Must Muslims deny the crucifixion of Christ?

Radagast said:

I'm familiar with Price, who is not a historian (although he is an expert on H. P. Lovecraft). Carrier has a history degree, but is not a scholarly historian (afaik he has never held an academic post). I know nothing of David Fitzgerald.

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Robert M. Price. He holds two PhDs; one in Systematic Theology and one in New Testament. He was pastor of the First Baptist Church in Montclair, New Jersey; a Professor of Religion at Mount Olive College; Professor of Theology and Scriptural Studies at the Jonnie Coleman Theological Seminary; and Professor of Biblical Criticism for the Centre for Inquiry Institute. I guess that qualifies him for the title ‘biblical scholar’.

Price believes that the Yeshua (ʿalayhi as-salām) of the Bible is an invented figure.

In Chapter 7 of his book ‘Deconstructing Jesus’ (the chapter is entitled ‘The Cruci-fiction?’) Price writes:

‘As Charles H. Talbert has shown, the canonical gospels, even in their present form, would not have been hard for an ancient reader to recognize as official (and fictive) hero biographies compiled by a philosophical movement to glorify their founder.

‘It seems to me that Mack, Koester, and Robinson would all shy away from such a conclusion, given the prominence of the Passion story in the canonical gospels. The notion of an atoning death does not seem to fit the picture of the philosophical aretalogy. But it is hardly clear, at least in Mark and Luke, that the idea of an atonement has much to do with it. It may be Helmut Koester's Lutheran background that tempts him to read a theology of the cross into Mark, when only two brief texts could even possibly be read that way (Mark 10:45 and 14:24), and Luke chops even these (compare his versions, Luke 22:27 and 22:18)!

‘As Mack notes (in company with John Dominic Crossan and others), the story of Jesus' arrest, humiliation, and crucifixion seems to be derived from a whole different cluster of ideas than that of an atonement theology. Rather, the story is probably intended as a typical story of the wise man who endures all the depredations of the wicked, to whose sin he is a living rebuke. Such a righteous one is always either saved in the nick of time or glorified after death. It is easy to see Jesus' crucifixion account in these terms. And this is the sort of thing we would expect to find in a community like the Q partisans, as Mack understands them. The Q community could easily have produced such a hero biography, such a novelistic aretalogy, issuing in the persecution and deliverance of their hero, the wise man/sophist Jesus, without actually knowing what had happened to the historical Jesus, a question the Q sayings, after all, leave wide open.’

Price goes on:

‘What if an earlier version of the Passion narrative pursued the logic of the tale of the wise sufferer to the letter – and had Jesus survive crucifixion, appearing still alive, not alive again? Even in the canonical gospels there are striking hints of a barely erased precanonical version that must have read precisely this way. Muslim interpreters of the gospels have seen some of these hints (my emphasis), but it is only with the advent of modern narrative criticism that the clues have become visible to any of the rest of us.

‘For instance, why does Mark 14:35-36 show Jesus asking his father to allow him to escape death on the cross in Gethsemane? This is an exceedingly odd, even an offensive, thing to write if the goal of this narrative is to have Jesus die after all. But I suspect the writer is planting a seed that will blossom rather differently later in the story. Likewise, for Mark 15:34 to have Jesus repeating Psalm 22, a prayer anticipating final deliverance even at the last moment (Ps. 22:22-24), creates all manner of problems unless this prayer, too, is to be answered by story's end. Did Jesus think his God had forsaken him? No, of course not. As Heb. 5:7 says, his loud cries and tears were heard, his prayer for deliverance from death answered.

‘The irony of the bystanders' taunt, "Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe" (Mark 15:32), lies in the fact that this is precisely what is about to happen, though they will not recognize it. And, otherwise, what is the point of the strange detail of Pilate marvelling that Jesus was dead after a mere six hours (Mark 15:44), when it ought to take days for the cross to kill? As Chekov said, if a writer says somebody drove a nail into the wall, he'd better make sure to hang something from it later in the story! And, obviously, the payoff would have been that Jesus had fallen into a coma*, which ironically, providentially, resulted in his being removed from the cross in time for him to survive.’

* My emphasis. However, the notion that Yeshua (ʿalayhi as-salām) fell into a coma is denied by default in the Qur’an, which states that he was not crucified at all.

Price continues:

‘And why does Matthew have Joseph of Arimathea bury Jesus in Joseph's own tomb (Matt. 27:57-60)? And why does Matthew add the note that Joseph was rich (27:57)? Why, simply to provide narrative motivation for tomb robbers to come and open the tomb, as in the ancient romances, and find Jesus alive! The fainting of Matthew's guards (27:4) probably reflects the terror of the superstitious tomb robbers, finding a living man but no treasure. And then, in Luke 24:36-43, when Jesus appears to his bereaved disciples who assume he is dead and cannot believe their eyes, what does he say to reassure them? Like Apollonius of Tyana says in a similar scene, after a miraculous escape from the treacherous designs of Domitian, he bids his friends to behold his living physical body, to convince themselves that he has not risen from the realm of the dead, he is no ghost, but rather, as his solid corporeality attests, he is still alive.

‘John knew that people understood the story of Jesus' passion, this way, which is why he adds two items unprecedented in any other gospel: the nailing of Jesus to the cross (often people were simply tied to the cross), not narrated but assumed in John 20:25, and the spear-thrust in John 19:34. He protests too much (John 19:35), in the style of the writers of apocrypha (cf. 2 Pet. 1:16-18), that he was there and saw the blood flow. In his version, Jesus shows not his solid hands and feet (as in Luke 24:39), but rather his wounded hands and side (John 20:20). John doesn't want anyone thinking Jesus survived the cross and went to preach among the Greeks (John 7:35).

‘But the original tellers of the aretalogical tale had no concern for an atoning death. And Q, remember, does not even say that Jesus died! In the conspicuous absence of any statement that he died, one can well imagine that the Q-sophists or the communities that revered them would make Jesus shrewdly avoid death. Once a belief in the martyr death of Jesus entered the picture from another quarter of the patchwork quilt of Jesus movements, the aretalogy was reedited to make Jesus good and dead.

‘The Passion predictions in Mark (8:31; 9:12, 31; 10:33-34) are obviously artificial "prolepses" (flash-forwards)" ruining the narrative tension of the original, pre-Markan version, which craftily dropped hints of what would happen to Jesus and kept the reader guessing. The result, in the gospels as we now read them, is a wooden "plot of predestination," whereby narrative suspense is exorcised and each successive episode is a redundant rehearsal of the one before, as all alike seek to drive home a single monotonous point to the reader viewed as a catechumen. "Did you get it last time? Just in case, here it is again: Jesus died in Jerusalem; everything was leading up to that, nothing else matters much." The so-called Narrative Critics, New Testament scholars like Jack Dean Kingsbury, Werner Kelber, and Mark Allan Powell, for all their self-professed expertise in narratology, fail to perceive that the narrative of the gospels works best only when one uncovers its original, theologically obscured outlines.

‘But it is no surprise, because in the hands of these churchmen-scholars, the “literary” study of the gospels has served from the first as a diversionary route of escape from engagement with the troubling questions of genuine historical criticism.’

As far a Price is concerned the Gospels are works of fiction, ‘…….hero biographies compiled by a philosophical movement to glorify their founder.’ There are, of course, others who claim that Yeshua never existed – or, if he did, had little or nothing to do with New Testament accounts. I have suggested that you study the works of Richard Carrier and David Fitzgerald. Add Thomas Paine; Paul-Louis Couchoud; and John W.Loftus. You will discover – quite quickly – that one does not have to be a Muslim in order to deny the crucifixion!

Niblo said:

Robert M. Price. He holds two PhDs; one in Systematic Theology and one in New Testament.

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But he is not a historian.

Niblo said:

You will discover – quite quickly – that one does not have to be a Muslim in order to deny the crucifixion!

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Something is very odd here. You claim to be a Muslim, and the existence of Jesus is an article of Islamic faith. Indeed, if you are actually a Muslim, you should be referring to Jesus with the honorific pbuh or its Arabic equivalent.

Indeed, the fourth Sura of the Qur'an does not even deny the crucifixion; it simply restates the Docetic view ("they killed him not nor crucified him but so it was made to appear to them" -- Yusuf Ali tr.).

Radagast said:

But he is not a historian

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So what? He is applying the methodology of historical criticism - studying, comparing and commenting upon the source material (which he is well qualified to do). What we have to do is address his arguments. If we wish to disagree with him...and to make our disagreement public...then we have to proffer justification. It is not enough simply to say 'But he is not a historian.'

Niblo said:

So what? He is applying the methodology of historical criticism - studying, comparing and commenting upon the source material (which he is well qualified to do).

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He is not a professional in the field. Price has no history degree, nor has he ever held an academic post as a historian. No professional in the field claims that Jesus did not exist.

And you've dodged my other point. I infer that you're not actually a Muslim at all.

Radagast said:

And you've dodged my other point. I infer that you're not actually a Muslim at all.

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I am a forgetful Muslim. Thank you for pointing out my lapse. Posts have now been amended.

Radagast said:

Indeed, the fourth Sura of the Qur'an does not even deny the crucifixion; it simply restates the Docetic view ("they killed him not nor crucified him but so it was made to appear to them" -- Yusuf Ali tr.).

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Here are the verses again (with an important Arabic word inserted – and emphasised):

‘And so for breaking their pledge, for rejecting Allāh’s revelations, for unjustly killing their prophets, for saying: “Our minds are closed” - No! Allāh has sealed them in their disbelief, so they believe only a little - and because they disbelieved and uttered a terrible slander against Mary, and said: “We have killed the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, the Messenger of Allāh.” They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, though it was made to appear like that to them; those that disagreed about him are full of doubt, with no knowledge to follow, only supposition: nay (‘bal’) they certainly did not kill him - Allāh raised him up to Himself. Allāh is almighty and wise.’ (Al-Nisa: 155-158).

I repeat, the Qur’an is denying two claims: a) that Yeshua (ʿalayhi as-salām) was crucified; and b) that he was killed.

The Qur’an uses two different terms when referring to death: ‘mawt’ and ‘tawaffâ’.

Concerning ‘mawt’:

A major point of distinction between ‘mawt’ and ‘tawaffâ’ is that only the former is associated with murder or manslaughter (‘qatala’). We see examples of the use of ‘qatala’ (and its derivatives) in the following: ‘And Pharaoh said: “Leave me to kill Moses (aqtulu Musa) - let him call upon his Lord! - for I fear he may cause you to change your religion, or spread disorder in the land.”’ (Ghafi: 26); and again: ‘They were struck with humiliation and wretchedness, and they incurred the wrath of Allāh because they persistently rejected His messages and killed (yaqtuloona) prophets contrary to all that is right. All this was because they disobeyed and were lawbreakers.’ (Al-Baqara: 61); and again: ‘Allāh has certainly heard the words of those who sneer, “So Allāh is poor, while we are rich”. We shall record everything they say – as well as their killing (wa qatlahum) of prophets in defiance of all that is right – and We shall say to them: “Taste the torment of the scorching fire.”’ (Al‘Imran: 181). There are several others verses where derivatives of ‘qatala’ are used when describing the death of prophets.

With ‘mawt’ comes the natural decomposition of the body; its return to dust. There is no return from ‘mawt’, save on the Day of Resurrection.

Derivatives of ‘mawt’ and ‘qatala’- used as expressions of normal death when referring to the demise of all other prophets - are not used to describe Yeshua’s departure. The expressions used in his case are derived from ‘tawaffâ’. This appears to make the manner of his leaving somewhat special.

Concerning ‘tawaffâ’:

‘Tawaffâ’ invokes the notion of completion and fulfilment. The Qur’anic image of death through ‘tawaffâ’ is quite different from that of ‘mawt’. For a start, ‘tawaffâ’ is never associated with ‘qatala’; instead, it is juxtaposed with ‘nawm’ (sleep). On two occasions sleep is described as a repeated nightly death (‘tawaffâ bil layl’): ‘It is He who calls your souls back by night, knowing what you have done by day, then raises you up again in the daytime until your fixed term is fulfilled. It is to Him that you will return in the end, and He will tell you what you have done.’ (Al-An‘am: 60); and again: ‘Allāh takes the souls of the dead and the souls of the living while they sleep – He keeps hold of those whose death He has ordained and sends the others back until their appointed time – there truly are signs in this for those who reflect.’ (Al-Zumar: 42).

In the Qur’an, the term ‘an appointed time’ is used in a general sense for the cycles of the sun and moon: ‘He makes the night merge into the day and the day into the night; He has subjected the sun and the moon - each runs for an appointed term.’ (Fatir: 13); for the waiting period associated with divorce: ‘If you are in doubt, the period of waiting will be three months for those women who have ceased menstruating and for those who have not (yet) menstruated; for the waiting period of those who are pregnant will be until they deliver their burden: ‘Allāh makes things easy for those who are mindful of Him.’ (Al-Talaq: 4); for the time that a widow has to wait before she can remarry: ‘If any of you die and leave widows, the widows should wait for four months and ten nights before remarrying.’ (Al-Baqara: 234); and when contracting the period of a loan: ‘You who believe, when you contract a debt for a stated term, put it down in writing: have a scribe write it down justly between you.’ (Al-Baqara: 282).

The term is also applied, of course, in a particular sense to one’s predestined period for living.

It is worth noting that whenever a verse includes a reference to a person’s predestined death the term used is always ‘mawt’. There are no exceptions. This suggests that when we reach our ‘appointed time’ we experience, not ‘tawaffâ’, but ‘mawt’; with (I repeat) no chance of return to life, save at the Day of Resurrection: ‘No soul may die except with Allāh’s permission at a predestined time. If anyone strives for the rewards of this world, We will give him some of them. If anyone strives for the rewards of the Hereafter, We will give him some of them: We will reward the grateful.’ (Al‘Imran: 145).

There is no notion of physical damage or decomposition in ‘tawaffâ’. Likewise, there is no notion of a ‘non-return’ (as there is in ‘mawt’). It might be better, therefore, to avoid understanding and translating ‘tawaffâ’ as ‘death’; or ‘to die’; or ‘to cause to die’. People return from ‘tawaffâ’ every night of their lives. What makes the last experience of ‘tawaffâ’ non-returnable - as when someone dies in their sleep - lies not in tawaffâ itself, but in its transformation into ‘mawt’.

What are we to make of the words: ‘Allāh said: “Jesus, I will take you back and raise you up to Me.”’ (Al‘Imran: 55).

The word ‘take’ translates ‘mutawaffi’. Its root, of course, is w-f-y; the root of ‘tawaffâ’ (and not that of ‘mawt’). This can mean only that Yeshua was not taken in death.

The word ‘raise’ translates ‘rafa‘a’ (‘to raise’) rather than ‘ba‘atha’, which is used elsewhere to mean ‘to resurrect’ after death.

Commenting on this, Abu Musa al-Ash'ari writes: ‘There is a consensus among the community of the faithful that the Prophet Jesus (as) was raised alive to the heavens.’ (‘al-Ibana 'an Usul al-Diyana’).

Hasan Basri Cantay writes: ‘Allah raised and lifted up the Prophet Jesus (as) in both body and soul.’ (‘Tafsir of the Qur'an’)

Shaykh ibn Taymiyya writes: ‘The verse "He raised him to His Presence" … explains that the Prophet Jesus (as) was raised in both body and soul.’ (‘Majmu' Fatawa’).

Citing both Al‘Imran 55 and Al-Nisa' 157-158, Zahid al-Kawthari claims that the ascension of Yeshua (ʿalayhi as-salām) is beyond doubt: ‘That is because the basic meaning of the word rafa'a in the verses is transportation from below to above. There is no element here that could be used to interpret the verses metaphorically. Therefore, there is no evidence for seeking to produce a meaning in the sense of ascension in honour and station.’ (Nazra 'Abira fi Maza'im; page 93).

The argument that Yeshua was raised alive – both body and soul – is strengthen by the use of the word ‘bal’ in Al-Nisa 158: ‘nay (‘bal’) they certainly did not kill him’. By way of explanation, Sheikh al-Islam Mustafa Sabri writes:

‘If the term ‘bal’, which appears in Surat Al-Nisa' 158 and which I have translated as "on the contrary," comes after a sentence expressing a negativity, then, according to the rules of Arabic linguistics, the sentence following it must mean the exact opposite of the one preceding it. The opposite of death is life. This is a requirement of the rules of linguistics. If we say that "the ascension here is a spiritual one" and "the Prophet Jesus (as) died in the normal sense," then we are violating that rule. In that case, the ascension following the expression "on the contrary" would not represent the opposite to the verbs of "killing" and "crucifying" in the negative sentence preceding it. That is because it may be possible for a person to be killed and for his or her soul to rise to the skies. Otherwise, this term would be meaningless, and there are no meaningless terms in the Qur'an … According to those who support the thesis that the ascension is only one of the soul, the meaning of the verse is this: "They did not kill him and did not crucify him … on the contrary (‘bal’), Allah raised his station." There is no particular oratory here, let alone succinctness … No rational person could take the words "The elevator in my building raises me to the fourth floor every day," to mean that I am only raised to the fourth floor in spirit. Therefore, neither was the Prophet Jesus (as) raised only in spirit. (‘Position of Reason’; page 233).

Said Ramadan al-Buti interpreted the subject in the same way: ‘The mutual compatibility between the verses’ previous and later sections necessarily reveals a fact. For example, if an Arab says: "I am not hungry; on the contrary, I am lying on my side," this is not a correct sentence. In the same way, there is a discrepancy between the components in the sentence: "Khalid did not die; on the contrary, he is a good man." What would be correct is to say: "Khalid did not die; on the contrary, he is alive." To say: "The chairman was not killed; he is a man with a superior station in Allah's Presence" also leads to a break in meaning in the sentence, for his having a high station in Allah's Sight is no obstacle to his being killed. The term bal expresses a contradiction between the preceding and the following words. In other words, bal cancels out a previous statement. (Islamic Catechism: page 338).

The conclusion (justified in my view) is that Yeshua (ʿalayhi as-salām) was not crucified, and was not killed, but was removed from this dimension by the action of Allāh (Subḥānahu ūta'āla).

The Exalted does not explain why He acted in this way. But there is a clue in Deuteronomy 21: 22-23:

‘If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and you hang him on a tree, you must not leave the body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury it that same day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is a curse of God. You must not defile the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.’

Anyone who is hanged on a tree - either as a form of execution, or after having been executed by some other means - is accursed; and a potential source of defilement for the very land itself. Strong stuff. I opine that Allāh (Subḥānahu ūta'āla) rescued Yeshua (ʿalayhi as-salām) in order to save him from such a curse.

The notion that the Exalted would curse, in any manner at all, any one of His prophets - to say nothing of His elected Messiah - is obscene; and no Muslim worthy of the name would accuse His Lord of behaving in this way.

Niblo said:

Read the books of Robert Price; Richard Carrier; and David Fitzgerald for starters.

PS: For the record - I am not in agreement with these people, at least in regard to Yeshua's existence.

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I'm aware of the Carrier thesis, he believes Jesus was a celestial deity who was part of a myth, made to look like history. It has holes big enough to drive a truck through.

Look, just because *some* people (or even historians) embrace the "Jesus myth" hypothesis, that does not mean these outliers reflect academic consensus. Of course, there's always a chance that the odd one out is right and the vast majority of specialists is wrong - especially in the humanities, where results are never quite as falsifiable as in the natural sciences - but it's a relatively safe bet to trust the majority in most cases.
(What might skew the conclusion in this case is the religious affiliation of the researchers: I would not expect pious Christians to challenge the historicity of their founding figure, no matter where the evidence pointed.)

Niblo said:

The conclusion (justified in my view) is that Yeshua (ʿalayhi as-salām) was not crucified, and was not killed, but was removed from this dimension by the action of Allāh (Subḥānahu ūta'āla).

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Niblo, thank you for this explanation! This is a great example of the challenges of interpreting the Qur'an in English, there is so much nuance. “None knoweth the meaning thereof except God and them that are well-grounded in knowledge.” (Al'Imran:7).

You mention many references to Jesus being lifted into the Heavens to God. What is the consensus among Christians as to how He left the world after his Resurrection?

ByAnyOtherName said:

Niblo, thank you for this explanation! This is a great example of the challenges of interpreting the Qur'an in English, there is so much nuance. “None knoweth the meaning thereof except God and them that are well-grounded in knowledge.” (Al'Imran:7).

You mention many references to Jesus being lifted into the Heavens to God. What is the consensus among Christians as to how He left the world after his Resurrection?

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Hi.

Thank you for your kind remarks, and my apologies for the delayed reply.

Yes, an Arabic word can have a range of meanings, depending on its context.

Concerning your question:

You should know that according to the Catholic Church there are grades of theological certainty; the highest of which (identified as ‘de fide’): ‘Appertains to the immediately revealed truths (and are) based on the authority of God Revealing; and if the Church, through its teaching, vouches for the fact that (such a) truth is contained in Revelation, one’s certainty is then based on the authority of the Infallible Teaching Authority of the Church.’ (Ludwig Ott - ‘Fundamental of Catholic Dogma’; Page 9).

The First Vatican Council declared the Church to be infallible under two aspects: first, in her extraordinary Magisterium (solemn definitions on Faith and Morals either by the Pope acting by himself when speaking ex cathedra, or in issuing a solemn definition at a General Ecumenical Council in union with the world’s bishops); and, secondly, in her: ‘ordinary and universal Magisterium’ (the daily life of the Church as promulgated for the faithful, such as the rites of the sacraments, official prayers, canon law and everything in the documents of General Ecumenical Councils which touch on Faith and Morals, even those parts of these documents which are not solemn definitions).

This same Council also declared: ‘Further, by divine and Catholic faith, all those things must be believed which are contained in the written word of God and in tradition, and those which are proposed by the Church, either in a solemn pronouncement or in Her Ordinary and Universal Teaching Power (Magisterium), to be believed as divinely revealed.’ (Vatican Council I, Dogmatic Constitution on the Faith - 1870 – Denzinger 1792).

Anyone denying a doctrine rated as ‘de fide’ may be deemed a heretic, and as such may be excommunicated from the Church. The gravity of sin incurred by their denial is said to be ‘mortal’.

It is a dogma of the Church (rated ‘de fide’) that: ‘Christ ascended body and soul into Heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father’ (cf. the ‘Caput Firmiter’ of the Fourth Lateran Council – Denzinger 429).
The words ‘at the right hand of the Father’ are taken to be a metaphor for the risen Yeshua’s honour and authority. The word ‘sits’ denotes that his earthly work has been fulfilled.

I suggest that most Christians would go along with all of this.

I hope that helps.

Have a great day, and very best regards.

mark kennedy said:

I'm aware of the Carrier thesis, he believes Jesus was a celestial deity who was part of a myth, made to look like history. It has holes big enough to drive a truck through.

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Against the claim that Yeshua (ʿalayhi as-salām), is an invention based on pagan myths Bart Ehrman writes:

‘I think there is a good deal to be said for the idea that Christians did indeed shape their stories about Jesus in light of other figures who were similar to him. But I also think that this is scarcely relevant to the question of whether or not he existed.

‘In my textbook on the New Testament, written for undergraduates, I begin my study of the historical Jesus in a way that students find completely surprising and even unsettling. I tell them that I want to describe to them an important figure who lived two thousand years ago. Even before he was born, it was known that he would be someone special. A supernatural being informed his mother that the child she was to conceive would not be a mere mortal but would be divine. He was born miraculously, and he became an unusually precocious young man. As an adult he left home and went on an itinerant preaching ministry, urging his listeners to live, not for the material things of this world, but for what is spiritual. He gathered a number of disciples around him, who became convinced that his teachings were divinely inspired, in no small part because he himself was divine. He proved it to them by doing many miracles, healing the sick, casting out demons, and raising the dead. But at the end of his life he roused opposition, and his enemies delivered him over to the Roman authorities for judgment. Still, after he left this world, he returned to meet his followers in order to convince them that he was not really dead but lived on in the heavenly realm. Later some of his followers wrote books about him. But, I tell my students, I doubt if any of you has ever read any of these books. In fact, I say, I don’t think you even know this man’s name. He was Apollonius of Tyana, a pagan philosopher, a worshipper of the pagan gods. His story was written by a later follower named Philostratus, and we still have the book today, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana.

‘The followers of Jesus, of course, argued that Apollonius was a fraud and a charlatan and that Jesus was the Son of God. The followers of Apollonius argued just the opposite, that it was Jesus who was the fraud. And these were not the only two divine men in antiquity. A number of divine men were thought to have roamed the earth, some of them in the recent past, people born to the union of a mortal (human) and an immortal (god), who could do spectacular deeds and who delivered amazing teachings, who at the end of their lives ascended to heaven to live with the gods.

'My students, of course, have a hard time getting their minds around the fact that in the ancient world Jesus was not the only one “known” to be a miracle-working son of God. There were others. Mythicists, as you might imagine, have had field day with this information, arguing that since these others were obviously not real historical persons, neither was Jesus. He, like them, was invented. But there is a problem with this view. Apollonius, for example, really was a historical person, a Pythagorean philosopher who lived some fifty years after Jesus. I don’t really think that Apollonius’s mother was impregnated by a God or that Apollonius really healed the sick or raised the dead. But he did exist. And so did Jesus. How do we know? We don’t base our judgments on the way later followers made Apollonius and Jesus out to be semi-or completely divine. We base our judgments on other evidence, as we have seen. The fact that Christians saw Jesus as a divine man (or rather, for them, as the only true divine man) is not in itself relevant to the question of whether he existed.’ (‘Did Jesus Exist?’).

Who am I talking about here:

This man was the very incarnation of God; a messianic figure who was prophesied in the Old Testament; whose birth was marked by miracles; who – even as a child – exhibited profound, divinely given, wisdom; who performed miracles in public; who continues to live on, in spite of evidence of his death; who is worshipped by his followers, and who communicates with them in prayer; a saviour who will return, someday, to gather his chosen people and take them to live with him in God’s kingdom?

No, not Yeshua (ʿalayhi as-salām), but Emperor Haile Selassie, as described by the Rastafarians.

What makes Selassie’s existence a certainty – in spite of the nonsense spoken about him – is, of course, the presence of compelling evidence.

According to the mythicists, there is no such evidence when it comes to Yeshua.

Bart Ehrman writes:

‘Mythicists sometimes like to revel in the historical problems posed by the Gospels: we do not have the original texts of the Gospels, and there are places where we do not know what the authors originally said; the Gospels are not authored by the persons named in their titles (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) but were written by people who were not followers of Jesus living forty to sixty years later in different parts of the world; the Gospels are full of discrepancies and contradictions; and the Gospels report historical events that can be shown not to have happened. Some scholars may disagree with some of these claims—conservative evangelicals will disagree with all of them—but I personally think they are absolutely right. And I think that these issues create genuine problems for the study of the New Testament, the history of the early Christian church, and the life of the historical Jesus. But I also think they are for the most part irrelevant to the question of whether or not there was a historical Jesus…’ (Ibid.)

In short: the Gospels are problematic as historical sources, but so what?

Perhaps the question ought not to be: ‘Did Yeshua (ʿalayhi as-salām) exist?’; but rather: ‘How much of the real Yeshua exists in what has been written about him?’ (and yes... it does sound like two versions of the one question! )

If I may paraphrase Jane (post 68): ‘What might skew the answer in this case is the religious affiliation of the researchers.’

Exactly.

Have a great day, and very best regards.

Niblo said:

Against the claim that Yeshua (ʿalayhi as-salām), is an invention based on pagan myths Bart Ehrman writes:

‘I think there is a good deal to be said for the idea that Christians did indeed shape their stories about Jesus in light of other figures who were similar to him. But I also think that this is scarcely relevant to the question of whether or not he existed.

‘In my textbook on the New Testament, written for undergraduates, I begin my study of the historical Jesus in a way that students find completely surprising and even unsettling. I tell them that I want to describe to them an important figure who lived two thousand years ago. Even before he was born, it was known that he would be someone special. A supernatural being informed his mother that the child she was to conceive would not be a mere mortal but would be divine. He was born miraculously, and he became an unusually precocious young man. As an adult he left home and went on an itinerant preaching ministry, urging his listeners to live, not for the material things of this world, but for what is spiritual. He gathered a number of disciples around him, who became convinced that his teachings were divinely inspired, in no small part because he himself was divine. He proved it to them by doing many miracles, healing the sick, casting out demons, and raising the dead. But at the end of his life he roused opposition, and his enemies delivered him over to the Roman authorities for judgment. Still, after he left this world, he returned to meet his followers in order to convince them that he was not really dead but lived on in the heavenly realm. Later some of his followers wrote books about him. But, I tell my students, I doubt if any of you has ever read any of these books. In fact, I say, I don’t think you even know this man’s name. He was Apollonius of Tyana, a pagan philosopher, a worshipper of the pagan gods. His story was written by a later follower named Philostratus, and we still have the book today, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana.

‘The followers of Jesus, of course, argued that Apollonius was a fraud and a charlatan and that Jesus was the Son of God. The followers of Apollonius argued just the opposite, that it was Jesus who was the fraud. And these were not the only two divine men in antiquity. A number of divine men were thought to have roamed the earth, some of them in the recent past, people born to the union of a mortal (human) and an immortal (god), who could do spectacular deeds and who delivered amazing teachings, who at the end of their lives ascended to heaven to live with the gods.

'My students, of course, have a hard time getting their minds around the fact that in the ancient world Jesus was not the only one “known” to be a miracle-working son of God. There were others. Mythicists, as you might imagine, have had field day with this information, arguing that since these others were obviously not real historical persons, neither was Jesus. He, like them, was invented. But there is a problem with this view. Apollonius, for example, really was a historical person, a Pythagorean philosopher who lived some fifty years after Jesus. I don’t really think that Apollonius’s mother was impregnated by a God or that Apollonius really healed the sick or raised the dead. But he did exist. And so did Jesus. How do we know? We don’t base our judgments on the way later followers made Apollonius and Jesus out to be semi-or completely divine. We base our judgments on other evidence, as we have seen. The fact that Christians saw Jesus as a divine man (or rather, for them, as the only true divine man) is not in itself relevant to the question of whether he existed.’ (‘Did Jesus Exist?’).

Who am I talking about here:

This man was the very incarnation of God; a messianic figure who was prophesied in the Old Testament; whose birth was marked by miracles; who – even as a child – exhibited profound, divinely given, wisdom; who performed miracles in public; who continues to live on, in spite of evidence of his death; who is worshipped by his followers, and who communicates with them in prayer; a saviour who will return, someday, to gather his chosen people and take them to live with him in God’s kingdom?

No, not Yeshua (ʿalayhi as-salām), but Emperor Haile Selassie, as described by the Rastafarians.

What makes Selassie’s existence a certainty – in spite of the nonsense spoken about him – is, of course, the presence of compelling evidence.

According to the mythicists, there is no such evidence when it comes to Yeshua.

Bart Ehrman writes:

‘Mythicists sometimes like to revel in the historical problems posed by the Gospels: we do not have the original texts of the Gospels, and there are places where we do not know what the authors originally said; the Gospels are not authored by the persons named in their titles (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) but were written by people who were not followers of Jesus living forty to sixty years later in different parts of the world; the Gospels are full of discrepancies and contradictions; and the Gospels report historical events that can be shown not to have happened. Some scholars may disagree with some of these claims—conservative evangelicals will disagree with all of them—but I personally think they are absolutely right. And I think that these issues create genuine problems for the study of the New Testament, the history of the early Christian church, and the life of the historical Jesus. But I also think they are for the most part irrelevant to the question of whether or not there was a historical Jesus…’ (Ibid.)

In short: the Gospels are problematic as historical sources, but so what?

Perhaps the question ought not to be: ‘Did Yeshua (ʿalayhi as-salām) exist?’; but rather: ‘How much of the real Yeshua exists in what has been written about him?’ (and yes... it does sound like two versions of the one question! )

If I may paraphrase Jane (post 68): ‘What might skew the answer in this case is the religious affiliation of the researchers.’

Exactly.

Have a great day, and very best regards.

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I must admit, I am profoundly puzzled by your quotes. I just have one request and feel free to dismiss it or elaborate as you see fit. I see here that Jesus being an historical figure is not a serious question, that much seems clear. Could you tell me what exactly, in the New Testament, the Muslim would accept as factual and what they would consider contrived?

I've been over the post several times, still having a hard time understanding the quotes. In short, would you care to elaborate?

mark kennedy said:

I must admit, I am profoundly puzzled by your quotes. I just have one request and feel free to dismiss it or elaborate as you see fit. I see here that Jesus being an historical figure is not a serious question, that much seems clear. Could you tell me what exactly, in the New Testament, the Muslim would accept as factual and what they would consider contrived?

I've been over the post several times, still having a hard time understanding the quotes. In short, would you care to elaborate?

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The quotes I offered belong to a debate that has been going on between Christians, former Christians and others for over a hundred years. I don't know of any Muslims who are mythicist (there might well be).

Most Muslims would accept as true any New Testament statement that does not contradict the Qur'an; and would leave to the Exalted any statement that is neutral. He knows best!

Islam teaches that Yeshua (ʿalayhi as-salām) was born of a virgin; that he is the Messiah; that he performed miracles, by the permission and power of his Lord; and that he is a prophet. It has a different account of his birth; makes no mention of the 'slaughter of the innocent'; denies his divinity; and denies both his death and resurrection (I've covered this already). The Qur'an says nothing about the Sermon on the Mount...but I see no reason why a Muslim would reject its content. I don't. Islam has no concept of original sin, and sees no need for redemption through the cross. Off the top of my head, that's about it.

Niblo said:

The quotes I offered belong to a debate that has been going on between Christians, former Christians and others for over a hundred years. I don't know of any Muslims who are mythicist (there might well be).

Most Muslims would accept as true any New Testament statement that does not contradict the Qur'an; and would leave to the Exalted any statement that is neutral. He knows best!

Islam teaches that Yeshua (ʿalayhi as-salām) was born of a virgin; that he is the Messiah; that he performed miracles, by the permission and power of his Lord; and that he is a prophet. It has a different account of his birth; makes no mention of the 'slaughter of the innocent'; denies his divinity; and denies both his death and resurrection (I've covered this already). The Qur'an says nothing about the Sermon on the Mount...but I see no reason why a Muslim would reject its content. I don't. Islam has no concept of original sin, and sees no need for redemption through the cross. Off the top of my head, that's about it.

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Ok, that sounds like the Islam I've come to know, thank you for clarifying. While I do see part of Islam to be mystical in their orientation it's neither critical nor is it significant, it just speaks to how I perceive the nature of their revelation. I was just looking for clarification, because frankly, I found the quote boarder line incomprehensible. Perhaps we will get a chance to discuss the content of the Koran, I read it for a while when I was getting ready to go over to Iraq. I was a liberal arts major so such culturally rich literature is of great interest to me.

God be with you.

Grace and peace,
Mark

mark kennedy said:

Perhaps we will get a chance to discuss the content of the Koran, I read it for a while when I was getting ready to go over to Iraq. I was a liberal arts major so such culturally rich literature is of great interest to me.

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Here here! As someone attempting to tackle both the Bible and the Qur'an, I would love to be a part of an analysis of the Biblical stories in the Bible and in the Qur'an.