Did Jesus Even Exist?
Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman
Chris Huntley
4.8 • 745 Ratings
🗓️ 11 April 2023
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The (considerable) vitriol directed against Bart by theologically conservative Christians is (easily) matched by what he gets from critics on the opposite end of the spectrum --"mythicists" who insist not only that the New Testament is filled with legendary material but that Jesus himself was, literally, a myth: he never existed.
In this episode Bart will explain why -- whatever else you might want to say about Jesus of Nazareth -- historians of all stripes do not doubt that at the least Jesus was a first-century Jewish teacher who was crucified by the Romans.
Are the mythicists -- intent on disproving Christianity -- simply shooting themselves in the foot by taking their skepticism too far?
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 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 |
| 0:12.6 | uncovers the many fascinating, little-known facts about the New Testament, the historical Jesus, |
| 0:18.6 | and the rise of Christianity. I'm your host, Megan Lewis. Let's begin. |
| 0:24.5 | Hello everyone and welcome back to misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman. |
| 0:28.5 | Today we're going to be talking about Jesus. |
| 0:30.8 | Huge surprise given the name of the podcast. |
| 0:33.4 | Was he a real person? |
| 0:34.8 | How do we even know the answer to that question? |
| 0:37.2 | And how far can historians |
| 0:38.6 | trust the sources that they have to rely on when looking at this? But before we get down to business, |
| 0:44.3 | Bart, hello, how are you? Yeah, I'm doing better now. We, you know, at UNC, with COVID, |
| 0:49.7 | they started instituting something they call wellness days. Every now and then in the semester, like three times in the semester, they'll have a day that they just blow off classes. |
| 0:59.7 | And so we had a wellness day yesterday. |
| 1:02.6 | Oh, my God, is that great? |
| 1:04.5 | I normally teach a couple classes on Thursdays, and it was off. |
| 1:09.0 | And, man, it makes a big difference. |
| 1:11.8 | And for the students, too, |
| 1:16.9 | they're just, they're kind of burned out. So yeah, it's a nice thing. So I'm flying high today. |
| 1:23.5 | I feel like this point in the semester is always so hard because you're so close to the finish line and you've been going for so long, but you still have to get that last bit done. |
| 1:25.1 | Yeah, I know. I mean, it's, it's a weird cycle teaching because it just isn't like a normal, like most people's jobs. It's not, you know, it's not a nine to five thing. And it's not a, it's a whole different sequence. And to outsiders, it seems kind of cushy. And I get that, but oh man, it's not. |
| 1:26.6 | Anyway, yeah. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Chris Huntley, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Chris Huntley and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.