History for Atheists

My very special guest today is Professor Bart Ehrman. Bart will need no introduction for most people, but in case you aren’t aware: he is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of over 30 books on early Christianity and New Testament studies, including the best sellers Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who C...

My guest today is Dr Dan McClellan. Dan is the presenter of the Data over Dogma podcast and a public educator who has won the Society of Biblical Literature's 2023 Richards Award for Public Scholarship for his YouTube and TikTok videos on the academic study of the Bible. He is also the author of The Bible Says So: What We Get Right (and Wrong) About Scripture's Most Controversial Issues...

My guest today is Dr Thomas C. Schmidt of Fairfield University. Tom has just published an interesting new book through Oxford University Press: Josephus and Jesus – New Evidence for the One Called Christ. In it he makes a detailed case for the authenticity of the Testimonium Flavianum; the much disputed passage about Jesus in Book 18 of Flavius Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews. Not only does he a...

My guest today is Dr Ada Palmer, Associate Professor of Early Modern European History at the University of Chicago and author Inventing the Renaissance: Myths of a Golden Age. I must say I haven’t enjoyed reading a book as much as this one in quite some time. Dr Palmer takes the traditional idea of the Renaissance – that it was a glorious rebirth of reason, artistic mastery and secular thinking af...

My guest today is Dr Nathan Johnstone. Nathan is the author of the excellent 2018 book, The New Atheism, Myth and History: The Black Legends of Contemporary Anti-Religion. Like me, Nathan is an unbeliever. And, like me, he has been concerned at the way many of our more anti-theistic fellow atheists have misused history in their arguments. His book covers many of the same examples of this as the ar...

My guest today is Dr David M. Perry . David is a medieval historian and author of several books, including The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe and the forthcoming Oathbreakers, both co-authored with Matthew Gabriele. He has taught medieval history at Dominican University and is currently the Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies at the University of Minnesota. The Bright Ages s...

My guest today is Dr Kipp Davis. Kipp is a biblical scholar and an expert in early Jewish literature and history, with a focus on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He earned his Ph. D. from the University of Manchester (2009), has held several professional academic appointments in Europe and North America, and has published widely on the topics related to the Bible, its creation, development and transmission...

The story often told about Hypatia of Alexandria was that she was a great scientist, rationalist and scholar who was brutally murdered by a mob of Christians who hated her knowledge and learning, with her death ushering in the Dark Ages. But this story is mostly nonsense and the real history is far more complex and much more interesting. Contrary to the myths, she was not a modern-style scientist,...

My guest today is Dr Philipp Nothaft. Philipp is a Fellow of All Souls Oxford and a historian specializing in astronomy, astrology and calendars in late antiquity, the Middle Ages and early modern Europe. He’s also the author of a key paper on the question of why Christmas falls on December 25th, which is our main topic today. It’s often claimed in pop history that Christians stole a pagan feast d...

My guest today is Professor Ken Dark. Ken is Visiting Professor at King's College and formerly Professor of Archaeology and History at the University of Reading. His archaeological work has focused on Late Antiquity and the Byzantine Era, but, as he and I will discuss, this led him to study sites in Nazareth which will be the focus of our discussion today. His analysis of these sites is the f...

Both conservative Christians and many atheist activists point to 1Corinthians 14:34-35 and note how Paul forbids women to speak in church. The Christians do this to maintain that women should not preach and cannot be pastors or priests. The atheists usually do so to hold this up as evidence that Paul was a misogynist and Christianity is inherently sexist. But did Paul really write this? And was it...

Some atheists and even some prominent scientists claim that the Black Death was caused or at least made worse by a wholesale massacre of cats ordered by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. But is this true? And where did this strange story come from?

My guest today is Sebastian Major, writer and presenter of the excellent "Our Fake History" podcast. Sebastian recently presented a three part episode on the Galileo Affair, debunking the many historical myths surrounding Galileo. He did a fine job, but he also took on board some criticisms I had of what he said. And so he was also happy to come on "History for Atheists" to dis...

The idea that all the traditional holidays and festivals of the year are “pagan” in origin and were simply “stolen by the Church” is one that has permeated popular culture and is repeated without question in newspaper, magazine and online articles. Unfortunately, many anti-theistic polemicists cannot resist a chance to get in a jab at any aspect of Christianity being “really pagan”, so every Octob...

My guests today are David Hutchings and James C. Ungureanu, co-authors of Of Popes and Unicorns: Science, Christianity and How the Conflict Thesis Fooled the World . David is a physicist, science teacher and writer and James is a historian of science and religion. In this interview we discuss their book and the origin and impact of the Conflict Thesis - the pervasive but erroneous idea that religi...

Every year fundamentalist Christians, New Agers, neo-pagans and many atheists loudly agree that Easter was not originally a Christian feast and was a pagan fertility festival stolen by Christianity. Unfortunately, despite what endless memes and pop history articles claim, this idea is complete nonsense. So is the claim that Easter eggs and the Easter Bunny are also originally pagan. Easter, Ishtar...

My guest today is Derek Lambert, the presenter of the excellent Mythvision video channel. Derek has been kind enough to have me on his channel several times over the last two years to discuss atheist bad history in general and Jesus Mythicism in particular.  But today we are going to hear from Derek about his very interesting personal journey regarding his thoughts and conclusions about the histor...

The historical myths surrounding the emperor Constantine, his conversion to Christianity and the claim he created the Bible at the Council of Nicaea are persistent and continue to be propagated in popular culture, despite being total nonsense. Unfortunately, leading atheists also perpetuate these silly ideas, with everyone from Richard Dawkins to Joe Rogan insisting that Constantine was not really...

My guest today is Associate Professor Ted McCormick. Ted is a specialist in intellectual history and the history of science at Concordia University in Canada. He examines the intersections between science, technology, economy and empire in the early modern era. Recently, he has taken an interest in how the concept of “the Enlightenment” has been taken up as something of an ideological cause by som...

My guest today is the historian of science, Thony Christie. Thony is an independent scholar based in Germany who also the author of the superb Renaissance Mathematicus   blog.  His knowledge of the history of Early Modern science is vast and so he is the perfect person to give us a detailed overview of what happened and, more importantly, what did not happen in the dispute between Galileo and the...

My guest today is the historian of science, Thony Christie. Thony is an independent scholar based in Germany who also the author of the superb Renaissance Mathematicus   blog. His knowledge of the history of Early Modern science is vast and so he is the perfect person to give us a detailed overview of what happened and, more importantly, what did not happen in the dispute between Galileo and the C...

My guest today is the historian of science, Thony Christie. Thony is an independent scholar based in Germany who also the author of the superb Renaissance Mathematicus   blog.  His knowledge of the history of Early Modern science is vast and so he is the perfect person to give us a detailed overview of what happened and, more importantly, what did not happen in the dispute between Galileo and the...

What was the Great Library of Alexandria and why does it feature in some anti-religious rhetoric? In this second part of a two-part episode, we will look at how the Great Library came to an end. And then examine how the myth that it was "burned down from Christians" arose and why this story is nonsense.

What was the Great Library of Alexandria and why does it feature in some anti-religious rhetoric? In this first part of a two-part episode, we will examine some of the misconceptions about the Great Library, look at what it was and - more importantly - what it was not.  And in the upcoming second part, we will explore how the Great Library came to an end and the enduring myth that it was burned do...

Cambridge University historian Dr Seb Falk joins History for Atheists to discuss his book "The Light Ages" and misconceptions about science in the Middle Ages. His book is available from various vendors and comes highly recommended: https://www.sebfalk.com/the-light-ages ​