Can Christians Study the New Testament Honestly?
Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman
Chris Huntley
4.8 • 745 Ratings
🗓️ 12 September 2023
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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 consider the issue from several angles, not by assuming that outsiders are necessarily "objective" (is *anyone* objective?) but by thinking through the complications of the matter.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman. |
| 0:07.0 | The only show, where a six-time New York Times bestselling author and world-renowned Bible scholar, |
| 0:13.0 | uncovers the many fascinating, little-known facts about the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the rise of Christianity. |
| 0:23.8 | I'm your host, Megan Lewis. Let's begin. |
| 0:27.7 | And welcome back to misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman. |
| 0:32.3 | Today we are talking about studying the Bible as an historical document as opposed to an article of faith, something that biblical scholars generally aim for. |
| 0:35.9 | This is obviously easier for academics who are agnostic, |
| 0:39.0 | atheist, or follow a different religious tradition. But how do Christian scholars treat their |
| 0:43.4 | own religious text as the object of academic study? And does this make them any less of a committed |
| 0:48.6 | Christian? Before that, though, but hi, how are you doing today? Yeah, I'm doing fine. We started classes this week, and I'm teaching two undergraduate classes. |
| 0:57.4 | For me, they're small classes, 24 students each. One is just first year students, and one is |
| 1:04.2 | for anybody. One is on the Christianity in the second and third centuries. The other is |
| 1:09.1 | Jesus and scholarship and film, which I love. |
| 1:13.1 | The thing is that I've had a lot of colleagues over the years who look on teaching as kind of |
| 1:18.2 | the way that they can get into the research. Like they do it because it allows them to be research |
| 1:25.0 | scholars. And I've never seen it that way. I mean, you know, |
| 1:28.2 | I obviously love research, but for me, teaching undergraduates is the perk. This is like, |
| 1:33.5 | this is the perk of the job. It's just so much fun. So I'm having a great time with it. |
| 1:38.9 | Do you get a decent mix of students from across different disciplines when you teach these more |
| 1:43.4 | general classes? Very few religious studies majors. A number of students from across different disciplines when you teach these more general classes? |
| 1:48.5 | Very few religious studies majors. A number of students are just taking it because they're interested in the topic. In my class with my first year students this year, I asked them, |
| 1:53.2 | how many of you were warned not to take this class? About six people raised their hands. |
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