Featuring Megan Lewis! And all that entails.

Episode Outline:
0:00 Special episode: Bart interviews Megan Lewis about her academic path and Digital Hammurabi
0:51 Megan admits she is nervous being on the other side of the interview
1:45 Summer with kids, summer camps, sunscreen, and hay bale memories
4:42 Did Megan have any formal training in New Testament or early Christianity?
6:13 Religious studies in UK schools and how Megan first encountered different religions
7:06 From art foundation and jewelry school to ancient history at Birmingham
10:26 How a mentor steered Megan from classics toward Assyriology
12:00 What Assyriology is: Mesopotamia, cuneiform, Sumerian, and Akkadian
13:14 Megan’s main time period: the Bronze Age and early Mesopotamian cultures
15:05 Course promo: In the Beginning: History, Legend, and Myth in Genesis
17:00 Why the field is called Assyriology and how it grew out of biblical interests
18:19 How Ancient Near Eastern Studies now fits together: texts, archaeology, Egyptology, and Bible
19:43 Megan’s early work on comparative mythology between Mesopotamia and Greece
21:07 Was Mesopotamia really the birthplace of writing?
21:37 The earliest Sumerian literature: Gilgamesh, divine myths, debates, and love poetry
23:26 Where beginners can read Mesopotamian texts in translation
25:32 Why Old Testament scholars need Ancient Near Eastern background
29:15 Megan’s graduate focus: royal inscriptions and how texts function as objects in archaeology
32:16 How royal inscriptions vary in length, purpose, and placement
36:40 Why Megan did not finish her dissertation and how parenthood changed the path
38:23 What Digital Hammurabi is and why it became an alternative academic career
41:00 Teaching Sumerian, Hebrew, and Egyptian online through Digital Hammurabi
44:23 The famous glasses question: where Megan gets them and why she rotates frames
47:14 Future projects: growing the language program, “Why Should We Care?”, archaeogaming, and the Reading Party Podcast
51:13 Final wrap-up: why this work matters for understanding ancient history and the Bible’s world

Episode Description

On this week’s Misquoting Jesus, we’re turning the metaphorical table and Bart is interviewing Megan! Everyone watching is familiar with Dr. Bart Ehrman, renowned New Testament scholar and New York Times bestselling author…but who on earth is Megan? How did she make her way from the study of ancient Mesopotamia to host a New Testament and Early Christianity podcast? If she's an academic, why doesn’t she work in a university somewhere? Where does she get all of her glasses? Stay tuned for all of that, and so much more!

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Bart asks Megan:

- You’re not a NT specialist by training, you’re an Assyriologist. What, exactly, is Assyriology?

- How did you get into Assyriology?

- Why did you leave the PhD program?

- Why aren’t you working in academia?

- How did you get into YouTube and podcasting?

- What is Digital Hammurabi?

- What is your religious background?