Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman

How would you respond if I told you that, actually, Judas was the only disciple who understood what Jesus was doing on earth? Or that I said that Jesus is unrelated to the God who created the world? Or that the God who created the world is not the same as the one who created humans? From a modern Christian point of view, those are blasphemous statements - some more so than others, yet they are all...

Writings attributed to the apostle Paul make up a large swathe of the New Testament, and have been of fundamental importance in the development of Christian theology. However, there are some serious questions over whether Paul actually wrote everything attributed to him. What texts do scholars think are not as…legitimate as they could be, and what texts do experts think were actually written by th...

The Apostle Paul is a central figure in early Christianity, and features strongly in the New Testament in his own letters, and as a character in the Acts of the Apostles. But is the Paul of Acts the same man as the Paul of the Epistles? Does the writer of Acts change Paul's character and teachings, and why?

A Second-Anniversary LIVE Q&A! Listeners ask their questions, and Bart tries to answer them. Rapid fire for an hour!

The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles are widely understood to be a two-volume set, written by a single author. Given that we've spoken before on Misquoting Jesus about how difficult it is to identify authors of ancient texts, why are scholars so sure that these two texts share the same author? Who was that author, and why write two books when they could have written one?!

Pontius Pilate is a relatively minor figure in the gospels of the New Testament, but one who plays a vital role as the Roman official in charge of Jesus' sentencing. Given that he's the face of Rome in the New Testament Gospels, he's presented in a surprisingly positive light! The same is true for his appearances in some other early Christian writings. To try and get to the bottom of exactly why t...

The phrase "synoptic gospels" is thrown around a lot in Biblical scholarship, but what does it mean, and why are they important? Are they as similar as people seem to think, and what do non-academics get wrong about them? Today, Megan is joined by Dr. Mark Goodacre, professor of Religious Studies and expert in all things synoptic, to answer these questions and to investigate some of his favorite d...

Many people in the modern western world view reincarnation as a belief predominately from eastern religions - especially buddhism and hinduism. Believe it or not, reincarnation was also a theological concept for some early Christians! How does what early Christians taught about reincarnation differ from what we understand it to be? Was it a common idea, or did those who espoused it receive pushbac...

Welcome everyone to a very special episode of Misquoting Jesus - our 100th episode! In keeping with our centesimal celebration (hey, it's a word!), we're going to be exploring the world of Christianity 100 years after Jesus' death. Was Christianity still a small, persecuted offshoot of apocalyptic Judaism, or had it spread far and wide? Was it still an apocalyptic religion, and what theological di...

The Bible is frequently invoked in the ongoing national debates about abortion, almost always to show that abortion is murder and strictly forbidden. Is that true? This episode is not meant to resolve the issue about whether abortion should ever be considered a legitimate procedure or not. The focus is on what the Bible actually says. Does it condemn abortion? Does it indicate that the fetus is to...

New manuscripts discoveries in Biblical studies are often outed as forgeries, But sometimes -- rarely -- they turn out to be authentic. How do scholars distinguish between fact and fiction, especially when they only have access to photographs or copies? Is it possible for a text to pass all authenticity tests and still be a clever forgery? Today we're back with Dr. Morton Smith and the Secret Gosp...

When a scholar claims to have discovered a new text from early Christianity, it can send shockwaves through the academic community. In the case of the "Secret Gospel of Mark," the shockwaves are still being felt today after over 65 years later. And scholars still can't agree on whether the text in question is authentically ancient, a modern forgery, or something else.  There are huge implications....

Why do so many Christians claim that other Christians are not really Christians? Is there a definition written in the sky somewhere? Here we talk about the history of the problem, from its very beginning. Among other things we'll discuss why some biblical scholars today refuse to use the word "Christian" for the apostle Paul, the members of his churches, and for followers of Jesus in the first cen...

The Antiquities of the Jews, written by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in 93 CE, is our most important resource for knowing about the history of Israel around the time of Jesus and his earliest followers. This twenty-volume work contains two brief references to Jesus himself, and are in fact the only two mentions of Jesus in any non-Christian writing of the entire first century. But there a...

Jesus is usually credited with starting the Christian movement, but were his ideas orignally his? It appears that John the Baptist preached a similar message and that Jesus was originally a follower of his. So who started Christianity? In this episode we consider what we can know about John, why he engaged in his ministry, and what influence he had on his follower Jesus. If John started the moveme...

On today's episode, we explore how people use and, oh so frequently misuse, ancient texts of Scripture to promote their agenda, and consider the question of whether it might help to read the Bible before claiming to know what it says. 

On this week's Misquoting Jesus, we're turning the metaphorical table and Bart is interviewing Megan! Everyone watching is familiar with Dr. Bart Ehrman, renowned New Testament scholar and New York Times bestselling author…but who on earth is Megan? How did she make her way from the study of ancient Mesopotamia to host a New Testament and Early Christianity podcast? If she's an academic, why doesn...

Today we take it for granted that an important and influential person can write. Not so for the ancient world. Would a fisherman from rural Galilee have been able to write well enough to compose whole texts?

For a country that was apparently founded on the separation of church and state, US politics seems to be deeply enmeshed with Christianity. Now, Louisiana classrooms are required by state law to display the ten commandments…which definitely seems to be blurring the lines between church and state! Today we're talking about what the separation of church and state actually means, whether it's a conce...

Were Jesus and Paul were on different pages when it came to the most important issue for them both, how a person can be saved? In this episode, Bart and Megan explore Gospels and the letters of Paul to see where these two pivotal figures share many similar views and yet appear to stand completely at odds on the major question. If they did, then is Christianity the religion Jesus proclaimed or the...

In this episode, Bart and Megan dive into the ancient doctrine called the "Harrowing of Hell," which is still believed by millions today. But what are we to make of idea that Jesus' salvation was universal? Literally everyone gets saved?

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...

Many modern Christians view the Bible as the inspired, inerrant word of God. Is that what its own authors thought? Did the author of Matthew, for example, think the Gospel of Mark was infallible? If so, why did he change it? In this episode we look at the views of the Gospel writers about the inerrancy of other Gospels -- even those also found in the New Testament. 

Many modern Christians think Christians are inherently more moral than non-believers. Non-Christians, as a rule, don't think so. What about in the ancient world? Why is it that the most widely attested view among ancient pagans was the opposite, that Christians were dangerously immoral reprobates? Why weren't they seen as stalwart proponents of family values?