Why Islam denies the crucifixion of Christ

[dzheremi]

I don’t think was directed to you, MrZetterlund.

 

[Nine_Two]

I don’t think was directed to you, MrZetterlund.

Not at all. I can see why it might look that way.

 

[Byzantine_Wolf]

What few that was written about Yeshu in the Jewish Talmud doesn’t match the Jesus of Christianity. The earliest “testimony” of the alleged crucifixion was that of Josephus in his history book titled “Jewish Antiquities”, written c.93 CE. However, the consensus view of modern scholars is that this passage was a later Christian forgery.

Quote some “modern scholars” to demonstrate this “consensus.”

Christians are left with their “New Testament” to prove that the crucifixion did take place. Paul didn’t relate the account of the crucifixion in his letters either. So in the end, Christians have to rely solely on their “Gospels” for proof.

I already addressed this. Paul’s letters weren’t meant to retell the tale of the crucifixion. They did, however, make mention that the crucifixion happened. Some examples:

It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. [Galatians 6:12]

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. [Philippians 2:8]

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. [Colossians 2:13-14]

But Christians are not left with simply the New Testament. We have, for example, the traditions of the early Church Fathers, who all taught that the crucifixion happened, that Christ was God, and virtually everything else that we find Christians believing come the advent of Islam. Even men such as Ignatius, Polycarp, and Clement - all of whom were selected by Christ’s apostles - support orthodox Christian doctrine. If there was some conspiracy to change scripture, then it had to have happened with the apostles, in which case the Koran is wrong that God “put compassion and mercy in the hearts of those who followed” Jesus (S. 57:27).

But unfortunately, the earliest papyri of their “New Testament” were from the 2nd century. There survive hundreds of papyrus manuscripts of Greek pagan literary texts from the 2nd and 3rd century that are exactly dated and show the same types of handwriting as these.

I don’t quite understand the argument. “Same types of handwriting”? Are you saying they were written by the same people based on that? Where are you getting this information?

Serious Greek linguistic scholars, such as Daniel Wallace and Bruce Metzger, have studied the language of the New Testament books. They can argue (and have argued) that the writing style of the Gospel of John matches the epistles also accredited to the same apostle, among other consistencies.

Even earlier witnesses can attest to their authorship: St. Irenaeus, a disciple of Polycarp who was a disciple to the apostle John, identifies all four gospels in his Against Heresies, and accredits them with their respective authors (III, 11:7, 9). He did this around the mid-100’s, fairly close to the time of the original apostles.

On top of this, there are over 5500 manuscripts of the Greek New Testament (and growing with every new finding), nearly five times as much as Caesar’s Gallic Wars, and far more than plenty of other books of antiquity that are still considered to be intact and unchanged to any large degree. Furthermore, while the distance between the originals and the earliest manuscripts may be about 100 years, this is still far great than any of the previously mentioned books. The earliest copy for the works of Plato, for example, are some 1200 years from the originals, yet no one denies Plato wrote them, or that someone came along and distorted them completely.

Yet as we’ve seen before, standards set for other books (including the Koran, I might add) are not being used for the New Testament.

Since there is not a single reliable testimony, the question is not: “Why Islam denies the crucifixion of Christ?”, but ought to be: “Why non-Christians should believe the crucifixion of Jesus?”

I suppose one could try to change the subject, given that we have seen time and time again throughout this thread that Islamic arguments against the crucifixion do not hold up to serious scrutiny, and therefore the question must be made into a broader one that could be asked by atheists or non-monotheists alike, although with different motives than those answering the original question would have.

Of course the very statement “there is not a single reliable testimony” isn’t true. The gospels were written by those who knew Jesus or people who knew Jesus, and we have historical evidence of their authorship. We have the testimony of those who knew the original apostles and were given the keys of the kingdom to pass the tradition onward. If the crucifixion didn’t happen, then we have the greatest conspiracy ever made, one that puts the moon landing and 9/11 to shame. One might as well argue that Julius Caesar was never assassinated, or that the Battle of Thermopylae is just another Greek myth. Of course no one does this…just as no sensible person denies that the crucifixion happened.

 

[DavidMark]

Christ always referred to his inevitable martyrdom, that he would be killed, and “rise” after three days.
Now Muslims believe in a physical rescue of the body of Jesus, and many Christians also accept a physical resurrection as well.
The Qur’án states “God lifted him up to Himself…” (4:158) so Muslims should accept that Ruh’u’llah (the Spirit of God, or Christ) was taken up to Allah; but what they have come to believe is that the body of Jesus was not crucified, but was taken up, and when they mention this to the Christians, for whom the Crucifixion is a very important matter, the Muslims sound strange and are blocked from teaching them any more. This will never change. Islam sank into oblivion, and didn’t even send teachers to the new world.

The Bahá’í view is expressed in these passages:

For the body of Christ was crucified and vanished, but the Spirit of Christ is always pouring upon the contingent world, and is manifest before the insight of the people of assurance. (Tablets of Abdu’l-Baha v1, p. 193)
For Christ had an elemental body and a celestial form. The elemental body was crucified, but the heavenly form is living and eternal, and the cause of everlasting life; the first was the human nature, and the second is the divine nature. (‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions, p. 98)
At the age of 69 'Abdu’l-Baha travelled from coast to coast here in the US, in 1912, teaching in synaagogues and churches and universities not only the Advent of Baha’u’llah and His Fore-runner the Báb, but defending the true mission of Christ and Muhammd, as had never been done before.

 

[Nine_Two]

Quote some “modern scholars” to demonstrate this “consensus.”

To add to this:

in secular religious studies their are two major schools of thought when it comes to Christianity, “Minimalists” and “Maximalists” while the Minimalists would be in agreement with a195 there, their work regarding the Koran portrays Mohammed as a greedy and selfish man who desires only power, and who made up the koran.

Therefore if anyone is going to quote this school of theology as authoritive against Christians, they better be willing to accept it as authoritive against Muslims.

 

[KathleenGee]

Many references have been made about how Muslims cannot discern objective information from myth.

The other day I came to NewAgeIslam…and it is not what one would think…This site should be a great help to Muslims in understanding why the Golden Age of Islam passed away…

There were a number of Arab scholars who studied Aristotle, Plato, Neoplato works…the use of REASON…cause and effect, the Primary Mover…Both Christian and Muslim sources were afraid of using secular philosophy as it could replace faith in God.

A Catholic cleric scholar explained God as the Primary Mover, sorry don’t recall his name at the moment…Beumunt…spelling… who then was proceeded by St. Thomas Aquinas, and God became the Unmoved Mover…how can we compare our knowledge of God…except we are like the eye of an owl next to the Sun…Christianity then church-wise incorporated the use of reason in faith…St. Athanaeous of Egypt was an early Church Father and scholar and he also taught that education must always be connected to the study of faith and religion.

For all the Plantens, it would be good to see this site, NewAgeIslam, because it said when reason and academic study was removed from Muslim teachings, the effective culture was then plunged into backwardness and the oppression of women, the inclination to fanaticism.

The Muslims should not only return to ancient Arab Muslim scholars who studied reason, and thus teach modern Muslim believers to use reason, and history, and anthropology – the study of peoples, cultures and their environments, but also learn from us.

The Muslims need to know that there is something missing in their understanding of Allah. And it is that God is love and we are to also love our neighbor – all people --as ourselves.

 

[sedonaman]

…

For all the Plantens, it would be good to see this site, NewAgeIslam, because it said when reason and academic study was [sic] removed from Muslim teachings, the effective culture was then plunged into backwardness and the oppression of women, the inclination to fanaticism.

The Muslims should not only return to ancient Arab Muslim scholars who studied reason, and thus teach modern Muslim believers to use reason, and history, and anthropology – the study of peoples, cultures and their environments, but also learn from us.

…

Three things are absolutely essential for science, including modem sciences. One must understand that:

a. The world exists independent of us and is orderly.
b. We can understand it.
c. We should have no aversion to observing and working with nature (in particular to do experiments).

One of the most quoted verses of the Bible in the Catholic Middle Ages was: God “has ordered all things in measure, number and weight.” As for items b and c above, Catholicism has always emphasized the dignity of the human person, which it attributes especially to man’s ability to reason and understand starting from nature; its sacramental system manifests its belief in the necessity of the physical for man. The historians R.R. Palmer and Colton make the comparison with the culture of Islam, for example, that finally decided it was not okay to analyze the world in rational terms. Use of reason and its effectiveness in understanding this world were ultimately against the cult(ure), for according to Islam, Allah is sovereign in a sense that excludes secondary causes; according to that culture, Allah’s activity is completely inscrutable to man. Palmer and Colton say:

“If any historical generalization may be made safely, it may be safely said that any society that believes reason to threaten its foundations will suppress reason. [St.] Thomas’ doctrine … gave freedom to thinkers to go on thinking. Here Latin Christendom [Catholicism] may be contrasted with the Muslim world. It was ruled, in about the time of Thomas Aquinas, that… the Gate was closed. Arabic thought, so brilliant for several centuries, went into decline.” – Palmer and Colton, A History of the Modern World, page 38.
– Dr. Anthony Rizzi, The Science Before Science, page 187.

 

[KathleenGee]

Sedonan,

It is sad to see Muslims can’t learn from us…

 

[Byzantine_Wolf]

To add to this:

in secular religious studies their are two major schools of thought when it comes to Christianity, “Minimalists” and “Maximalists” while the Minimalists would be in agreement with a195 there, their work regarding the Koran portrays Mohammed as a greedy and selfish man who desires only power, and who made up the koran.

Therefore if anyone is going to quote this school of theology as authoritive against Christians, they better be willing to accept it as authoritive against Muslims.

In addition to this, I’d like to give a warning. I have noticed many Muslims enjoy quoting atheist scholars (such as Bart Ehrmann) in their attacks against Christianity. This is actually somewhat dishonest because the conclusions of the two groups are not compatible. Atheists make their claim against Christianity to deny all religion; Muslims use atheists to glorify Islam. The atheistic denial of the God of Christianity extends to the God of Islam, something which would horrify Mohammad. This must be kept in mind when Muslims gleefully speak of “modern scholarship,” the majority of which is secular humanist in nature (which, again, goes against Islam).

 

[Nine_Two]

In addition to this, I’d like to give a warning. I have noticed many Muslims enjoy quoting atheist scholars (such as Bart Ehrmann) in their attacks against Christianity. This is actually somewhat dishonest because the conclusions of the two groups are not compatible. Atheists make their claim against Christianity to deny all religion; Muslims use atheists to glorify Islam. The atheistic denial of the God of Christianity extends to the God of Islam, something which would horrify Mohammad. This must be kept in mind when Muslims gleefully speak of “modern scholarship,” the majority of which is secular humanist in nature (which, again, goes against Islam).

Sadly I think precedent shows this will fall on deaf ears.

 

[planten]

Sedonan,

It is sad to see Muslims can’t learn from us…

Would you please clarify what you want to teach us. Is it modern sciences, general knowledge or religion? Or it is your cultural habits, your way of living in the western countries??. Please specify what exactly you want to teach us. And thanks to you for the offer.

I am sure there is a lot we can learn from you.

 

[swariffin]

Would you please clarify what you want to teach us. Is it modern sciences, general knowledge or religion? Or it is your cultural habits, your way of living in the western countries??. Please specify what exactly you want to teach us. And thanks to you for the offer.

I am sure there is a lot we can learn from you.

Hi my old Ahmadian Brother. Nice to have you back again. Reading your posting is just like meeting you personally. Hope that you are doing just fine, and may the grace of Allah be with you always. Sorry ladies and gentlemen, I am using this thread to say hi to Planten.

 

[KathleenGee]

Hi Planten,

I am sorry you cannot understand our posts. I am sorry you do not see Allah as God of love and that we are to love one another…I mean that universally, which best is shown in having good will towards others…and the use of reason.

I also think you do not understand how much the ‘modern scholars’ as Byzantine Wolf refers to, went to great extent to remove Christianity and its guidance on our culture, and our young, especially the ones who go on to higher education. The first thing students learn across the country is how bad Christianity is, how religion has caused the most deaths in the world, the Catholic Church and its oppression of women, and so on.

Then there is the media and entertainment industry defying the 10 commandments and the promotion of hedonism, and how this has come into family television. It just didn’t happen over night. It has been going on since the early 1920’s, and some aspects of it have been going since the late 1700’s.

And then I see so many times Muslims referring seculars as Christians. A Christian is someone who has freely and independently made a free will choice to lay down his life for Jesus. Some kids were able to do so when they were in Catholic/Protestant private schools. Most go through a time of questioning when they are in their teens into early 20s. Childhood baptisms do not insure or lead to an adult like conversion, especially in the West.

The other thing that I see is the attitude towards Western women that we are all whores. Myself, my friends, and now my 28 year old daughters were virgins. We have only been with our husbands. A Palestinian Muslim saw my picture on Newsvine and thought I was very young. When she came to me, she asked if I wore a bikini. Really, if she were before me, I would have come to close to slapping her in the face. She was very arrogant and vulger, had terrible prejudice against anyone Jewish. I married a foreigner whose culture is predominantly nominal Catholic. A member told me that they liked me because I was different, and they think Americans are whores…never mind the choices she made…

So I also am very aware of the attitude of Muslims towards Western women, and it is obsessed on that image many of us detest as well.

So I think the other thing is Muslims need to have an open mind, stop pushing their religion on our country with plots to take over. You need to see there are many holy Christians living a profound life in God without bringing alot of attention to themselves.

I think Muslims have an awful lot to learn about true Christianity, true Christians, the use of reason, return back to your ancient Arab scholars who were great thinkers, and finally, to learn Who Jesus truly is. You do not know him.

 

[KathleenGee]

And I must add, Western women are suffering and I have helped me with the companionship of Mary, our blessed Mother, especially Mary of Guadalupe.

Planten, why don’t you study Our Lady of Guadalupe…Do you know the story of her in Mexico?

She speaks through pictographs in the image, the need to believe in the One, true God.

God bless you.

 

[sedonaman]

Would you please clarify what you want to teach us. …

How about how to think? Starting with the idea that if two statements contradict each other, at least one of them is wrong.

Then we can move on to the following:

Observation —> analysis —> knowledge

Muslim Woman [or maybe it was Sister Amy] once said that the Qur’an was “not subject to interpretation”. If that is true, then the “analysis” part of the process is stopped, and knowledge is not possible. Also, if it is true that the Qur’an was “not subject to interpretation”, you wouldn’t even know what it said because as you read the words, your brain interprets what they mean.

[To be continued, I’m sure]

 

[Byzantine_Wolf]

Would you please clarify what you want to teach us. Is it modern sciences, general knowledge or religion? Or it is your cultural habits, your way of living in the western countries??. Please specify what exactly you want to teach us. And thanks to you for the offer.

I am sure there is a lot we can learn from you.

Oh hi Planten. Did you think of something to respond to my points with?

 

[DavidMark]

In the Baha’i community, this issue of interpretation is treated differently than i have seen elsewhere; and it is very important.
A person has the right to read anything and gain their own understanding, but they cannot force it on others. Since we have no clergy, this interpretation is cherished and guarded.
But other religions have clergy who expound their interpretations, and this divergence gets us in trouble, because it is always the religious leaders who oppose the Wronged Ones who speak nothing but truth. These Truth Speakers, who appear about every thousand years are the only ones who can creatively and authentically interpret both the clear and obscure passages of the texts.

 

[Byzantine_Wolf]

In the Baha’i community, this issue of interpretation is treated differently than i have seen elsewhere; and it is very important.
A person has the right to read anything and gain their own understanding, but they cannot force it on others. Since we have no clergy, this interpretation is cherished and guarded.
But other religions have clergy who expound their interpretations, and this divergence gets us in trouble, because it is always the religious leaders who oppose the Wronged Ones who speak nothing but truth. These Truth Speakers, who appear about every thousand years are the only ones who can creatively and authentically interpret both the clear and obscure passages of the texts.

“What color is the sky in your world?”

 

[planten]

Hi my old Ahmadian Brother. Nice to have you back again. Reading your posting is just like meeting you personally. Hope that you are doing just fine, and may the grace of Allah be with you always. Sorry ladies and gentlemen, I am using this thread to say hi to Planten.

swariffin, thanks a 100 for wishing me well. I see that you are also back after a long time. I pray to Allah for your good health and happiness. Ameen.

 

[Nine_Two]

swariffin, thanks a 100 for wishing me well. I see that you are also back after a long time. I pray to Allah for your good health and happiness. Ameen.

Have you read the Gnostic book I posted yet? Do you still want to associate that with your religion?