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Footnote Famous

Footnote Famous

Written by: C.J. Cornthwaite
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Summary
 Footnote Famous - Conversations with the world's top scholars of the Bible and Christian originsC.J. Cornthwaite Christianity Ministry & Evangelism Spirituality
Episodes
  • 2.3 David Trobisch - On The Origins of Scripture

    2.3 David Trobisch - On The Origins of Scripture
    Oct 22 2026
    When was the New Testament actually published? Not written — published. Manuscript scholar David Trobisch, one of the editors of the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament, argues it appeared as a single, carefully edited four-volume book in the second half of the 2nd century, about 150 years after Jesus.We talk about why there was never a council that "picked" the books, how a dispute over the date of Easter left its mark on the four gospels, how to hear the editor's voice in the text, why Marcion's gospel may have come before Luke, and who might have edited the New Testament: Polycarp of Smyrna, or Irenaeus.Watch This Interview Live📚 David's book — On the Origin of Christian Scripture🎯 CHAPTERS00:00 The myth of how we got the New Testament03:45 Start with the manuscripts06:24 Why some books survive: conflict09:51 The Easter dispute & four gospels as compromise13:03 Dating the New Testament to 160–200 AD14:45 One book, four volumes21:02 Story vs. history: the trap in NT scholarship26:28 "There was never a council"29:24 What other collections teach us31:04 A hundred 2nd-century books about Jesus40:45 Hearing the editor's voice in John48:52 Matthew the tax collector: building credibility54:23 Miraculous discoveries & provenance stories56:29 Acts dates itself: literature vs. document58:47 Marcion's gospel came first1:05:19 What the editors added1:13:19 Who edited the New Testament?1:16:30 The Carpus clue in 2 Timothy1:19:12 Polycarp or Irenaeus?1:20:30 Rethinking the synoptic problem1:26:40 Read your New Testament looking for the editor
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    1 hr and 31 mins
  • 2.2 Paula Fredriksen - Paul, Origen, and Augustine Disagreed About Sin. Only 1 Won.

    2.2 Paula Fredriksen - Paul, Origen, and Augustine Disagreed About Sin. Only 1 Won.
    Oct 7 2026

    Get the book! https://amzn.to/4ybTkls (affiliate link)

    Watch this on YouTube - https://youtu.be/txVqkdQyv-E

    What is sin, where does it come from, and how does God fix it? Early Christians gave very different answers, and each answer produced a different Christianity. Historian Paula Fredriksen joins me to walk through her book Sin: The Early History of an Idea, from John the Baptist and Paul through Valentinus, Marcion, Justin Martyr, Origen, and finally Augustine, whose vision of original sin came to dominate the West.We cover:- Why Paul saw Sin, Flesh, and Death as cosmic powers, not moral metaphors- The New Perspective (and the newer "Paul within Judaism" perspective)- How ancient cosmology determined what "salvation" could even mean- Valentinus's myth of Sophia and the accidental origin of matter- Marcion's God of love vs. the God of the Jews, and Justin Martyr's opposite move- Origen's breathtaking system, in which God saves everyone (even the stars)- How Augustine invented original sin and turned God into a late Roman judgeThis conversation wraps up our summer book club on Sin. Thanks to everyone who read along!━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 👉 Get the Armchair Bible Scholar Emails 👉 https://www.cjcornthwaite.com/armchair-bible-scholar Community - https://www.cjcornthwaite.com/community Substack - https://substack.com/@cjcornthwaite 📱 FOLLOW FOR MORE - YouTube: @cjcornthwaite - Instagram: @cjcornthwaite- Website: cjcornthwaite.com- Email: cjcornthwaite@proton.me🎙️ FOOTNOTE FAMOUS (MY PODCAST)Conversations with the world’s top scholars of the Bible and Christian origins. 🔗https://www.footnotefamous.com/
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    58 mins
  • 2.1 John J. Collins - Apocalypticism as a Worldview

    2.1 John J. Collins - Apocalypticism as a Worldview
    Sep 16 2026

    ⁠Watch Episode on YouTube⁠

    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
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    1 hr and 13 mins
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