Hello, everyone. Welcome back to misquoting Jesus. One of the things that surprised me, I think the

most when I moved to the United States and started paying closer attention to US politics,

is how much American politicians talk about their personal religious convictions. For a country that

was apparently founded on the separation of church and state, US politics seems to be pretty

deeply enmeshed with Christianity.

Now, Louisiana classrooms are required by state law to display the Ten Commandments, which

definitely seems to be blurring that line just a little bit. Today we're going to be talking

about the separation of church and state what that actually means, and whether it's a concept

ancient Christians would have

recognized. Stay tuned for all of that and so much more.

Welcome to misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman. The only show, where a six-time New York Times

best-selling author and world-renowned Bible scholar uncovers the many fascinating,

little-known facts about the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the rise of Christianity.

I'm your host, Megan Lewis. Let's begin.

It's commonly said that one of the founding principles of the United States of America is the

separation of church and state.

A recent law passed by the Louisiana state government requires all classrooms to display the ten commandments.

Proponents of this call it educational.

Opponents call it blatantly unconstitutional.

We're going to be exploring that in today's episode.

But before we get to all of that,

Bart, hello, how are you doing today? Yeah, doing all right. I'm broadcasting from my

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