Faith Lab
Faith Lab is a podcast that explores the depths of Christianity through conversations with scholars like N.T. Wright and Tim Mackie. Hosts Nate Hanson and Shane Rosenthal discuss Jesus, the Bible, and the origins of Christianity in an accessible way. Nate's journey from deconstruction to scholarship and Shane's work on The Humble Skeptic podcast inform their approach.
Episodes
Craig Keener: Why the gospels hold up as history
Our best source on Alexander the Great was written 450 years after he died, and historians trust it. Mark was written about 40 years after Jesus. So why are the gospels the only ancient texts we're told to doubt?Craig Keener, author of Christobiography and one of the most cited New Testament scholars alive, walks through the historical case: why the gospels are ancient biography, what liv
Nijay Gupta: Is the gospel just a ticket to heaven?
Most of us were handed a gospel that works like a ticket to heaven: believe, die, fly away. New Testament scholar Nijay Gupta says that was never the headline of what Paul preached.Gupta is the Julius R. Mantey Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary and the author of Paul for the World. He joins Shane Rosenthal and Nate to work through what Paul's gospel actually was, where "I'll
What the first Christians believed about the cross
The hardest critiques of the cross, like "he was only dead for a day and a half" and "anyone would take that deal," all target one version of the gospel. The earliest Christians were teaching something bigger.In this solo episode, Nate traces the first thousand years of Christian thinking about the cross: Irenaeus on Christ reliving the human story to get right what Adam got wrong, Athana
Lydia McGrew: The Gospels are more reliable than you think
Most Christians were taught to trust the Gospels without ever being shown why they should. The historical evidence is stronger than you think.New Testament scholar Lydia McGrew lays out what she calls the "reportage model," the case that the Gospel authors were close to the facts, always trying to get them right, and highly successful. She walks through the two big categories of evidence,
After the apostles died, did the faith survive?
After the apostles died, did the faith survive? One man nearly answers that question by himself. Polycarp was born around 69 AD, just 35 years after Jesus, personally knew people who had personally known Christ, and his own words still survive on paper.This episode traces the chain link by link: Irenaeus remembering the old bishop who taught him in Smyrna, Polycarp's letter to the Philipp
N.T. Wright: Do Christians go to heaven? (part 2)
Most Christians assume the story ends with leaving earth for heaven. N.T. Wright says the New Testament tells a different one: resurrection, new creation, and God coming to dwell with his people.In part 2 of our conversation, Wright walks through what actually happens between death and resurrection, why the ascension means Jesus reigns rather than departs, and how salvation stretches to t
N.T. Wright: Did Jesus rise from the dead? (part 1)
Did Jesus actually rise from the dead? The resurrection is a historical claim, and most people have never heard the evidence historians evaluate. N.T. Wright walks through the case and explains why the standard skeptical alternatives keep falling apart.Wright, one of the world's leading scholars on early Christianity, covers why women as the first witnesses is a detail nobody would invent
Caleb Friedeman: Why the genealogies don't match
Matthew and Luke don't give us the same family tree for Jesus, and the census in Luke has been called a historical invention. So why would anyone still trust the birth narratives?New Testament scholar Caleb Friedeman compared them against 95 other ancient biographies, and the pattern he found runs the opposite direction from the legend theory. In this conversation he lays out the four mar
Caleb Friedeman: Were the Christmas stories history?
For decades, scholars have claimed that ancient birth narratives were never meant to be taken as history. Then one scholar went and actually read the ancient biographers, and what he found in their own writing doesn't fit the story we've been told.New Testament scholar Caleb Friedeman compared Matthew and Luke to 95 other ancient biographies and found the average biographer wrote 360 year
Tim Mackie: The Bible isn't what you think (part 2)
There's a story in Genesis where Noah gets drunk and something terrible happens with his son Ham, and the Bible never tells you what it was. That gap is not a mistake. Tim Mackie says it's a design choice, and learning to read it changes the whole book.In part two of our conversation, Bible Project co-founder Tim Mackie walks through how the biblical authors crafted narratives with intent
Tim Mackie: How the Bible actually works (part 1)
Most of us were taught to believe the Bible, but almost nobody was taught how it actually works. Why does Genesis repeat the same words over and over? Why do later stories echo earlier ones in ways that feel too precise to be accidental?Tim Mackie, co-founder of The Bible Project, walks through how the biblical authors used design patterns, repeated keywords, and narrative "hyperlinking"
Rebecca McLaughlin: The best arguments against Christianity
What if the strongest arguments against Christianity actually lean on ideas Christianity introduced in the first place? Rebecca McLaughlin has spent her life listening to the smartest objections to the faith, and she's convinced the hardest ones look very different up close.Rebecca McLaughlin, author of Confronting Christianity, joins Faith Lab to ask whether Christian faith can stand up
Shane Rosenthal: Is faith supposed to be blind?
For most people, faith means believing without evidence. But the word the New Testament writers actually used, pistis, was the ordinary Greek word for trust, and trust is something you have reasons for. Blind faith came later.Shane Rosenthal, host of The Humble Skeptic podcast, joins the show to trace how faith got detached from evidence: what pistis meant to Aristotle and to the first Ch
I hosted a deconstruction podcast. It led me back to Jesus.
Nate spent eight years hosting Almost Heretical, a deconstruction podcast with millions of downloads. Then following his doubts all the way through led him somewhere he never expected: back to Christianity.In this first episode of Faith Lab, Nate tells the whole story: burning out while planting churches in San Francisco with Francis Chan, losing his belief in the resurrection, and then n
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