Joe Rogan, a self-described “atheist,” was left stunned after receiving what his guest claimed was evidence that Jesus was real.
The podcaster had religious scholar Wesley Huff on his show this week where, during the course of their discussion, Rogan admitted that he may have been wrong about religion.
Huff presented Rogan with a replica of what Christians say is one of the oldest known manuscripts of the Bible, known as Papyrus 52, believed to be the oldest excerpt from the Gospel of John long lost in history. Bible.
Believed to have been written almost 2,000 years ago, the artifact details how Jesus was tried and is considered by some to be eyewitness testimony from the period before his crucifixion.
Rogan, upon receiving the gift with a shocked expression on his face, said: ‘Wow. That’s amazing. Wow. “That’s so fascinating.”
Christians hail Papyrus 52 as evidence that the events of the Bible took place as described in the sacred text.
Rogan has oscillated between being a believer and a non-believer, something he attributes to a difficult childhood.
He had previously said that as a child he was “quite an atheist” but that he became spiritual after his grandfather’s death.
Huff gifted Rogan a replica of the “oldest evidence of the biblical New Testament,” a 1st-century papyrus found in Egypt containing text from the Book of John: 18,
The text is a copy of the Book of John: 18 which says “Jesus is being judged before Pontius Pilate”, the Roman governor who sentenced Jesus to death.
Huff, the son of missionaries, was born in Pakistan and grew up surrounded by religion, saying his family had the Bhagavad Gita (Hindu scripture), the Book of Mormon and the Koran on the shelves.
He presented Rogan with a replica of the ancient papyrus during Tuesday’s podcast.
The front reads “Jesus says, everyone who follows the truth, who follows the truth, follows me.”
The back has the words of (Pontius) Pilate saying, “What is truth?” Pilate was the governor of Rome who was said to have sentenced Jesus to death.
The artifact is a small fragment, but the entire document “would have essentially been like a pocket copy of the Gospel of John” that someone carried from Turkey to Egypt, according to Huff.
The Gospel of John is a book of the Bible that tells the story of the life, teachings, miracles, death and resurrection of Jesus.
The gift given to Rogan features the same text as the original document found in the 1940s, which later led researchers to determine that the Book of John was the oldest Gospel.
Some historians maintain that Papyrus P52, although found in Egypt, was a Christian manuscript because it was written on both sides.
Wesley Huff (left) was invited to the Joe Rogan Experience (right) this week, where he analyzed papyrus biblical texts, ancient Roman drawings, and other scriptural accounts to make his case.
Historical records show that only Christians wrote on both sides of papyrus thousands of years ago, while everyone else used parchment.
Huff said John’s eyewitness account was probably written in Ephesus and spread to different countries and was copied, reaching as far as Egypt.
Describing how he made the gift, Huff said: “So I cut it out of the papyri with a scalpel. And then I transcribed the text.’
“(You) did a great job, man… you became a nerd,” Rogan said.
During the podcast, the two also talked about the resurrection.
The Bible states that Jesus rose from the dead three days after dying on the cross, which according to Scripture was to forgive the world of its sins.
Huff mentioned seniority Anti-Christian graffiti etched into a plaster wall of an imperial training school for former Roman slaves between 50 AD and 250 AD
Called Alexamenos Graffito, many church followers believe it to be the oldest image of the biblical crucifixion.
Below the cross is an ancient Greek text that reads, “Alexamenos worships God,” as a way of mocking an individual in the drawing who appears to be dressed as a slave.
The ancient graffiti was done during a time when Christianity was frowned upon by Romans who practiced paganism, which they believed was what brought them to power, but it has not been confirmed to be a depiction of Jesus Christ.
One biblical scholar highlighted a drawing from ancient Rome called Alexamenos Graffito, which he says is “the oldest depiction of Jesus on the cross.”
It depicts a man worshiping another donkey-headed man who is being crucified, which the expert said was graffiti mocking Jesus.
The carved message was discovered in 2021 inside a building located on Rome’s Palatine Hill.
Rogan took the conversation as a step forward and asked, “Who was crucified upside down?” To which Huff replied, “Peter.”
Peter was one of the Twelve Apostles and leaders of the early Christian Church.
His execution was ordered by the Roman emperor Nero, who blamed the city’s Christians for a terrible fire that had ravaged Rome.
The biblical historian explained that Peter said it was “too great an honor to die like my Lord,” so the Romans hung him upside down.
‘Oh Jesus. Shut your mouth, buddy,” Rogan said. “Listen, the Romans were pretty brutal,” Huff said.
The podcaster again raised the question about the possibility that Jesus never died and recovered from the wounds of the cross.
A 1986 study determined that Jesus died from asphyxiation due to exhaustion.
Huff mentioned a study published by a group of biblical scholars and medical professionals that was published in 1986 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Pathologist Dr. William Edwards, who led the study, concluded that Jesus’ death was “mainly related to hypovolemic shock, asphyxiation from exhaustion (asphyxiation), and perhaps acute heart failure.” A fatal cardiac arrhythmia may have been the cause of the apparently catastrophic terminal event.
To balance things out, Rogan asked if we have an account of resurrection denial.
“No, the only ones in the ancient world who deny his resurrection are groups that came later and who are sometimes…sometimes described as Gnostics, and they don’t necessarily deny it for the reasons we might think they are,” Huff said. .
‘They deny it because they have incorporated ideas from pagan philosophy, where they believe that the spiritual is good and the physical is bad.’