Ever wondered what Mary, the mother of Jesus, was really like—beyond the nativity scenes and stained glass? This week, Megan Lewis sits down with Dr. James Tabor to dig into the life of the "woman behind the Messiah," exploring surprising theories about Mary's origins, her possible royal and priestly lineage, and her true role in the earliest days …

Mary's virginity is a central tenet in most (or all) Christian denominations - but when did the story develop? Today, Dr. Bart Ehrman joins me to talk about where the idea of a virgin birth might have come from, and when it was first introduced into the Christian canon.

Did you know that the "Christmas story" everyone knows, with the shepherds and wise men, is actually an amalgamation of the accounts in the gospels of Luke and Matthew? Today, Dr. Bart Ehrman answers my questions about the inconsistencies in these two narratives, and whether they can be reconciled.

We have hundreds of manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark, and no two are exactly the same. From spelling errors to deliberate, theologically-driven changes, each scribe put their own mark on the gospel. Today, Dr. Bart Ehrman joins me to discuss the hows and whys of these rewrites.

We often talk about copies of the gospels, how different manuscripts differ from one another, and the implications of these differences - but we rarely talk about the original gospel manuscripts. Today on Misquoting Jesus, Dr. Bart Ehrman joins me to discuss what an original text actually is, and why they matter.…

The Catholic tradition considers the apostle Peter to be the first Pope and the founder of the church in Rome, but what does the historical record say? Today, Dr. Bart Ehrman joins me to discuss where this idea came from, whether Peter was ever in Rome, and what historians know about the founding of early churches.…

Gnosticism is one of the most confusing and enigmatic early Christian groups, whose beliefs were considered secret knowledge meant only for a select few. Today, Dr. Bart Ehrman answers my questions about what Gnostics thought about Jesus - where he came from, what he was doing on earth, and whether or not he was divine.…

Have you ever submitted a question to the Misquoting Jesus podcast? Ever heard the answer? Today, Bart and I are going to be doing an entire episode covering listeners questions on the topic of the apostle Paul - keep listening, and we might get to yours!

There are several resurrection stories in the New Testament - including, of course, Jesus himself, but what about the mass resurrection in the gospel of Matthew? Today, Dr. Bart Ehrman joins me to discuss why the righteous were raised from the dead when Jesus came for sinners, and what happened to them after their resurrection.…

Marcion, founder of the 2nd century Christian group imaginatively called the Marcionites, had some beliefs that would be cause for stoning in the Life of Brian. This week, Dr. Bart Ehrman joins me to talk about what those beliefs were, Marcion's own personal gospel, and what other christians thought about it.…

The gospel of John doesn't mention Jesus' birth from a virgin, doesn't show Jesus' baptism by John, and does absolutely nothing to keep his identity secret - not even don a pair of glasses. This week, Dr. Bart Ehrman joins me to explain why the gospel of John is so drastically different to the rest of the new testament gospels!…

If Genesis 1 is an account of the creation of the world, why is the world recreated in Genesis 2? Dr. Bart Ehrman joins me to talk about whether these accounts can be understood as one story, or if something else is going on.

Why on earth would someone study the scripture of a religion that they don't even believe in? Today, Dr. Bart Ehrman joins me to explore that very question!

Mary is known in the canonical gospels as the virgin mother of Jesus - but what else did early Christian writings say about her? Dr. Bart Ehrman joins me today to talk about the Proto-Gospel of James, and what it says about the mother of Jesus!

Have Christians always believed the Bible contains no errors or mistakes, or did this understanding develop over time? Dr. Bart Ehrman joins me to talk about the Christian view of biblical inerrancy!

Understanding where the writers of the gospels got their information is the foundation of source criticism - but how does that work when the original sources are hypothetical? Dr. Bart Ehrman is here today to talk about the Q source!

Even though it was the religious text of Jesus, the Hebrew Bible is consistently overlooked by many Christians. Which is a shame, honestly, because it's a fascinating collection of literature and an incredible historical document. Luckily, today I'm joined by Dr. Joel Baden, expert in the Hebrew Bible, to talk about exactly what it is, and how a gr…

The first gospel recording Jesus life wasn't written until approximately 30 years after his death. Dr. Bart Ehrman is here to tell us why it took so long for pen to be put to paper, and how this impacts their use as historical documents.

If the accounts of Jesus' life found in the four gospels contain contradictions, how can we know what the historical Jesus actually said and did? Dr. Bart Ehrman explains how scholars sort historical truth from theological fiction!

As an historian, I'm pretty much always interested in ancient writing. Give me a document written a few thousand years ago, and I'll be entertained for hours. My guest today is similarly minded, except his passion for the Gospel of John has sustained him for the last decade. Today, Dr. Hugo Mendez joins me to talk about why he thinks the Gospel of …

Just how many ways can one person explain how Jesus' death and resurrection saves humanity? In the case of the apostle Paul, the answer is probably more than you think! Why explain it in one way when you can confuse everyone and use exactly the same terms to mean totally different things? Today, Dr. Bart Ehrman is here to clear things up for me - a…

As an apocalypticist, Jesus was anticipating the end of the political system he was living under - but was he trying to hasten that end by plotting the violent overthrow of the Roman state? Does Jesus' outburst in the temple and eviction of the money-lenders indicate a willingness to embrace violence to enact change? Why were his companions armed i…

"But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed." That's a passage from the book of Isaiah, and I can't read that without my brain screaming "it's Jesus!" to me… but does it actually predict Jesus' crucifixion, or did Jesus come to be und…

Has Christianity been a net positive or negative for humanity? If you wander into an online debate between an atheist and a Christian apologist, you may hear an enthusiastic discussion on just this topic, with the Christian arguing that Jesus' teachings led to the development of charity, hospitals, and orphanages - among other things. Are claims li…

Jesus' ethical teachings are often touted as being revolutionary in the ancient world. The pagan cultures that preceded Christianity are commonly understood as being immoral, full of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. Well, 2 out of three isn't bad… But just how close to historical reality are these views? Today, Dr. Bart Ehrman joins me for the first …

One of the main tenets of Christianity is Jesus' divinity - most denominations hold him to be fully divine (and also fully mortal, but what's a whole other conversation). History is littered with humans who claimed to be gods - think Egyptian kings, for example. Is this something that applies also to Jesus? Was he walking around, telling people tha…

What if everything you thought you knew about the origins of Christianity was just one version of a much wilder, more chaotic story? In this episode, Megan Lewis and renowned scholar Paula Fredrickson dive into the glorious mess of competing beliefs, hidden gospels, and theological squabbles that shaped the first 500 years of Christianity. From gru…

Visions of supernatural beings or places are relatively common in the bible and early Christian writings - from wheels within wheels, to visions of the risen Jesus, to trips to the afterlife, writers record a whole array of fascinating experiences. Today, Dr. Bart Ehrman joins me to talk about one of the less flamboyant, but nonetheless intriguing …

The Sermon on the Mount is probably one of the best-known speeches of Jesus, and if you've spent any time in a church service, then the odds are that you've heard at least part of it. It contains the beatitudes - "blessed are the meek" - the Lord's Prayer, and a whole host of teachings that are held sacred by Christians the world over. But… did the…

Today's title may seem a little bit odd - how many Jesuses are in the NT? I'm sure there are going to be several comments on YouTube from people who didn't stay to watch the episode because the answer is clearly "one". For those who want to see where we go with this, Dr. Bart Ehrman is going to be answering my questions on the different ways early …

If you have a passing familiarity with the Christian Bible, then you probably know that it's split into two parts - the Old and New Testaments. The New Testament is the part with all the stuff about Jesus, while the Old Testament is drawn largely from Jewish religious scriptures. Today, Dr. Bart Ehrman is joining me to talk about why early Christia…

In the modern Western world, monotheism is the rule, rather than the exception. Not so in the ancient past, where many cultures worshipped whole pantheons of gods, each one responsible for specific areas of the mortal experience. How does the one god of Israel compare to this myriad of deities, and can an understanding of how ancient mediterranean …

If you've ever done any research on the Bible - and if you're listening to this podcast, you probably have - you might have noticed that most biblical scholars agree with each other on a lot of basic points. These include the dating of texts and whether specific events recorded in the Bible are historical, among other things. Why is that, and is it…

Seeing or hearing a Bible verse being pulled out of a hat to support someone's argument is a common experience for many people. Homosexuality is wrong because the Bible says so. Satan is the bad guy because the Bible says so. Women should wear modest clothing because the Bible says so. But does the Bible say so? My guest today, Dr. Dan McClellan, i…

Demons and ghosts have specific, sometimes ambiguous, places in the modern imagination - demons tempt people to wickedness, but their incredible power can be harnessed by someone brave (or stupid) enough to bargain with them. Ghosts envy the living and can haunt and harm you, but can also be the comforting presence of a long-dead loved one. What ro…

With Easter fast approaching, the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus are on the minds of many Christians. While it has been a lynch-pin in Christian theology since the formation of the religion, Christians - both early and modern - disagree on how it happened, why it happened, and the implications it has for human life after death. Today, Dr. Ba…

Unless you have sworn off social media, you're probably familiar with the existence of "tradwives" - women who live their lives according to traditional, conservative gender roles. They often describe themselves as living biblically, or having a biblical marriage, celebrating that they are subservient to their husbands. Today, Dr. Bart Ehrman provi…

It's not every day that you get to talk about an exciting new discovery in biblical studies - the ravages of time mean that it's rare for a text to survive, especially a complete text! Even rarer is a complete text that records an entire sermon given by Jesus. Well, I'm excited to say that today is one of those days! Dr. Bart Ehrman is with me to t…

If you ask any Christian about the life of Jesus, you're likely to get a version of one of the gospels of the New Testament - 90% of the story would concern the final few years of Jesus' life, with a brief mention of his birth in Bethlehem to a virgin and the subsequent flight to Egypt. Historians don't often talk about what Jesus' childhood and ad…

Early Christian writings from outside the New Testament contain some pretty unexpected material - a giant walking, talking cross and Jesus' childhood pastime of bringing clay birds to life are both examples that we've discussed before. But do these additional documents also contain authentic sayings of Jesus that are overlooked by Christians becaus…

Picture this: a man in his 80s trying to cross the street, but the traffic doesn't pause for long enough for him to cross. A young woman notices his difficulty, and runs over to help. Does the young 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 …

The apostle Paul went from being a devout Jew, one of God's chosen people, to an enthusiastic missionary for the Jesus movement. Today, Dr. Bart Ehrman and I look at Paul's writings to consider whether this shift also changed his self-identification as a Jew, and if he believed that God no longer favored the Jewish people.…

The fear of death is an experience common to most of humanity - in fact, one of the oldest pieces of literature, the Epic of Gilgamesh, shows one man's struggle with that very fear. Christianity's promise of heaven provides a safe haven from that fear - but what did Jesus think about life after death? Today on Misquoting Jesus, Dr. Bart Ehrman disc…

Today on Misquoting Jesus, we're talking about what "born-again" means, how a born-again Christian considers themselves different from other Christians, and what Jesus would have thought about the whole thing. As a former born-again Christian, Dr. Bart Ehrman is here to explain all of this and more!

Knowing when something was written helps to better understand answers to other questions - like why it was written, and how it relates to other texts from that time. Unfortunately, ancient authors rarely wrote the date at the top of the page when they started writing, which makes working out when something was written a somewhat challenging process…

If I start talking about "the law", many of you are going to have certain ideas pop into your heads - a police force, trials, prison. But what about if I'm talking about the law in a religious sense? Maybe you'll think of the ten commandments, veiling women, or practices of abstinence. Today, Dr. Bart Ehrman talks about the Jewish Law as presented …

The disciples were Jesus' closest companions during his ministry, the collective Robins to his Batman. As such we might expect them to be more enlightened, more intelligent, more attuned to God's divine plan than other people Jesus' came across. The Gospel of Mark, however, seems to defy that expectation. Today, we talk about how the author of Mark…

The question of how much of the Bible is historically accurate, and how much is myth or legend, is both interesting and important to a lot of people - believer and atheist alike. Some insist it's accurate down to the last detail, while others label it as fairy tales from beginning to end. In this episode, Dr. Bart Ehrman unravels how scholars disti…

Start talking about the Gospels, and most people will have a rough idea of what you're talking about - a narrative account of Jesus' life. Today, however, we throw all of that familiarity out of the window and talk about one of the most non-Gospel Gospels I've ever read, the enigmatic apocryphal Gospel of Thomas!…