Most scholars write books and articles for other scholars, using jargon and presupposing knowledge available only to experts trained in their discipline. But some scholars write books designed for popular audiences about their fields of expertise. Can non-scholars write books like that? Should they try? Why do most scholars choose not to do so? Are there pitfalls in trying to communicate complex knowledge in simple terms? Is it possible to do so without "dumbing it down"? And why do so many acad...
Oct 03, 2023•45 min•Ep. 50
The New Testament writings were produced decades after Jesus' death, but long before that people were passing along stories about Jesus and devising poems and creeds about their new-found faith. What do scholars know about these Christian traditions that were being passed along and preserved by word of mouth in the years before we had written texts. Scholars call them "oral traditions." How do we know such things existed, and can we be certain that they were passed along reliably before there we...
Sep 26, 2023•39 min•Ep. 49
One of the most intriguing non-canonical Gospels to be discovered in modern times is the Gospel of Peter. Unlike the New Testament Gospels, which were written anonymously (only later to be given the titles Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), this Gospel actually claims to be written by an apostle, Jesus' own right-hand man, Peter. The account we have is only fragmentary, an alternative version of Jesus' trial, death, and resurrection. And what an account it is, involving an actual record of Jesus em...
Sep 19, 2023•48 min•Ep. 48
Many Christians think that a non-Christian simply can't understand the New Testament fully, since they don't agree with it's major teachings. But could an argument be made for the opposite case, that those with a vested in interested in the New Testament as a book inspired by God cannot get beyond their theological assumptions to understand what the text is really saying? It seems like an odd question, but can committed Christians really study their own Scriptures honestly? In this episode we co...
Sep 12, 2023•43 min•Ep. 47
The genius of Luke’s Gospel is frequently overlooked by those who simply breeze through it or assume it is saying the same thing as Matthew and Mark. In fact, it is strikingly different. What especially matters are not so much the contradictions one finds, but the larger picture. Luke has radically edited Mark’s account in places to create a new portrait of Jesus. In this episode we see how he did it and what the end result is. Among other things, when you look carefully at the details of Luke’s...
Sep 05, 2023•42 min•Ep. 46
The Christian faith is rooted in the belief that Jesus died for the sins of the world and was then raised from the dead. But is this what Jesus himself preached during his public ministry? In the Gospels Jesus certainly predicts his coming death, on numerous occasions. But are those saying historical? How would scholars know? What is the evidence both ways? And if Jesus did not anticipate, let alone predict, his death, does that completely undermine the Christian faith?
Aug 29, 2023•40 min•Ep. 45
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 ...
Aug 22, 2023•49 min•Ep. 44
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 ...
Aug 15, 2023•45 min•Ep. 43
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 wo...
Aug 08, 2023•41 min•Ep. 42
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?
Aug 01, 2023•51 min•Ep. 41
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.
Jul 25, 2023•48 min•Ep. 40
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 t...
Jul 18, 2023•48 min•Ep. 39
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 Ge...
Jul 11, 2023•51 min•Ep. 38
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 Bibl...
Jul 04, 2023•41 min•Ep. 37
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 i...
Jun 27, 2023•51 min•Ep. 36
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 atonem...
Jun 20, 2023•1 hr•Ep. 35
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 fire...
Jun 13, 2023•42 min•Ep. 34
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?
Jun 06, 2023•51 min•Ep. 33
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 au...
May 30, 2023•51 min•Ep. 32
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 C...
May 23, 2023•51 min•Ep. 31
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 wa...
May 16, 2023•40 min•Ep. 30
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 Judais...
May 09, 2023•49 min•Ep. 29
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 assumptio...
May 02, 2023•46 min•Ep. 28
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 elem...
Apr 25, 2023•39 min•Ep. 27
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...
Apr 18, 2023•54 min•Ep. 26
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 w...
Apr 11, 2023•43 min•Ep. 25
The Gospel of Mark is completely underrated by most modern readers, who typically consider it a condensed version of Matthew or Luke -- a nuts-and-bolts no-nonsense account of what Jesus said and did with no literary flair. Oh boy are THEY ever wrong. In this episode Bart explains why Mark is not only his favorite Gospel but also his favorite book of the Bible, a book with subtleties, nuances, and intricacies from start to end that most people simply never see and that make all the difference fo...
Apr 04, 2023•59 min•Ep. 24
Most people think that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. Others say she was Jesus' closest disciple (and the Gospels have covered it up). Yet others go even further to suggest they had an intimate relationship -- or even were married! Is any of that possible? If possible, is it true? In this episode we look at what we can actually know about Mary Magdalene and her relationship with Jesus.
Mar 28, 2023•42 min•Ep. 23
A person’s reasons for deconversion from Christianity to agnosticism or atheism is something that many christens speculate wildly about, misunderstand, or simply refuse to believe, but those reasons can be varied and complex. In this episode, Bart talks to Megan about why he de-converted, how he found meaning after religion, and why he does what he does.
Mar 21, 2023•43 min•Ep. 22
One of the few ways people today actually appeal to the Old Testament is to condemn same-sex sexual relations (while they ignore much of everything else it says). Such people usually take it as obvious that the New Testament condemns them as well. But DOES the Bible condemn homosexuality? As it turns this a lively debate among biblical scholars, and the dominant view among critical scholars is not at all what you might expect. Their reasons for holding this view is even less widely known. In thi...
Mar 14, 2023•49 min•Ep. 21
