Welcome to Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman. The Only Show, where a six-time New York Times bestselling 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.

The academic study of the New Testament is a field unto itself,

historically separated from history, classical literature, and the study of the cultures that

produced it. Modern scholarship, however, has moved toward understanding the Gospels and the other books

of the New Testament as products of the classical Mediterranean world, and more and more seeks

to place them within that cultural and chronological context. My guest today explores the Gospels

as works of literary creativity that are intrinsically related to Greek and Roman literature,

and that by placing them within that literary setting, they can be more fully understood

and appreciated. But sadly can't join us today. He's off in deepest, darkest Cornwall,

trying to pinpoint the last known location of the Holy Grail. Instead, I am thrilled to be joined by

Dr. Robin Walsh. Dr. Walsh, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me here. I'm looking forward to our conversation. It's going to be fun. So for people who are not familiar with you, you earned your MDiv from Harvard and M.D. was awarded also by Brown University, and you wrote on the beginnings of gospel literature. You're currently an associate

professor of the New Testament and Early Christianity in the Department of Religious Studies at

the University of Miami. And very excitingly, you've just published a book titled The Origins of

Early Christian Literature, Contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman literary culture.

It is 2999 from all good bookstores for those who are

interested in reading that. And I've read some of the book and from what I've seen, it's very

much aimed at a non-academic audience. Is that right? I tried to strike a balance between both

so that it would be accessible and interesting and you wouldn't have to be interested in, you know, very minute details about philology or things like that,

but also tried to bring a larger scope to the field for thinking about some of the methodological issues.

So I tried to do both, but I think it's readable.

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