 Nearly everyone today assumes that Jesus could read and write. But is that historically plausible? There is only one story in the New Testament where Jesus is shown to be able to read (Luke 4) and he is never said to be able to write (except in the story of the Woman Caught in Adultery that was added by scribes only later John 7-8).  In this episode we consider the literacy rates of antiquity (very low!), and discuss who could learn to read and then write, how they were educated, and whether it is likely that an impoverished dayworker from a poor family in a remote backwater of the empire was one of them.

Could Jesus Read and Write?

"Misquoting Jesus” is 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.  The show features Dr. Bart Ehrman and host, Megan Lewis.

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 Many modern Christians think Christians are inherently more moral than non-believers. Non-Christians, as a rule, don't think so. What about in the ancient world?  Why is it that the most widely attested view among ancient pagans was the opposite, that Christians were dangerously immoral reprobates? Why weren't they seen as stalwart proponents of family values?

Were Early Christians Known to Be Moral Reprobates?

 Did Jesus himself think or talk about his imminent sufferings—did he predict his own brutal end, or have those parts been creatively interpreted by later authors to fit a theological agenda?  This episode offers a chance to uncover the layers of historical, religious, and philosophical complexities surrounding these ancient texts.

Did Jesus Have to Suffer? Trying to Make Sense of a Troubling View

 In this episode Bart interviews Jill Hicks-Keeton about her sure-to-be controversial book, recently released: The Good Book: How White Evangelicals Save the Bible to Save Themselves.  We are all familiar with the disturbing parts of the Bible, with it's divinely sanctioned violence from the destruction of Jericho in the Old Testament to the destruction of the world in the New, from the passages that justify slavery to the patriarchal views of ancient Israel and the writings in the name of Paul. How have evangelicals tried to salvage these disturbing passages in order to make them not just tame but "good" for readers today?  Listen to this interview and hear Prof. Hicks-Keeton explain.

Is the "Good Book" Really So Good?

 All the Gospels agree that on the day Jesus was crucified, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body and took it from the cross to bury in a tomb.  What almost no one realizes is that this would have been unprecedented, so far as we know, in the Roman world, where part of the humiliation of crucifixion was for the corpse to be left on the cross to decompose and be ravaged by scavenging birds for days before being disposed of.   Did the Romans make an exception for Jesus? Is that plausible? Or is the story of his burial by Joseph a later legend? This is obviously an issue of enormous significance. If Jesus was not buried that afternoon, how could he have emerged from the tomb "on the third day"? 

Was Jesus Buried on the Day of His Crucifixion

 The Gospels agree that Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus, even if they don't agree on why he did it. But is their view about *what* he did plausible? That he told the authorities where they could find Jesus without any crowds around?  There are, in fact, reasons for thinking that Judas did something far more sinister, that he revealed a key teaching of Jesus gave to his closest followers but he did not proclaim in public.  Did Judas reveal a secret teaching that led to Jesus' crucifixion?

Could Jesus Read and Write?

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