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Footnote Famous
Footnote Famous episodes
- 1.16 Bart Ehrman - Jesus' Revolutionary Teaching
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.
Watch This Instead
📖 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
56 min - 1.15 Markus Vinzent - Was a Resurrection a Fringe Early Christian Belief?
What if the resurrection wasn't the foundation of early Christianity — and most early Christians never even heard of it?
Watch This Instead!
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)
Follow Markus & Team on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@Patristica
Markus' Academia Page
1 hr 3 min - 1.14 Tucker Ferda - Did Jesus predict his second coming?
Did Jesus actually predict his own second coming — or did the early church invent it?
I sat down with Dr. Tucker Ferda (Pittsburgh Theological Seminary) to talk about his book "Jesus and His Promised Second Coming: Jewish Eschatology and Christian Origins" — and what I found was one of the most honest and challenging historical arguments I've encountered.
Watch this interview instead
📖 Tucker's Book: Jesus and His Promised Second Coming: Jewish Eschatology and Christian Origins (Affiliate Link)🎓 Tucker's Faculty Page: 📄 Academia.edu:
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📱 FOLLOW FOR MORE
- YouTube: @cjcornthwaite
- Instagram: @cjcornthwaite
- Website: cjcornthwaite.com
- Email: [email protected]
🎙️ FOOTNOTE FAMOUS
Conversations with the world’s top scholars of the Bible and Christian origins.
🔗https://www.footnotefamous.com/
SUPPORT THE CHANNEL
Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/FootnoteFamous
YouTube Memberships - C. J. Cornthwaite - YouTube
Book a 1:1 Conversation With Me: https://www.cjcornthwaite.com/book-online
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1 hr 8 min - 1.13 John Nelson - What did Jesus look like?
Why don't the Gospels describe what Jesus looked like?Every ancient biographer described their subject's physical appearance — except the Gospel writers.
Want to watch this instead?
In this interview, we explore:- Why the silence on Jesus' appearance is MORE surprising than you think- What ancient "physiognomy" reveals about how Greeks and Romans read bodies- The suffering servant problem — why early Christians struggled with an "ugly" Jesus- How clothing in the Gospels reveals Jesus' radical social message- The emperor cult and why Jesus' appearance inverts Roman power- What the transfiguration almost — but doesn't quite — tell us📖 John Nelson's Book: "Jesus' Physical Appearance" - (Amazon Affiliate Link)John's blog - Behind The Gospels
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📱 FOLLOW FOR MORE
- YouTube: @cjcornthwaite
- Instagram: @cjcornthwaite
- Website: cjcornthwaite.com
- Email: [email protected]
🎙️ FOOTNOTE FAMOUS
Conversations with the world’s top scholars of the Bible and Christian origins.
🔗https://www.footnotefamous.com/
SUPPORT THE CHANNEL
Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/FootnoteFamous
YouTube Memberships - C. J. Cornthwaite - YouTube
Book a 1:1 Conversation With Me: https://www.cjcornthwaite.com/book-online
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1 hr 23 min - 1.12 Richard C. Miller - Are the gospels historically accurate?
Are the Gospels historically accurate? In this conversation with Dr. Richard C. Miller (author of "Resurrection and Reception in Early Christianity"), we examine the evidence that biblical scholars use to evaluate Gospel reliability—and why most historians don't treat them as eyewitness accounts.
WATCH THIS INTERVIEW ON YOUTUBE
Dr. Miller's Book:
Resurrection and Reception in Early Christianity (Amazon Affiliate Link)🔍 KEY TOPICS COVERED:- Why biblical studies has been "sequestered" from normal historical methods- How ancient biography actually worked (vs. modern assumptions)- The Julius Proculus parallel: Roman "eyewitness testimony" that evolved over centuries- Why gospel writers had no interest in historical accuracy- The translation fable pattern across Mediterranean cultures- What "son of god" actually meant in the Roman world
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📱 FOLLOW FOR MORE
- YouTube: @cjcornthwaite
- Instagram: @cjcornthwaite
- Website: cjcornthwaite.com
- Email: [email protected]
🎙️ FOOTNOTE FAMOUS
Conversations with the world’s top scholars of the Bible and Christian origins.
🔗https://www.footnotefamous.com/
SUPPORT THE CHANNEL
Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/FootnoteFamous
YouTube Memberships - C. J. Cornthwaite - YouTube
Book a 1:1 Conversation With Me: https://www.cjcornthwaite.com/book-online
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1 hr 25 min - 1.11 Kipp Davis - Forged Scrolls, Antiquities Trafficking, & Modern Relic Hunting
WATCH ON YOUTUBE
Kipp's Book - (affiliate link)
Dr. Kipp's YouTube
IN THIS EPISODE
- How private collectors paid millions for forged fragments
-The telltale signs of Dead Sea Scrolls forgeries
- Table salt crystals as smoking gun evidence- How Museum of the Bible acquired forged Dead Sea Scrolls- The Daniel Wallace "first century Mark" debacle (turned out to be 3rd century)- Josh McDowell's mummy mask destruction scandal- Southwestern Seminary's $500K+ mistake- Why evangelicals are particularly vulnerable to antiquities fraud- The "modern relic collecting" phenomenon- How to spot forged biblical manuscripts━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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📱 FOLLOW FOR MORE
- YouTube: @cjcornthwaite
- Instagram: @cjcornthwaite
- Website: cjcornthwaite.com
- Email: [email protected]
🎙️ FOOTNOTE FAMOUS
Conversations with the world’s top scholars of the Bible and Christian origins.
🔗https://www.footnotefamous.com/
SUPPORT THE CHANNEL
Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/FootnoteFamous
YouTube Memberships - C. J. Cornthwaite - YouTube
Book a 1:1 Conversation With Me: https://www.cjcornthwaite.com/book-online
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1 hr 17 min - 1.10 Steve Mason - Josephus, Jesus, and Luke's Sources
Who was Josephus? What does he say about Jesus? And did the author of Luke-Acts copy from Josephus? I sat down with Steve Mason, one of the world's leading Josephus scholars, to investigate the evidence.
Watch this interview instead
What we uncover is remarkable: the same unusual Greek terminology, the same historical figures mentioned in the same configurations, and historical "mistakes" in Luke that only make sense if the author was working from Josephus's account.
📚 EVIDENCE COVERED:
- The Quirinius census problem (and why it matters)
- Judas the Galilean and Theudas
- why Luke gets them backwards
- "The Egyptian" and the Sicarii - a smoking gun?
- Why Luke calls the Pharisees "the most accurate school"
- The mysterious Lysanias of Abilene
Steve's Books
- Steve Mason, Josephus and the New Testament (Affiliate Link)
- Steve Mason, "Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing, Judaism: Problems of Categorization in Ancient History." (That Famous Paper)
My Article on Jews/Judaeans - Wayward Jews, God-fearing Gentiles, or Curious Pagans?
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📱 FOLLOW FOR MORE
- YouTube: @cjcornthwaite
- Instagram: @cjcornthwaite
- Website: cjcornthwaite.com
- Email: [email protected]
🎙️ FOOTNOTE FAMOUS
Conversations with the world’s top scholars of the Bible and Christian origins.
🔗https://www.footnotefamous.com/
SUPPORT THE CHANNEL
Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/FootnoteFamous
YouTube Memberships - C. J. Cornthwaite - YouTube
Book a 1:1 Conversation With Me: https://www.cjcornthwaite.com/book-online
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1 hr 17 min - 1.9 Paula Fredriksen - The First 500 Years of Christianities
Paula Fredriksen joins me to discuss her new book "Ancient Christianity: The First 500 Years" - a masterful overview of how diverse early Christian movements evolved into the institutional church.
Watch the interview on YouTube instead.
Professor Fredriksen (Boston University) is one of the world's leading scholars of early Christianity, Paul, and Jewish-Christian relations. Her previous books include "Paul: The Pagans' Apostle" and "When Christians Were Jews."In this conversation, we explore:- How Jewish scriptures in Greek shaped early Christianity- The surprising diversity of second-century Christianities- What we actually know about early Christian persecution- Constantine's complex relationship with the church- Apocalyptic expectations and their evolution- Asceticism, celibacy, and religious authority
Paula Fredriksen, Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years (Affiliate Link)
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📱 FOLLOW FOR MORE
- YouTube: @cjcornthwaite
- Instagram: @cjcornthwaite
- Website: cjcornthwaite.com
- Email: [email protected]
🎙️ FOOTNOTE FAMOUS
Conversations with the world’s top scholars of the Bible and Christian origins.
🔗https://www.footnotefamous.com/
SUPPORT THE CHANNEL
Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/FootnoteFamous
YouTube Memberships - C. J. Cornthwaite - YouTube
Book a 1:1 Conversation With Me: https://www.cjcornthwaite.com/book-online
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1 hr 10 min - 1.8 Harry Maier - Finding the stuff Paul didn't write
Why do biblical scholars say Paul didn't write half the letters attributed to him? I sat down with Dr. Harry Maier, from Vancouver School of Theology, to understand exactly how scholars determine authorship of ancient letters—and why some of Paul's letters are considered "disputed."
Want to watch this instead? Find the video here!
Dr. Maier's Academia page - https://vst.academia.edu/HMaier
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📱 FOLLOW FOR MORE
- YouTube: @cjcornthwaite
- Instagram: @cjcornthwaite
- Website: cjcornthwaite.com
- Email: [email protected]
🎙️ FOOTNOTE FAMOUS
Conversations with the world’s top scholars of the Bible and Christian origins.
🔗https://www.footnotefamous.com/
SUPPORT THE CHANNEL
Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/FootnoteFamous
YouTube Memberships - C. J. Cornthwaite - YouTube
Book a 1:1 Conversation With Me: https://www.cjcornthwaite.com/book-online
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1 hr 3 min - 1.7 Anders Peterson - The Bible, Chimps, Human Evolution, & Staying Christian
Anders Petersen (University of Aarhus) bridges evolutionary biology and New Testament studies to argue that religion functions as emotional investment in shared symbolic systems rather than abstract belief. We discuss why humans aren't naturally social (unlike bees or ants), how pistis means "faithfulness" not "faith," why the Gospel texts are myths rather than historical records, and what it means to embrace Christianity as a 21st-century tradition rather than returning to Jesus's original religion.
Links
- Prof. Petersen's Academia page
- The Emergence and Evolution of Religion (Edited Volume - Affiliate Link)
Anders Klostergaard Petersen is professor and chair of research at the Department for the Study of Religion at Aarhus University, Denmark. He has published extensively in the fields of Late Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity, as well as on methodological and theoretical questions pertaining to the overall study of religion and culture. He is currently involved in a grand project on cultural evolution with a special focus on the history of religion.
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📱 FOLLOW FOR MORE
- YouTube: @cjcornthwaite
- Instagram: @cjcornthwaite
- Website: cjcornthwaite.com
- Email: [email protected]
🎙️ FOOTNOTE FAMOUS
Conversations with the world’s top scholars of the Bible and Christian origins.
🔗https://www.footnotefamous.com/
SUPPORT THE CHANNEL
Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/FootnoteFamous
YouTube Memberships - C. J. Cornthwaite - YouTube
Book a 1:1 Conversation With Me: https://www.cjcornthwaite.com/book-online
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51 min
About Footnote Famous
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Footnote Famous - Conversations with the world's top scholars of the Bible and Christian origins
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