(LifeSiteNews) – A clip of an “erotic thriller” film writer slamming the Catholic Church on the Joe Rogan Experience has gone viral on X, attracting over three million views at the time of writing.
New: Joe Rogan was left completely stunned after devout Christian Joe Eszterhas exposed who Jesus Christ really was:
ROGAN: “If you live your life by the teachings of Jesus Christ you will be a better person.”
ESZTERHAS: “We’ve created this narrative that Jesus was just this… pic.twitter.com/4qJRHyvztP
— Joe Rogan Recaps (@JoeRoganRecaps) June 3, 2026
Joe Eszterhas, the screenwriter for several R-rated films, claimed that the Catholic Church has “romanticized” and “cosmeticized the figure of Jesus of Nazareth,” and that the four canonical Gospels are not reliable.
In the two-hour interview from which the clip was drawn, Eszterhas claimed (a) that the Gospels were not written by Saints Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and that “the churches” accept this; (b) that they were written “80 or 90 years after the death of Jesus”; (c) that the “Gnostic Gospels” were written much earlier, and so were more likely to be accurate; and (d) that the Catholic Church has “romanticized” the person of Jesus in a pacifist direction.
All of these claims are false.
The identity of the Evangelists
“The people in the Church Gospels who are named Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – were not the people who wrote the Gospels,” Eszterhas said.
“Nobody knows who wrote them. They took those names, but they were not those people.”
In response to Rogan’s surprise at this, Eszterhas claimed that “Yeah. Absolutely. No doubt. Even the churches admit that at this point.”
This is not the case:
- In 1911, the Biblical Commission stated that it “can and must be asserted with certainty that Matthew, the apostle of Christ, is in truth the author of the Gospel published under his name.” [1]
- In 1912, it stated that we must “affirm with certainty that Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, and Luke, a physician, the assistant and companion of Paul, are really the authors of the Gospels that are respectively attributed to them.” [2]
- In 1907, the Biblical Commission stated that, even aside from the tradition of the Church, “strong historical proof” and “internal reasons” show that St John the Apostle was the author of his Gospel (n. 308, DH 3398–9).
The dates of the Gospels
Eszterhas also claimed that the Gospels were written “80 or 90 years after the death of Jesus” (113-123 AD). This is also false. Aside from the fact that texts existing before that date both cite and allude to the Gospels, here are a set of dates treated as standard on the eve of the Second Vatican Council:
- Evidence indicates that St. Matthew’s Gospel was written before 48 AD. [3]
- Nicolau provides arguments showing that St. Mark’s Gospel was written “more or less between the years 53-58.” [4]
- His arguments indicate that St. Luke’s Gospel was written between the years 58 and 62 AD [5].
- The Biblical Commission stated that both Saints Mark’s and Luke’s Gospels were written before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem (70 AD). [6]
- St. John’s Gospel was the last to be written, and Nicolau dates it to “the end of the first century” – “that is, about the year 90.” [7]
The Gnostic Gospels
By contrast, Eszterhas claimed that “the Gnostic gospels were written 30 or 40 years after the death of Jesus.” This is false.
According to the agnostic biblical scholar Bart Ehrman:
- “The Coptic Gospel of Thomas,” discovered in the 20th century, was written after the canonical Gospels and is probably from “the early second century.” [8]
- “Papyrus Egert 2: The Unknown Gospel” was, most scholars say, from “the first half of the second century.” [9]
- “The Gospel of Peter” was possibly written “at the beginning of the (second) century.” [10]
- “The Gospel of Mary” was “composed sometime during the (late?) second century.” [11]
- “The Gospel of Philip” was “probably compiled during the third century, although it draws on earlier sources.” [12]
- “The Gospel of Truth” was written “sometime before 180 CE.” [13]
- “The Gospel of the Savior” was produced “sometime in the second century,” although “the manuscript which contains it dates from the sixth or seventh century.” [14]
- “The Infancy Gospel of Thomas” possibly “began to circulate during the first half of the second century.” [15]
The Gnostic “Gospel of Judas”, which made headlines when it was published in English in 2006, has been carbon-dated to 220–340 AD.[16]
As such, Eszterhas has his facts reversed – and these “Gospels” cannot have had even “a shot” at being written by eyewitnesses, as he claims.[17]
The necessity and infallibility of the Church
After this, Rogan claimed:
Two thousand years is such a hard time for us to conceptualize, to put into our heads, how much time has passed. To try to get an accurate understanding of what was going on back then is insanely difficult.
This is precisely why Christ founded a Church, endowed with the attributes of infallibility, indefectibility, perpetuity and visibility, as the means of preserving and teaching his religion. There is no need to “become a real student of the historical Jesus,” as Eszterhas puts it, if this means making private studies into ancient manuscripts the basis of one’s religion and spiritual life.
On the contrary, St. Paul called the Church “the pillar and ground of truth” (1 Tim. 3.15), and Christ said to his Apostles, “He who hears you, hears me.”
The theologian Van Noort expressed the true understanding as follows:
The proximate rule of faith, from which the faithful, one and all, are bound to accept their faith and in accordance with which they are to regulate it, is the preaching of the ecclesiastical magisterium.[18]
He continues:
The Church’s preaching is a rule of faith which is nicely accommodated to people’s needs. For:
(a) it is an easy rule, one that can be observed by all alike, even the uneducated and unlettered. What could be easier than to give ear to a magisterium that is always at hand and always preaching?
(b) It is a safe rule, for the Church’s teaching office is infallible in safeguarding and presenting Christ’s doctrine.
(c) It is a living rule, in accordance with which it is possible in any age to explain the meaning of doctrines and to put an end to controversies. [19] (Line breaks added)
The nature of the internet means that many can be influenced on issues relating to eternal salvation by individuals very poorly placed to speak on such matters.
For similar reasons, it is not for private individuals such as Eszterhas to assemble his own religion based on his reading of the Scriptures. And yet, Eszterhas said:
You know, what we’ve done to Jesus over the years is make him a kind of Fred Rogers figure. He wasn’t that.
I’m not even sure that Jesus really said, “Do not resist violence.” Jesus also said, “If you have a cloak but not a sword, sell the cloak and buy a sword.” He also said, “I come not to make peace, but with a sword.”
So there’s been a lot of church stuff, and especially, I think, Catholics are more guilty of this: to romanticize and sort of cosmeticize the figure of Jesus of Nazareth.
Our Lord did not say “Do not resist violence.” What he said was:
You have heard that it hath been said: An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.
But I say to you not to resist evil: but if one strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him also the other: and if a man will contend with thee in judgment, and take away thy coat, let go thy cloak also unto him. And whosoever will force thee one mile, go with him other two. (Matt. 5.38-41)
Further, this text, which Eszterhas inaccurately cites, comes from the same canonical Gospels that record the passages that he approves. There is no serious rationale for Eszterhas to discern where the Gospels are accurate or inaccurate except for the authority of the Church, which proposes them to us and is prior to them. This is why St. Augustine said:
I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church. [20]
For the same reason, it is for the Church to propound and interpret the meaning of her Gospels; and indeed, she does not interpret Our Lord’s words as an injunction to universal pacifism. This should be clear from her teaching on just war, rights of self-defense, capital punishment, and so on.
Who is Joe Eszterhas?
Eszterhas came to prominence as the writer of “erotic thriller” films. The Memory Project describes his career as follows:
Known for his excesses with alcohol, drugs and women, some of his writing for the silver screen bordered on the pornographic […] and he became known as the devil of Hollywood. A devil whose films garnered huge profits at the box office and who many studio executives and actors were dying to work with. Reading Eszterhas’ book Hollywood Animal requires a strong stomach – and a strong interest in Hollywood gossip.
In 2001, after a diagnosis of throat cancer, he began attending Mass with his family, having been born of Hungarian Catholic parents. However, this “return to faith” did not prevent his involvement with the 2006 film which, according to the Internet Movie Database parental guide, includes “severe” violence and gore, and “mild” sex and nudity.[21] Another film in 2011 included what IMDB classified as “moderate” sexual content.[22] No Catholic moral theologian would consider what these guides describe to be “mild” or “moderate.”[23]
His brush with throat cancer led Eszterhas to apologize for having promoted smoking in his films. This apology included the following:
A cigarette in the hands of a Hollywood star is a gun aimed at a 12- or 14-year-old. The gun will go off when that kid is an adult. We in Hollywood know the gun will go off, yet we hide behind a smokescreen of phrases like ‘creative freedom’ and ‘artistic freedom.’ These lofty words are lies designed at best to obscure laziness. I know. I have told those lies.
However, the depiction of sexual content on film is objectively a much graver matter than that of smoking – both in itself, and in its consequences for those who view it.[24]. In themselves, even internal sins of impurity are “always mortal if directly willed.”[25] To stir up such internal sins on the part of others is itself, according to moral theologians, a mortal sin.[26]
Such moralists also hold that the direct intention to lead others into sin can make one guilty of those subsequent sins.[27] Those who “give scandal”, through public involvement in leading others into such sins, are obliged to repair the scandal publicly, much in the way that Eszterhas did regarding smoking.[28]
In light of this, it is instructive to consider other comments he has made on the depiction of smoking:
“My hands are bloody; so are Hollywood’s,” he said in 2013. “My cancer has caused me to attempt to cleanse mine. I don’t wish my fate upon anyone in Hollywood, but I beg that Hollywood stop imposing it upon millions of others.”
Eszterhas does not seem to have made any such apology for the sexual content in his films prior to 2001. In any case, besides the 2006 and 2011 films mentioned, it was reported in 2025 and 2026 by The Hollywood Reporter [29] that he was involved in writing the reboot of a 1992 film which he wrote, which was also full of sexual content.
While Eszterhas has stated that this reboot will be “anti-woke,” the nature of the plot would make it would be impossible to remove the sexual content – nor has there been an indication that he would intend to do so.
Eszterhas also claimed that “anything that has a relatively strong sexual content” in his work was written by a “Twisted Little Man inside me.”
“He’s 29,” he said of this “Twisted Little Man,” adding that he was “born 29, he’ll die 29 (…) I’m just an old guy giving him the space.”
Eszterhas claimed that the “Twisted Little Man” was his “main invisible companion” – the others being Mark Twain and “Jesus of Nazareth”.
He added that the “Twisted Little Man” was responsible for writing the upcoming reboot – claiming he himself “had nothing to do with it.” He had previously discussed this “Twisted Little Man” in this way in an interview The Guardian in 2025.
Conclusion
Although Eszterhas returned to Mass and considers himself a “devout Christian” – although “not a devout Catholic, even though I go to Mass and I love the Mass and believe in it” – his remarks on the Rogan interview suggest that he approaches questions of faith by weighing the claims of Scripture and the Church against his own historical judgments and conclusions.
However, we are obliged to accept and profess the whole of the Church’s teaching on the authority of the Church herself. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that the virtue of faith requires assent to the whole of divine revelation proposed by the Church and that the deliberate rejection of even a single article is incompatible with that virtue. [30]
The rest of the interview covered a range of issues, including the affair he had as a teenager with an older married woman, watching prostitutes and murders from his window as a child, the fifteen occasions on which President Volodymr Zelenskyy of Ukraine had watched the 1992 film with his wife, topless women working at Rolling Stone, his objections to papal infallibility and the Church’s attitude toward the Jews and female ordination, taking acid, the Shroud of Turin as a medieval forgery, his respect for Martin Luther and “black spiritual worship,” and his admiration for John Paul II.
References
| ↑1 | Michaele Nicolau SJ, Sacrae Theologiae Summa IA (Introduction to Theology), Treatise II, n. 261. Trans. By Kenneth Baker SJ, Keep the Faith, USA 2015. Cf. DH 3561 |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | Ibid., 277. Cf. DH 3568. |
| ↑3 | Nicolau, n. 276 |
| ↑4 | Ibid., n. 287, p 249. |
| ↑5 | Ibid., n. 303 |
| ↑6 | DH 3573 |
| ↑7 | nn. 319, 320 |
| ↑8 | Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Scriptures, 20. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003. |
| ↑9 | Ibid., p. 29 |
| ↑10 | Ibid., p. 32 |
| ↑11 | Ibid., p. 35 |
| ↑12 | Ibid., p. 38 |
| ↑13 | Ibid., p. 45 |
| ↑14 | Ibid., p. 52 |
| ↑15 | Ibid., p. 58 |
| ↑16 | https://web.archive.org/web/20130702213230/https://press.nationalgeographic.com/2006/04/06/gospel-of-judas-is-authenticated-translated/ |
| ↑17 | It might be objected that we should “compare like with like”, rather than refer to pre-conciliar sources for the canonical Gospels, and a modern critical scholar for the “Gnostic Gospels”. But this is false: we can be content in using solid Catholic authorities for the dating of both categories, but it is fitting to cite a scholar like Ehrman as a tu quoque to Eszterhas on his point about the “Gnostic Gospels”, rather than as an authority in himself. Thus, we feel no compulsion to follow his dating of the canonical Gospels. |
| ↑18 | G. Van Noort, ‘Christ’s Church’, Dogmatic Theology II, Newman Press, Maryland 1957, 121-2 |
| ↑19 | Ibid. A text such as this has significant implications for understanding the current crisis in the Church. |
| ↑20 | https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf104/npnf104.iv.viii.vi.html |
| ↑21 | Children of Glory. No reference given for modesty’s sake. |
| ↑22 | Showgirls 2. No reference given for modesty’s sake. |
| ↑23 | cf. McHugh and Callan, nn. 1456–7. |
| ↑24 | Cf. McHugh and Callan, Moral Theology, nn. 1455–1462 |
| ↑25 | McHugh and Callan, n. 2496. The authors note that external factors, such as insufficient deliberation or consent, ignorance, or being only indirectly willed, may render these sins venial. |
| ↑26 | n. 1455 |
| ↑27 | nn. 1468, 1471 |
| ↑28 | McHugh and Callan teach:
|
| ↑29 | tweet dated July 18 2025, not linked for reasons of modesty |
| ↑30 | IIa IIae, Q.5, A3. |