Picture this. A man in his 80s trying to cross the street, but the traffic doesn't pause long enough for him to cross.

A young woman notices his difficulty and runs over to help. Does this woman get any kind of benefit from her action, or is it entirely thankless?

Today, Dr. Bart Ehrman and I are talking about altruism. Is it possible to do a good deed without experiencing some kind of benefit?

Welcome to misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman. The only show, where a six-time New York

Times best-selling author and world-renowned Bible scholar, uncovers the many fascinating, little-known facts about the New Testament,

the historical Jesus, and the rise of Christianity.

I'm your host, Megan Lewis. Let's begin.

Hello everyone and welcome back to misquoting Jesus.

Today we're talking about the concept of altruism, which has been on Bart's mind for quite some time.

I've also got news on some upcoming events, including an Easter-themed two-lector mini-series, which Bart will be teaching.

And for our bonus segment today, Bart is going to be answering some audience questions.

Before all of that, though, Bart,

how are you doing today? You know, I'm doing great. I'm just feeling really altruistic.

The only reason I do the show is just, you know, pure altruism, as we're going to see. How are you

doing? Yeah, also good. I don't know if I'm feeling altruistic, but good. Yeah, positive. It's going to be fun. I'm looking forward to it. You can be altruistic even if you don't feel it. That's true. We'll get into that. Now, before we get into like the real meat of the conversation, could you just define altruism for us?

Because if people don't know what it is, we are not going to be making a whole lot of sense to it.

Yeah. So yeah, okay, altruism. So it actually comes from a Latin word, alter, a L-T-E-R, which means other.

And altruism is a concern for or an action on behalf of another, rather than an action

that's egoistic.

Egoism is our, egoism refers to actions or thoughts or feelings or whatever, referring only to

the self.

From the Latin word ego, I.

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