The Caspari Center for Biblical and Jewish Studies was founded in 1982 by the Norwegian Church Ministry to Israel (NCMI) to support Israel’s Jewish believers in Jesus through education and research.

In 2002, we added a North American office in Wheaton, Illinois, in order to develop strategic partnerships and resources for our work among Jewish people in Israel and abroad.

Our work in Israel operates under a local board of prominent members of the Messianic community. It is financed by institutional partners and individual contributors.

The Center has a mixed Israeli and international staff who work together with associate scholars.

The North American office is primarily responsible for worldwide awareness and fundraising. Caspari Center USA is a member of the Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism (LCJE) and the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA), and is registered as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

Carl Caspari was born of Jewish parents in Dassau, Germany, in 1814. As a young man he studied Hebrew and Arabic at the University of Leipzig, producing an Arabic grammar book which for many years was the standard work in its field. While at the university, he was powerfully confronted with the claims of Jesus Christ as both Lord and Messiah. Caspari found the evidence irrefutable: in 1838, on the day of Pentecost, he was formally baptized and took on the baptismal name of Paul.

Caspari continued his studies in Berlin until the year 1847, when he was urged by Gisle Johnson, a visiting young scholar from Norway, to apply for a vacant chair as lecturer at the University of Oslo. He did so, was appointed, and spent the rest of his life as a lecturer and professor of the Old Testament.

In 1861, Carl Paul Caspari became the first chairman of the Committee for the Mission among the Jews, which had been established in Oslo that year. Caspari’s work as a scholar and a believing Jew served to enrich three generations of Norwegian pastors, bringing the Psalms and Prophets to light in a fresh, dynamic way. His pioneering research into the history of the early Christian Creeds virtually established this specialized field of research as a new discipline.

The Caspari Center was named in his honor, and we hope that our ongoing work will be a fitting tribute to a man who truly loved his God, his Bible, and his people.

Adapted from Oskar Skarsaune's article in the book Israel and Yeshua, published by the Caspari Center and available in our Online Store.