[...] 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:-
Quran 4:157 (Yusef Ali translation)
For a long time now it has occured to me that the Islamic concept of the non-crucifixion seems almost like an inversion of the doctrine of transubstantiation. The Catholics say that even though it looks like wine and crackers, the substance underneath the appearance is the body and blood of Jesus Christ. On the other hand, the Quran says that even though it looked like the body and blood of Jesus Christ was up there on the cross, in reality, underneath the appearance, something else was going on entirely.
Sometimes modern-day evangelicals and anti-Muslim missionaries will dismiss the non-crucifixion without any consideration, but it is interesting to note that even before the revelation of the Quran, several different ancient Christian groups also had radically different understandings of what happened on Good Friday which might also be considered "non-crucifixions".
The followers of the 'heretic' Basilides taught that Simon Peter took Jesus' place on the cross. (And in the Gospel of Barnabas, an interesting but highly flawed document, after Jesus prays for the cup to be taken from him, Judas miraculously is made to appear like Jesus and is crucified in his place) Adoptionists taught that Jesus' essence or power left his body so that he never really experienced death (those who take this view argue that this gives the real meaning of "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"). According to the Acts of John, Jesus appears to John in a cave at the same time that the crowds believe he is up on the cross. And some of the Gnostic groups questioned whether Jesus had a flesh-and-blood body to begin with.
The idea that Jesus only "appeared" to die on the cross (or that he only "appeared" to have a body) is called Docetism, and this concept had many varied expressions in early Christianity. The Gospel of Peter (which in many respects is quite similar to the canonical gospels, was also excluded from the Bible specifically because of alleged docetic tendancies.
Some of these theories make more sense than others, but I tend not to hang my hat on any one in particular. As the Quran says: those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow.
From a certain point of view, Islam has benefitted greatly by not insisting on using Greek philosophy to do its theology. Instead of trying to describe the abstract mysteries of what happened or didn't happen, it sticks to the concrete. You may think that he died, but your eyes sometimes lie to you. And things aren't always as they seem. Even when it comes to saying who is alive (in reality) and who is dead (in reality). More than that leads down to the road of angels-on-pinhead-counting.
[2.154] And do not speak of those who are slain in Allah's way as dead; nay, (they are) alive, but you do not perceive.
4 comments:
If Jesus was not crucified, then one must state that God misled mankind for 600 years into thinking that Jesus was crucified. Why would God mislead people in this way? What was accomplished?
Abdul-Halim S. said...
I would say a couple of things:
I think that in some sense both Christianity and Islam agree that whatever happened to Jesus (as), or whatever Jesus did, he in some sense escaped the clutches of death. Death didn't get the last word with him. So in terms of what was accomplished, I would say that God rescued Christ, just like he rescued Abraham's son from the knife, or Daniel from the lion's den, or Enoch or Noah, etc. God looks out for his servants, one way or another.
But secondly, I think you missed the point of the various textual references. Except for possibly the Gospel of Barnabas, all of the groups and scriptures mentioned are PRE-Islamic and Christian.
So however you want to characterize this, no one is implying that that "God misled mankind for 600 years". Even before the time of Muhammad, in the early years of Christianity, before the Bible was canonized, there were SEVERAL different groups of CHRISTIANS who rejected the idea that Jesus simply died on the cross.
Abd finally, we already live in a world where things aren't always what they seem. God created a world where mirages appear in the desert and toadstools look like mushrooms. This is just the nature of the world. And in this particular case, God isn't the one fooling us. Our eyes fool us, and God is the one telling us the real nature of things.
Sura 4, ayat 157 says: And because of their saying (in boast), "We killed Messiah 'Iesa (Jesus), son of Maryam (Mary), the Messenger of Allah," - but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but the resemblance of 'Iesa (Jesus) was put over another man (and they killed that man), and those who differ therein are full of doubts. They have no (certain) knowledge, they follow nothing but conjecture. For surely; they killed him not [i.e. 'Iesa (Jesus), son of Maryam (Mary) alayhis-salaam]:
Now, to me, that says that God made another man look like Jesus so that he could be crucified. This is not a case of God delibrately trying to fool people??? And if people were not fooled, as you say, then those particular people must be on some sort of equal footing with God, no? I just don't understand what was God's purpose....
Hello again,
I think if you look at a variety of translations of the verse in question, they typically don't say that another man was made to look like Jesus. That concept isn't found in the original text. So I think you are assuming a little too much about what is being said.
But that's really a minor point. I think if you look at things in perspective, you would see that in the world there are many examples of how we assume one thing is the case, but later God reveals that the reality is something different.
God made a world where pyrite (fool's gold) looks like gold. God made a world where geodes look like ordinary rocks, but if you crack one open, inside are some exceptionally beautiful crystal patterns. We have to accept being surprised (sometimes pleasantly, sometimes unpleasantly) by the world as a part of life.
If you want to single out one particular phenomena and claim that God is lying to you, that has more to do with your own personal relationship with God than it has to do with Islam.
In terms of what was God's purpose. I actually wouldn't want to confuse my own speculations for definitive answers. But personally, I make sense of the concept of non-crucifixion, as I suggested earlier, by seeing it in the context of a long history of God looking out for his people.
A second piece of the picture is the Quranic concept (mentioned in the original blog) of how the martyrs are in some sense protected from death.
A third piece which I sometimes think of when trying to make sense of this is the idea that God wouldn't let a messenger, especially the messiah. I know Muslims who suggest that a humilitiating death on the cross would have been too undignified for a messenger to undergo. Interestingly enough, in the Bible it says that "whosoever hangs on a tree is cursed" and so some argue that if Jesus had actually been crucified it would have somehow disqualified him from being the Messiah. Which is why God saved him from that.
And an even simpler way to make sense of the non-crucifixion idea actually goes back to the interpretation you suggested. The version which many Muslims believe, and which is found in the Gospel of Barnabas has Judas being made to look like Jesus shortly before the crucifixion. So if your question is what was accomplished, then in this version what is clearly accomplished is almost a perfect example of poetic justice. Jesus, the innocent person escapes. And Judas, the betrayer, is made to undergo the exact same punishment which he was setting up Jesus for.
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