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CONGRUITIES AND INCONGRUITIES BETWEEN THE BIBLE AND THE QUR'AN |
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It is expressly stated in the Qur'an that the person who died on the cross was not Jesus but someone else. Jesus died by natural death and his soul ascended heaven.
« That they said (in boast), "We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah.;- but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not:- »(Surah 4/157)
« Behold! Allah said: "O Jesus! I will take thee and raise thee to Myself and clear thee (of the falsehoods) of those who blaspheme; I will make those who follow thee superior to those who reject faith, to the Day of Resurrection: Then shall ye all return unto me, and I will judge between you of the matters wherein ye dispute. »(Surah 3/54)
The conflict regarding the death and resurrection of Christ has continued to this day between the Christians and the Muslims. The Qur'an insists that the person that had been crucified was not Christ but someone like him. The disbelievers had devised a plot and God had foiled it. And (the unbelievers) plotted and planned, and Allah too planned, and the best of planners is Allah. (Surah 3/54)
'I will take thee and raise thee to Myself'. So, Christ had not been killed on the cross as Christians believe, and he was not harmed by the Jews. He was taken to a reliable secluded spot where he lived and died and his soul ascended to heaven. Once the Almighty causes the death of someone he will not resuscitate him. …This was Our way with the apostles We sent before thee: thou wilt find no change in Our ways (Surah 17/77)
Certain Islamic sources agreed on the fact that Jesus Christ ascended to heaven in flesh and blood, but the majority's opinion was that his soul ascended to heaven. The word used in the verse is 'I will raise thee'. To raise to heaven and ascend to God are two different things; the latter connotes a higher degree of honor. Also mention in the Book the case of Idris: He was a man of truth (and sincerity), (and) a prophet: And We raised him to a lofty station. (Surah 19/56, 57) We see here plainly that Christ's soul, like other prophets' souls had been raised to the realm of angels; he was not resurrected, but raised to the divine presence.
CERTAIN OBSERVATIONS REGARDING CRUCIFIXION
The person crucified was someone else
This has also been a point on which Christians do not wholly agree. Here comes in Docetism, the heresy developed from speculations about the imperfection or essential impurity of matter. More thoroughgoing Docetists asserted that Christ was born without any participation of matter and that all the acts and sufferings of his life, including the Crucifixion, were mere appearances. They consequently denied Christ's Resurrection and Ascension into heaven. Valuable information is available in the work entitled Adversus Haereses. In the said book is mentioned Basilides, a historian of Alexandrian origin, who stressed in his writings dating from 130-150 that Christ had not been crucified, and claimed that the person who had been crucified was Simon from Cyrene whose face, had, by the fiat of God, was transformed to look like Christ. According to the account of Basilides Christ was there during the crucifixion of Simon before being raised to heaven. (William Smith, D.A. Dictionary of Christian Biography, Vol. 1 p.768)
How did Basilides come to this conclusion? According to the writings of Clement from Alexandria, a Chirstian theologian who lived in the third century, Basilides claimed that he had been the recipient of a secret information. According to his account, Clement of Alexandria, a Christian theologian of the 3rd century AD, wrote that Basilides claimed to have received a secret tradition-on which he apparently based his gnosis, or esoteric knowledge-from Glaucias, an interpreter of the Apostle Peter. In addition to Psalms and Odes, Basilides wrote commentaries on the Gospels and also compiled a “gospel” for his own sect.
The only person who claimed this was not Basilides. There were others, considered heretics by the Church, that had argued that Christ had not been crucified, instead, another person that resmbled him had been killed on the cross.
Faris al-Qayrawani, a Christian writer, in his book« 'Has Christ been actually crucified?' says: “A sect descending from the priests of Thebes came forth in 185 with the argument that God prohibited the crucifixion of Jesus. A Gnostic sect in 370 argued that the Messiah had not been crucified, somebody else had appeared in his guise to the onlookers. Furthermore, in 520, Severus, a Syrian bishop claimed that he had encountered a group of philosophers who taught that Christ had not been nailed on the cross but that he had fled to Alexandria... In about 610, Bishop John, son of a governor of Cyprus declared that the Messiah had not been crucified but someone else who looked like him.” »
As from the fourth century, the Docetics, like all other sects, who were considered heretic, gradually disppeared in the face of the ascendancy of the Catholic Church.
George Sale, translator of the Qur'an into English says that certain people think that this idea was Muhammad's. They are in error, for long before him, certain Christian sects had adopted this view. During the sway of the primitive Christianity, the Basilides group had denied that Christ had been crucified, as the person who had been nailed on the cross was someone else, namely Simon. (God had changed the features of Simon from Cyrene, to look like Christ. Before them Carpocratians and Carinthians had had the same conviction. Photius reports that in the book he read it was stated that Christ had not been crucified, instead of him somebody else had been on the cross. He laughed at seeing the person that stood in his stead nailed on the cross.(Prof.Dr. Süleyman Ateş, Yüce Kur'an'ınçağdaş Tefsiri, Cilt 2, s.405)
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