Aug 27, 2024
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...
Aug 20, 2024
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...
Aug 13, 2024
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...
Aug 6, 2024
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...