Central to Christian faith: the bodily resurrection of Jesus (montage: JF)
Another great video from 100Huntley.com featuring N.T. (Tom) Wright, leading New Testament scholar and former Bishop of Durham in the Church of England. Here he discusses the resurrection of Jesus and how the early Christian community differed from other failed messianic movements. He begins by saying:
“The resurrection of Jesus took everybody by surprise. The disciples weren’t expecting it. They knew perfectly well, that if you followed someone who you thought was the Messiah, and he got killed, then that was it. We know at least a dozen other Messianic or prophetic movements, within a hundred years on either side of Jesus, they routinely ended with the death of the founder. And if the movement wanted to continue, they didn’t say, oh hes been raised from the dead. They said, lets find his brother or cousin who can carry on this movement. You can see how those Jewish groups did that. This one did it differently. They had James the brother of Jesus, as this great leader of the early church, but nobody said, James is the Messiah. They said, Jesus is the Messiah. Why? Hes dead. They got him, didn’t you realize they crucified… No. He was raised from the dead. The only way you can explain, why Christianity began, and why it took the very precise shape it was, is lets say it cautiously, first – they really did believe He was bodily raised from the dead…”
(video and transcript source: 100Huntley via YouTube)
