Why Mary? What Made the Mother of Jesus so Special? The Proto-Gospel of James
Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman
Chris Huntley
4.8 • 745 Ratings
🗓️ 19 December 2023
⏱️ 41 minutes
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Summary
The Proto-Gospel of James, a kind of "Gospel Before the Gospels," was one of the most influential non-canonical writings throughout the Middle Ages. The narrative does not focus on the life of Jesus but on the supernatural birth, young life, betrothal, and pregnancy of his mother Mary.
From this Gospel come many traditions that remain important in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions (Joseph was an old many; Mary was a perpetual virgin; Jesus' "brothers" were sons of Joseph from a previous marriage); and the accounts it presents -- the miraculous birth of Mary, her upbringing in the temple, the details of her giving birth, and, well, a postpartum inspection to make sure she was a virgin -- are fascinating to readers of any religious or non-religious persuasion.
But what's it really all about? In this special episode, Bart interviews an expert on the Proto-Gospel, Christopher Frilingos, Professor at Michigan State University, in order to find out.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman. |
| 0:07.1 | The only show, where a six-time New York Times bestselling author and world-renowned Bible scholar, |
| 0:13.1 | uncovers the many fascinating, little-known facts about the New Testament, |
| 0:17.3 | the historical Jesus, and the rise of Christianity. |
| 0:20.6 | I'm your host, Megan Lewis. Let's begin. |
| 0:24.6 | I'd like to welcome you to a special edition of the Misquoting Jesus podcast. |
| 0:30.5 | I'm Bart Ehrman. Today I will not be interviewed by Megan Lewis. I will be doing the interview. |
| 0:41.2 | This is the second podcast devoted to a discussion of early Christian Gospels that did not make it into the New Testament that are known |
| 0:47.9 | as infancy Gospels. These are accounts that deal with Jesus prior to his public ministry, one of which the infancy gospel of Thomas is about Jesus as a boy from the ages of five to 12 and the kind of mischievous deeds he was up to as one who had the power of the Son of God, but was not behaving the way you would probably want your own children to behave. |
| 1:11.2 | We talked about that last time, and this time we're going to be talking about the proto-gospel of James, |
| 1:17.5 | which is more about what was happening before the Gospels with the birth of Mary, |
| 1:22.1 | and why she was chosen to be the bearer of the Son of God. |
| 1:26.8 | My guest, again, is Christopher Frelingus, who is an expert |
| 1:31.0 | on both of these Gospels. He has written a book called Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, which is about |
| 1:38.8 | these Gospels and trying to show how we can understand them. A very interesting book that is compelling and rooted in very serious scholarship, but is accessible. |
| 1:50.3 | It's a book you should look into. |
| 1:52.5 | Chris is a professor at Michigan State University. |
| 1:55.3 | He teaches there biblical studies, biblical literature, and the history of early Christianity. He did his undergraduate |
| 2:03.2 | degree here in North Carolina at Greensboro College, and after college he went to the University |
| 2:09.1 | of St. Andrews in Scotland to do a master's degree, and then he ended up here in Chapel Hill |
| 2:15.5 | to do a Ph.D. in religious studies. Chris was my student, |
| 2:20.1 | as he went through his program many years ago now. And he's been teaching at Michigan State for a long time. |
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