FRANCESCA STAVRAKOPOULOU on the Bible, Jesus, death thr… — Transcript

So firstly, it's an anti-Semitic trope to say that there's an evolution in the Bible from the nasty God of the Hebrew Bible to the loving, forgiving God of the New Testament. It's anti-Semitic. Secondly, the notion of an evolution is really so—

sorry I'll see you quite quite worse about it I love it I love it [Music] [Music] I wanna know what I wanna do [Music] so thanks so much for doing this and so so great to finally meet you I thought a

Sorry, I'll see you. Quite, quite worse about it. I love it. I love it. [Music] [Music] I wanna know what I wanna do. [Music]

scared to say it and just as like the way to start is it kind of what's it like to have a name that people always mess up or are just nervous to say does it bother you when people do that

So thanks so much for doing this, and so, so great to finally meet you. I thought a sort of a fun way to start would be with your name before we get into God and anatomy. I thought Stavra Kapulu would be interesting because as I watched some of the conversations with you, people either get your name wrong or kind of scared to say it. And just as like the way to start, is it kind of what's it like to have a name that people always mess up or are just nervous to say? Does it bother you when people do that?

accidentally just refer to me as he and that just annoys me because obviously being a woman in Academia isn't the easiest thing in the world sometimes um but yes my surname I guess I don't know any different but it's always you

Um, it doesn't bother me as much as when people misgender me. Like, I often find in writing, people assume that, you know, people that don't know me, and particularly scholars who aren't in my field at all or even scholars, can accidentally just refer to me as he. And that just annoys me because obviously being a woman in academia isn't the easiest thing in the world sometimes. Um, but yes, my surname, I guess I don't know any different, but it's always, you know, I grew up mostly, you know, in England where a name like Stavakapulu, you know, even though it's a very kind of diverse multicultural society, um, Stavra still frightens people, I think, just because it's so long, you know.

if I was just called stavross it would be fine but um but yeah I I I'm so used to it now that of people messing it up and I don't mind um but anyways I just thought it was

If I was just called Stavros, it would be fine, but um, but yeah, I, I'm so used to it now that people mess it up and I don't mind. Um, but anyways, I just thought it was just interesting that perspective of someone whose name just like brings fear to anyone who tries to pronounce it. But yeah, so obviously you come from a Greek background and, you know, in the lead-up to doing this interview and you get this a lot, I'm interviewing this biblical scholar, she's an atheist, and people are just immediately like eyebrows raised and they're confused about that or like they want to know more about that. So I'm wondering if you could just tell people a little bit about how you came to biblical scholarship and also what you say to people that would say atheists shouldn't be doing this work, there's a bias that would inherently seep into their work around this. There's a bias for atheists to study the Bible as if there isn't a bias for Jewish or Christian people to study the Bible.

get this a lot I'm interviewing this biblical scholar she's an atheist and people are just immediately like eyebrows raised and they're confused about that or like they want to know more about that so I'm wondering if you could just tell people a little bit

I mean, it's so weird, isn't it? Because yeah, you're right. Like people, this has followed me around my whole, not even my professional career, even when I started my academic studies, when I did my first degree and then my master's and then my doctorate and even doing postdoctoral work, you know, people would say, but you're an atheist, like why would you be interested in the Bible? And it's like, what? Why wouldn't I be interested in the Bible? I mean, this collection of texts has shaped so much of our cultural assumptions and preferences and our cultural anxieties. Um, it just seems to me to be like kind of wrong-headed to think that an atheist wouldn't be interested in the Bible. I've always been really, really interested in religion just ever since I was a kid. I think because I wasn't religious, I wasn't brought up religious at all. I mean, there were, you know, people in my family were different flavors of Christianity, but not in a kind of going to church all the time way or kind of the Bible was being read, you know, every day. Um, just, you know, that kind of cultural Christianity that so many of us grow up with in Western societies. Um, but I was always really interested in it. And I think because of my Greek heritage, I loved when I was like really little, I loved all the stories about Greek gods and goddesses. And I just remember, you know, just not being able to quite understand why there's all this fuss about Jesus because it kind of seemed to me like this was completely normal in sort of mythological terms, that, you know, here's a guy whose mum was immortal and whose dad was a god. And, you know, so that, why is he so special? How come like this guy gets all the attention now and some of those great mythological figures from the past have sort of disappeared? So that's what got me really into it. And then at school, so like high school, we had to study some bits of the Bible for our, um, you know, as our general kind of courses at school. And I found the New Testament really fascinating and I found out Jesus was Jewish. Oh my God, that was like, that blew my mind. Like as a 12-year-old, I was like, what? That was amazing. And then I got to university. Originally, I wanted to study New Testament. Um, when I first went to university, I was really interested in, you know, Jewish Jesus, basically, what was this, you know, what were the, what was the history or the early traditions around this kind of guy and his execution and how come it was such a big deal? And then as a result of that, I obviously discovered the Hebrew Bible, so what Jewish people call Tanakh, what Christian people call the Old Testament. And wow, I was just like hooked. I just thought this was like the most exciting collection of ancient literature. Um, and that's why I really got into it. But I'm, it's about the history and it's about the kind of the just, it's almost like time travel, you know, it's like going back in time and trying to understand the ways in which these particular ancient societies understood their world and understood the otherworldly. Um, and that's what really excites me.

Bible as if there isn't a bias for Jewish or Christian people to study the Bible I mean it's so weird isn't it because yeah you're right like people this has followed me around my whole not even my professional career even when I

Totally. And talking about what the other ancient cultures thought about God and what we think today and how things have changed so much. We'll get into that in a second. But you know, the idea, so the Bible, you know, is still the most popular book in the world. You know, I googled this morning, I think maybe five billion Bibles exist in the world or have been sold or whatever it was. But what the Bible is or how it's described really varies. If you talk to a Christian, of course, it's a divinely inspired word of God. It's perfect. You should live, we can live our lives by this book. Others think it's the most, the most evil, it's all irrelevant, it should be just banned from society sort of book. What do you say it is from a historical perspective? What is the Bible?

like what why wouldn't I be interested in the Bible I mean this is this collection of texts has shaped so much of our cultural assumptions and preferences and our cultural anxieties um it just seems to me to be like kind

I mean, essentially, the Bible is like an ancient anthology of very diverse texts, and these texts have come, you know, have been not just kind of crafted and composed, but kind of reworked, re-edited, reshaped, carefully curated and selected by consecutive groups of Yahweh worshipers initially, um, and then, you know, sort of Jesus followers after that, but over, you know, hundreds and hundreds of years. And so in that sense, it's an ancient anthology, an ancient collection of texts. But I guess the Bible today is also, you know, it's a cultural icon, you know, whether we like it or not, it matters. It's like, you know, it's like kind of Shakespeare matters. Um, and the Bible matters in that sense. So it's a cultural icon whether you believe it or not, but certainly it's not, it's not the divine word of God.

know people in my family were different flavors of Christianity but but not in a kind of going to church all the time way or kind of the Bible was being read you know every day um just you know that kind of cultural

And then I think even, you'd be hard-pushed, I think, to, if you could travel back in time, you'd be hard-pushed to find an ancient Jewish or early Christian person who would claim that their texts were sort of divine in that kind of sense. They become sacred, they become other or special or holy because they contain the name of Yahweh or they contain certain sorts of divine instructions, but the text, the Bible itself is not that idea that it's somehow immutable or infallible or kind of unchangeable. I think even ancient people would find that hard to get their head around.

Greek gods and goddesses and I I just remember you know just not being able to quite understand why there's all this fuss about Jesus because it kind of seemed to me like this was completely normal in sort of mythological terms

See, that's interesting because I was going to ask you like what is the most misunderstood thing about the Bible today? What do you think when you hear the Bible talked about, when you hear whether even if I—

mythological figures from the past have sort of disappeared so that's what got me really into it and then at school so like high school we had to study some bits of the Bible for our um you know as

our general kind of courses at school and and I found the New Testament really fascinating and I found out Jesus was Jewish oh my God that was like that blew my mind like as a 12 year old I was like

what that was amazing and then I got to University originally I wanted to study New Testament um when I first went to University I was really interested in you know Jewish Jesus basically what what was this you know what were the

what was the history or the early Traditions around this kind of guy and his execution and how come it was it was such a big deal and then as a result of that I obviously discovered the Hebrew Bible so what Jewish um people call

tanak what Christian people call the Old Testament and wow I was just like hooked I just thought this was like the most exciting collection of of ancient literature um and that's why I really got into it but I'm it's about the history and it's

about the kind of the just it's almost like time travel you know it's like going back in time and trying to understand the ways in which these particular ancient societies understood their world and understood the other worldly um and that's what

really excites me totally and talking about what the other ancient cultures thought about God and what we think today and how things have changed so much we'll get into that in a second but you know the idea so the Bible you know

is still the most popular book in the world you know I googled this morning I think maybe five billion Bibles exist in the world or have been sold or whatever it was but what the Bible is or how it's

described really varies if you talk to a Christian of course it's a divinely inspired word of God it's perfect you should live we can live our lives by this book others thinks it's the most the most evil it's all irrelevant it

should be just banned from society sort of book what do you say it is from a historical perspective what is the Bible I mean essentially the Bible is like an ancient anthology of a very a very diverse texts and these texts have come

you know have been not just kind of crafted um and composed but kind of reworked re-edited reshaped carefully curated and selected by um consecutive groups of Yahweh worshipers initially um and then you know sort of Jesus followers after that but over you know

hundreds and hundreds of years and so in that sense it's an ancient Anthology an ancient collection of texts but I guess the Bible today is also you know it's a it's a cultural icon you know whether we like it or not it it matters it's like

you know it's like kind of Shakespeare matters um and the Bible matters in in that sense so it's a cultural icon whether you believe it or not but certainly it's not it's not the Divine uh word of God

and then I think even you'd be you'd be hard-pushed I think to if you could travel back in time you'd be hard pushed to find an ancient Jewish or early Christian person who would claim that that their texts were was sort of divine

in that kind of sense they become sacred they become other or special or holy because they contain the name of Yahweh or they contain certain sorts of divine instructions but they they're not the text the Bible itself is not that idea

that it's somehow immutable or infallible or um kind of unchangeable I I think even ancient people would find that hard to get their head around see that's interesting because I was going to ask you like what is the most

misunderst thing about the Bible today what do you think when you hear the Bible talked about when you hear whether even if it's Scholars or just the general public do you think there's something that most people misunderstand about it in like a general sense yeah I

think you know you often hear you know people from politicians to celebrities to you know your next door neighbor say things like well the Bible says I mean firstly the Bible doesn't say anything it doesn't have a mouth it doesn't you

know it doesn't actually speak but also the Bible is massively contradictory it's not a coherence ideologically it's not a necessarily A coherent work there are all sorts of contradictions in these texts and sort of juxtapositions and because these

texts weren't written to be to be coherent they weren't written to be these kinds of authoritative um sacred I guess manuals or Rule books they were they come as I said from very diverse often settings and periods of

time and and it's just that the authority that they have become imbued with has increased over time and interpretations you know vary massively both in an ancient context and the Contemporary context so when it's so when people say oh the Bible says a b or

c you say well yeah but also there's another text in the Bible that says something different or something contradictory or or you know it has a completely different view so I think that cherry picking of ideas of what the

Bible says is problematic what's this is a quick follow-up on that what is like one thing in the Bible that you can like here's a verse that says this and then here's another verse that says what are like some of the most your go-to sort of

lines for people who say oh the Bible doesn't contradict itself because I've heard that a thousand times from Christians and I used to think that and but what are the go-to lines that you have I mean not so much go-to lines but I

mean look at the fact that they're in the New Testament there are four gospels you know like and they're all kind of they they don't match um they tell very they can vary quite a lot in their portrayals of the of the

life of Jesus say something like you know comparing the four gospels and they're very interested in the Earthly life of Jesus what you know up to his death and then supposedly Resurrection after someone like Paul like who's writing his works are the earliest in

the New Testament you know someone like Paul he's not at all interested in the Earthly life of Jesus you know so Paul seems to think that the special thing about Jesus the kind of I suppose Divine or otherworldly quality or character of

Jesus wasn't inherent in Jesus when he was born that's what some of the gospels would tell us but actually it was something that happened to him after he dies somehow his body was completely transformed it became pneumatic it

became kind of made of spirit rather than flesh and so for Paul that's the point at which Jesus becomes special that's why he's interested in the Earthly life of Jesus doesn't talk about it whereas I think that's what the

gospels in part were kind of written to to correct was I say correct very Loosely you know with kind of cautionary quotation marks around it but the gospels are there to to fill a gap was people saying well how come this

person's body when he was executed why did that transform why did that become immortal why did that become Divine or Heavenly or whatever so you know even the the texts themselves are very are very comfortable with difference the

Book of Job a Hebrew Bible text is all about contradiction I think it's about that that you can't sort of navigate or explain or look for almost what we would call a logical or rational explanation for divine Behavior or Divine encounters

God can become demonic that's exactly how he's presented in in that text and so I think you know and obviously there are other examples yeah certain regulations like you know certain animals are are perceived as kind of unproblematic ritually or to have

sacrifice whereas another text will say no no that animal is completely problematic or some sexual activities are problematic and another text they're not so you know you've got lots of different examples but I think the very fact that these texts are are so

different and diverse like should help us to kind of think let's just step back a minute and not impose a blanket interpretation on anything yeah just as another a quick question too the idea of you as an atheist

talking about these things and studying this thing what percentage of biblical scholars in in your in your knowledge is are atheists how rare are you as sort of like the worldview you bring to this what kind of red like there's a few of

us but I don't come across many atheists and certainly not many people who started out as atheists when they first got into biblical studies I you know I do have some friends and colleagues in the field who used to be Jewish you know

or Christian as in practicing Jewish or practicing Christian um and and Believers you know believe in God um but have lost that Faith that's perhaps more common I think but in terms of like how many of us atheists get into

biblical studies in the first place I can think of only two or three others internationally by me I mean there may well be more but but yeah do Christian Scholars or even in Jewish Scholars of the Bible do you see

them as having sort of blinders on about certain things or are you actually impressed no okay you're shaking your head do you think like what and and how does well how does that manifest itself because I could see myself as a Believer

I would come in like in a way like subconsciously trying to prove things are true or like I would hear maybe something you're saying and be like well there's other Scholars I can get who would disagree with her so let me lean

into that so does it affect them do you see Christian Scholars talking about the Bible and even though they're brilliant researchers that their religious ideology does negatively impact their ability to be you know objective yeah I'd say particularly to Evangelical

Christian Scholars you can um there's a there is a real bias now it's not to say that their scholarship isn't good their scholarship can be great but it's you know any kind of scholarship you know this is about interpretation

you know there are so few hard and fast facts in my field like in any you know any field like archeology or the study of ancient history or ancient religions there are so few known so few certainties that even the way that we

interpret archaeological remains it is highly kind of contentious sometimes um but I would say with even though an Evangelical Christian scholar for example can be brilliant a great philologist so somebody that studies um the nature and and relationships between

words and their meanings and texts and their languages and you often find that Evangelical Scholars like philology because they like to think that if they can decipher this ancient text and they get into some kind of divine truth but I think that

helps people hide because quite often it means that people doing that kind of close critical textual work don't have to engage with the bigger questions about historicity about ideology about politics and and social changes um and so yeah quite often I think

some Scholars who are also big big Believers and are rather fundamentalist in their own personal confessional perspectives I think can often distort or disregard the opinions of of other Scholars because it doesn't work in their favor so let's talk about some of

the things that they might want to disregard and you know I saw you on this this Australian uh Chat Show and it was one of the moments I was like I got to speak to Francesca and you were talking about

Moses and you basically said well Moses probably didn't exist in the the host seemed kind of a little bit stunned and you could tell it felt like something really controversial and I was like there's no way that's true like the camp

and this is you know after I was you know quite deconstructing my faith and all that and then you go in in your book and got an anatomy you kind of say you know historically at best consigning Abraham Isaac Jacob Moses and even David

and Solomon to the Realms of fable and at work to sheer fantasy like is is that talk a little bit about that you know are you saying that they didn't probably didn't exist and if so how do you know

that or why what makes you think that I'm I'm saying that because we just have no evidence and what I mean is it's not just that we don't have inscriptions that have come up you know on ancient texts dug out the ground that sort of

say Abraham was here or Moses was here you know like we just there is no evidence for the texts that talk about these characters the earliest that these these Traditions could have been written is much much later centuries after the period and you

know that these types of scribing and so and you're looking at the kind of the socio-economic um material context in which you know the conditions the social conditions for kind of writing these sorts of stories could emerge now some people say oh what

about oral tradition again oral tradition is impossible to to track how do you how do you find proof of oral tradition so there is no strong evidence to support a lot of those traditions in the Hebrew Bible that talk about Origins and

ancestors so a lot of the stuff that we find basically in the Torah so from Adam to Abraham to Noah to you know Moses like there's none of those events whether it's flood or whether it's a mass Exodus from Egypt into Canaan

there's no archaeological evidence for it um and so you know we do something like David we've got one reference to the base diabetes the the House of David in an 8th Century subsequent is the 9th century text um an inscription but even then it

refers to you know it it could it refers to if it does refer to the dynasty of David doesn't necessarily mean to say that David himself existed um you know it could be that this we know that there was a royal house later

on certainly by that point that was referred to as the House of David because we have you know lots of other sorts of um evidence that would support that kind of socio-economic uh set up but so it's kind of like what kind of

evidence do you want so is it a question of probability yeah possibly David existed I think probably not but Abraham Moses Noah no absolutely you know these are mythological legendary figures and here's a question for you though because would people of ancient

times around the same time Jesus was alive my next question is did Jesus exist don't I won't spoil that yet but um presuming he did exist people around did they so you're saying they were probably myths for them in a way or they

wrote about them and like they were part of their stories and amalgamations to tell their kids around the campfire whatever and we're looking at it now being like yeah it's David they were this was David they were talking about

you know what I mean like did they believe they were true or use them you know what I'm saying yeah it's an interesting question did the ancient people believe in their myths well what do we mean by that yeah yeah they that

they believe I mean I think we have a very different view of both time and history as modern people and and particularly when things are written down in a very authoritative text it must be true we know now I mean look at

all the debates that are going on about you know Ai and all this kind of stuff yeah we know not to trust what's written down whereas you know even 30 years ago something was written in a newspaper you

know represent newspaper you'd kind of believe it was true but we know not to trust written sources but those kinds of questions I think are questions um and assumptions that we we bring as modern people did ancient people believe

what was I mean they had such a different I'm not saying they were wholly unlike us they were very similar to us in all sorts of ways you know they could feel the same emotions and passions and pressures that we do but

but they also had a very different view of the world so did they believe that say Abraham existed probably but but that sense of a common ancestor um that that that's really you know we find that in cultures all over the world

do they think but would they have said oh yes Abraham was around in you know the early Bronze Age or the middle Bronze Age I mean they wouldn't have had that kind of sense of time of almost time so did they believe in these

stories they were probably just as skeptical about some things as as we would be in the sense you know manner falling from Heaven well how come that doesn't happen for us we're in the middle of a famine that's you know right

that would be nice yeah so you're saying basically in the Bible yes you see the name written but outside of that if you're trying to like triangulate your sources or something you just don't find much evidence if at

all for some of these figures outside of just the Bible that's basically like the gist of it it's not until we get to around the 9th century BCE and we have um annals and various text inscriptions from the great Mesopotamian Empires and

the Egyptian Empires but mainly the Mesopotamian for the Assyrians and the Babylonians that they verify some of the names for example of various Kings of Israel and Judah you know so we know that okay King monaster yeah we know that he was a

seventh century King King Hezekiah yeah we know because these are all referenced in Assyrian texts but yeah that kind of external corroborating evidence we just don't have anything like that prior to I say some Scholars say the 10th Century BCE but we're much firmer

ground when we talk about the 9th century BC okay and so that would come to the to the main man Jesus Christ the guy that got you into it someone who has inspired me growing up and still I find to be

extremely fascinating individual did Jesus Christ exist um a guy a guy who knows Jesus I don't think he would have been called Christos um you know which means Messiah I don't think that that labor would have been used to him at the time I I doubt that

very much um but yeah some guy on whom you know that we now know as Jesus of Nazareth probably yeah probably existed um he was probably executed by the Romans um that's that's as much as we've got and we'd base that on probability

because simply because the extent to which given the very short relative very short space of time in between when these Paul was writing so say mid 50s um CE then the gospels as we know them in the New Testament were written so say

that late first century early second century CE you know given that period of time when these texts were written it seems unlike you know some people said oh it's unlikely that somebody would invent this kind of guy this inspiring

what teacher kind of a rabbi figure some kind of you know sectarian leader um who would then kick off in the temple and be executed by the Romans you know that kind of seems plausible um so probably yeah but we don't have any

but again we don't have any corroborating evidence from the first century BCE and sorry the first century CE outside of the text that we now find in the New Testament nothing that's it so yeah there's a couple of you know

some people say oh Josephus makes a reference um there's a lot of that looks like quite a problematic and there's a lot of debate scholarly debate around the reference to this Jesus movement in Josephus because it looks like it could be a later

insertion into some of those manuscripts right um I heard in another interview you did where you talked about sort of Jesus being sort of like this minor cult that just happened to do better than all the other minor Cults of the time are there

other people that we know of that are around roughly the same time who are basically making similar claims but just have been long forgotten to history is that is that sort of a fact yeah yeah I mean and and not just not just within a

Jewish context but also within a you know what we might call a gentile context so kind of like in Roman era Egypt in Roman era Greece in Roman era Italy there are all sorts of other kind of miracle workers and inspiring kind of

teachers and healers and people that are set to have resurrected from the dead you know there are lots of other kind of characters around at the time and maybe even this John the Baptist guy perhaps he was was originally some kind of

imagined to be some kind of um Divine or sort of semi-divine man who you know we find you get little hints in the gospels themselves and then some of the New Testament text that there was a tradition in which you know Herod um is

worried about you know John the Baptist resurrecting from the dead because he was so powerful you know he hasn't beheaded but what if he still comes back from the dead so it was kind of this was a world in which these sorts of things

they were still amazing and wonderful and incredible and Sensational but there were quite a few people that were like going around having all these kind of wild claims made about them so for if you would ask me now and

potentially to embarrass myself in front of a scholar like yourself I would say well the reason it took off was it got kind of picked up by the Roman Empire it became politicized and it spread that way and that gave it that early seed

that allows it to be what it is today which is I think you'd probably agree in you know it's a phenomena that it's became so big and still is so relevant like you said that's why you studied the

Bible and that's why you're fascinated by but is that how you'd understand it because the Christian part of me they grew up would be like well because it was the truth and it was spreading and like but when you look at it from a cold

cold hard like historical facts is that really what it has to do with just that it became so politicized I think partly because it became very politicized but partly because partly also because it was um it was appealing

to a quite a broad range of of people so particularly the sorts of ideas that we find in again the letters of Paul you know he's writing primarily he's not writing primarily to Jewish Jesus Believers he's writing primarily to

Gentile um communities who some of whom have Jewish Origins but some of whom don't and so I think it's appealing in that sense um it's got more of a Mass Appeal than you know it's not kind of a very

insular kind of exclusive cult if you like but I think also because writing was you know the ways in which these stories were being transmitted and circulated this is the invention of the Codex like you know so what we know is a

book so rather than writing on massive huge expensive very expensive to produce leather you know parchment Scrolls you're now writing on you know on much easier to transport and transmit um texts like Bits of Paper like a and

that's kind of folders again like a book so that makes it easier as well but also I think what seems to have been like at the kind of heart of a lot of the early Jesus movement teaching is the sense that the end of

the world was about to come and people are like oh okay the end of the world this is this is huge like the Heavenly realm is going to crash into the Earthly realm this is going to be it but but we

are going to be but if you believe if you follow this kind of path your body is going to be completely transformed we're going to have these Immortal Everlasting bodies the in heaven and Heaven is is going to be you know the

Earth will be no more we are going to be in heaven forever and so I think that idea that the you know Chris the early generations of Christians really believe that the world was about to end they were waiting for it they were ready for

it that's why Paul again spends a lot of time saying don't bother getting married and having kids because you know everything's going to end and we're going to have these Immortal bodies you know we're not going to have to

reproduce in order to keep existing down the generations we are just going to exist forever in heaven as these Immortal kind of beings and I think that's a very attractive and you know frightening but I think that's a very

attractive kind of idea if you think the world is going to end then yes sign up for this because this is the thing that's going to save you right you know it must it's not surprising of course that you're sort of controversial

and like you know piss a lot of Believers off because you're talking about these things and just trying to be honest about what's there um does it it must make sense to you that it's kind of scary to have your

whole world view rocked by historical facts do you think people sort of just avoid reading scholarship like yours or would just deny to their deathbeds the kind of things you're saying because it's kind of scary is that something

that you've sort of realized and encountered that the kind of stuff you're talking about is so foundationally shaking and could really alter someone's perception of reality yeah I mean I think that partly explains why I get you know I get a lot of hate

mail um and some very you know a lot of death threats and rape threats and and all that kind of stuff um and like by email or just people oh my God social media sometimes delivered to my work address

um you know but like and I think partly I mean it's always horrible to to encounter um but like I think partly the violence of that response is reflects a fear a real fear that somebody and it's normally that I mean again I'm so sorry

but it's normally Evangelical Christians that send me this stuff but I think the violence of their response to me reflects just how frightened they are by these by these ideas you know they accuse me of blasphemy and all various

other things but actually what it's doing it it reflects their deep-seated insecurities about well what if it's not true what if what if this is not you know the reality what if my ideas about the world and and the next life are not

are not real um and I think so in that sense I think yeah I think people can be frightened but then there are some Evangelical for example some Evangelical people like some scholars in my field who are perfectly able to kind of almost do this

kind of double think where they have their faith and and you know they're very secure in their faith um and they could still undertake really good critical scholarly work that that does you know that does perhaps challenge um their ideas but I think the whole

point of faith is that from what I understand of it as an outsider Faith isn't about faith is Faith I mean the whole that the word says it it's about does even if the whole everything tells you all the evidence points to something

being the opposite you just believe it nonetheless and that's what faith is it's a commitment um and so you know those people that find that difficult to do are the ones I think who who um find it problematic find me public I

want to shift and talk about how this modern way of looking back I think has become so problematic and I think part of that is kind of creating dogma and hard line around sort of the inerrancy of the Bible for example and you talk a

lot about you mentioned in your book God Anatomy too about how like none of these texts came in their sort of original form they've been amended they've been edited and I think some of that maybe in a progressive way about understand

always wrestling with the text and sort of changing it and I remember there was a guy interviewed on on this site as well named Rob Bell who's a Christian I don't know if you've heard of him you wrote a book called love wins and when I

asked them what's the Bible he was like well it shows the evolution of man's thinking of God right the sort of hateful Angry God leading up into sort of the more more understanding maybe you don't like that but to me to me I I like

that in a way that he's trying to express an idea that we're we're growing in our understanding of like not as a primitive sort of like Angry God and understanding sort of but but on that point of like do you think how did when

did we get to a point where people stop realizing that we've been wrestling with these texts and trying to change that what do you think are the important sort of historical moments that sort of cut off that intellectualism that did I

believe exist in Christianity I think I mean firstly yeah well you didn't like you didn't like what Rob Bell said so why not yeah I really don't like tell me because I hear this so often because firstly it's it's very

anti-semitic it's caricaturing the god of the Hebrew Bible as somehow this is a bad primitive unsophisticated violent Angry God where and it implies that this kind of evolution into the new into the New Testament texts where you've got you

know that's a God who is loving and kind and forgiving it's all of the things that you find that the New Testament is essentially all these kind of teachings that Jesus said to have given and that his various disciples

said to have given about the nature of God himself about um how you treat other people about sort of all of the good fluffy stuff is directly recycled from Hebrew Bible texts you know Jesus and and the first

Christians if you like were Jewish they are simply reworking traditional Jewish teaching and in the Hebrew Bible God is equally forgiving and loving and kind and gentle and tender and intimate um equally in the New Testament it's not

just this kind of fluffy forgiving loving God have you read the book of Revelation that is fierce that is about violence and destruction and this is God you know and Jesus himself wielding The Sword and cutting down people so so

firstly it's an anti-semitic Trope to say that there's an evolution in the Bible from the nasty god of the Hebrew Bible to the loving forgiving God of the New Testament it's anti-semitic secondly the notion of an evolution is really so

sorry I'll see if you're quite quite worse about it I love it I love it the notion of evolution as well I just find that you know we talk about this I I find it really problematic when people assume they're

ancient that societies and civilizations that came before us or somehow different from our own are somehow unsophisticated or primitive or they they're just there are so there are different ways of being in the world there are people and communities today

um traditional indigenous communities for example who have a completely different way of being in the world a completely different way of understanding what is a person um you know what is it uh what is the relationship between a person and an

animal you know are they the same or are they different or do they change there are different ways of being in the world and to assume that our own Western inflective perspective is somehow more evolved or more sophisticated I think

it's terrific it does a huge disservice to people of the past or people that just live differently from us and that's why that that's why those uh that's why that annoys me yeah and I hope I didn't mischaracterize

what he told me all those years ago I think I have to double check exactly but I think you're right but but in saying you're like you've heard that before it's not like I just said that new riff

like I've never heard that and this is my rep um but I think yeah on the on the idea of of biblical inerrancy and that it's it's literal and you don't change it you don't touch it was because you were

saying before like for example Genesis 1 it blew my mind to learn like obviously it's a Jewish poem and the way it's written and the way that certain words are used it's a poem it's not supposed to be taken as history

that blew my mind and the people of the early you know biblical days and early Jewish Christians or whatever would have known that would have never thought this is supposed to be history this is telling us a deeper meaning it's

mythology but so like I did that blew my mind like you know in my 30s right I'm thinking I was some educated person so when did we get to a point though what were the what was the key historical

moment where we kind of stopped understanding what the Bible was and just made it all about science and its fact and this is a guidebook and don't rest don't wrestle with this book really and don't change it I think I think it's hard to sort of say

you know was there a particular historical moment I think there are lots of different episodes along the way that kind of have contributed to that that kind of view within certain circles of Christianity in which you just assume

that this is an inerrant text but one of the earliest is when I think when early Christians so I'm talking about in the first kind of say four centuries of Christianity when they start to canonize text in other words when we start to get

the Canon what are what is the list of authoritative texts and one of those texts that we know there are so many more gospels circulating so many more lives of disciples and Saints and blah blah blah so many more stories about

Jesus as a child and all this kind of stuff that didn't make it into the New Testament they were deliberately rejected for various reasons so I think when you kind of get this decision like you know as I said this was like in the

first three to four centuries of Christianity what which the text that they're in and which the texts that are out that's that's the beginnings of saying these are legitimate these are authoritative and those other stories about Jesus and whoever else are not

authoritative that's when you start to get the language of like well these are pseudopicital texts you know these are not really proper texts these are kind of apocryphal stories so that's an early stage if you like but we know that these

manuscripts so for example in the Gospel of John that very famous beautiful story about um the sinful woman the adulterous woman who has brought to Jesus and a group of men say you know we're told in the Torah

that that a woman like this should be stoned to death and Jesus says let she you know he who without saying costs the first stone I'm really sorry about this noise oh I didn't even hear it it's my

cat okay great so that story about Jesus and his Ultras women that doesn't appear in the earliest manuscripts that we have of John that's a later insertion you know possibly put in around 300 and something so that was circulating later

but but separately independently of the rest of the this material in the Gospel of John so that's an example that shows you how fluid these textual Traditions Were You know despite the way I like to say the sixth Century CE that story is

now firmly embedded within the manuscript edition of the authority of manuscript version of John's gospel but we know that in earlier centuries it wasn't it's the same thing like with the book of Isaiah some of those texts from

the from the Dead Sea so the qamran you can see on the Isaiah scroll where things that now that would later appear as in full text main text in the book of Isaiah appear only in the margins on

these Scrolls they've been they're kind of later editions that gradually work their way into being main texts later on so once you get the idea of a canonized collection of texts text begin to stabilize but they were very fluid

before that but I think that's an important point at which you start to say this text is true and authoritative and that text is not does that yes oh totally and I was wondering because I've heard this I

heard a really brilliant lecture like by a Christian person that I love very open-minded very Progressive maybe like his name is Richard Rohr maybe you've heard of him he's very popular and he was talking about the the Bible where

Christians worship the Bible and that's a problem because he talked about the enlightenment a little bit like in during the Enlightenment time and maybe you can fact check this and maybe this isn't a period that you're super focused

on but just the idea of like Enlightenment came along we turned to reason we turn to signs and Christians were watching this being like well what do we have to show as our authoritative thing the written word was very popular

then obviously and they said well this is the Bible this is our science this is our thing what do you know and can talk about how the enlightenment sort of allowed Christians to double down an idea that didn't make sense

I think the idea that I mean and the enlightenment was drawing on a particular on all sorts of different streams of of much older Greek philosophical tradition but it was drawing very much on ideas of rationality and reason

um and process and categorizing things and kind of anatomizing things and sort of classifying and so I think in that sense the idea that there is somehow um right and wrong truth and falsehood um became much more established as a

kind of scientific um reality you know so even if you think about it today I mean look at the way that science is treated now I'm very pro-science you know I certainly believe in in evolution in that sense and I

certainly you know believe that you know um that life came to being from some kind of you know incredible Stella Big Bang or whatever so I'm I don't doubt science but what I do notice is that sometimes science is kind of assumed to be its own

kind of gospel truth you know can you prove it well no we can't prove everything of course we can't you know and science is a is a process of kind of repeating the same experiment over and over and over again to see if you get

the result but it all depends on the questions that you ask it all depends on the experiment that you perform so I think that sometimes science it's almost become that science has become the Untouchable kind of is the new sort of

like it's the new icon the new kind of if science says it's true then it must be but we know that scientific theories are overturned often and they're and they're reworks but that's the point of science the point is to keep testing

theories until they fold or break and then you know to find the new theory that explains that but I do think that yeah that Enlightenment from the enlightenment onwards I do think we have this sense in which somehow reason and

rationality and Truth somehow becomes the polar opposite of faltered and fantasy and story and myth whereas actually maybe maybe you know our own realities are somewhere in between yeah fascinating um on the top of your book God and

Anatomy again another thing where I was like how do we not know this or how do we not talk about that growing up about you know early Christians in in the god of the Bible you know very clearly had a

physical body which just stands in the face of the idea that Jesus is like the physical representation of God and that God and the Holy Spirit are very not things that you can put and don't look like us so talk a little bit about that

like how you came to this this scholarship on thought that was important to write about and why you think it sort of shocked so many people like who who would have known that it was right there in the text the whole

time I think because um you know I noticed it is even when I was an undergraduate I noticed that you know I was reading these biblical texts and there were very clearly references to God's body and God's body parts you

know we've got references to his feet and his hands and his face and his breath and his nose and his belly and you know and and yet I noticed that a lot of the when I was at University a

lot of my lecturers and professors you know and I was you know these are very serious people I was at Oxford but a lot of them it was almost like it was like special pleading like you know this isn't the same way that

the ancient Greeks believe that their gods you know were corporeal beings you know yes ancient Greek gods were often human shaped but you know but but the way that the Yahweh is portrayed in the Bible isn't quite the same you know this

is poetic this is allegory this is metaphor and I was like well how come it's it's you know fine to say the ancient Greeks believe that their their gods had human-shaped bodies but it's not fine to say that ancient yahweisers

believe that their deity had a human-shaped body it's the same thing it's the same stuff and it's most ancient cultures in this part of the world at that time understood that that deities had human-shaped bodies or more importantly that humans had god-shaped

bodies and so I kind of thought why is there still this kind of special pleading and it's because later Judaism and Christianity insists on the incorpore reality and the immateriality of the god of the Bible whereas the Bible itself it doesn't have that issue

that's been those later theological preferences have been retrojected back onto the text by by Scholars and commentators and interpreters and theologians and that had become the norm and people didn't realize that they were viewing these texts with these kind of

distorted glasses so that's why I wanted to write the book to say look how much fun this is for a star you know biblical writers don't really have a problem with God having a body the point about God

having a body and almost what's Sensational in the biblical stories themselves isn't that he's got a body it's that he occasionally allowed some people to see it or see parts of it um and that's the key thing you know an

unseen body is not the same as um a non-existent body right when it comes to the Divine so as what you're saying is or one way to look at it would be we're seeing the references to the feet and the hands and the body and the

skin and all these different things but we were just like oh that was a metaphor they were using and we've just totally continued to miss is that sitting here to say but why yeah but why why why do

we assume it's a metaphor we don't assume it's a metaphor when you've got texts from very similar period a very similar Place using exactly the same language we wouldn't say oh they they just thought that that was a metaphor

because in these ancient cultures these people actually you know they created statues and figurines of their gods and goddesses who were human shapes that so when they say you know I walk it I look upon the face of God what they're

referring to is it becomes this kind of ritualized formulaic language but it's referring to going into a temple or a sanctuary and seeing the cult statue of the deity in front of you so you know the very fact that we've got these

explicit prohibitions in the Bible saying you shall not make an image of of the Divine kind of suggests that that's exactly what people were doing um so you know you only tell not to do something if they're actually doing it

and so that would have been the kind of historical reality of early Yahweh worship and even when you get the you know even when early Yahweh worship kind of as it kind of moves on and as people become more and

more uncomfortable with the idea of actually having a material image of God the notion that he has a body remains so even the rabbis you know who are writing up until the 6th Century CE they're still they're even more kind of explicit

and comfortable and colorful about God's body they're talking about God walking around the ruins of the temple and weeping and kissing its Broken Walls and wearing a professional on his head and I mean they're really comfortable with it

what I find fascinating about history is like what's it like is there like one dude presumably who was just like no we're changing that and just happened to be powerful at that time because if you're saying everyone believes it

everyone that's how they conceive and then all of a sudden there's just this it's just it just maybe it's not overnight but it just ends and then people's is it does it happen like is it politics is it power that you would say

ideas like this change but that thing but I don't think we can even talk about everybody I mean all we have are the the texts and the inscriptions that we found and those text inscriptions usually come from particularly when it comes to yoga

worship relatively High status Elite context so they're not representative of the views of everybody so for a really good example when you read the Bible you would think that there was only one Temple of Yahweh and that was in

Jerusalem and you would think that by the 5th Century BCE um after the Babylonians have destroyed the Jerusalem Temple and then it's rebuilt that this is the point at which everyone everybody all Yahweh worshipers now agree okay no more temples here

they're never there's only one Temple it's Jerusalem that's the only place you can worship and yet at the same time we have letters texts written by a community of Yahweh worshipers who had built a temple to Yahweh on the island of elephantini in

the Nile who are writing letters to the priests in the Jerusalem Temple asking them for support and for money there's a Temple of Yahweh archaeologically is there that probably her cult images in it as well and yet you would never know

that if you had the just had the Bible you would think that all Yahweh worshipers now were had no images you could only worship Yahweh and Jerusalem that was it but but that's not the case we know that we know that there was at

this Temple at elephantini later on there was another Temple of Yahweh at leontopolis so it's because the Bible has been privileged as the authoritative source in telling us about the realities of the religious past but it's not the

Bible is offers a portrayal of the religious past it doesn't offer a history of the religious past and even if it tries to it's not a reliable history so it's because of the privileging of the Bible within our own Western

intellectual tradition that leads us to kind of discount or not even look for evidence of diversity in ancient for example interesting one other thing that I found fascinating in the book was this Ashura and that God had had a wife and I thought that's

fascinated that was in that would have been like deleted by the biblical writers are just not included as as part of it if I understood what you said in the book correctly but can you just give us give me a little bit on ashra and

maybe this idea of like it being sort of the roots of misogyny a little bit or this idea of God the father but what if it was God the father and we had God's wife and stuff how that could have

changed things if that had sort of stuck around yeah the short answer is that we have various inscriptions in Hebrew from the 8th Century BC that refer to Yahweh and his Ashura and most Scholars are agreed that um this indicates a pairing of Yahweh

and Ashura now ashra is the Hebrew name of a goddess who was known all across the ancient Levant um and she was often the consul of the high God and it looks like you know we have lots of references to ashra over 40 times

she's referred to in the Bible but she's also always referred to very negatively you know she's a deviant goddess and her worshipers are terrible you know rebellious idolatrous Israelites but we're also told in those same references things like Yahweh says you shall not

put the cult symbol of ashra next to his altar you know we're told about Kings of Jerusalem who put a statue of ashra in the temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem you know so they're kind of admitting that you know they're saying oh this is a

terrible thing that our ancestors did this was really really bad this was idolatrous this was polytheistic it was awful but at the same time they're admitting that ashra was worshiped in the temple alongside Yahweh in Jerusalem so most Scholars now agree that we

should probably consider ashra to have been yahweh's wife and consort and most most deities were high gods were paired up you know with a member of the opposite Divine opposite sex but yeah there's this kind of as monotheism

emerges not a great term but as Monica emerges you know there's this kind of Pantheon reduction and Yahweh becomes the only God and so you have to get rid of all the other gods and goddesses in his retinue and ashra is one of those

victims and but God remains very masculine very male he remains a father he even remains a husband and a lot of that language that's used about Yahweh as a husband or as her father gets kind of transferred to his worshipers

um so it's this kind of gender kind of queering as well that most of the writers um of the Hebrew Bible texts were male and they're writing about men for men um but they cast themselves as the kind

of as the wives of gods um which obviously plays a role in later Christianity when the church becomes the bride of Christ right do you think just the lack of female goddesses that have sort of survived in in Christianity is that played a part do

you think in in sexism and misogyny for example the whole debate about changing the pronouns of God to you I don't say that they talk about God I just don't even say he because it's it's nonsensical to me do you think that for

you know the fact that we got rid of the memory of Asher and these other things is that something to do with patriarchy and misogyny is that or is that kind of hard yeah no absolutely it's played a

huge role in it so you kind of get Echoes of goddess Worship in early Christian Traditions you know like Mary the Mother of God is kind of elevated up to the Queen of Heaven but but you know she is she is kind of this perfect

perfect impossibly perfect kind of woman you know she is not sexually corrupted she's a virgin you know blah blah blah or you know and the other flip side is the other Mary that you get who in later Christianity is vilified as a and

as a prostitute and and so I think you know that that kind of the absence of the idealized female in the Divine Realm um or the kind of virginal kind of sanitized version of the idolized female is really problematic and has massively

contributed not just to to patriarchy but also to misogyny um this kind of fear of women and their bodies and their sexuality and their their personhoods um so yeah I think the world would be a better place if

goddesses were still around but that's not to say that the cultures that had goddesses weren't weren't patriarchal they could still be patriarchal but goddesses could also play a very important role in the lives of these of men as well as women interesting I just

have a few quick wrap-up questions if you don't mind I know yeah so I really I'm fascinated to talk to you just Switching gears a little bit about sort of atheism and the way that God has talked about in the public space and I

know you're an atheist but you don't necessarily identify with the new atheists and that kind of brand of thinking um I'm wondering so people will listen to what we're talking about and maybe hear my perspective in your perspective

is like let's just this is all it's all who cares about it why are we talking about it why are we dedicating resources to it we have the Richard Dawkins the Sam Harris's formerly Christopher Hitchens they present this

sort of militant atheism to try to push the world forward in a way where we don't even need to talk about the Bible in any kind of debate or you know interest that there might have been a God and what is spirituality what is

your take on figures like that who are in The Atheist space and want to sort of rid the world of these kind of discussions I find that I find them really problematic because on the one hand I don't think they

understand religion I mean I think no matter what I think religion is is a part of the human condition I think is a part of it because religion ultimately is about having a social relationship with a non-existent or otherworldly kind

of being or power and that's an incredible thing and that reflects I think our capacity for sociality and Imagination you know we can have relationships with our dead ancestors you know we have continuing bonds with them you know we still go to our

grandmother's Graves and lay flowers and talk at the tombstone and all that kind of stuff that's still a continuing Bond so I think there's something fundamental to Being Human that that that gives rise to religion and religious behaviors and

beliefs so it's not going anywhere so I think people like that are they misunderstand what religion actually is and religion is obviously terrible in all sorts of ways for all sorts of different people but it's not going anywhere and so there is no point in

trying to kind of dismiss it and to kind of ridicule it and not least because you know not all religious people are bad unthinking stupid people you know I know a lot of very deeply wonderful caring fantastic clever people who also happen

to be religious so for a start don't ridicule it don't take the piss don't beat down on people just because they're religious I can't bear that I might not agree with you I might not share your beliefs but I absolutely respect your

right to to have a relationship with another worldly being or power but I think the second reason is that when you've got things like you know not so long ago Donald Trump holding up a Bible and kind of insisting that and

then kind of empowering various conservative Evangelical Christians to take away the rights of women to have abortions when you've got you know religion you can't say anything negative about God or Christianity for example in certain on certain like American TV

stations when you've currently you've got atheists who are being killed in various Middle Eastern and African countries um when you've got people whose sexuality is is becomes Criminal because of what people say the Bible says that in itself means that you need

to take religion seriously and you need to need to talk about it we need to explore it we need to challenge it and we need to engage so those kinds of new atheists I think are are problematic because they don't give religion the

space that it needs in order to in order for us to kind of challenge it to help make other people's lives better and on the flip of that real quick just the idea of the post-modernity debate so Jordan Peterson

for example has become this interesting figure doing this huge series on the Bible on YouTube I don't know if you're like millions and millions of views and he's just talking about it and all that stuff but theory is I understand it is

that post-modernists are sort of throwing out the Bedrock of what made Western modernity the society is so great and part of that is this judeo-christian value so even though he might not be practicing Christian although maybe that's change he still

likes the idea of religion being part of the society because he felt it was like a blue and it sort of sets the foundations for the Western World which he sees as like the Pinnacle I presume of like human development what about

that argument that the Bible in judeo-christian values sort of set the tone for the progress that made us the the rich countries today and the intellectual people of today what do you make of that argument and I mean I it's an argument I mean I I

certainly I I certainly um I mean I would agree only to the extent that yes the Bible as a cultural icon has shaped and continues to shape a lot of the cultural preferences and anxieties that so-called Western societies have so for that very

reason we need to take it seriously whether we like it or not it is now a cultural icon it has shaped much of our world as we understand it but as for Notions this caricaturing of like Western's you know cultural values I

mean there's no such thing as judeo-christian that that's kind of a false hybrid you know there's Jewish or there's Christian um but I I think you know trying to claim some kind of evolutionary model as I said earlier

um I think it's deeply problematic primarily because others and marginalizes and renders deviant people that don't fall into those sorts of categories and for that reason I find Jordan Peterson in all sorts of ways deeply troubling and quite stupid

very just the very very last question we keep calling you an atheist and I think you identify as an atheist but I also know you're associated with sort of humanist groups as well um I don't know if you identify as a

humanist but I'm curious about your world view because the the the very the Evangelical Christian the small-minded Christian might say well you're an atheist so you don't you don't care about anything and you're just like you know a nihilist or whatever but what is

your if is there a world view outside of atheism that you would describe that sort of it gives you hope that makes you excited to be a scholar to to have a family and to to live on this planet how

would you sort of describe that other than just the word atheist oh yeah because I mean the word humanist yeah I mean I'm a patron of humanist UK and and I share a lot of humanist values but I mean humorous values are so are

humorous because they are about ultimately the the social good what is you know doing the right thing not just because it's good for me but because it's good for other people and I would say that essentially what gives me what

makes me excited I guess is this huge capacity we have we are the most highly social species and we cannot Thrive or survive or exist without not just cooperation but really trying to lift other people up and Empower and help

other people that's the only thing that's going to get us through anything on a personal level but also at a community level um and for me that kind of sense of sociality and personhood extends Beyond humans to non-human animals as well um

so yeah for me I I guess it's a kind of an environmental I suppose an environmental worldview in which I see us as a part of this planet and we're all kind of coexisting together and it seems as very clearly evident now with

what's going on with the climate emergency that that you know we need to do what we can to to improve the well-being of all life on this planet not just our own because this is the only planet we've got and this is the

only life we've got so that's kind of my world view guess I like that well I'll end it there right on right on the money for an hour and uh it's so great to meet you thank you so much for your time this

I've been looking forward to this for a while and I find it fascinating I hope this is the first of many conversations digging into your fascinating work oh thank you so much I really enjoyed it awesome foreign [Music]