Why are the Gospels so Late?

This episode opens with a playful roundtable moment as Megan Lewis and Bart Ehrman compare early job experiences—including Bart’s comically short-lived stint as a 12-year-old dishwasher—before diving into one of the most important historical questions about early Christianity: Why did it take so long for anyone to write down the life and teachings of Jesus? Bart and Megan break down what ancient historians look for when dating a text, discuss lost earlier sources, oral tradition, memory, and the impact of late dating on the Gospels’ reliability, and conclude with a lively Q&A segment that covers topics from Jesus possibly being a vegetarian to the practicalities of communication between Paul and the Jerusalem apostles.