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What is an apocalypse, really — and why do we keep reducing it to "the end of the world"? In this episode, I sit down with John J. Collins, one of the foremost scholars of ancient Judaism and Christian origins, to discuss his newest book, Apocalypticism as a Worldview in Ancient Judaism.

Collins — who literally helped write the modern definition of "apocalypse" as a genre back in the 1970s — walks us through what fifty years of scholarship (and the full publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls) have revealed about this strange, vivid literature. We talk about Daniel's statue of four kingdoms and the idea of "total history," the myth of the Watchers as an allegory for cultural upheaval, the Persian roots of Jewish dualism, the puzzle of the Son of Man in the Similitudes of Enoch, and why the "end" in apocalyptic thought is never really the end — it's always the doorway to something else: resurrection, judgment, a new creation, life with the angels.

Along the way, we get into trauma and apocalyptic literature, the messy boundary between early Judaism and Christianity, and how geopolitical pressure from Persia, Greece, and Rome shaped the way these texts imagined history and the cosmos.

Whether you know Daniel and Enoch inside and out or you're just apocalypse-curious, this is a rich, wide-ranging conversation about one of the most influential and misunderstood genres in the ancient world.

John J. Collins - Apocalypticism as a Worldview

00:00:00 – Introduction & welcome

00:01:01 – What is an apocalypse? Defining the term

00:02:14 – Building the genre definition: the 1970s SBL project

00:06:39 – How the Dead Sea Scrolls changed the field

00:07:24 – Ongoing debates: does "apocalypticism" even exist as a category?

00:07:42 – Genre in action: the case of Fourth Ezra

00:09:11 – Daniel's statue and the idea of "total history"

00:15:52 – A Persian parallel: the Zoroastrian Bahman Yasht

00:17:47 – Prophecy after the fact (Daniel 11 and vaticinium ex eventu)

00:20:06 – The end isn't the end: resurrection and the afterlife as innovation

00:22:58 – Mythic frameworks: the combat myth (Baal, Yam, and Daniel 7)

00:30:05 – The Watchers as allegory for cultural disruption

00:33:04 – Dualism, Zoroastrian influence, and the Dead Sea Scrolls

00:36:32 – The Visions of Amram and the Melchizedek/Melchiresha figures

00:38:20 – Ascending to heaven: the evolving picture of the afterlife

00:41:51 – Millenarianism and the restoration of Israel

00:43:22 – The Similitudes of Enoch, the Son of Man, and Christian transmission

00:52:06 – Q&A: Was "apocalypse" a category ancient readers recognized?

00:54:47 – Q&A: Reading Daniel through a trauma-informed lens

00:57:12 – Q&A: Thoughts on Michael Heiser's divine council/watcher work

00:59:37 – Q&A: "The time is fulfilled" — Mark, Daniel, and apocalyptic timelines

01:02:31 – The Jewish–Christian "parting of the ways" reconsidered

01:05:31 – Geopolitical fault lines: Persia, Greece, Rome, and apocalyptic literature

01:09:03 – Closing thoughts

Over the first season of Footnote Famous I interviewed 22 Bible scholars, and I read every one of their books cover to cover before we spoke. Some of what I heard confirmed things I already suspected. Five ideas genuinely changed how I read the New Testament — and I haven't been able to stop thinking about them since.In this season one roundup I walk through all five: why the "gospel communities" every seminary teaches may be an invention of 19th-century German Romanticism; why the Christmas story might originally have been about John the Baptist; why the Paul we read could be third-hand at best; why Luke looks like he was reading Josephus; and why "faith" didn't originally mean what Augustine made it mean.Featuring conversations with Dr. Robin Faith Walsh, Dr. James McGrath, Dr. Markus Vinzent, Dr. Steve Mason, and Dr. Teresa Morgan.Full interviews:Ep. 2 — Robin Faith Walsh Ep. 3 — James McGrathEp. 5 — Markus VinzentEp. 10 — Steve MasonEp. 18 — Teresa MorganBooks mentioned (Sponsored Links):- Robin Faith Walsh, The Origins of Early Christian Literature 👉 - James McGrath, John of History, Baptist of Faith (and the popular version, Christmaker) - Markus Vinzent, Resetting the Origins of Christianity and Christ's Resurrection in Early Christianity - Steve Mason, Josephus and the New Testament - Teresa Morgan, Roman Faith and Christian Faith - Paula Fredriksen, Ancient Christianities — not on the list, but everyone should read itQuestions this episode answers:Where did the idea of "gospel communities" come from?Was the nativity story originally about John the Baptist?Have Paul's letters been edited?Did Luke use Josephus as a source?What did the Greek word pistis actually mean?A reconstructed Baptist infancy

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Did the author of Luke's Gospel actually know the geography of first-century Palestine? In this interview, biblical scholar John Kloppenborg — my own PhD supervisor at the University of Toronto — breaks down the evidence that Luke's geography is full of errors, and explains what those mistakes reveal about Luke's sources. Kloppenborg identifies three levels of geographic knowledge in ancient texts: place names, relational knowledge (how places connect), and deep local knowledge. Using this framework, he shows that Luke has genuine local knowledge of sailing routes in the Aegean, only relational knowledge of the Levantine coast, and almost no accurate knowledge of the interior of Galilee and Judea — where Jesus's own ministry supposedly took place.We look at specific geographical mistakes in Luke's Gospel: Nazareth called a "polis" (city) when it was a village of a few hundred people, the feeding of the 5,000 near Bethsaida, and the confused travel narrative in Luke 9–19 where Jesus seems to be in two places at once. Kloppenborg argues this points to Luke using an ancient map — possibly a predecessor of the Tabula Peutingeriana — to reconstruct a journey through territory he had never visited.

Tabula Peutingeriana Interactive Map 🔗PDF of John's Chapter - “Luke’s Geography: Knowledge, Ignorance, Sources, and Spatial Conception.”

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In this interview, I sit down with biblical scholar Laura Nasrallah to discuss her book Archaeology and the Letters of Paul. We explore how archaeological evidence — from manumission inscriptions to ancient toilets — complicates our understanding of slavery, hospitality, grief, and ethnicity in Paul's world, while challenging popular misconceptions about "biblical archaeology." The conversation moves through:- Case studies on enslavement in Corinthians and Philemon- The burdens of ancient hospitality- Grief and loss in Corinth- Ethnic tension in Romans- The question of pseudepigraphy and Pauline authorshipLaura's Book (Affiliate link)

To watch these interview live and engage with my online community on bible scholarship and early Christianity

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What if one of early Christianity's most mysterious documents has been hiding two completely different texts — side by side — for nearly 2,000 years?

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That's exactly what New Testament scholar Alan Garrow argues in his groundbreaking new book The Didache Discoveries. In this interview, we dig into his stunning findings: buried inside the Didache is what he believes is the actual Apostolic Decree — compiled by James the brother of Jesus and the twelve apostles around 48 CE — and a missing epistle of John referenced in 3 John 9.If Garrow is right, this changes how we read Paul's letters, the Synoptic Gospels, and the Gospel of John. It may even offer solutions to the notorious Synoptic Problem.In this conversation we cover:- What the Didache actually is and why scholars have puzzled over it for decades- How Garrow identified two separate hidden documents within it- The Apostolic Decree: what it says and how it functioned as early Christian Scripture- The Missing Epistle of John — and why its discovery matters for understanding Johannine theology- What this means for Paul, the Synoptic Problem, and the development of the New Testament

Alan Garrow's WebsiteAlan's Book - The Didache Discoveries ⁠Get the book here━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Join My Community - SkepeRead My Substack Patreon

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Fake Bible Scholars Are Going Viral. Real Scholars Need to Step Up Child sacrifice, God's wife, & how Bible editors "fixed" them

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I sat down with Dan McClellan — one of the most followed actual biblical scholars online — to talk about how we got here, why it matters, and what real scholarship looks like when it finally shows up to the fight.

We cover:

→ Why "biblical" is a political term, not a scholarly one→ How apologists learned to sound credentialed without being credentialed

→ Why real scholars abandoned the public square — and what it cost us→ The identity politics engine driving Bible misinformation

→ What it looks like when actual scholarship pushes back

→ Dan's new book "The Bible Says So" — and what it gets right that apologists get wrong

Find Dan McClellan on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram

Book: "The Bible Says So" (Affiliate Link)

Podcast: Data Over Dogma

In this interview, I had the pleasure of speaking with Professor Teresa Morgan (Oxford) about her landmark book Roman Faith and Christian Faith: Pistis and Fides in the Early Roman Empire and Early Churches (2015).

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We explore how the Greek word pistis and Latin fides — both rooted in the concept of trust — were used across the ancient Mediterranean world, and how early Christians gradually transformed this everyday language into the rich, complex concept of "faith" we have today. Topics range from Augustine's influential (but limiting) definition of faith, to Paul's "cascade of trust," to the Council of Nicaea's pivotal shift toward propositional belief. Enjoy!

Dr. Morgan's books (affiliate links)📖 Roman Faith and Christian Faith: Pistis and Fides in the Early Roman Empire and Early Churches (Oxford University Press, 2015)📖 Trust in Atonement - God, Creation, an Reconciliation (Eerdmans, 2024

For John, Jesus divine. And makes his followers divineWhat does the Gospel of John actually claim about Jesus — and about everyone else?

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In this conversation, I sit down with Dr. Hugo Mendez (UNC Chapel Hill) to talk about his new book The Gospel of John: A New History (Oxford University Press), and the result is one of the most genuinely surprising readings of John I've encountered.Most readers know John as the gospel that "makes Jesus divine." That's half the story. The other half — the one Mendez argues we've been missing for centuries — is that John's Jesus extends that same divinity to his followers. The logos becomes flesh, yes. But the logos also draws human beings into oneness with God, gives them the glory he had with the Father, and even tells them in John 10, "you are gods."We get into:- Why John is almost certainly the work of a single author (and where chapter 21 gives itself away as a later addition)- How John knew and creatively reworked Mark, Matthew, and Luke — the Lazarus story is a wild example- John's Philonic logos theology and why it isn't yet 4th-century Trinitarian thought- The deification of believers — what scholars have missed about John 10 and John 17- Mendez's argument that humans in John may also be angelified (John 1:51 and the angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man)- Why Mendez calls John the first apocryphal gospel — and how it pioneered the eyewitness-claim playbook later used by Thomas, Mary, and the Protevangelium of James- The Beloved Disciple as a literary device, not John son of Zebedee- How the Johannine epistles and even Revelation may belong to a wider tradition of works imitating the Gospel of John.

Dr. Mendez's books (affiliate links)📘 The Gospel of John: A New History (Oxford University Press, 2025) 📘 The Epistles of John: Origins, Authorship, Purpose (Cambridge University Press, 2026)

Bart Ehrman — one of the world's leading New Testament scholars and a self-described agnostic — makes a surprising argument: the West owes more to Jesus than it realizes. Not for salvation. Not for atonement.

For something hiding in plain sight.

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📖 Love Thy Stranger by Bart Ehrman: (Affiliate Link)🎙️ Bart Ehrman's channel: In this conversation we explore Ehrman's new book Love Thy Stranger: How the Teachings of Jesus Transformed the Moral Conscience of the West — and the historical case that Jesus invented something the ancient Greco-Roman world simply didn't have: the idea that you should care for strangers, enemies, and the poor not because it benefits you, but because they're human.We also uncover one of the most striking ironies in the history of religion: Jesus almost certainly got crucified for teaching that God forgives freely — no sacrifice required. His followers then turned his death into the very mechanism he was arguing against.In this conversation:- Why C.S. Lewis's universal morality argument doesn't hold up- What the Greco-Roman world actually believed about the poor- How Jesus radicalized Jewish ethics through apocalypticism- Why Jesus taught forgiveness — and Paul taught atonement- How Basil of Caesarea institutionalized altruism into hospitals and orphanages- Why an atheist scholar is saying thank you to Jesus

What if the resurrection wasn't the foundation of early Christianity — and most early Christians never even heard of it?

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That's exactly what New Testament scholar and historian Professor Marcus Vinzent argues in his groundbreaking research on Christ's resurrection in early Christianity. And in this conversation, he changed my mind.

In this interview, Professor Vinzent walks through the stunning evidence that resurrection belief was not a universal early Christian belief — but a Pauline belief that slowly spread through the Christian movement and eventually became central to the faith we know today.We discuss:

- Why major early Christian texts like the Didache and Shepherd of Hermas never mention the resurrection

- How Marcion of Sinope may have introduced Paul's letters — and resurrection belief — into mainstream Christianity

- Why the canonical gospels may have been written later than scholars assume

- How theology shaped the resurrection stories, not the other way around

- What "docetism" actually reveals about early Christian controversy

If you've ever wondered where the resurrection story came from, why the gospel accounts contradict each other, or what early Christians actually believed — this conversation is for you.

More From Markus Vinzent

Get the book! Christ's Resurrection in Early Christianity (affiliate link)

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