The matter was stated most succinctly by perhaps one of traditional Christianity’s most evocative critics, John Dominic Crossan, who says, “There is not the slightest doubt about the fact of Jesus’ crucifixion under Pontius Pilate.”4 As if that were not emphatic enough, he elsewhere states, “That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be.”5
Having been a graduate student of historical studies for the past decade, I have learned that scholars disagree on almost every historical point they discuss, and it is almost impossible to find scholarly unanimity, yet virtually all New Testament scholars today agree that Jesus died on the cross. Even those scholars who have no hesitation in dismissing traditional Christian beliefs, as we have seen, say that Jesus’ death by crucifixion is “indisputable,” “the most solid fact about Jesus’ life,” and “as sure as anything historical can ever be.”
I am not here arguing that Jesus must have died by crucifixion because virtually all non-Muslim scholars believe it. That would be an appeal to authority, a logically fallacious contention. I am simply recounting what Mike and Gary pointed out to me that night, which caused me to consider just how much of an uphill battle we were fighting if we thought Jesus did not die on the cross. The evidence for Jesus’ death by crucifixion is so strong that virtually every scholar who studies Jesus’ life believes it.
In fact, the evidence is so strong that at least one Muslim scholar agrees.6 In the flurry of media attention that followed the release of his book Zealot, Reza Aslan made it abundantly clear that Jesus “was most definitely crucified.”7 Aslan is one of the most well-known Muslim scholars in the West, and on account of the historical evidence, he also believes that Jesus died on the cross, despite what the Quran teaches. He believes so strongly in Jesus’ death by crucifixion that he uses it as the foundation for his entire theory of Jesus’ life.
What is the evidence that so convinces all these scholars—Christian, non-Christian, and even Muslim?
THE RECORD OF THE CROSS
As I was taught by my professors at Oxford, the foundation for any good historical argument should always be the primary sources: What do the historical records themselves indicate?
By all standards of ancient history, the reports of Jesus are very early and very diverse. Starting just a few years after Jesus’ crucifixion, Christians, Jews, and Romans report that Jesus died by crucifixion. The testimony is unanimous for over one hundred years.
Perhaps the earliest reports are found in a letter written to the Corinthian church. According to many New Testament scholars, Christian and non-Christian alike, 1 Corinthians 15 contains a creed that was formulated within five years of Jesus’ crucifixion, and it testifies that Jesus died and was buried: “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried . . .” (1 Cor. 15:3–4 NIV).8
It is critical to understand the import of this data: Before the New Testament was even written, Christians were passing down to one another the core doctrines of their faith, and the death of Jesus was among their first concerns. Not only was the teaching present in the very earliest days of Christianity, but also it was a central component of their doctrine. That we have a record of such tradition that comes within five years of Jesus’ death is almost unheard of in ancient history; in comparison with most historical records, it is lightning fast.
Another such creedal formulation, one which many scholars believe also predates the New Testament, is found in the letter to the Philippians. Here again, we find Jesus’ death not just present, but highlighted: “[Christ Jesus] humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Phil. 2:8 NIV).
The earliest biographers of Jesus’ life all testify that Jesus died by crucifixion: Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. In addition, many other New Testament authors and books lend their weight in agreement.
Without having carefully considered the implications, some might argue that these sources are from the Bible, and therefore are biased and ought not serve as evidence. There are at least two problems with this view. First, all historical sources are biased, and although we ought to weigh biases as we investigate, the sheer presence of bias is not reason enough to discredit reports. We would have to throw out all of history, indeed all news reports and personal stories from friends, if that were the case. Second, these sources are written by people of various backgrounds, and generally speaking, they did not start their lives as Christians. Though originally non-Christians, they found the Christian message convincing enough to convert, often at great cost. Therefore, if anything, their testimony may be granted an extra measure of credibility.9
Regardless, the testimony of the early Christians is corroborated by non-Christian reports: Josephus, the failed Jewish general who befriended the Roman emperor, also reports in the first century that Jesus died by crucifixion. He is joined shortly after by Tacitus, a Roman historian who also reports Jesus’ death.
In the first one hundred years after Jesus, we have Christian, Jewish, and Roman reports that Jesus died by crucifixion, and not a single report that he may not have died by crucifixion.
This last fact is more compelling when we consider the report that some people were trying to explain why Jesus’ tomb was empty.10 Instead of arguing that Jesus did not die on the cross, they argued that his body was stolen. So even though there was a perfect opportunity to suggest that Jesus did not die by crucifixion, it appears that this argument did not occur to anyone.
And there is a good reason for this: People were all too familiar with the terror of the cross.
THE TERROR OF THE CROSS
Simply put, the cross was one of the most vicious, torturous, and effective methods of execution that human depravity has ever devised. The torment of the cross was so extreme that a word was invented to describe it: excruciating, which translates from Latin to describe a pain “from the cross.”
Cicero, the ancient roman orator, describes crucifixion as “that most cruel and disgusting penalty” and “the worst extremes of torture.” According to him, even thinking about “the terror of the cross” was too horrible for Roman citizens: “The very word ‘cross’ should be far removed not only from the person of a Roman citizen but from his thoughts, his eyes and his ears.”11
Seneca the Younger penned this paragraph, describing the despair of the crucified: “Can anyone be found who would prefer wasting away in pain, dying limb by limb, or letting out his life drop by drop, rather than expiring once for all? Can any man be found willing to be fastened to the accursed tree, long sickly, already deformed, swelling with ugly tumours on chest and shoulders, and draw the breath of life amid long-drawn-out agony? I think he would have many excuses for dying even before mounting the cross!”12
Crucifixion was an execution reserved by Rome when they wanted to make a statement.
There was no standard procedure for the crucifixion, as executioners were often given license to express profligate brutality. Victims were at times fixed to the cross in awkward poses, at times nailed through their groins, at times forced to watch the violation of their wives, at times made to witness the slaughter of their whole families, and at times having their slain sons hung around their necks.13 Crucifixion was not just another means of execution, as there are much more efficient ways to kill. The cross was intended for brutality, and victims were not treated gently.
The cross often came after a flogging, as in the case of Jesus, which was itself a horrendous torture. The whip was designed to rip into skin and turn muscle to pulp, making a victim’s “blood flow in streams.”14 Josephus tells us that victims were “whipped to the bone” and that their intestines were at times exposed by the flogging.15 This is why Seneca describes a victim, by the time he is on the cross, as a “battered and ineffective carcass.”16
The ultimate end of crucifixion was execution, and it was easy to determine whether victims of the cross were alive or dead: Simply observe whether they were still moving. I
f they were not, they were dead, because it meant they were not breathing. On account of the way crucifixion victims were made to hang, their rib cages were fully expanded and their lungs could not generate the pressure necessary to exhale. In order to breathe out, they had to push up against the nail in their feet, and they could inhale as they sank back down. Once they had reached the limit of sheer exhaustion or blood loss, their bodies would sink down, they would no longer be able to breathe out, and they would die of asphyxiation.
That is why one method of expediting or ensuring the death of victims was to break their knees, as is reported to have occurred to the bandits on either side of Jesus. Once their knees were broken, they could no longer breathe out and they would soon expire.
Yet the Romans had other means of ensuring death. Among other methods, they were known to light peoples’ bodies on fire, to feed the bodies to wild animals, or, in the case of Jesus, to pierce the heart.
This is a highly condensed and abbreviated description of the terror of the cross. It was an execution reserved for what Rome deemed the most worthless or heinous of criminals. Perhaps now it is understandable why the word cross was used as a rank curse word among the lower class in ancient Rome: “Get crucified!”17 It should come as no surprise that never in recorded history has anyone survived a full Roman crucifixion.18
What should come as a surprise, though, is that a religious movement could ever be started with the ridiculous proclamation that their Savior was crucified.
THE FOLLY OF THE CROSS
Given the insuperable stigma of crucifixion, it should be a shock that Christians propagated their message by saying that their Savior died on the cross. How could Jesus save anyone if he died such a horrendous death?
That is why people ridiculed Christians for this belief. The earliest known pictorial representation of Jesus on the cross is a drawing intended to mock a Christian named Alexamenos. It depicts Jesus on the cross as having the head of a donkey, and the scrawled caption reads, “Alexamenos worships his god!” To be crucified was exceedingly shameful; to worship such a one, even more so.
This is the focus of an anti-Christian polemic written by Minucius Felix, who says, “To say that their ceremonies center on a man put to death for his crime and on the fatal wood of the cross is to assign these abandoned wretches sanctuaries which are appropriate to them and the kind of worship they deserve.”19 In other words, if Christians are so degenerate that they worship a crucified man, they deserve to worship a crucified man.
Not just Romans but also Jews saw the cross as a tremendous stigma. Deuteronomy 21:23 teaches that “the curse of God is on the one who is hanged on a stake (for capital punishment).” By and large, Jews were not expecting a suffering Messiah, let alone one upon whom rested the curse of God.
This is why the Corinthian church had to be assured that, despite all appearances, the cross of Jesus was still good news: “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18 NIV). Once we recognize the common understanding of the cross, it makes complete sense why it would appear to be “foolishness.” Undoubtedly, the message of a “crucified messiah (is) a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Cor. 1:23 NIV).
To Jews and non-Jews, the message of a crucified Savior was abhorrent and ridiculous. In other words, everyone who heard the message of the cross would have been repulsed by it, at least at first. It was certainly not an attractive proclamation.
The question that we must consider, given that the cross would elicit such derision and aversion, is, Why would Christians preach such a message? Why not preach an alternative, more attractive message, like Jesus’ survival of the cross, or that, despite appearances, Jesus was never placed on the cross to begin with? Better yet, why not leave the cross out of Christian preaching entirely, teaching that he died by some other means or perhaps never died at all but was raised directly to heaven? All of these would have made the Christian message much more appealing to everyone who heard it.
There is only one probable answer: Jesus actually did die by crucifixion, and the disciples were preaching what they had to preach if they wanted to proclaim the truth.
SUMMARIZING THE POSITIVE CASE
A whole book can be dedicated to Jesus’ death, as indeed dozens have, but we may summarize the positive case before considering the Islamic response.
The basis of any historical case must be the primary sources, and in this case, the sources are unanimous, diverse, early, and plentiful: Jesus died by crucifixion. Starting almost immediately after Jesus’ death, over a dozen authors and traditions recorded the death of Jesus by crucifixion, including Christian, Jewish, and Roman sources, and their testimony was unanimous. For more than one hundred years, no record even suggests that Jesus survived death on the cross or otherwise circumvented his execution. This coheres well with what we know of crucifixion practices, in that there is no person in recorded history who ever survived a full Roman crucifixion. Positing that Jesus did not die on the cross would have served the agenda of the early Christians and those opposed to their message, but such a suggestion appears inconceivable.
For those who study Jesus’ life in academia, the idea that Jesus did not die by crucifixion remains, to this day, outside the realm of possibility.
CHAPTER 22
THE ISLAMIC RESPONSE
IT WAS MADE TO APPEAR SO
After hearing the position of Gary and Mike, it was clear that on this topic, my father and I would be fighting an uphill battle. Regardless, we argued the positions we had been taught in the mosque, and there was much to say. Here I will recount the bulk of what we argued, as well as present the more common Muslim argument against Jesus’ death.
The Islamic responses to the argument above can be categorized according to the two main interpretations of 4.157. Recall the central portion of the verse: “They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but it was made to appear so to them.” The two most common interpretations place relative emphasis on different parts of this verse. The view that Muslim debaters often hold, that Jesus survived the cross, focuses on the first part—“They did not kill him”—whereas the majority view focuses on the latter part: “but it was made to appear so to them.”
THEY DID NOT KILL HIM
My father and I argued the position that Jesus was placed on the cross but he was not killed. Jesus miraculously survived the cross, was taken down alive, placed in a tomb to heal, and then escaped the clutches of the Romans.
This is not the same theory that Christian apologists dubbed the Swoon Theory, which met its demise hundreds of years prior under the critical atheist scholar David Strauss. A naturalistic view, the Swoon Theory argued that Jesus somehow survived crucifixion. Strauss’s critique was powerful: Even if Jesus had somehow managed to survive the crucifixion, his body would have been broken and mutilated, and he would have required desperate medical attention. The disciples may have been relieved that he survived, but that does not explain the inception or the preaching of the early church. According to the historical record, the disciples preached Jesus as the Lord of life risen in glory, and that belief propelled them to spurn death to such a degree that they were more than willing to die. According to Strauss, that would not have happened had Jesus just survived the cross.
The Christian apologists who had responded to the Swoon Theory focused on a different, more visceral point: If Jesus had somehow survived the cross, his feet would still have been broken, his hands paralyzed, his sides pierced, his body mutilated and otherwise incapacitated. They argued that it would have taken a miracle for Jesus to even walk out of the tomb!
But as Muslims, we recognized that it would have taken a miracle, and that’s what we argued. This was what I called the Theistic Swoon Theory, and we argued that God miraculously preserved Jesus’ life on the cross. We presented the argument in a pithy package: “If God can perform the grand miracle of raising Jesus from the
dead, why can he not perform a lesser miracle of preserving him from death in the first place?” In effect, it circumvented the inevitability of Jesus’ death. No matter how brutal the cross, God’s ability to preserve Jesus is greater.
We also argued that there were subtle traces of this divine design still present in the Gospels: Pilate did not want to kill Jesus on account of a dream God had given his wife; his attempt to release Jesus failed when the crowd demanded Barabbas; Pilate may have resorted to colluding with the executing centurion to ensure Jesus’ body was neither killed nor hung on the cross for the usual length of time; Joseph of Arimathea may have also conspired with Pilate, as evidenced by his request to have the body of Jesus; the women who came to the tomb must have brought aloes and myrrh for medicinal purposes; Jesus was disguised as a gardener in order to escape the guards; the holes in Jesus’ hands indicated he had not been raised from the dead, etc.
We also argued that Jesus himself did not want to die, as demonstrated by his prayer in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus was so anxious about the cross that he was sweating drops of blood. The best explanation of this, we argued, is that he was imploring God to save him from the cross. We coupled this contention with the verse from the epistle to the Hebrews, which reads: “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission” (Heb. 5:7 NIV).1 Allah, being a God of mercy who protected his prophets, heard Jesus’ prayers and miraculously saved him from death on the cross.
Given that Allah is more than able to save Jesus, and that the biblical records still contained evidence in favor of this theory, we argued that Jesus did not die by crucifixion.
No God but One: Allah or Jesus?: A Former Muslim Investigates the Evidence for Islam and Christianity Page 15
