Season's greetings. Welcome to this within reason Christmas special. I'm

Alex O'Connor. I'm joined today by Bart Erman, an agnostic New Testament scholar

whose previous appearance on this podcast was one of my favorite episodes yet. Today we talk about Christmas.

Historically, was it placed in December to usurp the Roman holiday of Saturnalia, but also

narratively there are two different accounts of Jesus' birth in the

New Testament, which appear to sometimes contradict each other. Also, some of the prophecies

that Jesus is said to fulfill by Matthew are perhaps a little bit dubious.

But should these issues really be a problem for Christians?

Dr. Ermin doesn't think so, and neither really do I. Dr Erman has a number of courses for sale including

did the Christmas story really happen and Jesus the actual son of Joseph. The latter

of these explores the biblical evidence for Joseph

being the biological father of Jesus, rather than Jesus being the result of a virgin birth.

I'll put a link to these courses in the show notes if you're interested in learning more.

I'll also get a commission on any sales so you will be supporting the podcast.

And if you'd like to support the show more generally and receive early access to episodes whenever available you can do so on

patreon.com a link to that is in the show notes as well that said I give to you

Dr Bart Ehrman. Bart Ehrman, Merry Christmas.

Or are you a happy holidays kind of person?

Well, you know, I'm both.

I mean, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays.

I'm a little surprised by people going on about you know keep Christ in Christmas because you know holiday means holy day so why not keep holy in holiday?

It's you know holiday is not like it's not a secular term.

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