Was Jesus Crucified?

The Koran

Was Jesus crucified in fact or in semblance? The Koran says, semblance:

The Bible

The Bible says, fact.

The Bible authors are convinced it was Jesus who died upon that cross, then rose again:

"Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole." (Acts 4:10);

"But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water." (John 19:33-34);

"For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures..." (1 Corinthians 15:3-4);

"Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it." (Acts 2:22-24);

"And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice...And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost." (Mark 16:34-37, Matthew 27:46-50).

This is not a negotiable issue for the apostles and their circle: "The other disciples therefore said to him, 'We have seen the Lord.' So he said to them, 'Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.' And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, 'Peace to you!' Then He said to Thomas, 'Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.' And Thomas answered and said to Him, 'My Lord and my God!'" (John 20:25-28).

If Christ did not truly die, then neither did He truly rise from the dead. But if Christ is not risen, the Christian's hope is baseless:

"And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise...And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!" (1 Corinthians 15:14-17).

Fanny Crosby, who was blind, trusted that she could know the Lord when she saw Him, even without the use of her unaccustomed sight: "When my life-work is ended and I cross the swelling tide, When the bright and glorious morning I shall see, I shall know my Redeemer when I reach the other side, And His smile will be the first to welcome me. I shall know Him, I shall know Him, And redeemed by His side I shall stand, I shall know Him, I shall know Him By the print of the nails in His hand." (My Savior First of All).

If there is no cross, there is no resurrection. And the Islamic 'Gospel of Barnabas' insists upon this very point, that Jesus never rose from the dead: "And he reproved many who believed him to have died and risen again, saying: 'Do ye then hold me and God for liars? For God hath granted to me to live almost unto the end of the world, even as I said unto you. Verily I say unto you, I died not, but Judas the traitor.'" (Gospel of Barnabas, Chapter 221.) Jesus is not the 'first-fruits' of those who sleep; He never died. There is no good news on Easter morning.

The Bible says so much more than that Jesus of Nazareth died upon a cross. It says that the First and the Last died upon the cross:

"Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death." (Revelation 1:17-18).

A crucified Lord is a "scandal:" For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block [skandalon] and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."

So far as any first original can be found for this belief, it is in Simon the Samaritan, a man the apostles cursed to his face:

“And so (it was that Jesus) appeared as man, when in reality he was not a man. And (so it was) that likewise he suffered — though not actually undergoing suffering, but appearing to the Jews to do so — in Judea as ‘Son,’ and in Samaria as ‘Father,’ and among the rest of the Gentiles as ‘Holy Spirit.’” And (Simon alleges) that Jesus tolerated being styled by whichever name (of the three just mentioned) men might wish to call him.” (Hippolytus, The Refutation of All Heresies, Book Six, Chapter 14, p. 164 ECF).

What Then?

The Koran explains that God caught up the uncrucified Jesus into heaven: "...and they did not really slay him, but God took him up to Himself." (Sura 4:156). The Islamic Gospel of Barnabas takes this tack:

"When the soldiers with Judas drew near to the place where Jesus was, Jesus heard the approach of many people, wherefore in fear he withdrew into the house. And the eleven were sleeping.

"Then God, seeing the danger of his servant, commanded Gabriel, Michael, Rafael, and Uriel, his ministers, to take Jesus out of the world.

"The holy angels came and took Jesus out by the window that looketh toward the South. They bare him and placed him in the third heaven in the company of angels blessing God for evermore." (Gospel of Barnabas, Chapter 215.)

Many Muslims believe that there He remains, until His return at the end of days to perform the functions assigned Him by the Koran.

Why did Mohammed adopt this perspective? Mohammed wishes to argue that Jesus is a man and not God; docetism begins from the opposite premise. For practitioners of the Mosaic holiness code, a God stained with blood and defiled by death is inconceivable. His deity so filled the docetists' sight as to eclipse His humanity, leaving Him an insubstantial phantom. For the Bible, it is not 'either/or,' but 'both/and:'

Mohammed's knowledge base was constricted, and thus the information that finds its way into the Koran is a random assortment: it's there because that is the version of the story Mohammed heard from one of his informants, whether Salman the Persian, or the Christian slave-girl from Egypt, Mary. But can he have been unaware of the orthodox understanding of the crucifixion? Is it possible he actually selected this heterodox view, aware of the alternative? If so, why might the docetic denial of the crucifixion have appealed to him?

To judge by the context of Sura 4, one answer may be anti-semitism. Mohammed did not share Mary's attitude, "He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted the lowly." (Luke 1:52). He does not root for the underdog. His sympathies are with the winners not the losers, which is why he saw vindication in the Muslim victory at Bedr, and set such a terrible course based on that precedent. Of course to Christians the cross is a sign of victory, it is Jesus' triumph over death. But Mohammed could not tolerate a fellow prophet suffering visible humiliation at the hands of his enemies.

Mohammed's bitter resentment of the Jews stems, not from indifference, but from the disappointment of unrequited love. When he removed from Mecca to Medina and came in contact with the Jewish tribes, he soaked up what they had to offer, importing a trove of Rabbinic lore into the Koran. But the Jewish audience members who sought to entangle him in contradiction too often succeeded. Mohammed did not have by his side a Bible, and if he had, he could not have read it. Only God could have prevented this latter-day prophet from contradiction with the Bible,— but God did not prevent it. From that time to this, the Muslims have embarked on a centuries-long argumentum ad baculum against the people of the book. The Jews found themselves, with their lists of contradictions between the Bible and the Koran and other baggage, expelled from the Arabian peninsula.

The Arab tribes had drawn upon Mohammed's services as a mediator of their disputes. His approach was compromise: splitting the difference. But this approach failed catastrophically when tried against the absolute demands of religion. The Meccan idolaters threw in his face the disputes between the monotheists, who agreed idolatry was vain and the Meccan gods false, but on not much more. Mohammed, in his patient way, sought to bring them together: if only the Christians would abandon their extreme claims for Jesus, and the Jews meet them halfway and admit Him as a prophet. But no one bought it, so his grand scheme to unify the monotheist faith came to nothing; he ended by adding one more dissenting sect to the roster:

Mohammed resented the Talmud's slurs against Mary; the "grievous calumny" of Sura 4:155. He puts in their mouths the boast, "we have slain the Messiah" (Sura 4:156). But the joke was on them: they didn't have him. This, of course, misses the point all around; no one, Jew nor Christian, can be satisfied with this resolution. So the unending argumentum ad baculum goes on.

Still, Islam does not ultimately teach a 'prosperity gospel,' where the good receive only good things in this life. Though he seemed to be tilting in this direction after the victorious battle of Badr, Mohammed leaned the other way after the inconclusive battle of Ohod. Many modern Muslims pick up on the idea that no bad thing can happen to a prophet (how they reconcile this belief with the Bible, for example Hebrews 11:37, is unclear). If God was unwilling to have a bad thing (crucifixion) happen to Jesus, He was certainly willing enough to have a bad thing (death of his only biological son, Ibrahim) happen to Mohammed ibn Abdallah, purportedly a prophet greater than Jesus. Ultimately it is fruitless to examine too carefully a set of ideas,— the contents of the Koran,— which is at bottom no more than a random assemblage, an odd assortment of tales and teachings which an unlettered man in an uncivilized corner of the world happened to hear. It's in there, when all is said and done, because he happened to hear it that way.

If it was not Jesus who hung upon that cross, than who was it? One popular Muslim answer is 'Judas Iscariot,' as explained in the Islamic 'Gospel of Barnabas:'

"Whereupon the wonderful God acted wonderfully, insomuch that Judas was so changed in speech and in face to be like Jesus that we believed him to be Jesus. And he, having awakened us, was seeking where the Master was. Whereupon we marvelled, and answered: 'Thou, Lord, art our master; hast thou now forgotten us?'

"And he, smiling, said: 'Now are ye foolish, that know not me to be Judas Iscariot!'

"And as he was saying this the soldiery entered, and laid their hands upon Judas, because he was in every way like to Jesus." (Gospel of Barnabas, Chapter 216).

The lengthy passion narratives in the Christian gospels are all the records of a delusion, because, "And why say I that the chief priests believed Judas to be Jesus? Nay, all the disciples, with him who writeth, believed it; and more, the poor virgin mother of Jesus, with his kinsfolk and friends, believed it, insomuch that the sorrow of every one was incredible. As God liveth, he who writeth forgot all that Jesus had said: how that he should be taken up from the world, and that he should suffer in a third person, and that he should not die until near the end of the world." (Gospel of Barnabas, Chapter 217). Pilate sought to save this lost man, gibbering that he was not Jesus but Judas, because "it were impious to slay a madman." To no avail; Judas is doomed, because, "But God, who had decreed the issue, reserved Judas for the cross, in order that he might suffer that horrible death to which he had sold another." (Gospel of Barnabas, Chapter 217). It would be putting it very mildly to conclude this nonsensical story does not confirm the gospel.