Welcome to the Gospel Coalition podcast, where we help to renew and unify the contemporary church in the ancient gospel.

On today's podcast, Sarah Ekoff Zylstra interviews Michael J. Kruger about skeptic and New Testament

scholar Bart Erman. Kruger responds to Erman's argument that we can have Christian ethics

without Christianity. During this Easter season, New Testament scholar and atheist Bart Erman

has been making headlines again. He just

released his latest book, Love Thy Stranger, How the Teachings of Jesus transformed the Moral

Conscience of the West. Last week, New York Times columnist Ross Douthett interviewed Erman

on his podcast and he asked him about his book and why he didn't believe in God.

So I'm going to give you a little bit of backstory here.

Erman grew up in an Episcopalian home and had a born-again experience when he was in high school.

And from there, he studied the scriptures intensely, attending Moody Bible College and Wheaton College

before he did some master's degrees and a PhD at Princeton Theological Seminary.

Along the way, he moved into mainline Protestantism. So he started with evangelicalism,

kind of more fundamentalist, moved into mainline Protestantism, and then slowly stopped believing

in the Virgin Birth, Jesus' miracles, and the physical resurrection. Around 30 years ago, Erman deconstructed

completely, and these days he writes and teaches on why the New Testament is riddled with errors,

why God cannot exist, and why, despite all that, Jesus had some pretty good teachings. I'm Sarah

Zylstra, and I am here to talk with Mike

Kruger about that. Mike is also a New Testament scholar who teaches at Reformed Theological Seminary.

His research has focused on the transmission of the New Testament text and the development

of the New Testament canon. And one reason he does that is because long ago he was sitting in a freshman class at the University of the University of the New Testament canon. And one reason he does that is because long ago, he was sitting in a freshman class

at the University of North Carolina, and Bart Ehrman was his professor.

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