Religion: Resurrection?

  • Share
  • Read Later

(2 of 2)

By Jewish standards, Lapide explains, a certain skepticism about Jesus' Resurrection is understandable. He notes that New Testament accounts tell of more than 500 Jews who saw the resurrected Jesus (I Corinthians 15: 5-8), so it was not a universal experience among Jews. But, Lapide argues, "if the Disciples were totally disappointed and on the verge of desperate flight because of the very real reason of the Crucifixion, it took another very real reason in order to transform them from a band of disheartened and dejected Jews into the most self-confident missionary society in world history." He concludes that a bodily resurrection could possibly have been that reason.

West Germany's Jews have excoriated Lapide's view as outrageous. Some scholars complain that he has made highly selective use of Jewish sources, including the medieval sage Maimonides. It is "a terrible shock. He has overstepped the bounds of Jewish theology," snaps liberal German Rabbi Peter Levinson. "If I believed in Jesus' Resurrection I would be baptized tomorrow."

Among German Christians, even those who express doubts about Jesus' Resurrection, Lapide's ideas have been welcomed. Besides working on a third book, which is to deal with Jesus' Passion, Lapide has time to appear at religious conferences where he has been known to twit German liberal Christians about their lack of faith. The demythologizers of Easter, he says, are "sawing off the branch of faith upon which they are sitting."

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. Next Page