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The Horrifying Details of Jesus’ Birthday – Bart Ehrman

Alex O'Connor | November 13, 2025



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– VIDEO NOTES

Bart Ehrman is a New Testament scholar focusing on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity.

Get Bart Ehrman’s new course, The Dark Side of Christmas (affiliate link): https://cosmicskeptic–ehrman.thrivecart.com/dark-side-of-christmas/

– TIMESTAMPS

0:00 The Dark Side of Christmas
3:02 Are the Birth Narratives Attempts at History?
6:53 When Were The Birth Narratives Written?
15:09 Why Does Herod Slaughter the Innocents?
21:11 Why Are There Made Up Stories in the Narratives?
25:07 Were the Birth Narratives Later Additions to the Gospels?
33:50 Was Mary’s Pregnancy Consensual?
41:48 Translating Mary’s “Slavery”
45:34 The Suffering of Mary and Joseph
50:23 Why Don’t Mark or John Have Birth Narratives?
54:32 Does Jesus’ Divinity Evolve Throughout the Gospels?
57:55 Did Jesus Have Brothers?

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——————————————

Written by Alex O'Connor

Comments

This post currently has 20 comments.

  1. @Sioux-free

    November 13, 2025 at 6:50 am

    Jews of the time did not believe in Jesus and contributed to his demise . Two thousand years later nothing has changed. Except that the jews of today are more crafty yet no less conniving in assassinating the character of Jesus . Meanwhile should Christians turn malicious and scheming they can easily rip apart the flimsy immoral demented sick and delusional narrative of jewish existence

  2. @timhall5382

    November 13, 2025 at 6:50 am

    SKIP
    The guy being interviewed bizarrely laughs over and over and over and over and over and over again. Entire video and for no reason. Don't waste your time, extremely annoying.

  3. @GEARS2024

    November 13, 2025 at 6:50 am

    I love how prophecies are vague or not even about a later event but then gets used as a prophecy for something else. It would be like me saying "God told me that he will smite those who are unclean and worship their false idols" and a week, a month, or a year later a tragic event happens that kills many and I'm like "See! I said it would happen and it has happened!"
    It's also easy to cater broad terminology or something poetic to make the wording fit an agenda as we see many of times with biblical texts.
    Also, the reason that they always refer to the old testament to show Jesus "fulfilling prophecy" is because they needed to amplify his importance, whether or not the event actually took place. If Jesus was alive, it was more than likely that he not only studied the Hebrew texts and scriptures but imprinted it in his brain which means when he says something that refers to a quote from the old testament or does something in the old testament that was "prophesied", it doesn't mean he's God or anything, it just means he's educated in that background and used what was said as prophecy to give an enhancement of his title as the King/Messiah. Nothing more, nothing less.

  4. @arrivagabry

    November 13, 2025 at 6:50 am

    My son his wife and I are all atheists my son has 2 children a girl that is 15 that was never interested in religion, and an 8 year old boy that recently decided he wanted to go to bible study at school, my son is of the idea that his kids have to decide for themselves so he signed him up for a christian class, he went for the first time the other day, came back home and told his father that he doesn't want to go anymore because what they were teaching him sounded like make believe stories, that don't make sense. Smart kid, that was the end of his interest in Christianity. 🤣

  5. @kayleighkunselman6307

    November 13, 2025 at 6:50 am

    So… the term for servant and slave are firmly different… but the term “lestes” has various meanings – thief, pirate, revolutionary, insurrectionist? Ok…

    It seems to me that if there is a firm difference between slave and servant, there is a firm translation of lestes rather than contextual differences.

  6. @jashannon

    November 13, 2025 at 6:50 am

    Venus and Jupiter were conjunct on Aug 12, 3 BC, morning, and June 17, 2 BC, evening. And Herod the Great died somewhere from 4 to 1 BC. The Bible says Herod was threatened by Jesus's birth and the wise men coming to see Jesus. A great (planet) conjunction looks like a “new star.” We just saw one in Dec, 2020. Whether Jesus was a Leo or a Gemini, take your guess. They both can explain a prophet. But, my guess is Aug 12, 3 BC, because Jesus refers to himself as the "morning star" in the New Testament. That implicates Jesus to have been a leader type, being a Leo, which is a slam dunk. And can also explain Jesus' most notable display of anger – his "roar" – when he overturned the money changers' tables at the temple. As Leo's are also known for displays of anger. Christians are generally opposed to astrology. However, the wise men were believed to be astrologers. So the original Christians might not have been opposed to astrology. Christmas will never be the same on a warm sunny day in August, lol. A "new star" was what the wise men described over Bethlehem, Israel. The nail in the coffin on this is Leo is a lion astrologically, and the lion is a trait attributed to Jesus, God, and kings. I don't think there are any biblical experts who believe it was August 12th, but there are astronomers who think it might have been, although there are several choices for Jesus's birth date based on astronomy. One based on a lunar eclipse, which would show Jesus to be a Pisces. This would also mean that it's not the year 2025, it's 2028. There are some experts who believe Jesus was born in 7 BC because of something in the Bible about him being taken to a Passover event when he was 12. But I wouldn't place as much stock in that as I would a planet conjunction from science coinciding with the prominent story about the star over Bethlehem. And there are other experts who ignore the theory about Herod dying in 1 BC, and only look at the theory of him dying in 4 BC. However, if you believe Jesus was an extraterrestrial, than the Bethlehem star could have been a UFO. This is a good demonstration of the power of the Internet, as it only took me 1 hour of poking around at all of the theories to come to my conclusion.

  7. @dvduadotcom

    November 13, 2025 at 6:50 am

    The story of Mary and the virgin birth is just one of many disturbing stories found in the Bible.

    Think about it. Mary was likely 13 to 14 years old, incapable of consent. But that was common in the times, so God impregnated her based on common practices of the time? Just as God seems to condone slavery and genocide and erasure which were common practices of the time… which leads me to wonder… is The Bible simply books about control by men writing in the common parlance of the time, because it seems to me, God would not be so confined in his thinking.

  8. @WydeAWake-yc3tp

    November 13, 2025 at 6:50 am

    It is no surprise that someone with the name Ehrman, which is Jewish, is driving the debate between Jesus and Paul's teachings so hard, trying to make Christians question the Bible….I'll just leave it there.

  9. @MBuck-iw7qn

    November 13, 2025 at 6:50 am

    Really interesting to give a listen to your podcast. I’m so thankful to know my Pappa God and the LORD Jesus via the Spirit of God.
    Walking through this real life journey with God with me in the pain, hope, suffering, goodness, darkness, light is something I would never want to trade for an easier nicer gentler prettier path.
    Walking through with eyes wide open and continually reaching for my heart wide open as well🙏🏼🕊️🦅 appreciate the different take on the Bible stories

  10. @charleygrimes5091

    November 13, 2025 at 6:50 am

    I thought to be considered married in those times, it had to be consummated. So, it seems weird to say that Joseph was going to divorce Mary. Either they were not married yet or she was not a virgin anyways.

  11. @LindenAstle

    November 13, 2025 at 6:50 am

    The ongoing power of christian religious faith is the belief that Jesus according to his promise is that he is going to return with the powers of heaven with his father's Celestial kingdom ( heaven ) to save those who have remained steadfast to belief in Jesus ! Yes , this jesus in his last words promised in revelation chapter 22 said , " I AM COMING SOON " , ( quickly ) and repeated it THREE times in this End Time chapter ! Did he come as promised ? NO HE DID NOT unless you want to play with the context of the word SOON as meaning something else ! Perhaps we ought to Wake Up to the simple fact that NO ONE is coming to save us and take on the realization that we need to stop in this foolish Delusion !

  12. @Pit5336

    November 13, 2025 at 6:50 am

    Genesis give detailed description of how world had been created and that was a fundamental knowledge for centuries with anyone who deviated from that risking being burn alive. Guess what , all that turned out to be not true , 100% made up , proven beyond any doubt. Base on that fact how can we trust anything that was written in Bible?

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