Death, Resurrection, and the Afterlife in Judaism and Christianity

The death and resurrection of Jesus is the theological premise of Christian doctrine, and has been since the religion’s inception. But the idea of the dead returning to life was also a key idea in the Judaism of the Second Temple era out of which Christianity sprung. For instance: the second blessing of the shmoneh esrey, rabbinic Judaism’s most important prayer, praises God “Who brings the dead to life.” Jon D. Levenson and Kevin Madigan discuss how these ideas were understood by the Jews of the 1st century CE and how they relate to notions of death, the soul, eschatology, and the sanctity of the Temple. In doing so, they touch on the biblical understanding of death, the differences between Judaism and Christianity, the origins of Christian theological anti-Semitism, and much else. (Moderated by Cliff Sekowe. Video, 56 minutes.)