147 - The Jewish Messiah with Eric Chabot

Summary
In this episode of the Apologetics 315 Podcast, host Chad Gross interviews Eric Chabot about his essay, 'Does the Resurrection of Jesus Prove He is the Jewish Messiah?' The conversation explores Chabot's background, his work with Ratio Christi, and the significance of the resurrection in the context of Jewish messianic expectations. Chabot discusses the concept of the Messiah, the varied expectations of the Jewish people in the first century, and the challenges faced when discussing these topics with secular Jews. The episode culminates in Chabot's argument for how the resurrection of Jesus fulfills the role of the Messiah as outlined in the Old Testament. He discusses the role of Israel as a light to the nations and how Jesus fulfills this calling through his ministry and resurrection. He explores Jewish identity, common objections to Jesus as the Messiah, and the significance of the resurrection in proving Jesus' messianic claims. The discussion also delves into the interpretation of Isaiah 53 and the complexities of Jewish reactions to Jesus, emphasizing the need for understanding and dialogue. Eric concludes by recommending resources for further study on these topics.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Apologetics 315 Podcast
03:11 Interview with Eric Chabot: The Resurrection and the Messiah
09:38 Understanding the Concept of Messiah
13:52 Exploring First Century Messianic Expectations
19:17 Challenges in Conversations about the Messiah
23:55 Making the Case for Jesus as the Jewish Messiah
29:07 Israel's Calling and the Light to the Nations
32:16 Jewish Identity and Beliefs
34:38 Common Objections to Jesus as Messiah
37:25 Evidential Concerns and the Resurrection
41:31 Isaiah 53: The Messianic Debate
47:32 Understanding Jewish Reactions to Jesus
54:14 Resources for Further Study
================================
We appreciate your feedback.
If you’re on TWITTER, you can follow Chad @TBapologetics.
You can follow Brian @TheBrianAuten
And of course, you can follow @Apologetics315
If you have a question or comment for the podcast, record it and send it our way using www.speakpipe.com/Apologetics315 or you can email us at [e-mail]

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello and welcome to the Apologetics three fifteen podcast. With
your hosts Brian Auten and Chad Gross join us for
conversations and interviews on the topics of apologetics, evangelism, and
the Christian worldview.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
I've had it with us jump all right, Hello and
welcome to the Apologetics three p fifteen podcast. I am
your host, Chad Gross, I am Albyma. Don't worry, I
won't sing anymore. Mister Aughton is out doing mister Aughton things.
I don't know what he's doing. We got no food,

(00:43):
we got no jobs, our pets heads are falling off.
I don't know what's going on, but you are with
me today, so welcome. We are going to be talking
with Eric Chebo today. I love saying that name. I
wish I had a cool name. My last name is
Gross and he gets Chebo, which seems unfair to be
honest with you, and we are going to talk to

(01:03):
him today about his essay does the Resurrection of Jesus
Prove He is the Jewish Messiah that he contributed to
a book entitled Faith Examined New Arguments for Persistent Questions
Essays in honor of Frank Turk let's get to know
mister Chebou a little bit. He is the director of
Ratio Christi and National Apologetics Ministry at the Ohio State

(01:26):
and Columbus State Community College. He holds an MA from
Southern Evangelical Seminary and is the CJF Ministry's Midwest representative
in Columbus, Ohio, where he lives with his wife, Lucy
and two children. And he has spoken and taught at
multiple churches and conferences, including the SEES National Apologetics Conference.

(01:47):
He is the author of the Resurrection of the Jewish Messiah,
co author of Does God Exist? Whyat Matters? And is
Jesus the Jewish Messiah? And he blogs at thinkapologetics dot com.
So before we get to the interview, I did want
to drop a bit of a encouragement advertisement. Not sure
what you want to call it. Advertisement seems to entail

(02:10):
that I'm making some kind of money, which I'm not,
but I did want to I guess put a plug
in would be a better way to say it. For
something on truth Bomb, which is where I blogtruthbomb dot
blogspot dot com called Worldview and Apologetics in the News,
and this is where I collect articles, videos, movie reviews,

(02:30):
book reviews and commentary on cultural issues and apologetic issues.
And the goal of this resource is to encourage Christians
to be able to think well about things that are
happening in the culture from a biblical perspective. And so
I encourage you to check that out. And again, my

(02:51):
blog is not monetized or anything like that, but I
do think it's a resource that would be worth spending
a few minutes checking out. So again, that is a
worldview and apologis in the news at a truth bomb.
So let's get to the interview.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
Let's get ready. Switch me on, Eric Chabou.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Welcome to the Apologetics three fifteen podcast.

Speaker 3 (03:15):
Thank you, Chad. Great to be here.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yes, I've been following your work for quite some time,
so it is so nice to sit down and have
a virtual face to face. So today I wanted to
talk to you about your essay does the Resurrection of
Jesus Prove He is the Jewish Messiah? And of course
that was included in a book called Faith Examine New
Arguments for Persistent Questions Essays an honor of Frank Turk,

(03:38):
So I thought it'd be a great place to start
to just talk about how did you get involved in
that book.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yeah, well there was an email that went out from
Clark Bates. Clark Bates is the editor on the book,
and I knew who Clark was. I've never met him personally,
but I think I've seen his name through the years
of Apologetic stuff, and he he contacted a bunch of
people that have been through Frank Turk's Cross Examiner Academy class,

(04:02):
which is something the Cross exam in the Ministry offers
every year for people. Well, I was actually technically in
the very first class that was like way back in
like two thousand and eight. Yes, so I was like
one of the guinea pigs. The originally was a bunch
of us. There a lot of people in Apologetics were there,
you know some of the names. But so, and I
had known Frank for many many years. I've had him,

(04:24):
I've had him speak at our highest State Rush of
Christie chapter many times. So I've known, you know, known
him personally for a number of years. And I was like, yeah,
I really want to contribute something here if I can.
I mean, you know, I really appreciate Frank, and you know,
I think he's done a great job for our chapter here,
and he does a great job with cross Examine, and
I want to do something to kind of honor him.
So I told Clark, I'm in. You know, if you

(04:44):
want to use me, I'm in. So I just responded, Hey,
you need me, I'm here. I'll write an essay and
that was it, excellently much less. The rest is history.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
Yeah, so ah, that's good stuff. So before we start
talking about the essay, I know that one way I
came to know you is just through your post that
you should about your ministry on the campus of the
Ohio State and so I was wondering if you could
talk a little bit about that and also a little
bit about your involvement with Ratio CHRISTI.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
Yeah, well, I started going to the Ohigh State University
about two thousand and five as part as part of
an internship for my congregation here. I would just go
down there a couple of days a week and do
some evangelism, and then I really got excited about it.
I mean, High State's a gigantic school. It's got like
sixty four thousand students, so there's a lot of opportunities there.
But to make a long story short, and opportunity opened

(05:33):
qretty quickly for me to go full time as a
full time support based missionary, and I took for my pastor.
My pastor was working for an organization part time as
a missionary, but he stepped away and I kind of
took a spot full time. So he's pastoring full time,
but he didn't want to do that. He did had
time to do the other stuff. So I took his place,
and I've been doing it for a while. And then
about two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, I

(05:55):
was enrolled at SES Seminary getting a master's there. Master's
degree there, and they I just sent a leadership there
and they said, you know, we're starting these Rational Christie
chapters down North Carolina, and there's a few of them
that just started. And they said, you know, you're you're
doing a lot of stuff at a highest state. Is
there any apologetics men? So there, I'm like no, Actually,
I've been frustrated. There's really no apologetics ministry. There's like

(06:16):
Crew and er Varsity's other groups which do a lot
of good stuff, but I just didn't see any apologetics presence.
And so I volunteered to kind of get a chapter
going here to plant one, and so we were technically
the fourth chapter to ever start and so now there's
like over one hundred and thirty chapters. So I grabbed
some students. I met some students just out on campus
doing some outreach, and they helped me start the chapter.

(06:39):
And it's been there ever since. I mean, we've we've
been going steady strong for now, you know, you do
the math is twenty twenty four, and so we've been
there ever since. It Rasha Christie was a very young
ministry then just starting. There wasn't a lot of infrastructure,
a lot of leadership, and so it took a number
of years for Rasha Christy kind of get more, you know,
balanced and stable. And now they've got really good leadership.

(07:00):
So it's in a good spot. But I was there
in the very very early years, so but I was, yes,
that we've been there for a long time.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah, Now did that ministry of Raschio Christie, did that
help spark the interest in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah?

Speaker 3 (07:15):
Well what sparked that was I came to faith in
my mid twenties. I was raised in a nominal Methodist church.
Growing up, I was not truly a believer, not against Jesus,
just didn't know what the Gospel was. And when I
when I started seeking, really asking where I was right,
if I was right with God. A friend of mine

(07:35):
told me about a congregation Columbus, Ohio, where I live,
and it's a local Messianic congregation. Messianic congregations have Jews
to believe. You know, these are jewsi bely not really
anything new. I mean, the first century they were juicible.
But I'd never heard of such a thing. But I
had grown up in a Jewish community growing up. I
grew up around a lot of Jewish people. Out of
my friends were Jewish, but they weren't really religious, and

(07:57):
I was not Jewish, but still I just had so
many Jewish friends, and so I wandered into this congregation
with Jews who actually believed in Jesus. I'd never heard
of such a thing. To me, I was biblically illiterate,
and I just heard the gospel there was preached, you know,
from the pulpit. And then I came to know the
Lord and right away got put it on my heart
to reach Jewish people. I always had a heart for them,

(08:18):
and so I just got very involved in like theology,
dealing with you know, Israel and you know, Jewish messianism
is Jesus a messiah because I was interacting with some
Jewish missionaries who didn't believe he's a messiah. So it'd
always been on my mind and so but what got
me was my interest in the resurrection had always been
there for a long time, but I just never I

(08:41):
was thinking about it when I talked to Jewish people
about whether he was a messiah, and a lot of
them didn't really give a lot of stock to the resurrection.
And so I was thinking, like, well, you know, if
I bet if I study harder in Jewish history or
like Jewish Messianic expectations, I wonder if there is it
even is an expectation that the messiahs was to rise
from the dead. The more I got into it, the

(09:01):
more I realized it really wasn't any really clear messianic expectation.
The history of Jewish thought that the machiak the messide
when he comes with rise from the dead. So I
kind of put those two and two together and it
just bothered me for a while, and I'd had a
lot of thoughts on it. For you, I wrote a book.
There's a book on Amazon I wrote called the resurrection.
The Jewish Messiah, like is a longer version of this argument,
and it's just something that bothered me for a long time,

(09:23):
and so I finally kind of just took some of
that material. Then I kind of came up some new
ideas and synthesized that for the book we dedicated to
Frank So, somebody I'd been working on for a long time.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
Oh okay, that's interesting. Yeah, so I want to revisit
that that idea that was there, this clear expectation. But
before we do that, just for the sake of our listeners,
can we talk briefly about what it means when we
say Messiah? What what do we mean by that?

Speaker 3 (09:53):
Yeah, well, it's you know, the Messiah just means anointed one,
and we say in Judaism like the Maschioch and Greek
of course it's Christos Christo's how it's translated. And you know,
various people were anointed throughout the Old Testament. It's very
clear that, you know, David could be anointed by the
Holy Spirit to like the God would come upon him

(10:14):
through the Spirit to accomplish a task, or a priest
could be anointed with oil, a prophet could be anointed
with oil just to fulfill a specific task for God.
Even Cyrus we know is called like an anointed one
anointed figures, So it doesn't ass they have to be
a Jewish person obviously as Cyrus, Yeah, who was annointed?
Then you have the one you know, the Daniel nine passage,

(10:35):
you know, it talks about the anoint to one. So
it just means somebody that was consecrated to do something
for God. They're like anointed by God, empowered or else
consecrated to fulfill a specific task.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
Okay God, Okay.

Speaker 3 (10:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
So then when Christians say Jesus is the Jewish Messiah,
and you're saying that they were called to a specific task, right,
So what task would a Christian say would be? Again,
just for the sake of our listeners, to kind of
lay the foundation of the groundwork, what would we what
in what way is Jesus specifically a messiah?

Speaker 3 (11:12):
Yeah? Well, like I said, I think what you see
in the Old Testament are the figures that are anointed
to do things or generally fall into three categories prophets, priests,
and kings. That's generally the ones that they are anointed
to do things. And so Jesus when he comes. Okay,
so you could take like King David. You know, you

(11:34):
could say that he's like he's like a son of
God in a way, like he's a he's a king,
you know, for God's purposes. He's a son of God.
God's the king and Israel's the people. God's the king
over Israel in the land. And then David's like a king,
kingly figure, right, and so then you might have another
figure that's a priest or prophet. But the point is
that when Jesus comes, he's anointed as a prophet, priest,

(11:56):
and king to fulfill all three of those roles. Only
he is not just like an earthly king like David.
He has a special relationship with God like David, but
he is not a son of God, but like the
son of God, you know, he's like the big one,
the big son of God. Or I can say David
is like a little Messiah in a way, but he's
not the Messiah, you know what I mean. And just

(12:17):
like you had other priests or prophets doing things in
the Old Testament, Jesus is the the prophet, the ultimate prophet,
or in the ultimate priests in the order milkizedics. So
he's anointed to fulfill all three of those roles for sure,
and then he fulfills those through his his he's consecrated.
His messianic task starts at his baptism, when he comes

(12:38):
out of the water with John the Baptist. He starts
his messianic ministry, and then he fulfills those roles through
his miracles, through his actions, and then ultimately of course
through dying and rising from the dead. And so you
know that's the thing. But there is some disconnect, as
I said, between you. Look at those figures in the
Old Testament. None of them are really arising from the

(12:59):
dead or buying for the sins of humanity or awarding
for sin necessarily, but they do do other things. I mean,
they do you know, similar Jesus has similarities with them.
But Jesus just does something even more as the Messiah
who fulfills the Old Testament scriptures.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, excellent, thank you, and again forgive me if that
seems elementary. It's just when I was reading your essay,
I thought you did a great job of explaining what
we mean when we say Jesus as Messiah, and it
got me thinking, you know, I wonder if that's something
Christians sitting in the pews like they hear that over
and over again, but if you actually ask them, okay,
what's that mean? Would they be able to articulate that?

(13:38):
And so I thought it was important just for you
to lay that out for us.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
That's one of the reasons I wrote the book.

Speaker 2 (13:43):
Yeah, yeah, go ahead, Yeah, I love that. So you
talked a bit about those first century Messianic expectations that
Jews had, and I thought, honestly, that was one of
the most fascinating parts of your essay for me. What
did you learn about out these expectations when you did
that deep dive you talked about and were these were

(14:04):
these expectations uniform? Were they different? Were they all over
the map? Talk talk a little bit about that.

Speaker 3 (14:10):
Yeah, Well, when I started to interact with some of
the Jewish, we call them anti missionaries. They have like
groups like Jews for Judaism, Jewish Outreach, and they have
their own apologetics, they have everything, and so I just
began to realize that, you know, they just simply don't
have they see, doesn't seem to have the same Messianic
expectations we have the most traditional Messiic expectation which was

(14:33):
put forth by Mamodides, who was a great Jewish thinker,
you know, the medieval period. He's influenced the Jewish world forever.
He combined like philosophy and theology together. He's a brilliant guy.
But you know, his view has kind of been the
standard traditional view for a lot of Jews, and that
is that when the Messiah comes, he's not divine. He's

(14:55):
simply an earthly king who's definitely anointed by God, but
he's not divine, and he will reign in Israel. He
will gather all the Jewish people there. They will live
in more of like a restored Israel where everything is good,
you know, it's peaceful. Jerusalems at the center of the
earth are not being you know, marked out to be

(15:17):
killed and all this war and stuff. And he reigns
from there and he kind of gathers the Jewish people
back to the land. There's like a gathering of all
the Jews back to the land, and so he really
provides some sort of order in Israel. But there's nothing
there's no mystic expectation there. Generally the traditional view that

(15:38):
the's any kind of divine figure. Okay, and so that's
what most Jews believe, or else you can have what's
called a we call it the Messianic age of view.
The Messianic age is where they believe one day, like
when you're reading the Old Teslam, something's passages like the
Lion will lie down with the Lamb, and all this
peace on earth, all this these worlds changes where there's

(16:02):
just peace, everything the world looks differently. Some Jews say
that when the Messianic Age comes, the Messiah will be
there in the midst of that. So you see a
change in world conditions, which kind of my opinion, looks
supernatural to me. Biblically, they look kind of supernatural to me,
And I don't know how an earthly beside could pull
that off. But the point is that they don't really
like one guy sitting If the Messiah comes, I just

(16:24):
know he's here. I'll just look at the world. The
world's going to look different. That's a way they believe
in some sort of peace, some sort of restoration. And
that's why we with Christians today when we say we
talk about the future of Israel. You know, some people believe,
like Romans eleven teaches a future conversion of Israel, like
a future salvation of Israel of a group of Jews.
Then other people believe not only that, they believe in

(16:44):
the restoration of Israel. So some Christians believe there's a
future for Israel as a people not only to be
saved through the Messiah, but also to be restored to
the land. And the land's different and all those Old
Testament passages that talk about what the what Jews believe
the mess I was supposed to do, Well, we believe
it happened the Second Coming, and so a lot of

(17:05):
those things will happen. They'll just happen the Second Coming,
like all these restoration passages you see throughout the Old Testament.
And some Christians don't believe that at all, obviously, right, basically, yeah,
Jesus comes back and there's no special plan for Israel
and Israel blah blah blah. I'm like, well, where's he
coming to? Or is he coming to California or is
he coming to Ohio. You know, I can't get my
friends that are totally totally don't believe that. I'm like, well,

(17:28):
where does he come to? Like it has to be
a land, and it has to be a land. There
for him to come do right that it does make sense.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
That's another story, right, I mean maybe it'll be Haggerstown
or Ohio. I mean I don't have right, you know,
for Chicago, New York exactly exactly. So I guess, I
guess I'm thinking here before you kind of start, you know,
diving into your case a little bit.

Speaker 3 (17:53):
Also, I left something out, but go ahead. Yeah, when
I talked about the traditional view, that's that's the main view.
But when you look at Jewish messianic expectations throughout history,
if you take the whole wide scope I'm talking about
throughout first century, the time of Jesus and otherwise, there
are other messianic expectations, Like there's at the time of Jesus,

(18:17):
it's obvious that it was very varied. Like they're looking
for a prophetic messiah. They say, you know, are you
the prophet in the Book of John. They're looking for
a son of Man kind of expectation. The son of
Man kind of thing has come to for a focus
in scholarship, like, hey, you know, there's some Jews that
believe and the Messiah comes, he's like the son of Man.
I mean, son of Man is like a Messianic title,
so kind of that expectation, and then there's like a

(18:39):
now we found out that the Dead Sea Squirrels, we read,
we read the DC Squirrels and the Kumrn discoveries. It
seems like they were expecting a priestly Messiah and a
kingly Messiah, you know, and at prophetic Messiah. So, you know,
it seems to me from what I've studied, it's just
not one dominant Messianic expectation. At the time of Jesus.

(19:00):
Everybody thinks, oh, Jesus, they wanted to come and set
up take over Rome, set up his kingdom. Yeah, that's there,
But there's also some other Messianic expectations too, I think.
So we don't want to be too narrow, Yeah there,
you know. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
So when you're in conversation with people, and particularly Jewish people,
do they find it will They sometimes challenge you and
ask something along the I could easily as see them
asking something like, well, why why didn't God make it
more clear? Why didn't God make that that Jesus was
the Messiah more obvious?

Speaker 3 (19:32):
I haven't heard that one too much because most of
the most of the Jews. That's that's a struggle from
where Christians. I think you struggle with the prophecy sometimes
the able test and they seem a little vague some places,
you know, like Michael Heiser has a clip called wise
Prophecy unclear. There's a heated a whole clip on that
why prophecy seems unclear? And I think some of the

(19:53):
times it seems a little cryptic in the Old Testament,
you know, some of the some of the Messianic prophecies.
I mean we think the clear with like you know,
traditional apologetics, like the it's three hundred threety messing expectations
are all filled in Jesus are so clear. But you know,
the more you look at those clear, I don't think
there's three hundred and thirty. I think there's more, like,
like Michael Brown says, maybe like thirty to forty really

(20:13):
good ones. And you have to, like you have to
really go into deeper and do the exit Jesus and
figure out is this really a messy and a prophecy?
You know. I think that traditional apologetics has done that
a little superficially. I think we need to kind of
like be a little better at that. But I think
that what we would want to say is that we're
talking to Jewish people. I don't run into that too

(20:34):
much because most of the Jews that we interact with
at Ohio State, since as we do most of our
campus outreach or most of our outreach, they're generally secular
and so they don't really think much about the Messiah. Okay,
the Jews we deal with today are mostly agnostic or atheists,
you know, so talking about whether Jesus is the Messiah,

(20:54):
and it is kind of like, eh, I don't know
if I don't really do believe it in God, right,
So you know, you have to you have to establish
like a God exists interesting and you know, first of
all with them that he's a real God, and then
you can bring the Messiah into it. But a lot
of them are just so secular, meaning they're culturally Jewish.
They practice Judaism as a culture and it's very important

(21:15):
to them as their identity. But they just simply don't
have any strong convictions about the Old Testament. They've have
probably never read it or even God. And so some
of the people were doing with there in that category. Now,
the ones we do do with every once in a
while will just simply say oh, Jesus isn't Messiah. I
just you know, I'm Jewish and he's not for us.

(21:35):
And then if you get a really hardcore like Orthodox,
then you're going to get into well, he's not the
Messiah because you know, he didn't fulfill the Messianic expectations,
he didn't set up the kingdom. The world is still
in a bad place. Israel is in a bad place,
and mostly in Jewish thought and Orthodoxy, the Messiah will
only come when Israel's ready to receive them. So there

(21:57):
isn't like this thing he just shows up. It's like
Israel has to be willing to receive their Messiah. It's
a lot of Orthodox Jews today think that most of
Jewish people in the world are not living any remotely
Torah driven life. They're not following the law or the
Tora anything. They're just secular. So they're saying the Messiah
is not going to come because they're not living righteously

(22:18):
before God. They're not practicing anything. They're just secular. And
so when Jesus says, blessed is he, you won't see
me again until Blessed is here comes in the name
of the Lord. Like in the Matthew twenty two text.
I think, you know, it's kind of a similar theme.
He's like, I don't come back until you receive me,
you welcome me, see what I mean. So that kind
of theme is also an orthodoxy with with Jewish Messianism.

(22:41):
So they just don't you know, that's part of the issue.
It's kind of depends on Israel's repentance in a way. Wow.
So yeah, I mean Israel needs to repent.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
Yeah. So if I'm understanding you correctly, then when you're
in a conversation with what we would call a secular
Jewish person, you almost before you can even start to
argue that the resurrection proves that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah,
you've got to establish that a god exists, and you've
got to establish that a resurrection even happened. Is that
Is that correct?

Speaker 3 (23:09):
Exactly? Now? I did have one Jewish person to say
to me once he did this is a long time ago.
He said, I don't care if Jesus rose from the
dead fourteen times, it doesn't mean he's the Messiah. And
so I was just kind of like, you know, and
so but the time, this is like probably fifteen years
ago at the time, I was like, that's really weird.
But then I began to that's kind of got me.

(23:30):
You go into this deep dive. I say, Oh, well,
that's because in Jewish thinking, they just don't have like
a resurrection messianic expectation. You know, there's just not there. Really,
So I could see where he's coming from. Yeah, I'd
be like, why he's now it doesn't make any sense
to us. Sure to him, I could see why he's
saying that.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
Yeah, so you know so yeah, so that's actually leads
into giving you a great opportunity to begin to make
your case. And so I'm going to ask it this way.
So one of the points you make in your essay
is that the Old Testament doesn't have as an expectation
for the Messiah a resurrection. Is that correct?

Speaker 3 (24:07):
Yeah? I don't what I say in the article or
the chapter that the article I wrote there that contribution.
I say that there's no explicit text anywhere the teaches
that the Messiah when he comes arise from the dead.
I don't see it. You could argue maybe a couple
implicit texts. Implicitly, you could say, like at the end
of Isaiah fifty three, the servant. You know, he's vindicated,

(24:31):
you know, and God shows him prosperity or the thing
with his offspring. You know, there's something there, like there's
an explicit implicit part in Isaiah fifty three. I'd say,
at the end, of course, you just don't think Isaiah
fifty three is about Jesus generally, you know, that's the
traditional view. And then you have like a Psalm sixteen passage,
which is like a typology that Peter quotes an acts

(24:54):
two you David, you know, I won't let your Holy
One ced k, you know, and that's supposed to be
about maybe David originally, but then it's like a points
to Jesus after that. So maybe there's like a couple
of things there, those two. But what I say in
the book, even if there isn't anything explicit, well, no,
I don't say this actually in the article. I didn't
have time to write this in, but I'll add this

(25:14):
in here. This is what I say in my book.
I would say, even though you don't see anything explicitly,
what you do see is that in order for the
Messiah to fulfill the role of a prophet, priest and king,
he has to rise from the dead, Okay, because what
I mean by that to be a prophet like Moses,
you've got to do miracles. Jesus said, the ultimate miracle

(25:35):
will be my rising from the dead. He says that
Matthew twelve, the ultimate sign will be when I rise
from the dead. So you have to do miracles like Moses.
The second thing to be a priest forever and ever
and ever, and you never die, not like the earthly
priest is you have to be able to live forever,
be a priest forever. So the resurrection fixes that problem.
To be in the quarter milk, to be in the

(25:55):
order of melkiz Adic, and then to be a king,
to be a dividic king forever, like Paul says in
Romans one, on the first five verses, he says, Jesus
is the son of God descended to David, resurrected from
the dead to be on the phone of David forever,
to fulfill the dividic covenant. To keep that covenant going
permanently without an earthly king, you have to rise from

(26:16):
the dead. So I'd say his resurrection helps fulfill those
three roles prophet, priest and king completely. Okay, it just
doesn't say that in the Old tested whether Messiah comes,
he's going to fulfill the roles of priest, he's going
to rise from the dead, or fill the roles a king,
for he's going to rise from the dead. He just
doesn't say that explicitly, but I'd say that's what we

(26:37):
could infer. And I think that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
Okay, Yes, that's good. That's good. So let's imagine that
you're in a conversation and you are attempting to make
a case of this idea that the resurrection proves that
Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. What does that sound like?
Where do you start?

Speaker 3 (26:57):
Well, I would say that first of all, if I'm
talking to a Jewish person, I would say, do you
understand why, how important it is why we think Jesus
is the messida, why he wrote from They like, why
these two are connected? And I said, let me go
to the Old Testament. Well, first of all, I'm going
to talk about the end of Deuteronomy twenty nine and thirty,
chapters twenty nine to thirty, where God tells Moses. He

(27:20):
says to him, I'm not given you eyes to see
your ears to hear it. I'm going to circumcise your heart.
Though one day I'm going to do something different than
what is in the law you've been given in the Torah.
So he kind of give Moses a prophetic clue that
something's coming greater, something where God's going to circumcisee their heart.
He's going to open their eyes, open their ears. And
so then I would if I'm with a Jew, which

(27:40):
I did. This was a Jew, by the way. Then
I turned to Jeremiah thirty one, and I talk about
the New Covenant passages where Jesus the Northern Kingdom and
the Southern Kingdom were split, and God says to Knight,
you underwent Covenant, and I'm going to write the law
in your hearts, and I'm going to you know, give
you you know way to know me directly, and the
Holy Spirit's going to come. So then I point them
to that, and I said, so, how do you think

(28:02):
this is fulfilled? Like? How does this happen? Like this?
These things like where God told Moses this is going
to happen. Then in Jeremiah thirty one, this is gonna happen.
How does that even happen? And then I might take
him Ezekiel thirty six, where it talks about the Jews
or being restored to the land, and God says, I'll
sprinkle clean water on you. I'll put a new spirit

(28:22):
within you. You have similar passages about the New Covenant.
I'll say this. Then I take him to John three,
if they're open, I'll take him to John three, where
Jesus talks about being born again, And I'll say, do
you understand that the only way this happens is the
work of the Holy Spirit. The ruw kak Kodesh comes
into your life and the law of God's written on

(28:44):
your heart. The Holy Spirit comes in you empowers you
to live out God's ways, you know. And so that
can only happen if Jesus rises from the dead, because
he sends the spirit after he rises from the dead
to fulfill those texts and Judomi and Jeremiah thirty one
in Ezekiel thirty. So see, that's not going to happen
unless I got and Messiah rises from the dead, you know.

(29:04):
So I kind of try to connect those together. And
then I also say, as I say in the book now,
the book you're reading or the chapter you read in mine,
I also talk about how Israel's calling is to be
a light to the whole world. You know, there's supposed
to be, you know, a testimony to the nations. There's
people are supposed to look to Israel like you got
the One True God. Let me out of my policyism

(29:25):
and paganism. I'm going to come to the One True God,
the God of Abraham. Isaac and Jacob So I talk
about how the Abraham of Covenant promised that in Abraham
see the nations will be blessed. And then I talk
about how Jesus is from the seat of Abraham, and
I talk about how how through his ministry, only the
Jewish person in the history of Jewish thought or Jewish

(29:46):
history that has helped one point four billion non Jews
come to know the One True God. Okay, he has
spread that Like Jews say, the Messiah supposed to spread
the knowledge of God across the world. Well, Jesus has
spread the knowledge of God throughout the nations of the
One True God. And He's done that only by through
his death and resurrection. Has to be him rising from

(30:08):
the dead, because if he had died, realistically, I mean,
he would have just been considered another you know, Jewish
failed messiah, you know, and most of his followers would
be his followers would not have followed him. There would
have been no birth of our faith at all. Would
have just died out. Because they had a lot of
those guys back then, not a lot, but some that
would would happen. As I mentioned in the chapters, they've

(30:29):
let a revolt, They led a revolt, and then they
got squashed by the Romans. They got killed or something.
Even though Jesus even lead a revolt, they still say, well,
he's dead, he's done, and move on to the next guy.
But the point is that through his resurrection, the knowledge
of God has gone out, and all these other people groups,
non Jews, outside of Israel can come to know the
one true God. I don't think that's going to happen.

(30:50):
A Jewish guy shows up anders rejected by a majority
of his people. He's called to Israel to be their messiah,
and just so happens that through his death and resurrection,
especially his resurrects, and all these non Jews, the Gentiles,
the Pagans get to believe. Yeah, we get grafted into
the Covenant, like Paul says in Romans eleven. So I
say that's not going to be possible. So what I
telled you, I'm like, do you understand that Israel's callings

(31:13):
to be a light to the world, They're supposed to
spread the knowledge of God. You understand that Jesus has
done that through his ministry. He's the only guy that's
done that. I'm a benefit of that, And so I
kind of take him to Isaiah forty nine maybe talks
about the servant of the Lord will be a light
to the nations as well. So, yeah, that's I kind
of taken down those roads a couple of those areas there.
That's what I tried to do. The one guy, the
first part I told you about with the Deuteronomy passages

(31:35):
and Jeremiah three one, I did that with the Jewish
student one. So I was sitting in the panera on
campus and he ran back to his Orthodox friend, and man,
his Orthodox friend was so mad and he's like, you're
you're trying to convert lee to Christianity and blah blah blah.
And I'm like, listen, he didn't know any of his scriptures,
Like I'm going over passages in the Old Testament, Like
he just didn't know, he'd never seen any of them. Wow,

(31:55):
you know what I mean, So they just don't know.

Speaker 2 (31:58):
Wow, that's so interesting. So yeah, with that case, what
are some of the common objections that you get? What
is you know, some of those pushbacks that you can
almost detect or coming.

Speaker 3 (32:14):
Well. I think for Jewish people, Jewish identity is marked
by generally three things, at least a couple of two
or three things. One a commitment to self preservation of
the Jewish people, like you want exist, you know, because
they've almost been wiped out so many times as they
are trying to be wiped out to this day. Another

(32:34):
thing is existence of Israel, like a place, a land.
That's all Zionism means. It just means self existence, the
desire to have Jewish people exist and have a homeland
to live in. That's all it really needs. That's all
Zionism is. And for practical basic understanding. So I think
that that's part of Jewish identity. I mean, not all
Jews are Zionists, I know if you, but most of

(32:56):
them believe in Israel's existence, the right to exc this,
you know, to have a land to live in. And
the third one of the third markers in Holocaust identification
with what happened the whole, Like you're aware of what
happened in the Holocaust, you're not agnrant about that, you know,
because it could happen again. And fourth, non belief in
Jesus is a huge Jewish identity marker. So most Jews

(33:18):
just are so part of their identity is not to
believe in Jesus, you know, They've just been taught that
from a very early age, you know, and so they
just don't really consider Jesus like even an option, you know,
He's not like on their radar screen. Now, it's true
today there are way more Jews who believe than there
used to be. There's a lot of Messianic congregations, there's
a lot more Jews who are more open about their faith,

(33:40):
who believe, you know, they're more prolific, you know. So
there's a lot more than there used to be. Certainly
Israel has about I think with how many Jews are
I went to there, maybe like ten million jew what
eleven million Jews living there, and I think, like maybe,
you know, seven a very small percentage of them believe
in Jesus in Israel. But world, why, there's there's a

(34:01):
lot of there's a decent amount of Jews who believe
in Jesus, but they're still the majority, don't. You know,
the majority don't. And that's Paul talks about that Romans eleven.
He says it's a partial hardening on Israel. So you
know that that's just scriptural. Yeah, you know what I
mean that they're they're not all going to believe.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
Yeah. And when you say they say they don't believe
in Jesus, like they most of them, I'm guessing believe
in Jesus of Nazareth is a historical figure. What we're
talking about is they're not trusting in Jesus right right.

Speaker 3 (34:31):
They're not trusting him as a messiah in order. As
I said before, they really care. I mean because if
they're secular, they don't care. Now, I try to walk
him through the high holiday cycle that you know, if
you're going through passover or Rashashana young Kapoor, the fall holidays,
when they focus on atonement. I try to always point
them to say, listen, you know, we just believe Jesus
is like our atonement. You know, that's how we have

(34:51):
full atonement for sins. He's our tooean, He's our passover land,
your passover, say or Meal points to Jesus, and you know,
the blood of the door on the land, you know
that God told them come in to do. That's our covering.
Jesus covers it. So I always tie it within that
and that that seems to click with them a little bit,
you know what I mean, Like like, oh, okay, I
never thought of that, you know, and I never thought
about that's what you believe about Jesus. Yeah, you know

(35:13):
what I mean. But you know, when I was promoting
a Michael Brown event at a highest eight years ago
called is Jesus the Jewish Messiah? Michael and I came
up with that title, you know, hitting out. The flyers
for that were interesting because you had JESSU came by,
They're like, wait, what do you mean. I'm confused Jewish Messiah,
like's not he's not our Messiah, you know, the ones

(35:34):
that were interested, and then the Christians were the ones
that were confused. The Christians came by and they're like,
what are you talking about. He's not what you mean
Jewish Messiah. They thought he's the Christian Messidah, you know,
And so I was just like, okay, let me explain,
let me explain this to you. You know, but I mean
they were confused. One girl walks by and goes, no,
and I'm Christian. I'm like, well I am.

Speaker 2 (35:56):
Too, but let me explain, dear.

Speaker 3 (35:58):
So that's two thous years of Jewish history mixed in
with Christianity, all the barriers that have come and gone,
you know, the the misunderstandings, right, the stereotypes. Yeah, so
you got to work through you got to work through this.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
So my hunch in starting with defining messiah sounds like
it was pretty good then if I if I don't
if I don't mind saying myself, h.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
Yeah, yeah, I think Jewish people haven't really thought deeply
what the Messiah is supposed to do. I mean they've
they've they've been told Jesus is the Messiah. They're not
sure why, but you know what I mean, But all
they know he's another failed guy I never met. There's
been several messiahs in our people's history, just failed like
another one. Yeah, you know, I mean a lot of
just have looked into it deeply. But some of them

(36:41):
are open, you know, some of are open to talk,
and you know, we've had some good conversations with them.
It's not like everybody's like totally closed off. It just
depends on who you talk to. Yah.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
Yeah, Well, I'm wondering, Eric, in your conversations on this topic,
how important are evidential concerns as in regard to specifically
the resurrection, Meaning do people push back and say, well
that just that didn't happen, uh, and then you're able
to marshal some of the historical evidences or does that

(37:14):
not really enter the conversation too much It's not of
high importance to them.

Speaker 3 (37:18):
I mean you mean with Jewish people or just people.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
In Yeah, I mean I think I'm specifically because of
our topic, speaking mainly of Jewish people. But but I
mean if you want to just speak to the broader
experience you've had too with Rationio Christi there on the
college campus, that would be fine as well.

Speaker 3 (37:37):
Well. I think with Jewish people, if you look at
groups like Jews for Judaism and those outreach Judis and
like those anti missionary groups, they will part typically appeal
to all the main liberal arguments we have against the
you know, against the New Testament, traditional arguments against the
New Testament, which most of apologetics is dealt with throughout

(37:57):
the you know, decades and cads put out answers. You know,
we can't. We don't know at the Gospels, you know,
they're written too late, they're legendary, right, you know. Blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. You know, arguments
against the historicity of the New Testament. Those groups do that. Now,
if you're talking to just a regular secular Jewish person,

(38:18):
then they might ask for evidence. But overall, like I said,
I just think half the time I'm just trying to
get them to consider the God question, whether there's a God,
he's real, you know, get him out of agnostic lane,
get him out of agnostic land. But they haven't really,
they don't know enough about the New Testament to really

(38:39):
say much about against it, you know what I mean.
It's only if you run into a hardcore, well studied
person that's looked into it. But I would say for
sure Jews have been impacted by They've all been impacted
by the worldviews and materialism, naturalism, you know, all that
kind of stuff that we deal with, and apologetic they've

(39:00):
been impacted by, you know, all the all the higher
criticism of the Bible, stuff like that. They've all been
evolutionary thought everything, So you kind of have to work
through those worldview issues with them a lot of the time.
But i'd say on a general level, students in the resurrection, yeah,
I mean, you know, they might bring up objections about

(39:22):
the New Testament evidence, like, you know, I don't know
how you know guy rose from the dead? How do
you know we weren't there, you know, And then I
have to go through the basics of how we do
history and how we know something historically happen and stuff
like that. So you run into some of those people,
and then people some people have of course the miracle objection.
You know, they can't I just can't believe a guy
rose from the dead. You have some of those people.

(39:43):
But you know, overall, you know, I tell you, like
I've told people last four or five years, I've seen
more openness to the things of God on campus. I've
seen way more openness there used to be. There's a lot.
It's not all the it's not all atheists and agnostics.
I mean, there's plenty of people that are asking deep questions,
you know, thinking about big, big questions. So yeah, I
think overall we're in a pretty good place compared to

(40:03):
what it used to be. Now. We were there in
the period of the new atheism two thousand and eight
to twenty thirteen or fourteen or all those atheism books
are being written, and then we had to deal with
the atheist group on campus. There's certainly a hard atheism
on campus that was definitely there, but I'd say it's
kind of mellowed out, yes, compared to what it used
to be. It's nowhere what it used to be back

(40:25):
in that phase. Everyone, all the apologists were responding to
that stuff. But I think we've kind of we've kind
of moved on. I just get the feeling the campus
is not at our campus now. I can't speak for
every campus, sure, but our campus is not what it
was back then. For a while, I was like, God,
I'm an atheists, I'm going to talk to I'm get
tired of talking to athists, and that finally it seems like, oh, okay,

(40:45):
you know there's hope over the mountain that you know,
looking over the mountain side, it's yeah, that's better than
it was.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
And now even atheists don't want to talk about the
new atheists. So right right in.

Speaker 3 (40:56):
The atheist group at a high State is actually gone.
They they kind of just to be leadership and they
just kind of sizzled fizzled out. Oh wow, so they're
not even there anymore. I don't even have an atheist
group to talk to, a secular group. They're not even here. Interesting,
So it's kind of strange. Yeah, I was there for
a while.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
So one thing you mentioned that, and I know you
don't deal directly with it, but obviously you're equipped to,
and I think it would be helpful because I know
I've heard it a good bit and I don't even
get in as many conversations with Jewish folks as you do.
Is this idea that when Christians will say that Isaiah
fifty three is about Jesus, right, one of a very

(41:34):
common Jewish objection is is no, no, no, that's about Israel. Right.
So what is a what are two or three things
that the Christian can say to kind of challenge that
assertion and maybe get somebody thinking in a different direction.

Speaker 3 (41:49):
Well, I think that what we need to tell them
is that in the history of Jewish thought, they haven't
always believed it's been about Israel. Okay. That was the
reaction from Rashi, one of the great Jewish rabbis and
Jewish thought that kind of reacted to the Christian view
of a being about Jesus, and he kind of turned
around and said, no, it's about Israel. Now. They're right

(42:10):
that in Isaiah forty to fifty five chapters you will
see times a servant in the Lord is Israel. It's true,
you know there's times, but then it switches specifically to
an individual. You know, it will switch after. I think,
like Isaiah I can't remember as a chapter like maybe
forty two on, you'll see it referring a lot of
times to an individual, not to Israel. So it kind

(42:33):
of alternates back and forth sometimes. But so they can't
argue with us that the servants always about Israel, because
it's not. Okay, just you can't always say that. But
I think that if you go through the exit Jesus
and Isaiah fifty two thirteen, starting Isaiah fifty two thirteen
at Isaiah fifty three twelve, I think it's going to

(42:53):
be really hard to make Israel fit in that context
to fulfill certain things that happen there, you know, being
pierced through for our transgressions, atoning for sin, being blameless,
all those things, and then what I always do also
is I wrote in a little book called is Jesus
the Jewish Messiah? In another little book it's on Amazon,

(43:15):
but I talk about how later on after Jesus. It's
interesting that the rabbis came up with this issue of
trying to figure out how we deal with the passages
in the Old Testament talk about the suffering and rejected
portions of a figure. Looks like he's going to be suffering,
he's going to be rejected, he's going to be similar

(43:38):
to what Zachariah talks about Peers, the Peers Passages of
Zacharai and Isaiah fifty three. So they said, how do
we reconcile this rejected Messiah figure with a kingly Messiah?
And then they wrote in the Talmid that they said okay,
which came after Jesus the Taumad. They said, well, if
the Messiah comes in Israel's worthy. You know, the Messiah

(43:58):
will come in the clouds, like Dani seven says, become
in the clouds. But if he's not worthy, he'll come
writing on a donkey. And so they begin to wrestle
with Zachariah nine and some of these other passages that
seem to offer a dual Messiah perspective, that he can
be a suffering, rejected Messiah and a keenly Messiah. You know.
That's there seems to be two roles there which we

(44:20):
believe all fill Jesus one guy. And then the other
thing is if you read the Jewish literature after Jesus,
like you go through the rabbinical readings, the rabbinical writings,
the tallmid Zoar, which is a Jewish prayer book, and
the Mission, all this, these Jewish writings, they some of
them say they'll read Isaiah fifty three and say it's

(44:42):
about the Messiah, like it's not about Israel. Like it's
clearly about the Messiah. It's about a Messianic figure who
makes atonement. They just don't say it's the only issues
they don't say is Jesus, you know. But it's very
clear in the rabbinical writings after Jesus left that there
are passages that Sam's and fifty three is about a Messiah.

(45:02):
It's about a figure. It's not about Israel, you know.
And so because in Jewish thought, people make atonement for sin,
like Moses offers himselves as atonement for Israel, I mean, rabbis,
holy righteous men say I can offer myself as atonement.
So it's just not really foreign to Jewish thought to
offer or to have someone, a righteous person a tone

(45:25):
for sin. It's it's totally in the Jewish literature. It's there.
It's not a Christian invention that a righteous figure can
atone for the sins of the generation, you know, or
the of Israel.

Speaker 2 (45:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:38):
So yeah, I always just show the passages and their
own literature after Jesus that show that Isaiah fifty three
is about a Messianic figure, even if you don't think
it's Jesus, Like, hey, it's in your literature. I can't
say Christians are way off right. Yeah, yeah, we're not.
We didn't yea, we didn't invent this, right, you know
what I mean.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
So yeah, that's that's good. Yeah, that's good. That's helpful.

Speaker 3 (45:57):
Yeah. I always like this, and that's in that little booklet.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
Yeah yeah, I always think about it from the perspective,
you know. I'm sure you've heard this from Greg Cochel
about you know, how can you put a stone in
somebody's shoe? Right, And so I doubt that I'm going
to be in a conversation with a Jewish person, and
I'm going to convince them in one conversation that Isaiah
fifty three is about Jesus. But I would like to leave,
you know, like I said, put a stone in their

(46:21):
shoe and get them thinking. So that's helpful.

Speaker 3 (46:23):
So that's another little book I wrote, even though we
changed the cover because it looked god awful with the
Catholic Jesus on there. So we we have a section
on the end about the Jewish writings to talk about
and a tony Messiah. Okay, so that's only forty six pages. Yeah.
I hand those to students sometimes actually Jewish students if
they're interested.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
Cover, yes, with the new cover, yes, yeah, not the
Catholic Jesus cover right right, right right.

Speaker 3 (46:48):
I mean I'm not against calviy. I just say I
don't want Jesus to I want Jesus to look somewhat.

Speaker 2 (46:52):
Semitic, exactly, exactly. Yeah you don't want to know, yeah, exactly,
so you know, with.

Speaker 3 (46:58):
The gentile looking Jesus.

Speaker 2 (47:02):
So I was wondering as I was reading your chapter,
I thought about an objection that I heard from Michael Shermer,
and I believe it it might have been in a
debate with doctor Turik during the Q and A or
the Cross or something, but don't quote me on that.

Speaker 3 (47:20):
I know they debated, Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:22):
And it was something along these lines. And I know
you've you've spoken to this in passing during the interview,
but I just wanted to give me an opportunity to
kind of before we land the plane. Here he says
something along these lines. If the case for Jesus's messiah
ship is so compelling, why are there so many Jewish
people today that are still waiting on the Messiah? Why

(47:45):
aren't they convinced?

Speaker 3 (47:47):
You know?

Speaker 2 (47:47):
And of course you know that's Schrmer's objection, not my own.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
Yeah, well, I don't really if I had been there,
And I don't know how Frank answered because I didn't
see it. But for one thing, I would say, well, Mychael,
a lot of Jeish people don't really think about it.
They haven't really thought about it, So I think you're
assuming they're so unconvinced or they care. I would tell Michael,
like so much of the Jewish community, even you can
show statistically, they've shown few surveys are are just not religious.

(48:15):
And so some of them just don't care, Michael, So
you're making assumption that all of them are sitting around going, oh,
the case for Jesus messiah ship is so weak, and
oh man, I'm so just not convinced at all. A
lot I'm having looked into it. That's That's the first
thing I would say to Michael if I was responding. Secondly,
I would say I'd say say to Michael that you know,
there isn't really one messic expectation Judaism. You know, it

(48:38):
isn't so cut and dry, and so it's more complicated
than you think. And Thirdly, I'm not sure that if
they have looked into it, you know that they really
you know, I just I kind of would push back
on those two issues, like this assumption that so many
Jews are not convinced by the Messiah shipt Jesus so convincing.

(48:59):
Oh No. Thirdly, I would say this to say, Michael,
you know, the history of christian and Judaism is really messy.
Of course, you have a lot of anti Semitism, You've
had a lot of problems historically, and most of Judaism
today or it has been always a reaction to Christianity.
You know, they've reacted because out of trying to survive,
even the Nazis used Christian symbolism, you know, they perverted it,

(49:23):
or they tried to make Jesus into an Aryan Jesus.
And so I just say, a lot of Jews have
just reacted so strongly against even considering Jesus on the
table for anything. They don't even it's just just because
they're history, you know. So I don't even know how
many of them have deeply looked into it. Michael, That's
what I would say, Yeah, you know, that would be
my view.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
Yeah, that's a great point because he's he's kind of
begging the question there isn't he which I didn't see
that until you mentioned it. He's assuming that all these
Jewish people have sat down and said, Okay, I want
to look at the theological and historical case for Jesus
being Messiah and then I'm going to judge it on
its own merits, where you're saying that there's a lot

(50:01):
more to it and it's a lot more complicated than that, or.

Speaker 3 (50:05):
They haven't even really considered it, like I said, I
just have any considered it. I mean, you know, are
they going to go read I mean some of them
might pick up Michael Brown's volume one through five answering
Jewish objections. You know, he's got that massive five volume set.
Some of them may go pursue that. But you know, no,
I'd also say to Michael, I'd say, if you want
to know what the objections are, Michael Brown wrote a

(50:26):
five volume set. You can see historically in all the
theology and all the issues. It's it's way more complicated,
you know what I mean. But at the end of
the day, I'd also say to Michael, you know, there
were a lot of Jusic believe in Jesus in the
first century, probably about three thousand we think, estimate three
to four thousand.

Speaker 2 (50:42):
Good point.

Speaker 3 (50:42):
Now, no, that's not all Israel. But truth isn't determined
by majority. Michael as you know, you know that Michael
as a as a big skeptic guy. You know that, right.

Speaker 2 (50:52):
That's good.

Speaker 3 (50:52):
So I might mention that too.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
Yeah, well, and what you're saying, I saw confirmed you
mentioned doctor Brown in preparation for the interview, uh with you.
I I because I wanted to be a little bit
more knowledgeable of a Jewish, a Jewish perspective on Jesus'
Missige Ship. There was a debate that doctor Brown did
with a rabbi fry Tag, and essentially I saw that, Yeah,

(51:16):
and essentially essentially in his opening statement, I mean he
basically says like this isn't even worth us Jews looking
into you know that, you know, he basically he doesn't
use the term fairy tale, but the way he talks
about it is almost like this is just ridiculous, there's
nothing here, and so that kind of what you're saying,

(51:36):
you know, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (51:38):
Yeah, I was that the one debate from Unbelievable. He did.
The guy he was in England. I think the guy
the rabbi was in England.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
I know I watched that one as well. That guy
was he was like a progressive Jew. Is that the
one you're talking about?

Speaker 3 (51:53):
Well, reform reform Jews. They're called reform Judys, and that's
the synagogue you can go to, like a reform Senega.
They're the most liberal. They're kind of like almost human
Jews in a way.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
And that that one I watched as well. And I'll
be honest with you, I don't want to get too
off topic, but that one was the only one I watched.
The fry Tag one. I watched the one you mentioned
on Unbelievable, and then I watched Oh, I can't remember
how to say his last name, Smolly. Yeah, yeah, I

(52:25):
always want to say Botao. That's I could be.

Speaker 3 (52:28):
I could be.

Speaker 2 (52:30):
So the one with the reformed Jewish gentleman was the
only one that I actually found really frust frustrating.

Speaker 3 (52:37):
Yeah, I remember the I do remember the fry Tag
one that took place I think in North Carolina or
cass or Georgia. Yeah, it took place down there in
Christie chapter I.

Speaker 2 (52:51):
Think, Yeah, and they referenced something happened with scheduling where
Rabbi fry Tag only had like two or three days
to prepare something. So I'm not sure what happened there,
but yeah, so but yeah, but anyway, just kind of
to sum that up, that his attitude toward this idea
of Jesus being Messiah has just echoed him echoes what

(53:11):
you were saying, you know about some of the attitudes
toward it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (53:16):
Yeah, they're just trying to survive. Really, They're just like, Hey,
it's about we just want to have a culture of
people and just we just want to be left a load. Yes,
just try to survive in this world, I mean, which
it has gotten worse over the last year as we see.
I mean, they no doubt, it's obvious that they have
a lot of issues, you know what I mean, and
so they might not be thinking a lot about this,
you know.

Speaker 2 (53:35):
Yeah, And I was glad to hear in Rabbi Shmuley's
debate with doctor Brown he did say that evangelicals are
their greatest allies. So I was I was very heartened
that he was willing to admit that, even with his
dister than the muzzle disagreements. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right,
So as we are, first of all, thank you so

(53:57):
much for your time and for your work, and it's
been so great chatting with you. But if somebody is
listening and you've offered some resources of your own, what
are some other resources that you would say, Hey, if
you really want to dig into this, this idea of
the resurrection, proving that Jesus is the Messiah, the Jewish Messiah,

(54:20):
or just that Jesus is a Jewish Messiah, where would
you point them to?

Speaker 3 (54:25):
I would say, certainly if you go to if you
go to my blog thinkapologetics dot com. I've got my
books listed there and you can get my resurrection book
is you know, it's called you know, you know, does
a Resurrection prove Jesus as the Jewish Messiah? You know,
It's on the website there. And I've got my other
little bookless here as Jesus as you shoe with the

(54:45):
Jewish Messiah, you know, so you might get something out
of that. And uh and then also if you want
to go you know, like deeper. I have like book
recommendations on my blog, like I have a like one.
I remember one blog post I had on mess in
a prophecy reading Jewish Messianism. But honestly, there hasn't been
a whole lot written about the connection between Jesus's resurrection

(55:09):
and his Jewish his massage. And now there is a
book by a friend of mine named David Michigan. He
wrote a book. He's Jewish and he's a believer. He
wrote a book about five i'd want to say six
seven years ago, which Ben Shaw Gary Haramas actually reviewed,
and I think it's called Jesus' Massiageship from a Jewish
perspective or Jesus's Resurrection from a Jewish perspective. I think

(55:31):
that's what it is something who is resurrection. Okay, but
that's a good book to get that. Just look up
David Michigan Michigan on Amazon. I think it's m I
s k I N or m I s k h
A N. I think that's what his name is. Just
look up that. So that's one of the few resources
that's out there. But you know Michael Brown's book The

(55:52):
Five Oh No, Michael has a book out on the resurrection.
He had a book come out like three years ago
on something to do with the resurrection. He talked about
a rabbi in New York named Schneerson who's followed by
a lot of Jews today. I think that he's a
messiah and they think he's coming back, and they think
that there's some sort of resurrection thing with him, some

(56:14):
sort of resurrection thing with him. Yeah, his posters are
all over Israel. He's like a very well known in
the Hasidic community. But look up Michael Brown and Amazon.
Look up Michael Brown Resurrection. He wrote a book on
something about it like three years ago. I reviewed it.
I came with the title I have it on my shelf.
So Michael's written a book on that. Okay, that might
be a good resource too. Okay, you have something along

(56:36):
those lines.

Speaker 2 (56:36):
Yeah, all right, so all right, Eric Chabou, thank you
so much for coming on the podcast today.

Speaker 3 (56:42):
All right, Chad, thank you, good scene. You keep up
to go work at troop Bombs. I'm glad it's not
called false false Bob.

Speaker 4 (56:47):
Anyway, thank you, thanks for listening to the podcast. If
you have a question you'd like us to address, or
just a message for us feedback good or bad, you
can either email us at podcast at a Paul Legetics
three fifteen dot com, or leave a voice message for
us using Speakpipe. Just go to speakpipe dot com slash

(57:08):
Apologetics three fifteen to leave us a message. And remember,
if you include a Ghostbuster's quote in your question, we
guarantee that we'll read it on the podcast. We also
ensure up to fifty percent better quality answers. Also, if
you've enjoyed today's podcast, please leave a review in iTunes
or the podcast platform in your choice, and please share
this episode with a friend if you've found it useful.

(57:29):
Remember you can find lots of Apologetics resources at apologetics three.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
Fifteen dot com.

Speaker 4 (57:34):
Along with show notes for today's episode, find Chad's apologetic
stuff over at Truthbomb Apologetics. That's truthbomb dot blogspot dot com.
This has been Brian Auten and Chad Gross for the
Apologetics three fifteen podcast, and thanks for listening.