Welcome to the podcast Think Bibically, Conversations on Faith and Culture.

I'm your host Sean McDowell, Professor of Apologetics at Halbot School of Theology

Biola University.

And I'm your co-host, Scott Ray, Dean of Faculty and Professor of Christian Ethics,

also at Tabith School of Theology here at Biola University.

We're here today with one of the leading scholars on Jesus in the world.

It's no exaggeration to say that Dr Craig Evans, who teaches at Houston Baptist University,

is one of the most respected,-known and influential scholars on historical Jesus

to talk about a book that he's recently written based on a debate that he had with

Bart Airmen. It's a fascinating book, but first let me just welcome you to show Dr Evans.

Thank you very much. Good to be with you. Yeah, let's just in case somebody's not aware of Bart Airmen,

who is he and why did you choose to debate him?

Now I know five times, but this book is based on one debate with him.

So who is he and why choose to debate him so many times on historical Jesus?

Well, Bart Ehrman at one time regarded himself as an evangelical Christian.

He did degrees at Moody Bible Institute and at Wheaton College.

He then also studied and did his PhD at Princeton under the great textual critic, Bruce Metzger and so Bart ended up on the faculty where he still

is University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill but through a variety of circumstances and he explains them in some of his

publications and in various talks he's given he also has a blog page. He talked about how he eventually lost confidence in scripture and

he also then theologically lost confidence in God and now regards himself as somewhere teetering between agnosticism and

atheism. His story continues to change so it's hard for me to recount it. He lost his faith. He used to say in 2001

I've noticed the more recent publications he's backdating his apostasy into the early 90s so I'm not

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