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Published: Nov. 2, 2020, 12:21 a.m.

My guest this week is Ian Mills, a PhD candidate in New Testament studies at Duke University. His dissertation is “Rewriting the Gospel: Second Century Evangelists and the Act of Gospel Writing.” His key advisor is Mark Goodacre and Bart Ehrman is on his dissertation committee.

Ian is a professing Christian who confesses the resurrection of Jesus. I ask Ian to provide intellectual cover for believers. His example is one of honesty and intellectual integrity while maintaining faith. What makes him interesting is his commitment to methodological naturalism as it applies to studying the first and second century gospel writings. He explains why even as a believer this is not threatening to his faith.

Ian is the co-host of the New Testament Review Podcast. He and his co-host Laura Robinson rose to internet fame (at least in secular circles) after they did an episode giving an unflattering review of Lee Strobel’s “A Case For Christ.” Ian’s approach is a breath of fresh air particularly when compared to popular apologetics.

What [popular apologists] do is bad for you. And it is because it is a complete inversion of what people of integrity and what good science inquiry should be.
Instead of starting with questions and data and going and looking for explanations that satisfy your questions, they start with a set of conclusions and go mining the evidence looking for that.

I personally learned a lot from Ian in this conversation. He is a wealth of information and expertise on the early Church and the process of gospel writing and canonization. As I say in the interview, I felt transported back to the best of Bible college. I suspect we will be hearing from Ian for years to come.

Links

New Testament Review Podcast
https://soundcloud.com/user-829560134

YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR8SeIgZf4x0-wUMWVvWchw

Academia
https://duke.academia.edu/IanMills

Twitter
https://twitter.com/IanNelsonMills

Interact

I mention Ted Chiang’s Hell is the Absence of God
https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/2017/06/04/review-hell-is-the-absence-of-god/

Critique of Apologetics
https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/critique-of-apologetics/

Full show notes
https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/2020/11/01/ian-mills-new-testament-review/

Attribution

"Waves" track written and produced by Makaih Beats
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Makaih_Beats 

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/

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