Those who argue about him are in doubt about it. They have no real knowledge of it, just conjecture. But they certainly did not kill him. (Qur’an, 4:157)
The expression, “they did not kill him and they did not crucify him” reveals that Jesus was not killed and crucified. The next statement also contains very important information: the person crucified was not Jesus, but somebody else, although those who performed the crucifixion believed that he was Jesus. That was because this person resembled Jesus, or was made to look like him. (Only God knows for certain.)
This information in the Qur’an has been the subject of debate between Christians and Muslims for hundreds of years. Christians say that Jesus was crucified before hundreds of witnesses, that the gospels and other Christian authors are agreed on this, and that this is a certain and attested truth believed in by millions over hundreds of years.
The fact is, however, that some Christians have also accepted the fact that Jesus was not crucified.
Christians Who Have Not Believed in the Crucifixion
Christians have provided different answers to the question of who it was who was crucified. These possessed a belief regarded as “heretical” according to Catholic doctrine. That movement is known as “Docetism.”
The most important information about Docetism comes from the document Adversus Haereses (Against Herecies) written by the priest Irenaeus (115-202) at the end of the second century CE. Irenaeus refers to one Basilides, one of the representatives of this movement. According to Irenaeus, Basilides, a historian from Alexandria, insisted in his writings between 130 and 150 CE that Jesus had
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25