Does the Qur'an Have the True Insight Into the Crucifixion? A Response to Abu Zakariya

In previous posts, I have been reviewing a book by Muslim polemicist/apologist Abu Zakariya (in particular, chapter 5 of the book). So far, we have seen that Zakariya's objections to the gospels as inspired Scripture and eyewitness testimony, to Messianic prophecy, and to the reliable passing on of stories about Jesus have fallen far short of convincing. Here are links to my four previous rebuttals to Zakariya:

Were the Gospels Written Under Divine Inspiration?

Was the Crucifixion of Jesus Foretold in the Old Testament?

Are the Gospels Based on Eyewitness Testimony?

Were the Stories About Jesus Passed on Reliably?

In this fifth installment, I am going to address Abu Zakariya's contention that the Qur'an has the true insight into the crucifixion.

Problems with the Substitution View

Zakariya begins by quoting from Surah 4:157-158:

They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, though it was made to appear like that to them; those that disagreed about him are full of doubt, with no knowledge to follow, only supposition; they certainly did not kill him. God raised him up to Himself. God is almighty and wise.

Zakariya takes the classical interpretation of this text, which is that someone was made to resemble Jesus and was put on the cross in His stead. He finds support for this interpretation in the narrations of Ibn Abbas, one of the companions of Muhammad (Al-Nasa'i, Al-Kubra, 6:489):

Just before God raised Jesus to the Heavens, Jesus went to his disciples, who were twelve inside the house. When he arrived, his hair was dripping with water (as if he had just had a bath) and he said, 'There are those among you who will disbelieve in me twelve times after you had believed in me.' He then asked, 'Who among you will volunteer for his appearance to be transformed into mine, and be killed in my place? Whoever volunteers for that, he will be with me (in Heaven.' One of the youngest ones among them volunteered, but Jesus asked him to sit down. Jesus asked again for a volunteer, and the same young man volunteered and Jesus asked him to sit down again. Then the young man volunteered a third time and Jesus said, 'You will be that man,' and the resemblance of Jesus was cast over that man while Jesus ascended to Heaven from a hole in the roof the house. When the Jews came looking for Jesus, they found that young man and crucified him.

Zakariya concludes from this, 

From an observational perspective, would anyone be able to tell the difference between Jesus being crucified, and it being made to appear like he was? Whether it was the real Jesus, or someone who looked, sounded and acted in an identical manner to Jesus, or even an illusion of it being Jesus that tricks the eyes, most casual observers would not be able to distinguish between them. If you think about it, these various scenarios would appear identical for all intents and purposes and would end up being recorded the same way.

The problem is that, if the narration from Ibn Abbas is the correct way things went down, then the twelve disciples of Jesus knew that someone had been made to resemble Jesus and had been crucified in His stead. This is problematic since we know that the disciples themselves believed Jesus to have been killed by crucifixion. There can be absolutely no question about this. This, then, is an oddity on the thesis being here put forth.

On the other hand, if the disciples themselves were duped into believing Jesus had been killed by crucifixion, this means that Allah deceived his own followers, since the Qur'an asserts twice that Jesus' disciples were Muslims (Surah 3:52, 61:14). 

Shabir Ally Blasts Surah 4:157

Shabir Ally contradicts Surah 4:157 of the Qur'an.

A Muslim Dawagandist Refutes the Qur'an With the Help of Josephus - Part II

It looks like my earlier blog post found here did not go over well with my Muslim friend. It also appears my plea fell on deaf ears and he has decided not to take off that old silk hat of his, even though it doesn’t fit and the magic has long since run out.

One of his complaints is that I focused on only one of the issues dealt with in his blog post, but it was to his own benefit that I only narrowed in on one of his errors rather than all of them. As I will show, his complaint here is like that of a convicted murderer objecting to the fact that he was not also brought up on rape charges for raping a woman on the same day he committed first degree murder.

Before coming to the other issue he is anxious to be refuted on, I need to return to the original problem that I addressed in my post, a problem he desperately tried to disentangle himself from but only managed to get himself more tied up.

Here is the problem in a nutshell:

1) The Testimonium Flavianum (hereafter, TF) is not considered by most scholars to be a pure, unadulterated statement of Josephus free of any mishandling by some Christian(s), whether this is attributable to an accidental scribal gloss or is due to some nefarious reason(s). The basis on which most scholars suspect a Christian interpolation into TF is because it calls Jesus "the Messiah", which Josephus would not have done since he was a non-Christian Jew.

2) Surah 4:157 in the Qur’an attributes a statement to those first century Jews who rejected Jesus that would likewise have to be rejected as either an interpolation into the Qur’an or a bald-faced error on the part of the original author(s), if the above reasoning is granted as valid. That is, since first century Jews would not have boasted that they killed Isa “the Messiah” and “the messenger of God”, for the very obvious reason that they desired his death precisely because they rejected his claim to be the Messiah, this verse as it exists in the present day Uthmanic recension of the Qur’an must be rejected as an error.

In response to this, he replied as follows:

“I suppose the thought of context left his [Anthony Rogers – AR] mind as he appealed to Quran 4:157. Did he ever stop to think the Jews could have appended those titles to Jesus out of sarcasm as a form of mockery or the titles are due to paraphrasing from the Author (God)? The sarcasm point is similar to the passage where Jesus was allegedly mocked in Mark 15:16-20 with the title of “king of the Jews”.”

Since he never tells us himself just what the context offers us to help clarify the meaning of this verse, it is hard to know what it was that supposedly left my mind as I read the verse. And since he says the Jews “could have” given those titles to Jesus out of sarcasm, it is also apparent that the context did not clearly settle the matter for him either. In fact, he even goes on to give a second possibility in the same sentence when he says the author of this verse could have been “paraphrasing” the Jews. So which is it? Does the context clearly point to the fact that the Jews were being sarcastic? Or does it clearly point to the fact that Allah was simply paraphrasing the Jews? Apparently the necessary context to make it clear that either of these meanings was intended left the mind of the author who penned them, leaving future generations of readers in the precarious situation of trying to make heads or tails of the verse and no other option but flipping a coin to settle the controversy.

In support of the idea that the Jews could have engaged in sarcasm, though the passage does not clearly say this and the context does not indicate it either, he points to the fact that “Jesus was allegedly mocked in Mark 15:16-20 with the title ‘king of the Jews’”. The mistakes involved in drawing this comparison to Mark’s gospel are stark. In the first place, Mark 15:20 explicitly says that the Jews said this in mockery: “And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak…” On the other hand, neither the immediate passage nor the broader context of Surah 4:157 say anything of the sort. And that’s why not all Muslims hold this interpretation. In fact, they have many more interpretations on offer than the two dogmatically asserted by My Muslim friend. Given that the text of the Bible is sufficiently detailed and clear on this point while the text of the Qur’an is not, we also have to smart from the fact that this Muslim would say the Jews “allegedly” mocked Jesus. The only thing that we may fairly say is being alleged here is that the Quranic statement compares to the Biblical one when it clearly does not, at least as far as the issue of clarity goes. Moreover, some translations of the Qur’an even suggest the very opposite of this view, such as Yusuf Ali’s translation which parenthetically adds the words “in boast”, which shows that on his reading of the verse the Jews were not mocking but actually boasting when they said this. Couldn’t the “allegedly” omniscient author of the Qur’an see that the way he communicated this event might suggest to people that the Jews were not being sarcastic as we see in the case of Yusuf Ali? Or couldn’t the allegedly omniscient author of what boasts to be the world’s most eloquent book have spoken more clearly and explicitly said “mockery” so that those who follow him would not be left to cast about for explanations and fall all over each other in the process?

It is just because the verse does not clearly indicate that the Jews were saying this in mockery that my Muslim friend turns around and says Allah could have simply been paraphrasing what the Jews said. On top of the fact that this exposes the error of pretending that this passage somehow clearly shows in context that the Jews were mocking, the idea that Allah was paraphrasing the Jews is also problematic. The very idea of a paraphrase is to communicate the gist of something in roughly approximate language. But how is putting a statement in the mouths of Jews that they wouldn’t have spoken approximate what they could have said? To suggest such a thing is laughable, but perhaps my Muslim friend is just engaging in a little mockery and is pulling my chain when he pretends that he is actually offering well-thought out, problem free explanations of what is going on in Surah 4:157. In fact, I wonder if he would mind if I paraphrase him in a way that inaccurately expresses his actual position in the way he says his god did in S. 4:157.

Unmindful of my aim in the blog post – which was to show that the very reasoning this Muslim appealed to in order to argue that Christians added things to TF, and that this is a good illustration of one of the many problems with Surah 4:157 – this Muslim objects to the fact that I did not deal with his point that an interpolation among the handlers of Josephus writings at one point shows that some scribe was dishonest. He says:

“Even if Jews sincerely called Jesus by such titles [in 4:157] it would have NO bearing upon the blog post as it simply repeats one of the reasons as to why the critics doubt the passage in Josephus was interpolated whilst travelling in a culture of dishonesty amongst the scribes. I guess this was lost on Mr Rogers.”

It might have no bearing on the point of his post, but why should that matter to me? So I had a different point in mind when I used something this Muslim said in the process of arguing against the authenticity of TF. Big deal. How is this helpful to him and other Muslims? He was arguing against the authenticity of Josephus, and I was using his argument to refute the Qur’an. This means at best his argument shows a problem in the transmission of Josephus, while my argument on the other hand points up a problem in the Qur’an. As I see it, this is a great trade off. I was minded to freely give him the point of his post, which was that Jospehus was partially corrupted for the reasons he appealed to, and to be consistent that means he has to give me the error or corruption of the Qur’an on the basis of the same reasons. In other words, I freely granted that he has a pair of two’s; now consistency demands that he realize I have a royal flush.

Although it wasn’t my intention to address his concern that Josephus was mishandled, since he is hopping up and down about it I would simply point out that scholars, even though we have an incredibly impoverished manuscript tradition for Josephus as compared to the Bible, still believe they can, with some degree of confidence, by comparing and collating manuscripts (such as Greek, Slavonic, and Arabic texts of Josephus) and through the application of critical thinking and a sound methodology, determine what Josephus would have said. In fact, such reconstructions have been offered by a number of scholars, including one of the scholars this Muslim favors and often quotes in other contexts: Geza Vermes.

As for the charge of dishonesty on the part of later scribes, at best this Muslim has only shown that someone along the way was dishonest, not that there was “a culture of dishonesty”. But of course he didn’t even prove or even so much as argue that someone was dishonest; he merely asserted this, nothing more. The fact of the matter is there may be another explanation for how the change occurred, such as a marginal comment that was accidentally copied by a later scribe as if it were part of the original text, a mistake that often occurred in hand written manuscripts.

This brings us, finally, to the other issue that this Muslim complained about that I did not address, i.e. the fact that Josephus did not report anything about the slaughter of the innocents. According to him, this is supposed to show that the slaughter of the innocents reported in Matthew’s account of the Gospel did not actually take place.

“-Anthony, you failed to adequately cover the main point to the post; why did Josephus fail to mention Herod’s massacre of young boys despite chronicling Herod’s brutal history.”

Several things may be said in response to this argument from silence:

At no point in Josephus’ writings does he say anywhere that he aims to be exhaustive. In fact, by comparing Antiquities of the Jews to Jewish War, we see that Josephus mentions things in the one work that he doesn’t mention in the other. It is evident from this that Josephus was not aiming to be exhaustive in either one.

This is not only true in a general sense; it is particularly true when it comes to Josephus account of Herod. In one place in Antiquities, Josephus says:

"And since Herod had now the government of all Judea put into his hands, he promoted such of the private men in the city as had been of his party, but never left off avenging and punishing every day those that had chosen to be of the party of his enemies." (Antiquities Of The Jews, 15:1)

But Josephus does not tell us each and every act of punishment that Herod inflicted on his enemies every day. This is a clear indication that Josephus was not trying to be exhaustive even when it comes to the history of Herod.

Worse still, there are events from the time period that Josephus does not record that we know about from other sources. For example, we know from other historical sources that Herod persecuted and repressed the wilderness Essenes, but Josephus makes no mention of this.

When we put all of this together, what we have is this. In the first place, Josephus did not aim to be exhaustive in everything that he recounted. Second, we know that Josephus did not aim at or achieve an exhaustive account of the person and acts of Herod. Third, we have a specific example of something Herod did that Josephus did not recount. Given all of this, can anyone seriously argue that an event, such as the slaughter of the innocents reported in Matthew, did not take place just because Josephus does not report it? Obviously not.

Many more things could be mentioned, but this post has already become quite long and the above is more than adequate to remind my Muslim friend why the apologetic task is best left to others. In trying to argue for Islam and against Christianity, he has not given us any cogent reason to reject or doubt the latter, and in the process has given us good reason to reject the Qur’anic claim to be clear, exhaustively detailed, and without error. Worst of all, we learn all of this by a comparison of his own reasoning with the very verse that accuses those who believe in the crucifixion of Christ of having no certain knowledge about what actually happened and of being full of conjecture and doubt. If my Muslim interlocutor has shown anything, he has shown that he can’t defend against the error of S. 4:157 without showing in the process that he does not really know what is going on at this point in the passage and therefore has to engage in conjecture, and these very conjectures themselves are open to many serious objections, including the objection that S. 4:157 is supposed to dispel all such conjecture on his part.

Although it won’t be a continuation of this article, many more errors and/or ambiguities in Surah 4:157 will be mentioned in future posts. Of course if my Muslim friend wants to further entangle himself and try to respond to the above, then I will happily continue this discussion as well.

Some arguments in this vein were already made in a previous post, others were not repeated. Hence, the reader is encouraged to read the earlier article, found here: The Qur’an: A Book Full of Conjecture and Doubt

See also a post done by David a long time ago on this verse: The Irony of the Qur’an–Surah 4:157-158

Sam Shamoun has also written on this general subject:

The Qur’an, Bible Preservation and the Crufixion

And the latter article in particular from Sam contains a section towards the end addressing the claim that the Jews were mocking or being sarcastic in S. 4:157.

Did Jesus Really Obey Satan? Exposing Another Muslim Fraud and Lie

A Muslim Dawagandist Refutes the Qur'an With the Help of Josephus

Although I don’t believe there is anything close to a good case to be made for Islam or against Christianity, every once in a while I like to remind a certain Muslim dawagandist just how much efforts to defend Islam and refute Christianity are better left by him to others. The longer he persists in trying to be an apologist for Islam the less he is doing anything that could be considered good even if one adopts the misguided perspective of his false prophet which he delivered in the name of a false god. The reason for this is simple: more often than not, when this dawagandist departs from his preferred approach of attacking and slandering Christians and actually tries to mount an argument, he ends up shooting the very platform on which he is standing.

Not content with previous efforts at undermining his credibility as an apologist, he decided to take one of his occasional romps out of his comfort zone of gossip and slander into the area of historical apologetics. His recent appearance in this arena involves an attack on “Trinitarian Christians” for corrupting one of the important evidences for the historical existence of Jesus. According to him, “Trinitarian Christians” are guilty of corrupting the account of the first century Jewish historian Josephus, who was, among other things, an eyewitness to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans.

In various places in his writings Josephus makes mention of both John the Baptist and James the Lord’s half-brother. Josephus’ remarks about John the Baptist are not questioned by historical scholars, and his remarks about James are questioned by very few. However, and this is where our Muslim friend renders a disservice both to himself and his prophet, he brings up the famous Testimonium Flavianum, a portion of Josephus that, admittedly, has been debated by scholars. The passage in Josephus reads as follows:

"At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was a doer of amazing deeds, a teacher of persons who receive the truth with pleasure. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. And when Pilate condemned him to the cross, the leading me among us having accused him, those who loved him from the first did not cease to do so. For he appeared to them the third day alive again, the divine prophets having spoken these things and a myriad of other marvels concerning him. And to the present the tribe of Christians, named after this person, has not disappeared." (Ant. 18.3.3)

Scholars have taken three basic approaches to this portion of Josephus: 1) the passage is entirely spurious; 2) the passage is entirely authentic; and 3) the passage is partly authentic and partly inauthentic.

By far and away, historical scholars take the third option. A few of the reasons why most scholars do not reject the entirety of the passage as inauthentic or entirely a product of Christian hands can be given here.

In the first place, a number of the statements that appear in the Testimonium Flavianum are not characteristically Christian forms of expression or ways of speaking about Jesus. For example, although Christians believe that Jesus was/is, as He Himself said, “Greater than Solomon”, calling him “a wise man” is not a way that the early Christians did or would be expected to refer to Jesus, their Lord (and ours). Early Christians also did not refer to themselves as “the tribe of Christians”, a fact that once again points away from the idea that a Christian is responsible for at least this portion of the passage. A second observation that inclines scholars away from understanding the entire passage to be the product of Christian tampering comes from a later reference to Jesus in Josephus, a reference scholars do not contest. The way the later passage in question is worded presupposes an earlier mention of Jesus by Josephus, and the Testimonium is the only candidate for such an earlier reference.

More could be said in favor of the fact that the passage cannot be written off in its entirety as being from Josephus, but the scholarly work on this is so well known, widely spread, and easily accessible that this would be an unnecessary waste of time, especially in the present context and the real reason I have for bringing all of this up. The actual reason for bringing this up derives from one of the MAIN reasons that scholars have for saying that the passage contains at least some Christian interpolations. Just how my Muslim friend missed the significance of this and walked right into an incredibly embarrassing situation is truly beyond me, though I guess I shouldn’t have put it past him. Here is the list of reasons as it was provided by this Muslim:

"The principle arguments against the genuineness of the account in the Jewish Antiqiuities are as follows:

(i) The Jewish Josephus could not have described Isa [Jesus] as al-Masih [Messiah]

(ii) While the bishop and historian Eusebius of Caesarea (d. ca. 340 CE) mentions the controversial passage, the Greek theologian Origen (ca. 185-254 CE) had expressly stated that Josephus did not believe Isa [Jesus] to be al-Masih; and finally

(iii) The suspicious passage breaks continuity of Josephus’ description of a series of riots (Feldman, 1965:49)" (Emphasis original)

To this I want to give as loud and emphatic an “AMEN” as I possibly can: Josephus, as scholars agree, in so far as he was a Jew and not a Christian, “could NOT have described Isa [Jesus] as al-Masih [Messiah].”

And that, noble readers, is why we not only must understand that the text of Josephus at this point cannot be entirely the product of his hand; it is also one of the MANY reasons why we must reject the Qur’an as the Word of God, for it contains just such an obvious and glaring error – or should I say “interpolation”? – as even our Muslim friend admits in the above case. It does this when it attributes the following statement to those first century Jews who rejected Jesus: “Surely we have killed THE MESSIAH [al-Masih], Isa the Son of Marium, THE MESSENGER of Allah” (S. 4:157). The simple fact of the matter is, unbelieving first century Jews “could not have described Isa [Jesus] as al-Masih [Messiah],” and therefore the so-called “perfectly preserved Qur’an” has perfectly preserved for us one of the many errors of the Allah of the Qur’an and his only messenger – Muhammad.

In light of this I must once again appeal to this Muslim to consider hanging up his apologetic hat. "If the hat doesn't fit, you ought to quit."

For more on this, see here:

The Qur’an: A Book Full of Conjecture and Doubt

The Qur'an: A Book Full of Conjecture and Doubt

"Jesus ressurecting [sic] and dying on the cross is a mere legend. The people who 'saw' him THOUGHT they saw him, but it was someone who looked similar to him, . There;s [sic] no evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus (as), and the Quran refutes that, and the Quran has plenty of evidence on its side." - Muslim Kangaroo (See here)

No doubt Kangaroo has the following passage of the Qur’an in mind here:

And their saying: Surely we have killed the Messiah, Isa son of Marium, the messenger of Allah; and they did not kill him nor did they crucify him, but it appeared to them so (like Isa) and most surely those who differ therein are only in a doubt about it; they have no knowledge respecting it, but only follow a conjecture, and they killed him not for sure. S. 4:157 Shakir

As will be shown, only in a kangaroo court would the verdict come down against the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus in favor of the Qur’anic account of what happened. (For a good example of just such a court, see here.)

What Muslims "see" in the Quran and THINK is a refutation is actually just a bad argument substituted for and made to appear like a good one. Actually, it doesn't really bear much of a resemblance to a good argument; at best all we can say about it is that it is an apparently good enough counterfeit for many people to be convinced (read: deceived) by it. In fact, this passage doesn’t even represent an argument at all; it is simply a claim that contradicts what the Bible and history say about these matters. So calling it a refutation isn’t even accurate.

It has been said on this blog before (see here), but it bears repeating, especially in the context of a discussion of Surah 4:157, every time that we think of the "refutation" supposedly given in the Qur'an the one thing we should be struck with above all else is how many errors the author(s) of the Qur'an were able to make in such a short space, and Muslims really should be encouraged to add this to the list of evidences of the supernatural authorship of the Qur’an, for surely no one person could make so many mistakes AND yet still manage to dupe so many people. A supernatural being is clearly involved with both the composition and reception of the Qur’an; unfortunately, that being is most certainly not God, but is merely a being that masquerades like Him or an angel that pretends to have been sent by Him. This being made it appear to the author(s) of the Qur’an (and those who follow him/her/them) that the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ are mere legends, but they are really only following a satanically inspired conjecture. This point will be made in a myriad of ways over the course of several posts, beginning with the following:

1. This verse represents the Jews as boasting: "We killed the Messiah…."

Contrariwise, the speech attributed to the Jews here is a clear error. The Jewish leaders wanted Jesus crucified precisely because they rejected His claim to be the Messiah, for no Jew would boast of killing the Messiah.

All the author(s) of the Qur'an would have had to do here to accurately reflect what the Jews would or could have said along these lines given their actual beliefs is either drop the word “Messiah”, as the following (mis)translations of the Qur’an, likely out of a recognition of the problem that exists in the Arabic text, do:

and their statement that they murdered Jesus, son of Mary, the Messenger of God, when, in fact, they could not have murdered him or crucified him. They, in fact, murdered someone else by mistake. Even those who disputed (the question of whether or not Jesus was murdered) did not have a shred of evidence. All that they knew about it was mere conjecture. They certainly could not have murdered Jesus. S. 4:157 Muhammad Sarwar

They [proudly] spread a rumor that: “We killed Jesus, son of Mary.” For sure they did neither kill Jesus nor crucify him. Their wishful thinking has created so much confusion in account of the lack of [historical] proof for their saying. Know for sure that they did not kill him. S. 4:157 Bijan Moeinian

Or, add words to the effect that they killed Jesus for His CLAIM to be the Messiah. Indeed, this is exactly the sort of thing the Jews did do in opposition to the sign made by the Romans which called Jesus "the King of the Jews". In protest, the Jews clamored for the sign to be changed so it would read that He SAID He was/is the King of the Jews.

Therefore when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out, and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha. Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover; it was about the sixth hour And he said to the Jews, "Behold, your King!" So they cried out, "Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him!" Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar." So he then handed Him over to them to be crucified. They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, bearing His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha. There they crucified Him, and with Him two other men, one on either side, and Jesus in between. Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It was written, "JESUS THE NAZARENE, THE KING OF THE JEWS." Therefore many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, Latin and in Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews were saying to Pilate, "Do not write, 'The King of the Jews'; but that He said, 'I am King of the Jews.'" Pilate answered, "What I have written I have written." (John 19:13-22)

In fact, this is just what some other Muslim translations do, unwittingly showing that they see (part of) the problem with how this passage was worded by the author(s) of the Qur’an:

And because of their (falsely) claiming, `We did kill the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, the (false) Messenger of Allah,' whereas they killed him not, nor did they cause his death by crucifixion, but he was made to them to resemble (one crucified to death). Verily, those who differ therein are certainly in (a state of) confusion about it. They have no definite knowledge of the matter but are only following a conjecture. They did not kill him, this much is certain (and thus could not prove the Christ as accursed). S. 4:157 Amatul Rahman Omar

and their boast, "Behold, we have slain the Christ Jesus, son of Mary, [who claimed to be] an apostle of God!" However, they did not slay him, and neither did they crucify him, but it only seemed to them [as if it had been] so; and, verily, those who hold conflicting views thereon are indeed confused, having no [real] knowledge thereof, and following mere conjecture. For, of a certainty, they did not slay him: S. 4:157 Farook Malik

and their boast, "Behold, we have slain the Christ Jesus, son of Mary, [who claimed to be] an apostle of God!" However, they did not slay him, and neither did they crucify him, but it only seemed to them [as if it had been] so; and, verily, those who hold conflicting views thereon are indeed confused, having no [real] knowledge thereof, and following mere conjecture. For, of a certainty, they did not slay him: S. 4:157 Muhammad Asad

The worst part is that the added words of the translators are not part of (nor are they implied by) the Arabic text, which means the Qur’an is in error at this point. Nevertheless, it is still worth mentioning, particularly because it shows just how much the Qur’an reduces its devotees to conjecture and doubt about the clarity and actual wording of the Qur’an, that the above translations, for all the effort of the translators, are still in error. The translation of Muhammad Sarwar says that the Jews called Jesus “the Messiah”, but it still, if we follow the natural reading of this translation, ends up saying that the Jews called Jesus “the Messenger of Allah”. The translations of Muhammad Asad and Farook Malik parenthetically add the words “who claimed to be” to reflect that the Jews rejected Jesus’ claim to be an apostle of God, but they fail to add such parenthetical remarks to the earlier part of the verse, and, therefore, still end up representing the Jews identifying Jesus as the Messiah whom they have slain. The translation of Amatul Rahman Omar parenthetically adds “falsely” to the text in two places, but puts the first instance of the word “falsely” too early in the verse for it to even correct or modify the statement that the Jews called Jesus “the Messiah” and so ends up saying that what was false is their claim to have killed one who is in fact the Messiah.

In response to this, Muslims typically reply that the Jews were being sarcastic when they said that Jesus is the Messiah. But the claim that they were being sarcastic is hardly clear from the Arabic text; hence, the reason Muslim translators have to add such words to clarify that this was their (assumed) meaning. And the fact that the Qur’an is unclear on this point leads to two further problems:

1) This strikes at the heart of the recurrent claim that the Qur’an is a clear and fully detailed book, which in turn also undermines the foremost argument of the Qur’an that it is inimitably eloquent, such that it cannot be imitated and couldn’t have been produced by other than Allah:

O followers of the Book! indeed Our Apostle has come to you making clear to you much of what you concealed of the Book and passing over much; indeed, there has come to you light and a clear Book from Allah; S. 5:15 Sher Ali

And the day We shall raise up from every nation a witness against them from amongst them, and We shall bring thee as a witness against those. And We have sent down on thee the Book making clear EVERYTHING, and as a guidance and a mercy, and as good tidings to those who surrender. S. 16:89 Arberry

And indeed We know that they (polytheists and pagans) say: "It is only a human being who teaches him (Muhammad)." The tongue of the man they refer to is foreign, while this (the Qur'an) is a clear Arabic tongue. S. 16:103 Hilali-Khan

He sets forth for you a parable from your ownselves, - Do you have partners among those whom your right hands possess (i.e. your slaves) to share as equals in the wealth We have bestowed on you? Whom you fear as you fear each other? Thus do We explain the signs IN DETAIL to a people who have sense. S. 30:28 Hilali-Khan

A Book, whereof the verses are explained IN DETAIL; - a Qur'an in Arabic, for people who understand; - S. 41:3 Y. Ali

2) It also leads to a devastating incongruity, for Surah 4:157 claims that those who do not follow the revelation of the Qur’an are following nothing but conjecture and doubt, but the different ways Muslims attempt to supplement the lack of sufficient detail in the Qur’an to make what it says clear shows that Muslims themselves are full of conjecture and doubt on the matter. Notice, for example, that Sarwar’s translation, in dropping the words “the Messiah” from the verse to make it accurate, is directly contradicting the view that the Jews were calling Jesus the Messiah but only in jest. This is rank confusion. It is interesting to observe in this regard that non-Muslim translations do not recognize that this idea is embedded or in any way evident in the text. Neither do they show the temerity (or apologetically driven zeal on full display in Muslim translations) to add to the text words that are not there in order to alter the clear meaning of the passage so as to make it jive with well known historical contingencies:

and for their saying, 'We slew the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, the Messenger of God' -- yet they did not slay him, neither crucified him, only a likeness of that was shown to them. Those who are at variance concerning him surely are in doubt regarding him; they have no knowledge of him, except the following of surmise; and they slew him not of a certainty -- no indeed; S. 4:157 Arthur John Arberry

and for their saying, 'Verily, we have killed the Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary, the apostle of God'.... but they did not kill him, and they did not crucify him, but a similitude was made for them. And verily, those who differ about him are in doubt concerning him; they have no knowledge concerning him, but only follow an opinion. They did not kill him, for sure! S. 4:157 Edward Henry Palmer

And for their saying, "Verily we have slain the Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary, an Apostle of God." Yet they slew him not, and they crucified him not, but they had only his likeness. And they who differed about him were in doubt concerning him: No sure knowledge had they about him, but followed only an opinion, and they did not really slay him, S. 4:157 John Meadows Rodwell

and have said, verily we have slain Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the apostle of God; yet they slew him not, neither crucified him, but he was represented by one in his likeness; and verily they who disagreed concerning him, were in a doubt as to this matter, and had no sure knowledge thereof, but followed only an uncertain opinion. They did not really kill him; S. 4:157 George Sale

If the Arabic text that the above non-Muslim translators were working from, without recourse to tafsirs or other Muslim sources that try to explain this verse, actually is clear that the Jews were saying this in jest, then why did none of them recognize this or in any way reflect this in their translations? Furthermore, it is not only not clear from the text that the Jews were being sarcastic when they called Jesus “the Messiah”, but this explanation, to all appearances, actually goes against the text. The full statement attributed to the Jews is: “We killed the Messiah, Isa the Son of Marium, the Messenger of Allah”. Since the Jews knew Jesus was the son of Mary, it is evident that this statement is not saying that the Jews called him “the Messiah, Isa the son of Marium, the messenger of Allah” in mockery. If Muslims want to say that the mockery applies only to the first part of the statement attributed to the Jews but not to the rest of it, then they are reduced to arbitrariness in order to defend the Qur’an, for there is no textual justification for using this excuse to explain the first part of the Jews’ statement and then stopping short of saying the whole statement was one of mockery. If Muslims can apply the “mockery” explanation to explain one part of the verse, it may just as arbitrarily be extended to the whole of the verse. And, of course, since it is not clearly said in the passage that the Jews were mocking in the first place, then both explanations may be dismissed as, well, arbitrary.

This is the first of many evidences from this passage that the Qur’an is not the word of God, that the author(s) of the Qur’an were only following conjecture (just like their followers at the present time), and that this passage cannot credibly be considered a refutation of anything, much less a refutation of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ who lives and reigns as Lord at the right hand of the Father. Many more evidences will follow.

The Irony of the Qur’an—Surah 4:157-158

One of the most famous passages in the Qur’an is Surah 4:157-158.

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—nay, Allah raised him up unto Himself; and Allah is Exalted in Power, Wise.” (Qur’an, 4:157-158, Yusuf Ali)

There are several obvious errors in this passage. (Muhammad had an amazing knack for making numerous mistakes in one or two sentences.) For instance, non-Christian Jews would never call Jesus “Christ” (i.e. “Messiah”), for they reject Jesus as the Messiah. Similarly, very few non-Christian Jews would call Jesus “the Messenger of Allah.” Moreover, no Jew who believes that Jesus is the Messiah would boast about crucifying him. Of course, the most egregious factual error in this Surah is that it denies Jesus’ death by crucifixion. The Qur’an errs further in its claim that those who believe in Jesus’ death follow nothing but conjecture, when we have tons of historical evidence to follow. There’s also a massive theological problem, namely, that the standard Muslim interpretations of 4:157 present Allah as a deceiver who tricks people into believing false things for no reason at all. None of this is what I want to talk about, however. I simply want to point out the amazing irony I see here.

People who believe that Jesus died by crucifixion are said to be “full of doubts,” to have “no (certain) knowledge,” and to follow “conjecture.” The irony is that Muslims who read these words seem to have absolutely no clue what happened to Jesus. Some confidently proclaim that God disguised Judas and made him look like Jesus, then allowed Judas to be crucified. Other Muslims claim that Jesus was replaced by someone other than Judas. Still other Muslims (Shabir Ally and Shadid Lewis among them) argue that Jesus was crucified (contrary to what the passage claims), but that God kept Jesus alive throughout the tortures of the Romans. There are even some Muslims who say they don’t know what to make of this passage. Hence, Surah 4 criticizes non-Muslims for being “full of doubts” about what happened to Jesus, and yet it leaves Muslims full of doubts about what happened to Jesus!

Muslims will respond by saying that they at least know that Jesus didn’t die, and that they are sure of this. But how can they be sure? Muhammad couldn’t even read, let alone perform a careful historical investigation. All of the first century evidence is unanimous in reporting Jesus’ death by crucifixion. Virtually all Historical Jesus scholars and New Testament scholars agree that Jesus died on the cross. Indeed, many non-Christian scholars consider Jesus’ crucifixion and death to be an indisputable fact!

So Muslims will say they’re “sure” because they read it in the Qur’an. But how does the Muslim, who believes that the Qur’an is the word of God when he reads about Jesus’ survival, have fewer doubts than the Christian, who believes that the Bible is the word of God when he reads about Jesus’ death? If the Muslim is at all concerned about evidence, he should certainly be full of doubts. For the Bible tells us that Jesus died, while the Qur’an tells us that he didn’t, and this is an area where we can test our holy books to see which is confirmed by the evidence. The Qur’an fails this test miserably, while the Bible passes with flying colors. So instead of saying, “I have no doubts that Jesus survived, because the Qur’an says he survived,” Muslims should instead say, “I have doubts about the Qur’an, because it denies Jesus’ death.”

Thus, even though this passage is supposed to give Muslims assurance of their beliefs, it (1) leaves them in doubt about what happened to Jesus, and (2) should cause them to doubt the entire Qur’an, because its claim in Surah 4 is thoroughly refuted by the facts of history. Additionally, Christians and Jews, who are said to be in doubt concerning Jesus’ death, find that our beliefs are fully confirmed by the evidence. History proves that we’re right!

How amazing, then, that so much irony and so many errors can be contained in such a short passage. Can this be the word of God?