It took me a long time to recognize that my doubts were stronger and more convincing than my beliefs. I finally accepted it.
Then my wife died of cancer. That was a year ago, and I still talk to her every day. My brain doesn't believe in god or an afterlife, but my heart does.

As an exvangelical, this is my Super Bowl. Bart Ehrman is the best!!!

Ex-25+ year Evangelical here. This was fantastic and thank you for having Bart on John. Losing faith while in a high demand religion is traumatizing. Fortunately there is a very large community of Ex's online.

This video reminds me of when my three kids interrogated me regarding “Santa Clause”.

Bart is reaping the rewards of a lifetime of outstanding service to humanity. There have been great biblical scholars before. What sets Bart apart is his integrity, clarity, and willingness to share his knowledge of Biblical nonsense, overzealous advocacy, corrupted history, reliance on "faith" rooted in mythology, and the corruption of power within Christianity. Highest praise and honor to Bart D Erhman. Few men have had a life's work that is so honorable and praiseworthy.

I've been following Bart for over five years now by intently listening him online and extensively buying and reading his books.  His scholarly views are strikingly transformative. He is primarily a historian of religion, but he has rock solid foundational comprehension of theology. He knows the distinction between history and theology, these may be intertwined but certainly distinct and separate from each other,  specifically in methodology of study. His approach is significantly historical, not theological. History is evidence-based study. Theology is faith-based or belief-anchored. Evidence-based appeals to our scientific mind. Faith-based appeals to our religious mind. We, humans, have both the scientific mind and the religious mind.  We are both rational and emotional,  both reason or logic seeker  and gut or intuitive adherent.    Bart's extraordinary ability to see this critical distinction between history and theology, between science and religion, between reason and intuition, between evidence and belief, has enabled him to label himself as a Christian Atheist, which sounds funny and oxymoron. But I see it  as a perfect reasonable label for himself. Now I can too label myself as such, which is, I am convinced of the key teaching of Jesus, like  "Love your Enemy," but  i am not convinced of his divinity. I know God, gods, goddeses or deities exist. But they exist because we humans create them, not that they create us.

Such a fantastic episode! Thank you Bart Ehrman for all of your incredible scholarship, your kindness and fair mindedness, and your efforts to teach and spread all you’ve learned. You’re a blessing to humanity. Sending you love and thanks. 🙏

Omg yes. The mash-up I've been waiting for. Lifelong seeker, survivor, exmo, have read a lot of Ehrman books, have watched a lot of Mormon Stories podcasts and a lot of John Dehlin. I can give my last tuppence to this and feel okay about it.

P.S.: I hope this is ninetyleven hours long.

I'm a simple man. I see Dr. Bart Ehrman I click the video 😂

I’m going to have to listen to this at least 3x. It’s so rich with information. The two interviewers did a phenomenal job 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾.

Thank you all! I was so excited for this episode!

Just Wow- I was brought up by an atheist and I just find the properly in depth discussions on Mormon stories fascinating - thank you all the way from the Highlands of Scotland

Raises in a 'Spirit filled" church (regretfully)and was having a discussion with my dad about the book of Acts. I would like to kmow more of the true origin of that book.

Oh my!! I've have waiting for this to happen! I have been following you both for so long.  Lovely to see how many other people share the same excitement in the comments.  Thank you.

Oh wow...I am only 22 minutes in and I am totally hooked. This is SO good. I'm so glad you brought Dr Ehrman back on because he is a favourite of mine.

Wow Bart Ehrman! I’ve learned a lot from this guy! Besides the parallels (Episcopalian to born again as a teen, to 30+ years in fundamental evangelism, to world shattering faith crisis) My entire faith was in the Bible and when I discovered that it has discrepancies and errors I was lost. Like the rug being pulled out from under my feet. Still trying to figure out what the Bible is, but slowly recovering a prayer life now, 15 years later. But Misquoting Jesus is the first book I read as I was beginning to doubt. An important piece of my deconstruction.

Oh this is awesome. When I left the mormon faith, I did a deep dive on the bible because I had been taught my whole life that the book of mormon did not contradict the bible, but was a companion. "As far as it is translated correctly". But how did I know about it's supposed translation? So, I got myself a plain English, non LDS bible. I looked into earlier versions of the bible- the earliest texts i could find. I looked at the Greek Septuigint, which btw, the LDS endowment ceremony most closely matches this version of Genesis. I was shocked. Anyway, I watched many diff bible scholars. Under this context, THEN I went and looked at Joseph Smith's bible translations and wow- they changed fundamental doctrine drastically. And I found that his bible doctrine/translation changes were very inconsistent with the whole of the bible. Also, a careful reading of the contexts of the bible and the book of jeremiah showed me personally that the book of mormon, based on those premises, is false just by being in existence. It's origin story contradicted what God said imo. I hope this man's interview helps bring insights to others trying to sort all of this out in their head and hearts.

My God, what a wonderful presentation!  It’s just a joy to hear this podcast and to see the respect and the regard that both sides have for each each other

Frankly, I’m a little shocked.  I kind of thought the fur was going to fly.

But it didn’t.  This is far above my expectations, and it is a real blessing to observe the spiritual beauty of this encounter.

49:45 fun fact, "brass" plates themselves are another anachronism. Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, and while we have brass artifacts dating back to 3000 BC it was not created in large quantities. People didn't know how to make brass, and creating it was usually accidentally achieved by mixing metals, and then only in very small quantities. It's not until the 3rd Century BC when the Romans figured out how to make brass reliably that people start producing it purposefully and in larger quantities.

Now, I guess you could argue that the plates were actually made of bronze. Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin, and it's more durable and harder than brass. But it's still just yet another anachronism in a pile of anachronisms. The idea of a book, or a codex is another anachronism. We didn't have a Bible, or even the tanakh, circa 600 BC. Records were kept on individual scrolls. It wasn't until the 2nd or 3rd Century AD that Christians started keeping and copying codices, collections of books that were previously only available on scrolls.

So the "brass plates" and the later "gold plates" and any other "plates" referenced in the Book of Mormon are also highly anachronistic because that's not how records were kept in those eras.

There's a few examples of writing on plates of metal, like the Pyrgi plates, and the Babylonians also inscribed the history of Darius I on plates. But these examples are at least 100 years after the initial events of the Book of Mormon, were found in disparate areas that don't lend credence to the brass plate theory, and they contained disparate writings for different purposes. There are only 3 Pyrgi plates, and they are inscribed in multiple languages, and were likely displayed, not bound in a book. The history of Darius I was a royal history, and also was written in multiple languages. The tablets were also large and thick and not bound like pages in a book. They also are about 100 off from the "brass plates".

When you have to excuse multiple anachronisms and you're still 100 years off, which is more likely? Your magic book that was taken away by angels is a farce? Or you just happen to be right even though the evidence is majorly stacked against you? Bible errors copied from the 1611 English King James Bible 1:1 into the Book of Mormon should already posea massive issue that's completely damning. But it's much more. The Book of Mormon is chock full of anachronistic words and phrases, theological ideas, and anachronistic science and technology. There's evidence of post enlightenment thinking and science, and loads of technological advances. It's not just steel and horses, that's just scratching the surface. And it's really not hard to see the massive influence of American government, law, and politics in the Book of Mormon.

I've actually been going through the Book of Mormon and finding glaring issues on every page. From names that didn't exist until the medieval period, to technologies like brass, to 19th century idioms that definitely weren't in use in ancient Israel, let alone ancient America among the pre-Colombian natives.

As well as the strange overuse of phrases like, "and it came to pass" where it is used frequently in succession in ways that don't make sense from even an ancient literary sense. Even if you're attributing it to "abridgement" of the original material, the overuse is exhausting. It reads more like someone talking and spitting out whatever sounded good at the time.

Thanks for this awesome collaborative program! Dr. Ehrman has taught me so much over the years, and Mormon Stories likewise has been a big eye opener.