Did you hear about the Jew who believes Jesus rose from the dead? No, this is not the start of a joke
As odd as it may sound, there have been a few orthodox Jews that have also been New Testament scholars. The late Pinchas Lapide (1922-1997) is one such individual. Lapide caused quite a stir with his 1977 book, The Resurrection of Jesus: a Jewish Perspective, when he announced that after careful study of the historical evidence in the New Testament he had become convinced that the resurrection of Jesus was a historical event that really happened.
Unfortunately, the stir was mainly confined to academia, so most Christians--indeed, most people!--have never heard about this (Out of curiosity, though, is there anyone here who already knew about this?). Personally, I blame the media, but that's another story (Does anyone else get frustrated by the media's biased, selective reporting and how they ignore things like this but will headline anything that remotely casts Christianity in a negative light?).
Strangely, Lapide did not become a Christian (He went on to argue that Jesus is the Messiah to the Gentiles, not the Jews), but his work remains valuable as a "hostile" or adverse source. Of course, I mean "hostile" in the sense of someone who's not a Christian, but testifies favorably about Christianity (Like Barry Schwortz, a member of the original Shroud of Turin research team, who is Jewish but also convinced by the evidence that the Shroud of Turin is the authentic burial cloth of Jesus).
We already have a ton of great resources on the resurrection, and NT Wright's nearly thousand page book on The Resurrection of the Son of God is the definitive scholarly work on the subject today, so Lapide's book doesn't add to arguments and evidence that we already know about. But Lapide's book is still valuable as a "hostile" source that we can point skeptics to, and a great conversation starter for sharing our faith: "Hey, did you hear about the Jew who believes Jesus rose from the dead?"
Here is the description of the book from Amazon and a review of the book below that:
The Resurrection of Jesus: a Jewish Perspective (book description):
"I accept the resurrection of Jesus not as an invention of the community of disciples, but as an historical event." When a leading orthodox Jew makes such a declaration, its significance can hardly be overstated. Pinchas Lapide is a rabbi and theologian who has specialized in the study of the New Testament. In this book he convincingly shows that an irreducible minimum of experience underlies the New Testament account of the resurrection, however much of the details of the narrative may be open to objection.
And here's a short review I found that I have to give credit to, because it really is the best attention-getter intro I've seen on the subject (and which I borrowed for the title of this OP):
https://christopherbrown.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/a-jewish-perspective-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus/
Did you hear about the Jew who believes Jesus rose from the dead? No, it’s not a joke. I just finished reading a fascinating book by Pinchas Lapide called The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish Perspective. Lapide (1922-1997) was a non-messianic Orthodox Jew who believes that Jesus really did rise from the dead. And he gives an impressive set of reasons to support that belief, all connected to the identity of Jesus and the Twelve as faithful Jews.....
.....[Lapide] goes on to offer an analysis of the New Testament accounts of the resurrection which defend it as well as any Christian apologetic I’ve ever read: The fact that women are reported as the first to find the empty tomb, despite the fact that women’s testimony was considered invalid in those days, gives the story credibility. The content and language of Paul’s resurrection account in 1 Corinthians 15, which was passed on to him by the first witnesses, contain numerous un-Pauline phrases and a distinctively Hebrew style of writing, implying that Paul really is passing on in rough translation exactly what was passed on to him....
As odd as it may sound, there have been a few orthodox Jews that have also been New Testament scholars. The late Pinchas Lapide (1922-1997) is one such individual. Lapide caused quite a stir with his 1977 book, The Resurrection of Jesus: a Jewish Perspective, when he announced that after careful study of the historical evidence in the New Testament he had become convinced that the resurrection of Jesus was a historical event that really happened.
Unfortunately, the stir was mainly confined to academia, so most Christians--indeed, most people!--have never heard about this (Out of curiosity, though, is there anyone here who already knew about this?). Personally, I blame the media, but that's another story (Does anyone else get frustrated by the media's biased, selective reporting and how they ignore things like this but will headline anything that remotely casts Christianity in a negative light?).
Strangely, Lapide did not become a Christian (He went on to argue that Jesus is the Messiah to the Gentiles, not the Jews), but his work remains valuable as a "hostile" or adverse source. Of course, I mean "hostile" in the sense of someone who's not a Christian, but testifies favorably about Christianity (Like Barry Schwortz, a member of the original Shroud of Turin research team, who is Jewish but also convinced by the evidence that the Shroud of Turin is the authentic burial cloth of Jesus).
We already have a ton of great resources on the resurrection, and NT Wright's nearly thousand page book on The Resurrection of the Son of God is the definitive scholarly work on the subject today, so Lapide's book doesn't add to arguments and evidence that we already know about. But Lapide's book is still valuable as a "hostile" source that we can point skeptics to, and a great conversation starter for sharing our faith: "Hey, did you hear about the Jew who believes Jesus rose from the dead?"
Here is the description of the book from Amazon and a review of the book below that:
The Resurrection of Jesus: a Jewish Perspective (book description):
"I accept the resurrection of Jesus not as an invention of the community of disciples, but as an historical event." When a leading orthodox Jew makes such a declaration, its significance can hardly be overstated. Pinchas Lapide is a rabbi and theologian who has specialized in the study of the New Testament. In this book he convincingly shows that an irreducible minimum of experience underlies the New Testament account of the resurrection, however much of the details of the narrative may be open to objection.
And here's a short review I found that I have to give credit to, because it really is the best attention-getter intro I've seen on the subject (and which I borrowed for the title of this OP):
https://christopherbrown.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/a-jewish-perspective-of-the-resurrection-of-jesus/
Did you hear about the Jew who believes Jesus rose from the dead? No, it’s not a joke. I just finished reading a fascinating book by Pinchas Lapide called The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish Perspective. Lapide (1922-1997) was a non-messianic Orthodox Jew who believes that Jesus really did rise from the dead. And he gives an impressive set of reasons to support that belief, all connected to the identity of Jesus and the Twelve as faithful Jews.....
.....[Lapide] goes on to offer an analysis of the New Testament accounts of the resurrection which defend it as well as any Christian apologetic I’ve ever read: The fact that women are reported as the first to find the empty tomb, despite the fact that women’s testimony was considered invalid in those days, gives the story credibility. The content and language of Paul’s resurrection account in 1 Corinthians 15, which was passed on to him by the first witnesses, contain numerous un-Pauline phrases and a distinctively Hebrew style of writing, implying that Paul really is passing on in rough translation exactly what was passed on to him....
