Dale Tuggy, professor of philosophy and coordinator of the Religious Studies minor, discussed religious claims with Dr. Bart Ehrman of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as part of a podcast series. The first episode was presented April 8 and the second will be accessible on Monday, April 14.
Earlier this month, Dr. Tuggy interviewed Ehrman, a former fundamentalist Christian who is now agnostic and is one of the world's most famous and most controversial scholars of the Bible and Christian history. The subject was Ehrman's new book, “How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee.” Also discussed was the book, “How God Became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus' Divine Nature,” a response by an international team of five evangelical Christian scholars.
The interview highlighted some of Dr. Ehrman’s most controversial claims, such as that one should not trust early traditions about Jesus being buried in a rich man's donated tomb, that Jesus thought "the Son of Man" was someone else, and that the late first century Gospel of John portrays a strikingly different view of God and Christ than the three previous gospels. The interview is in two podcast episodes, numbers 35 and 36.
There are plans for Dr. Tuggy to interview at least one of the response book authors. Also, he has forthcoming interviews with a major English theologian and with a Muslim Shaikh who has been called the most influential Muslim in the United Kingdom. A student of all the big, "world religions,” Dr. Tuggy is currently preparing online screencast lectures for INDS 120 World Religions, Summer Session II. The lectures can be found at http://tinyurl.com/religionsclass.
Tuggy discusses current research in philosophy of religion and theology of Trinities in his blog, “Theories about the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Since 2013, he has also hosted a weekly audio podcast on Christian theologies, both ancient and modern.
For more information, contact Tuggy at tuggy@fredonia.edu.
