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PODCAST

Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman

"Misquoting Jesus" is the only show where a six-time New York Times bestselling 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. The show features Dr. Bart Ehrman and host, Megan Lewis.

history christianity

All Episodes

48:30

New Testament Scholarship for Non-Scholars

Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman ·

2023/08/22

Even though millions of people read the Bible, few know what experts who have devoted their lives to historical scholarship on it have to say or, even more important, why they say it. In this episode we talk about how scholarship on the New Testament has developed over the centuries, decades, and recent years, how critical scholarship actually works to make better *sense* of the NT and opens up important ways of interpreting the text, and whether and how this kind of academic approach to the NT can

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44:47

How did Christianity take over the Roman World?

Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman ·

2023/08/15

Christianity started out with a handful of followers in 30 CE - Jesus' remaining disciples and a few female supporters. But within 300 years there were some 2-3 million Christians in the world, including the emperor of Rome. How did *that* happen? How did an offshoot of Judaism come to take over the world, to the extent that it eventually became the religion of the West for centuries, down to the modern age? The answers are not actually what most people would suspect, and in this episode we lay

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40:46

Where Did the Trinity Come From?

Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman ·

2023/08/08

The idea of the Trinity - that God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit are different from each other and are all God, but there is only ONE God, is a central tenant of Christianity. But most Christians don't actually know what the doctrine really says, let alone where it came from (is it in the Bible?). In this episode we explain the factors that led to the formulation of the doctrine and see why it became so important to Christian thinking. But does it matter that the math doesn't work

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50:52

Did Constantine Really Convert?

Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman ·

2023/08/01

The conversion of Emperor Constantine to Christianity is often pointed to as a turning point in the history of the religion - but would Christianity have continued on its upward trajectory without this conversion? Was Constantine’s conversion one of genuine religious conviction, or was it motivated by something else? Has his conversion been co-opted and over-emphasized by later Christian authors?

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47:48

Is the New Testament Actually Greek Literature?

Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman ·

2023/07/25

The New Testament is often studied in isolation, separated from other ancient writings. How did this division come about, and what do we lose by looking at it as something different? Dr. Robyn Walsh talks about what can be gained from placing the New Testament back into the canon of Classical Literature.

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48:15

Interview With Dr. Josh Bowen

Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman ·

2023/07/18

Many Jews and Christians today are uncomfortable with the views of slavery in the Bible; the practice is simply assumed, it is normally condoned, and it is never condemned. Even so, some Christian apologists argue that the Bible actively disapproves of slavery and was instrumental in opposing it in the modern era. But is that right? In this episode I interview one of the premier experts on the question, Dr. Josh Bowen, who has written two books on the matter; in our discussion he explains what the

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51:10

Creation Myths in the Ancient World

Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman ·

2023/07/11

Readers of the Bible are familiar with the stories of creation in Genesis 1-2, but far less familiar with similar tales from much earlier times in the world surrounding Israel. In this special edition of the podcast Bart interviews Joseph Lam, an expert on the languages, religions, and cultures of the Ancient Near East (and Bart's colleague at UNC), who has just produced a Wondrium Course on the Creation Stories in the Ancient World. Among other things they talk about the reasons for thinking

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41:03

Does Biblical Scholarship Destroy Faith?

Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman ·

2023/07/04

Biblical scholars who approach the Bible from a historical perspective are often accused of working hard to deconvert the faithful. Is that true? Do undergraduates widely abandon their faith once they learn the historical realities behind it? Are professors and authors generally interested in urging their students and readers to abandon their religion? And is there any positive result for faith that can come from understanding historical scholarship? Is it crucial to faith to understand the Bible,

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51:14

What is Gnosticism?

Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman ·

2023/06/27

By far the most mysterious, intriguing, and widely-interesting ancient "heresy" was Gnosticism. But what exactly is it and why does it matter? In this episode we consider the basic ideas that lay behind the Gnostic religions and explore just how radically different they are from the views that came to be regarded as orthodox. How could these religions be considered Christian if they didn't think Jesus' death mattered? How could they consider the God of the Old Testament to be a lower level and

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59:30

Did Scribes Change Luke's Theology?

Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman ·

2023/06/20

Lots of informed readers know that scribes changed their texts of the New Testament -- but do the changes really matter for anything? In this episode we take the unusual approach of looking at textual changes in just one book of the New Testament, the Gospel of Luke, to see how slight (and not so slight) variations in the text can have an enormous impact on understanding the author's message -- involving such things as the virgin birth, the understanding of whether Jesus' death brought an

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42:28

What is Academic Freedom and Tenure, and Why Do They...

Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman ·

2023/06/13

Should the administrators of universities, their alumni, or their boards of trustees have any say in what teachers teach -- for example, in classes about religion? Should they be able to control the classroom in any way? What about the argument that university professors are brainwashing their students to follow their liberal agenda, while hiding behind “academic freedom”? Does the U.S. system of tenure allow professors to say whatever they want, safe in the knowledge that they can never be fired

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50:42

Did Jesus’ Disciples Think He Was God?

Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman ·

2023/06/06

One of the central tenets of many denominations of modern Christianity is that Jesus is God. The Nicene Creed describes him as “of one being with the Father”...but just how old is this idea? If you asked Jesus’ disciples if he was a human or God, would they have affirmed his divinity, or accused you of blasphemy? And if Jesus was divine, then was he considered to be God made flesh, a human who was turned into a divinity, a "super-human" with some divine features…or what?

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50:46

Is the Gospel of John a Forgery?

Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman ·

2023/05/30

Scholars have long argued that the Gospel of John -- named after Jesus' disciple John the Son of Zebedee -- was in fact written by someone else. Only later in Christian tradition was it ascribed to John. In that view, the author himself is not a "forger" -- that is, he did not claim to be a famous person knowing he was someone else. The book was *anonymous*: the author never names himself and so can't be blamed for later readers mistaking his identity. But in fact *is* there evidence that the

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50:43

Did Paul Accept the Teachings of Jesus?

Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman ·

2023/05/23

Many people do not realize just how infrequently Paul mentions the sayings of Jesus himself. And scholars can't agree why he doesn't quote Jesus more. Did Paul not know what Jesus taught? How could he not know? Did he think it wasn't important? Wasn't relevant? Was misleading? Moreover, if we compare what Jesus taught with what Paul taught -- are we even dealing with the same religion. These are some of most important issues confronting a historical understanding of the New Testament and early

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40:23

Is Paul the Founder of Christianity?

Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman ·

2023/05/16

It has long been said among historical scholars that Christianity is not the religion *of* Jesus but the religion *about* him. In this view, Jesus was a Jewish preacher who urged his fellow Jews to repent of their sins and turn back to God by observing what he demanded of them, so they could enter the coming Kingdom. But Christians did not think repentance and obedience could bring salvation at all. It was the death and resurrection of Jesus that mattered. Moreover, it is often said that Paul was

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48:45

Is The Gospel of John Anti-Semitic?

Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman ·

2023/05/09

The Gospel of John is one of the most puzzling books of the New Testament, especially when it comes to understanding its view of Jews and Judaism. On one hand, Jesus is clearly described as a Jew who understands and teaches the law of Moses and who keeps Jewish customs and festivals. On the other hand, the Gospel condemns Jews, makes them guilty for the execution of Jesus, and even declares that their "father" is not Abraham, let alone God, but the Devil. How can one book so fully embrace Judaism

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46:19

Were the Apostles of Jesus All Martyred?

Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman ·

2023/05/02

One of the claims consistently made by Christian apologists is that the apostles who declared that they themselves had seen Jesus after he had been raised from the dead MUST have been telling the truth -- since they all died for their belief. Someone may die for the truth, but who would die for a lie? And ALL of them? That seems completely implausible. Therefore the disciples really were witnesses to the resurrection. In this episode we consider this claim by examining its unquestioned assumption:

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39:16

Was Jesus a False Prophet?

Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman ·

2023/04/25

Historical scholars for over a century have maintained that Jesus predicted that the end of history as we know it was to come in his own generation. Conservative Christians -- laypeople and scholars alike -- have insisted that this is a complete mis-portrayal of Jesus. And many people -- possibly most? -- believe that if Jesus really did preach this message, not only was he obviously wrong but also Christianity cannot possibly be true. A Jesus who was *demonstrably* mistaken about a central element

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53:53

A Ukrainian View of the Apocalypse

Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman ·

2023/04/18

In this episode Bart interviews Ukrainian theologian Mikhail Abakumov, in exile in Poland and involved with humanitarian efforts dealing with other refugees, about how the book of Revelation is interpreted by conservative Ukrainian Christians, who believe that "the prophecies are now being fulfilled." That, of course, has long been the view of American evangelicals and fundamentalists, but standard Ukrainian understandings of what the "signs" are and where they are leading to (and America's role in

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42:36

Did Jesus Even Exist?

Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman ·

2023/04/11

The (considerable) vitriol directed against Bart by theologically conservative Christians is (easily) matched by what he gets from critics on the opposite end of the spectrum --"mythicists" who insist not only that the New Testament is filled with legendary material but that Jesus himself was, literally, a myth: he never existed. In this episode Bart will explain why -- whatever else you might want to say about Jesus of Nazareth -- historians of all stripes do not doubt that at the least Jesus was

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