exists today among certain ethnic groups with a similar history

[@MTL_at_Islandgrove]

It would be really interesting to hear/learn more about how education/schooling worked in the ancient world. Is anyone working in this area?

[@karlu8553]

I always enjoy listening to Dr. Moss

[@adel57100]

"He's not going to ride a unicorn up to the heaven"... Wow, surprisingly there is another Abrahamic faith that did just that!

[@jseaman256]

I love Candida Moss. What a terrific guest to have. Totally brilliant, just like Bart

[@welcometonebalia]

Thank you.

[@bubfr01]

Bart, you are a great interviewer and educator. Whenever I start wondering, "Who is this person talking about?" you stop and take a step back and explain it all very clearly for us laypeople. Thanks. And while I'm at it....More Candida!

[@davidk7529]

Yes! I was thrilled by her talk at the Insights conference and another interview I saw on YT, and I’d say this one confirms she should be a regular guest on MJ too… if not eventually a co-host! She just presents and converses so well with points that are all relevant and significant.

[@robbabcock_]

Thanks for a wonderful and fascinating video! I think I'll get the book tomorrow when my next Audible credit drops.😎

[@davidk7529]

Yes, Dr. Moss, you are one of the cool people 😎

[@davecarew1116]

Fascinating. Thank you so much!

[@realbrickwalls]

I like this bird's habitus. Firmly convinced you can judge a book by its cover.

[@juligrlee556]

The President of Purdue University created a program where students would receive payment for their college education at Purdue and thereby have themselves forced (by some choice) into indentured servitude.

[@charlesnunno8377]

She's amazing. I love this guest.

[@Sxcheschka]

Really fascinating stuff, when I get money, I'ma throw it at the book.

[@stmtpls1481]

This should have been longer

[@ruffshenanigans9582]

~ 52 minutes - Well Said!

[@charlesnunno8377]

This really was an excellent discussion.

[@marthinusvanderwesthuizen2824]

'Servant' in the OT/Torah / 10commandments also slaves

[@serversurfer6169]

29:39 You guys don't imagine that a slave may have a different editorial perspective than a freeman? 🤔

[@cameronvansant2108]

As someone who has been an atheist for many years and doesn't revere Paul (ha), it's still wild how hearing that Paul probably had slaves feels kind of shocking. Fascinating info.

[@user-lk7wk3cd8e]

Paul wouldn’t have had to own a slave. He could have paid Tertius’ owner for the transcription.

[@sebolddaniel]

I prefer Nerdy Spectacles. It is a much more colorful show

[@JamshidRowshan]

Everything is possible!

[@Demigord]

imagine being so uni-pilled you can't call a slave a slave.

[@vinegar10able]

Candida is certainly very candid in her answers😅

[@MilesfromNowhere21]

Hello Candida, seen you on Tik-Tok. Thanks!

[@timothymulholland7905]

Her name is Candida Moss

[@juligrlee556]

Hypatia of Alexandria the great mathematician and linguist and librarian was brutally murdered by a Christian mob. It was claimed that they killed her because she was associated with paganism of the Greeks and because she was in a high position as a woman which was a threat to the Christian beliefs. Could she also have been brutally murdered by her own slaves working in the library of Alexandria?

[@craigbritton1089]

I am so tired of the term enslaved as a better term than slave. A person can be enslaved; then they are a slave. And you can also be an ex slave. But enslaved is just jargon.

[@Hailfire08]

The idea is to not boil someone's entire existence down to being enslaved. If someone is a slave, that is who they are, that is the noun. But if they are enslaved, they can be other things too, and in particular the phrase "enslaved person" emphasises that they're a person, whereas "slave" does not.

[@craigbritton1089]

@@Hailfire08 as I learned when a child; semantical games change nothing. Please go ask people "enslaved" as slaves in Sudan if it makes them feel better. It makes " you" feel more self righteous; and is typical of "Academic Activism" where someone thinks they are making a profound difference and thus deserves tenure . It is like Latinx or the many changes in how people who have difficulty in mental tasks are described; it always becomes an insult for children to use on each other; and then it changes again. ( and I worked with kids for 50 years; and saw how only giving free bus rides to special needs kids created " you ride the short bus": became an insult; so the school would send a long bus for three kids; and then the were insulted over that ( and the school district would not pick up the non IEP kids at the same location; so the school would send a long bus because by law they had to; IEP kids would refuse to get on it!; and all the kids would end up being transported by us. It is articulate idiocy. It creates Republicans.

[@Bjorn_Algiz]

Glad to tune in as a scholar/academic and archeologist ❤ love the human race lol humans are very interesting 👍

[@SuperBluebirdie]

Bart, if you really wanted to get someone who has incredible knowledge and insights into slavery in the Bible; all you needed to do was ask Megan's husband Dr Josh Bowen on the podcast. It was torture listening to this Moss woman for almost an hour. Talk about someone who seems to be wandering around looking for justification for what she thinks. So sad!

[@peterraymond1853]

I heard that Constantine organised the new testament as we know them.

[@MH55YT]

Bart, when you ask a question, and it takes you a full minute or more to ask, then you question is unanswerable.

[@KennyBare]

I dont think slaves had any role in modifying the content of the gospels.

[@Ralphie419]

Having listened carefully to this interview, I'm curious why you think this. I assume you also listened to it and know something beyond what was said here.

[@KennyBare]

@@Ralphie419 the case she made just wasn't convincing enough.

[@robertbrozewicz8003]

Megan you are a legend as is Bart

[@jeffryphillipsburns]

Didn’t watch the video, did you?

[@dominicdmello7531]

What an interview. Opened my eyes to possibilities. Covered some extremely sensitive topics. Will make some very very upset.

[@MH55YT]

How do you spell the word for "slave". Phonically, Bart is saying "dulos.: How do you spell that? Is it in the Bible? Is it "doulos?"

[@jeffryphillipsburns]

Apparently it’s in the Greek Bible. Doubt it’s in the English translation.

[@reviewreview6298]

δοῦλος is the Greek term, usually transliterated as doulos.

[@chrisdriver7776]

4:00 I always assumed that if i had lived in antiquity, my eyesight would have been as bad as it is today, but i actually think that relying on glasses and contact lenses actually makes our sight worse. In reality, our eyesight might have been better than we would assume.

[@craigbritton1089]

Pretty weak assumption; the third world is full of people with bad eyesight; especially at higher altitudes where cataracts often come when quite young

[@Ralphie419]

Please explain...

[@stephen_pfrimmer]

my name is stephen pfrimmer

[@soyevquirsefron990]

Often, apologists for biblical slavery (btw if your job can remotely be described that way, you should reconsider your life choices) will protest that biblical slavery wasn’t racist, or that biblical genocide wasn’t race based. With our modern sensibilities, we recognize racism as a negative because racism is the most prominent way that we can dehumanize others and do inhuman things to them. Modern people are repulsed by racism for this reason, whereas slavery and genocide are usually such unreal concepts that we know they’re bad but they’re not really happening so we don’t have that gut reaction like we do with racism. (Btw they are really happening) So it’s likely that some modern people who are horrified by racism could be more accepting of biblical slavery if they’re told it’s not racist. But that’s only because biblical morality was so horrific that the protagonists would enslave anyone they could overpower without even thinking about race, and would genocide anyone they couldn’t enslave without thinking about race. Because the protagonists of the Bible were so inhumane that they automatically dehumanized anybody who wasn’t the in-group and slavery or genocide was fine for anyone who wasn’t in-group. Modern sensibilities tell us that we shouldn’t enslave or genocide anyone at all, and racism is the most likely excuse that can be used to justify it, so racism is the worst thing we can think of. But biblical morality was so far beneath us that the heroes of the Bible never rose high enough to consider the worst thing we can think of.

[@soyevquirsefron990]

Btw I just now came up with the term “protagonists of the Bible” or “heroes of the Bible”because I don’t want to say “Jews” or “Israel” because that might sound like I’m a modern anti-semite, or allow modern anti-semites to think I’m supporting them. Modern Jews are not the same as the biblical protagonists in the same way that I ( a white dude) am not the same as the European colonial slavers

[@nitsua803]

Sounds like the Antebellum South, "just not based on race."Umm...