Christian Monks in a Desert Full of Sound
Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman
Chris Huntley
4.8 • 745 Ratings
🗓️ 11 June 2024
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Most of us think of early Christian monks moving into the desert to escape the chaos and noise of civilization to lead the quiet contemplative life.
In a fascinating study by Kim Haines-Eitzen we learn that in fact the desert was and is unexpectedly filled with sound. Based on her high-tech own recordings in some of the major deserts of the world, Haines-Eitzen, professor of Early Christianity at Cornell, considers the importance of sound and the possibilities of silence, not just for the ancients but for those of us seeking quiet in our own lives.
Here she explains to Bart her findings, based on her new book (which includes access to her stunning recordings), The Sonorous Desert: What Deep Listening Taught Early Christian Monks -- and What It Can Teach Us.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman. |
| 0:06.7 | The only show, where a six-time New York Times best-selling author and world-renowned Bible scholar, |
| 0:12.8 | uncovers the many fascinating, little-known facts about the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the rise of Christianity. |
| 0:20.2 | I'm your host, Megan Lewis. Let's begin. |
| 0:25.2 | I'd like to welcome you to this special edition of the Misquoting Jesus podcast. |
| 0:30.6 | This time, I am not being interviewed by Megan. I am interviewing as someone else, and I'm |
| 0:36.7 | very pleased to be doing this. Today we're |
| 0:39.0 | having an episode that features Kim Haines-Eitzen. She has written a very interesting book |
| 0:46.0 | about sounds in the desert in light of what monks in the ancient world might have been listening |
| 0:53.5 | to when they were off doing their monastic life? |
| 0:57.6 | What were the sounds of the wilderness, the desert like? |
| 1:01.3 | It's a really interesting book. |
| 1:03.0 | I've never heard of anything quite like this. |
| 1:05.4 | And I'm really happy to have Kim on the program with us. |
| 1:08.3 | Kim is the Hendricks Memorial Professor of Early Christianity and early Judaism at Cornell, |
| 1:15.0 | where she has been, I think, basically forever, because Kim was actually one of my first PhD students |
| 1:21.7 | and obviously did extremely well in her program and went on to teach at Cornell, |
| 1:27.1 | where she's been for her entire |
| 1:29.1 | career, where she's chaired the department, and has been very active in life there, but has trained |
| 1:36.2 | both undergraduate and graduate students there. She's authored a couple of books, Guardians of |
| 1:41.3 | Letters with Oxford University Press and the gendered alimcest. |
| 1:46.9 | Kim started out as having a real interest in manuscripts, in written texts. |
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